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VOLUME XII JULY - DECEMBER

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CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK'

SAMPSON law, MARSTON &Co. Lmitcd LONDON

V. (;l.

Copyright, 1892, by Charters Scribner's Sons.

TROW DIRECTORY

PRINTING AND BOOKBINOINQ COMPANV

NEW YORK

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CONTENTS

OF

SCRiBNER's Magazine.

Volume XII.

July-December, 1892.

PAGE

AMERICAN TREATMENT OF WOMEN, 396

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO. See Poor in
Oreat Cities.

AN ASSISTED PROVIDENCE. See Stories of a West-
ern Town.

AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, 789

APPLES OF GOLD, Margaret Sutton Briscoe, . 677

With frontispiece — "You Must Learn to Forget," re-
produced in color from an aquarelle painted for SCRIB-
NEu's Magazine by L. Marchetti.

ART OF RAVENNA, THE, E. H. and E. W. Blashpield, . 37

With frontispiece — "The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia
— Ravenna," and other drawings, by E. H. Blashfield.

ARTIST AS A DOGMATIST, THE 394

"AS ONE HAVING AUTHORITY," . . . . H. C. Bunnbr, . . . .201
Illustrated by W. T. Smedley.

ATHLETE AND PEDAGOGUE, 131

ATTAINMENT OF THE HIGHEST NORTH, THE.

See Historic Moments.

AUSTRALIA. See Racing In.

BESETMENT OF KURT LIEDERS, THE. ^qq Stories
of a Western Town.

BUFFALO, THE LAST OF THE George Bird Grinnell, . . 267

Drawings by Ernest E. Thompson and O. H. Bacher.

BLIND, THE EDUCATION OF THE, .... Mrs. Frederic R. Jones, . . 373

Illustrated.

CASE IN POINT, A, George A. Hibbard, . . . 323

CENTAUR, THE. See Guerin's.

CERTAIN NEW INSTINCTS, 658

CHICAGO'S PART IN THE WORLD'S FAIR. See

Woi'lcfs Fair at Chicago.

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS, Kate Douglas Wiggin, . . 242

CITY SQUARE, THE EVOLUTION OF A, . . Samuel Parsons, Jr., . . . 107
Drawings by V. Perard. Superintendent of Parks, N. Y. City.

CRITICAL VALUE OF POPULARITY, THE, 393

CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS. See Launching.

DEAF AND DUMB, THE EDUCATION OF THE, . Walter B. Peet, .... 463

With illustrations.

DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION, THE. See

The World's Fair at Chicago.

DEPTHS OF THE SEA, THE, . . . . . N. S. Shaler, . . . .77

Drawings by Charles Copeland and A. Zenope. See Ice-
bergs ; also Sea and Land, and Depths of the Sea, Vol.
XI.

DEUCALION OF TAHITI, THE, . . . . ' 261

DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE OF THE UNION PA-
CIFIC. See Historic Moments.

EDUCATION OF THE BLIND. See Blind.

EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB. See

Deaf and Dumb.

iv CONTENTS.

PAor
ETHER, THE FIRST CAPITAL OPERATION UN-
DER THE INFLUENCE OF. See Hu^toric Afoments.

FACE OF FAILURE, THE. See IStories of a Western
Town.

FLY-BOOKS, GETTING OUT THE, .... Leroy Milton Yale, ... 27
With a headpiece and initial by the author.

FOR THE CROSS George I. Putnam, . . . 751

FREE ART, 129

FRENCH ART, W. C. Brownell.

I. Classical Painting, 329

With reproductions from works of Lesueur, Claude,

Chardin, and Watteau.

II. Romantic Painting, 431

With reproductions of pictures by Gericault, Dela-
croix, Millet, Corot, Diaz, Rousseau, and Couture.

III. Realistic Painting, 604

With reproductions of pictures by Courbet, Cazin,

Vollon, L'Hermitte, Beraud, Manet, Degas, Bonnat,
Ribot, Bastien-Lepage, Bonvin, and Baudry.

GALLERY IN POLITICS, THE 394

GENERAL READER, THE, 131

GRAND CANAL, THE. ^ee Great Streets of the World.

GREAT STREETS OF THE WORLD.

VI. The Nevsky Pkospekt, Isabel F. Hapgood, . . .301

With frontispiece — " The Emperor of Russia Blessing

the Waters of the Neva at Epiphany," and other
drawings by llya Efimovitch Ropin.

VII. The Grand Canal, Henry James, .... 531

Drawings by Alexander Zezzos.

See also Great Streets, Vol. XI.

GUERIN'S CENTAUR . Mrs. James T. Fields, . . 224

With frontispiece — " I Have Followed the Currents Un-
der the Branches," and other drawings by C. Delort.

HISTORIC MOMENTS.

IV. The Resumption of Specie Payment, . . J. K. Upton, 124

Ex-Asst. Secy, of the Treasury.

V. Driving the Last Spike of the Union Pacific, Sidney Dillon, .... 253
With illustration from a photograph.

VI. The Attainment of the Highest North, . D. L. Brainard, .... 388

Lieutenant U. S. Army.

VII. The First Capital Operation Under the

Influence of Ether, Daniel Denison Slade, M.D., . 518

VIII. The Triumphal Entry into Berlin, . Archibald Forbes, . . . 781
With a full-page illustration from the painting by W.

Camphausen.
See also Historic Moments, Vol. XI.

HOMER, Andrew Lang, .... 500

HOUSE OVER THE WAY, THE, Charles E. Carryl, ... 96

HOW I SENT MY AUNT TO BALTIMORE. A

True Story, Charles Stewart Davison, . 249

HUGO, VICTOR, CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS
OF — From Unpublished Papers Found at Guern-
sey, Octave Uzanne, .... 558

With frontispiece — " Victor Hugo," from the portrait by
S. Panneker, and reproductions of contemporary prints
and drawings by W. J. Baer, and from photographs.

ICEBERGS N. S. Shaler, 181

Illustrated by W. L. Taylor. See Depths of the Sea ;
also Sea and Land, and Sea Beaches, Vol. XI.

"INCLINATIONS" AND CHARACTER, 657

INDIAN WHO IS NOT POOR, THE, . . . . C. F. Lummis, . . . . 361

Drawings (from photographs) by Irving R. Wiles and V.
Perard. See also The Land of Poco Tiempo, Vol. X.,
760.

JACK-IN-THE-BOX, T. R. Sullivan, .... 211

JEFFERSON IN UNDRESS, THOMAS, . . . Paul Leicester Ford, ... 509
LACK OF FAITH IN LITERATURE, A, 260

LAUNCHING CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS, . William J. Baxter, ... 488

Illustrated by Carlton T. Chapman. U. S. Navy.

LIMITATION OF IMAGINATIVE WRITERS, A, 790

LOCAL LOYALTY, 525

CONTENTS.

The

LONDON POOR. See Poor in Great Cities.
MAKING OF THE WHITE CITY, THE. See
WorUVs Fair at Chicago.

MISS DANGERLIE'S ROSES,

MISS LATYMER

With a full-page illustration by W. T. Sinedley.

MONEY AND CULTURE,

MORALS AND PRINCIPLES,

MOTHER EMERITUS, ^ee Stories of a Weatcrn Toton.

MURAL PAINTINGS IN THE PANTHEON AND
HOTEL DE VILLE OF PARIS, THE, .

Illustrations from the cartoons of Puvis de Chavannes,
Jean Paul Laurens, Gervex, Bonnat, and others.

NilVSKY PROSPEKT. See Great Streets of the World.

NEWSPAPER BOOK NOTICE, THE

NORWEGIAN PAINTERS

With reproductions of representative pictures by Arbo,
Hans Dahl, and other.s.

NUDE IN ART, THE,

With full-page drawings by the authors.

PERFECT PERSON IN FICTION, THE,

PESSIMISM IN LITERATURE,

PIANNER MARES, THE,

PICTURESQUENESS IN COMMON SPEECH, .

POINT OF VIEW, THE.

American Treatment of Women, 396.
— And the Pursuit of Happiness, 789.
Artist as a Dogmatist, The, 394.
Athlete and Pedagogue, 131.
Certain New Instincts, 658.
Critical Value of Popularity, The, 393.
Deucalion of Tahiti, The, 261.
Free Art, 129.

Gallery in Politics, The, 394.
General Reader, The, 131.
"Inclinations" and Character, 6.57.
Lack of Faith in Literature, A, 260.

POOR IN GREAT CITIES, THE.

IV. Among the Poor of Chicago, ....
Drawings by Otto H. Bacher, H. T. Schladermund,

and Ella P. Morrill.

V. A Riverside Parish,

Illustrated by Hugh Thomson.

VI. A School for Street Arabs, ....
Illustrated by Irving R. Wiles.

See also Poor in Great Cities, Vol. XL

PROVISION FOR AGE, A,

PUEBLO INDIANS. See Indian Who Is Not Poor.

RACING IN AUSTRALIA,

Drawings by Birge Harrison, C. Broughton, and
Perard.
RAVENNA. See Art of
RESIDENCE IN THE DISTRICT. A, . . . .

RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENT, THE. See

Historic Moments.

RIVERSIDE PARISH, A. See Poor in Great Cities.

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE— His Secular
Excursion. Part I. -II.,

SPONGE AND SPONGERS OF THE FLORIDA

REEF,

Drawings by V. Perard, Carlton T. Chapman, and O. H.

Bacher, from photographs by Moffat Bros., Key West,

Fla.

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN, ....
Illustrated by A. B. Frost.

I. The Besetment of Kurt Lieders,

II. The Face of Failure,

III. Tommy and Thomas,

IV. Mother Emeritus,

V. An Assisted Providence

Thomas Nelson Page,
George A. Hi board,

page

650
731

130
526

Will H. Low,

H. H. BOYESEN,

Will H. Low and

Ken yon Cox,

Martha McCulloch Williams,

661

792
756

741
262
658
117
527

Limitation of Imaginative Writers, A, 790.
Local Loyalty, 525.
Money and Culture, 130.
Morals and Principles, 52(5.
Newspaper Book Notice, The, 792.
Perfect Person in Fiction, The, 262.
Pessimism in Literature, 658.
Picturesqueness in Common Speech, 527.
Provision for Age, A, 263.
Residence in the District, 395.
Wanted an English " Mot," 528.
Women's Portion, 791.

Joseph Kirkland, .... 3

Walter Besant,
Edmund R. Spearman, .

V.

Sidney Dickinson,

149
475

263

577

395

Bliss Perry, .
Kirk Munroe,

Octave Thanet.

419, 591
. 639

135
346
449
628
684

yi

CONTENTS,

ST. PETERSBURG. See Great Streets of the World, Th«
Nevsky Pros2)ekt.

STREET ARABS, A SCHOOL FOR. See Poor in
Great Cities.

STREETS. See Great Streets.

TILDEN TRUST LIBRARY, THE: WHAT SHALL

IT BE?

Drawings by Ernest Flagg and V. Perard.

TOMMY AND THOMAS, ^qq Stories of aWestern Town.

TRIUMPH OP MARIE LAVIOLETTE, THE,

Illustrated by Chester Loomis.

TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO BERLIN, THE. See

Historic Moments.

UNDER POLICE PROTECTION— An Episode in the
Life of the Late Chief op the Russian Police, .

VENICE. See Great Streets of the World, The Grand

Canal.

WANTED AN ENGLISH "MOT,"

WEST INDIAN SLAVE INSURRECTION, A,
WHEN THE CENTURY CAME IN. . . .
WOMEN'S PORTION,

WORLD'S FAIR AT CHICAGO, THE.

I. The Making of the White City, ....
With frontispiece — " In the World's Fair Grounds at

Chicago — The Electrical Building from the Lake,"
and other illustrations by W. T. Smedley.

II. Chicago's Part in the World's Fair,

III. Decoration of the Exposition, The,
Illustrations from sketches for cartoons by Weir, Cox,

Blashfield, Reinhart, Shirlaw, Simmons, Beckwith,
Reid, and Dodge.

WRECKER, THE— Chapters XXIV. --XX V., and EpUogue.

{Begun in August^ 1891 — concluded.^

With a full-page illustration by W. L. Metcalf.

PAOE

John Bigelow,

287

Duncan Campbell Scott, . . 332

Sophie Radford de Meissner, . 772

George W. Cable,
Mrs. Burton Harrison,

. 528

. 709

. 170

. 791

H. C. BUNNER,

Franklin MacVeagh,
F. D. Millet, .

399

. 551
. 692

Robert Louis Stevenson and

Lloyd Osbourne, . 57

POETRY.

A LITTLE PARABLE

A SHADOW OF THE NIGHT,
AFTER THE BATTLE, ....
AUTUMN AND THE AFTER-GLOW, .

BETROTHAL,

DEATH AT DAYBREAK, ....

EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE,

With ornamental borders by F. G. Attwood.

FADED PICTURES,

FANTASY,

HER LAST WORD,

IN A GALLERY

With a full-page reproduction of Simon de Vos's portrait
of himself at Antwerp.

IN A MEDICEAN GARDEN,

IN MARBLE PRAYER,

INSOMNIA, ..........

LOVE'S LINK

"ONE, TWO, THREE," . . . .

SUN IN THE WILLOWS

SURE,

THE VIRGIN ENTHRONED : SONNET FOR A

PICTURE,

TO TROJAN HELEN,

TWO BACKGROUNDS,

VILLON,

WHITE EDITH— A Story Re-told, ....
WOOD-SONGS,

Anne Reeve Aldrich, .
Thomas Bailey Aldrich,
Edgar Mayhew Bacon,
Edith M. Thomas, .

Anne Reeve Aldrich, .
Edward S. Martin,

William Vaughn Moody,
Graham R. Tomson,
Lizette Woodworth Reese
Julia C. R. Dorr,

Grace Ellery Channing,
Julia C. R. Dorr,
Edith M. Thomas, .

Agnes Lee,
h. c. bunner,
Harrison S. Morris,
Anna C. Brackett,

W. G. VAN Tassel Sutphen,
Edith Wharton, .
Francis B. Gummere, .
Thomas Bailey Aldrich,
Arthur Sherburne Hardy,

248
683
180
474
590
387
721

148
770
372
779

517
123
360
720
750
169
300

781
116
550
576
33
499

SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XII.

JULY, 1892.

No. 1.

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.
By Joseph Kirkland.

CHICAGO'S plague-spots are rather
red than black ; blotches marking
excess rather than insufficiency.
Vice and crime are more characteristic
of a new, young, busy, careless, prosper-
ous city than is any compulsory, inevit-
able misery. An English philanthropist
Avho lately visited Hull House (Eev. Mr.
Barnett, Warden of Toynbee Hall) re-
marked, in taking his leave, that the
prevalent dirt and flagrant vice in Chi-
cago exceeded anything in London ; but
that he had seen scarce any evidence
of actual want.

The West is the paradise of the poor.
" And the purgator^^ of the rest of us,"
adds some fine lady who agonizes over
the servant j)roblem. Well, even if this
were true (which it is not), it would be
better than the reverse. The paradise
of the rich, based on the purgatory of
the poor, has endured long enough in
the older lands.

" How the other half lives," in Chi-
cago, is " pretty much as it chooses."
Americans born, and the better nat-
ures among the foreign born (supposing
them to have physical strength), can se-
lect their own kind of happiness. If
they choose the joy which springs from
sobriety, the^^ can have it in plenty. If
they prefer the delight of drink, that
also is abundant. A solid devotion to
work and saving gives a house and lot,
a comfortable and well-taught family,
and a good chance for children and
grandchildren, who will take rank among
the best, employing laborers of their
own, and perhaps, alas ! looking back

Copyright, 1892, by Charles Scribner's Sons. All rights reserved

Familiar Scene in an Underground Lodging.

with mortification on their laboring an-
cestors. An equally solid devotion to
drink gives vice, crime, want, and (what
we should call) misery ; but this is a
free country. The latter class, like the
former, are exercising their inalienable

Thev abso-

riglit

of self-government.

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

lutely clo not want our cleanliness, our
savings-accounts, our good clothes,
books, schools, churches, society, prog-
ress, and all that, unless they can have
them without paying the price — temper-
ance ; and they cannot so have them.
Half of the " other half " belong strictly
to the lirst-named class, a tenth to the
last-named, and the rest pursue a mid-
dle course. Some rise from the middle
to the upper ; the others live along, hav-
ing ups and downs and furnishing the
recruits to keep up the numbers of the
lower, the " submerged tenth " which,
happily, has not the faculty of maintain-
ing itself by direct reproduction.

The city has no " East End," " White-
chapel," or " Mulberry Street " region ;
no locality given over to great hives of
helplessness, since there is no quarter
which was built up for fine residences
or business blocks and afterward de-
serted and turned over to baser uses.
The most ancient house in town (but
one) is not fifty years old, and the aver-
age scarcely twenty. Therefore " the

no trace in the new, spacious mart on
the edge of the Grand Prairie. Rooms
are sublet to individuals and families,
yet it is not in tall, huge rookeries
built for the jmrpose, but in smaller,
lower structures, outside the limits of
the Great Fire, which destroyed the
whole middle district — cleared it of
weeds to make way for a sturdier and
healthier growth. If ever the time
comes when the sky-scraping structures
of to-day are deserted by the uses for
which they are now occupied because
they are in the geographical and busi-
ness centre of the city, then there may
be in Chicago gigantic human hives of
wretchedness such as exist in London
and New York. But as Chicago can
spread north, south, and west, it is dif-
ficult to imagine a state of things when
the present business district shall not
be w^hat it is.

The " lay of the land " is against lo-
cal congestion. The river, wdth its main
stem running east and west and its
sprawling branches running north and

A Chicago Underground Lodging.

tenement-house evil," as it is known in south, trisects the whole plain into
New York and London, shows almost North Side, South Side, and West Side.

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

Sunday Afternoon in the Italian Quarter.

These in turn are dissected into small-
er patches by the railways, which come
to the very centre of population, and
radiate thence in all directions except
due east, where the lake maintains a
glorious ventilation, moral and mate-
rial.

There is no " Sailors' Quarter," no
place where Jack ashore hastens to sj^end
in a week the savings of a year ; gets
drunk as soon as possible, and stays
drunk as long as j^ossible, to balance his
weeks or months of enforced abstinence.
The sailors here have only a week or less
afloat at one stretch, and they spend,
every winter, several months on shore,
when they go mining or lumbering or
pursuing whatever calling suits their
fancy. Many of them are family men
— good, sturdy fellows, not distinguish-
able from the average of intelligent
tradesmen.

For depth of shadow in Chicago low
life one must look to the foreign ele-
ments,* the persons who are not only of

* Of Chinamen there are about two thousand in Chicago,
living, as a general rule, in one quarter of the city— South
Clark Street, adjoining the line occupied by the Lake
Shore and eastern Illinois Railways, running eastward

alien birth but of unrelated blood — the
Mongolian, the African, the Sclav, the
semitropic Latin. Among them may
be found a certain degree of isolation,
and the]'efore of clannish crowding ; also
of contented squalor, jealous of insjjec-
tion and interference. It is in the quar-

and soiathward, and the Eock Island, running westward.
Of Italians Chicago has many thousands, part of Avhom
live in the South Clark Street neighborhood, and a larger
number only a few squares away, on the West Side, across
the south branch of the river. Besides the light common
labor of street-cleaning, scavengering, etc., they control,
practically, all the great fruit-business of the city, and
some of them are getting rich at it. Yet the homes of
the majority are among the most lowly and squalid in
the city. Educated Italians of the upper classes are
handsomely housed in some of the fashionable streets.
The Poles and Bohemians inhabit a southwestern quarter,
where their impossible names occupy the sign-boards
and their unbeautiful faces strike the eye and haunt the
memory. They are hard workers and not extravagant,
and though crowded they are not congested, though poor
they are not in want. The colored people have done and
are doing remarkably well, considering the disadvantages
and discouragements under which they live. They are
not largely the supporters of the grog-shops. Their be-
setting sin is gambling. They are industrious rather
than hard-working, docile rather than enterprising, and
economical rather than acquisitive. There are impedi-
ments to any accumulation such as their white neighbors
engage in. For instance, suppose one of them to invest
his savings in a " Building Society," he would liud, when
his lot was ready for him7 that he Mould be unwelcome
to his neighbors of a lighter skin. Even as a renter he
is only acceptable in regions devoted to his race. As one
of them said tome : "Nobody thinks a colored man fit
for anything above being a porter." Still, as I said, there
is a very ))erceptible advance in the race ; and it slwws
but little of poverty or dependence, and still less of crime.

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

ters inhabited by these that there are
to be found the worst parts of Chicago,
the most unsavory spots in their moral
and material aspects.

Italian Mothers.

Twelfth Street is encumbered by a
long viaduct, reaching from Wabash
Avenue, westward, across the south
branch of the river, ending on the west
side very near the starting-point of the
Great Fire of 1871. The viaduct nearly
fills the street, and from it one looks
into the second stories of the taller
houses, and over the roofs of the short-
er. One has there the advantages for
observation possessed by the fabled
" devil on two sticks." This is the hab-
itation of the Italian proletariat.

To get to the main floors of these
squalid habitations one must climb

down many steps ; hence the name of
the locality, " The Dive." I once saw
men carrying into one of the darkened
entrances here an immense bunch of
green bananas, which hung
down between them like the
"grapes of Eshcol " in the
old primer. One can only
fancy the atmosphere in
which this wonderful fruit
would hang to ripen, and
hope that the ripening pro-
cess is one of exhalation, not
of inhalation, during the week
or more which must elapse
before it appears, yellow and
mellow, to be sold from the
wayside fruit-stand, or be
dragged slowly about the
streets in the wagons attend-
ed by the dark-skinned ped-
lers as they troll forth, in
the sonorous Itahan tones,
"Banano-o! Fi, Ri, Ba-
nano-o-o-o ! "

A bad state of things exists
under the shadow of this via-
duct, and under the inchned
planes by which the traffic of
each street it crosses is raised
to its level. This is easy to
believe, but it is hard to im-
agine just how filthy, how
squalid, how noisome, how
abhorrent it all is. "Walking
along between inhabited
houses and the brick abut-
ments of the raised way is
like walking between the
walls of a sewer — like it to
every sense — sight, smell,
hearing, and feeling.
The adjacent buildings are mostly of
wood — small, low, rotten, and crowded.
In no case have I found one family oc-
cupying more than two rooms — often
only one. Here and there would be
seen an attempt at cleanliness of floor
and bedclothing, but nowhere even a
pretence of sweeping of halls and stair-
waj^s, or of shovelling out of gutters
and other foul conduits. What squalor,
filth, crowding ! The constant feeling of
the visitor is, "how dreadfully wretched
these people — ought to be."

Ought to be, but are not. They are
chiefly the lower class of Italians, born

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

and bred, j^robably, to the knowledti-e of
actual hunger, which here they must
rarely feel. I went among them re-
cently ; there were scarcely any men
visible ; the swarms were chiefly of w^om-
en and children. The men were away,
largely, no doubt, attending to the fruit
business and scavenger work which
have been mentioned. The women
were universally caring for their innu-
merable children, and these latter, es-
pecially the boys, played, shouted, ca-
reered about the halls and stairways,
yards and roofs, in uncontrolled freedom
and gayet}^ Two or three of them had
found a great turnip, or some such vege-
table, and split it in pieces, which they
displayed in a row on a board
beside a gutter ; no pretence of
having any customers — it was
merely the exhibition of an in-
herited instinct for keeping an
Italian fruit-stand !

In the corner of a squalid
hallway, just outside of the ma-
ternal door (there not being an
inch of spare room within) a
bright -eyed little girl had ar-
ranged a quite respectable im-
itation of a floor-bed (both cov-
erlet and stuffing being rags),
and on it lay a dirty, dilapidated,
flaxen -haired doll. The girl's
instinct, too, was showing itself.
Within the room the mother,
with head bound up, as is the
universal custom of her kind,
was attending to some duties ;
a child of two or three years sat
staring at the intruder, and on
the floor stood a wash-tub over
which was bending (and really
working) a mite of a girl not
more than six years old. Her
little arms could scarcely reach
the grimy liquid in the bottom
of the tub, but she did the best
she could, and up and down the
tin wash-board sounded her
tiny knuckles, handling some
dingy, dripping stuff or other, she scarce-
ly pausing to look up and notice who
had opened the door.

Here were a few men, more women,
and most children ; but no young un-
married women. One wonders where
are the grown girls. They are not in

service in private families ; such a thing
is unknown here ; and they are not
adapted to the business of shop-girls. It
is to be hoped that they are engaged in
the innumerable handicrafts that pre-
vail ; paper-box and paper-bag mak-
ers, tobacco-handlers, book-folders and
stitchers, etc. The Hull House ladies say
that they marry early in their teens, and
that many of them do bits of plain sew-
ing— the mere finishing of trouser-legs,
etc. — at w^onderfuUy low rates, and in
wonderfully large quantities, often in
the so-called " sw^eat - shops " of the
tailoring trade. The clothing of all has
been (apparently) bought at Chicago
second-hand clothing stores ; or, if im-

" The Dive."

ported from Italy, has a common and
familiar aspect, which anew illustrates
the levelling and averaging hand of mod-
ern commerce and intercourse, whence
it comes that all mankind is growing
to look alike — each indi\ddual to be a
" composite photograph " of all the rest

8

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

Every person, of whatever sex or age,
is clothed sufficiently for decency and
for warmth ; and seems to be i)rovided
with all food necessary to sustain life,
though perhaps not the rudest liealth.

Emerging on a second-story balcony
at the back of one of these Italian houses
one comes upon a long vista of house
rears and tumble - down back - sheds,
squalid beyond conception. Neighbor-
ing windows are filled with faces peer-
ing out with interest and amusement at
the stranger. Here and there are bits
of rope stretched from one nail to an-
other— from house to shed, from fence
to banister, from window-sill to door-
post— carrying forlorn arrays of washed
clothing. Each is the effort of some
lowly woman to preserve a little clean-
liness in the garments of herself and
her household. At least a forlorn hope
is keeping up the battle against vileness.

On a hot summer night every roof
and every balcony in sight is covered
with sleeping men, women, and children,
each with only a single blanket or cov-
erlet for all purposes of protection and
decency. All winter the cook-stove of
each family supplies warmth to the lit-
tle household. (The cheapest coal is al-
ways to be had at $3 a ton or less.)

" The Bad Lands " is a quarter more
repellent because more pretentious than
" The Dive," but, being the abode of vice
and crime rather than of poverty, it
can be properly omitted here. Women
of the town are not molested so long as
they stay within doors, except on oc-
casion of the frequent rows, fights, rob-
beries, and murders. The men about
are, if possible, more repulsive than the
women. Some have showy clothes, more
are "bums," wrecks of humanity ; slouch-
ing, dirty, sneaking, hangdog tranq^s.
They do not want work, could not get it
if they wanted it, and could not do it if
they got it. All they want is a dime a
day. With that they can get a great big
" schooner " of beer and a chance at the
free-lunch counter. They sleep on the
floor till the place closes up, and then
crawl into some doorway or hallway, or
go to the police station for a bunk.

One recognizes Chinatown by the cu-
rious signs over the shops. The Chi-

nese are industrious and economical
and peaceable — never molest anybody
who lets them alone. Opium they take
just as our people take whiskey, and it
does not seem to hurt them any more.
But when the police find them taking
in whites as well as Chinamen, they
" run them in." It is death, and worse
than death, to tlie others, especially to
women. In a typical Chinese shop
all is scrupulously neat and clean. It
seems as if, by some magic, the smoky,
dusty atmosj)here of Chicago had been
excluded from this unique interior,
which looks like the inside of a bric-a-
brac cabinet, with bright colors, tinsel
and shining metals. On the walls are
colored photographs, showing the pro-
prietors beautifully dressed in dove-
colored garments. In a kind of shrine
stands a "Joss table " or altar, with what
is probably a Confucian text hanging
over it, and lying on it some opium
pipes. In a room behind the shop a
"fan-tan" game is going on upon a
straws-matted table, around which gather
interested Celestials three deep. In the
shop is a freshly opened importation,
barrels and boxes of Chinese delicacies,
pickled fish of various kinds, with the
pungent odor which belongs to that
kind of food the world round and the
seas over. The men are clothed in
heavy, warm cloth, cut in Chinese fash-
ion— great, broad cloaks, loose trousers,
felt-soled shoes, etc. — but in American
felt hats.

At 406 Clark Street, in the very midst
of all that is alien to our better nature,
rises the Clark Street Mission. Here
are daily gathered, in a free kindergar-
ten, some scores of the little unfortu-
nates whom a cruel fate has planted in
this cesspool. It is a touching sight ;
they are so innocent as yet, mere buds
springing up in the track of a lava-
stream. There is a creche here as well
as kindergarten, and tiny creatures,
well fed and cared for, swing in ham-
mocks, or sit, stand, walk, or creep all
about in charge of kind devoted young
women. Curiously enough, many of the
little ones are born of Arabian mothers.
There are some hundreds of Arabs
housed near by. The attendant thinks
they are Christian converts, in charge

M

Z

10

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

of church folk who were formerly mis-
sionaries ill Arabia. The women are
occupied in peddling small wares and
trinkets, which they carry about in
packs and baskets.* Li the same hall
are evening and Sunday religious meet-
ings ; and not long ago there was a series
of midnight prayer-meetings held here,
with how much success I do not know.

The whole enterprise is in charge (and
at the charge) of the great Woman's
Christian Temperance Union. This is
an institution of wonderful strength
and beauty ; a giantess, throned in in-
telligence and honor ; stretching her
strong hands toward the weak, sinking
thousands of the " submerged tenth,"
and all who are on the edge of the sub-
mergence. The W. C. T. U. num-
bers 200,000 members in all, of whom
16,000 are in Illinois, and their activity
is tireless, their ability wonderful. It
is one of the phenomena marking the
elevation of the sex under the sunshine
of Western freedom and prosj^erity.
The building, planned, erected, and paid
for by this body, is just completed, and
is the most perfect and (as it should be)
the most sightly of all Chicago's new
"sky-scrapers." It is named "Temper-
ance Temple;" its cost is $1,100,000.

The Pacific Garden Mission has a
large hall, opening directly on Van Bu-
ren Street, within five hundred feet
of the Grand Pacific Hotel, yet within
a scarcely greater distance of some of
the worst of the " bad districts " of the
city. " The Dive " is only half a mile
south of it, and " The Levee," " The Bad
Lands," " Chinatown," etc., are still
nearer. The single big room is vast
and dingy — the latter characteristic in-
separable from every apartment in Chi-
cago which is not the object of con-
stant, laborious cleaning and renovation.
The walls are covered with Scripture
texts in large letters, " Blessed are
ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of
God," etc. " Welcome," " God is love,"
and other cheering mottoes are em-
bossed in Christinas greens over the
platform. A little collection of hymns
is ujDon each seat, and notices of the
hours of services are suspended in vari-
ous places, among the rest some an-
nouncing the Salvation Army meetings.
No effort at ornament for ornament's
sake appears anywhere ; nor any out-
ward gayety to suggest inward joy and
peace. Colonel Clark is the moving
and controlling spirit of the Mission, as
well as its chief money supporter. The

MliTNXX^ tvtUi^ !^ V

Hull House Creche, or Day Nursery.

Most of its spare room is already en- meetings on Sunday are often full to

gaged, and it will earn rentals amount-
ing to |200,000 a year.

* A year ago I met a party of Arabians on the San
Juan Kiver, in Nicaragua, and they too were peddling
trinkets carried in packs and baskets.

the doors ; a few front seats being
filled by the "workers "and particular
friends, and the rest by the chance-
comers, gathered from adjacent slums
to hear the music and look on at the

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

11

"Temperance Temple."
Built by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

devotional exercises. It is one of the
simpl}^ religious efforts to elevate tlie
debased and reform tlie bad, by offer-
ing to them " Christ and him crucified : "
by the direct interposition of heaven it
must succeed, but without such miracle
it cannot The "news of salvation"
no longer surprises and charms the
world, for the world has ceased to fear
the opposite. One is reminded of the
plaint made two hundred years ago by
the French missionaries sent to the

savages of this very region (their skin
was red in those days) when they said,
in effect : " Surely we are in nowise to
be comjDared with the Holy Apostles ;
yet the world must have changed since
they went forth among the heathen who
heard them gladly, and, rejoicing to
receive the glorious news of salvation,
flocked forward, one and all, demand-
ing baptism. Here we sail the floods
and scale the mountains in pursuit of
one poor savage, if haply we may pre-

12

AMONG THE POOK OF CHICAGO.

vail to save him from the wrath to come,
and iu most cases his salvation is
changed to backsliding as soon as our
backs are turned." To the same
general effect is the conclusion reached

To this he imi:)ulsively gave the preg-
nant answer :

" There is none. You might find one
or two others in five hundred, l)ut it is
drink in the case of all the rest."

Russian Jews at " Shelter House."

by the religious workers of to-day, who
sa}^ *' these beings are in nowise fit
subjects for a merelv religious minis-
try."

I once told a young musician (a Scan-
dinavian) at the Pacific Garden Mis-
sion that I was then in search of the
very poor and miserable, the helpless-
ly wretched, and asked him where they
were to be found. He asked where I
had been, and on telling him that I
came fresh from " The Dive," " The Bad
Lands," "Biler Avenue," "Niggertown,"
"Chinatown," etc., he asked if these
were not poor enough. I said they
were rather vicious, drunken, and de-
praved than poor ; that I wanted to
find the poverty that springs from mis-
fortune rather than that from drink.

And so it goes. Such is the evidence
of the experts, the philanthroj^ists, the
missionaries, and the senses themselves.
There are sixty saloons in two blocks of
this dreadful Dismal Swamp ; each sa-
loon paj^s $500 a year of city license
alone ; pays its United States Govern-
ment license for selling spirits, beer, and
tobacco ; pays for all its stock in trade,
its rent, its wages, and expenses — thrives
like a Canada thistle on the barren soil
of its environment. Five hundred dol-
lars for license, $500 for rent, $1,000 for
wages and expenses, and $1,500 for
stock in trade makes $3,500. The sums
paid by these "poor" must reach $4,000
a j^ear, on the average, to each saloon ;
and sixty saloons gives $240,000 a year,
all in one street, within a distance of two

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

13

squares. Verily the savings of the rich sea aiul spend some time at the old

are as nothing compared with the wast- home, spreading the news of Western

ino-s of the poor. Beer is the alleviation freedom and plenty, and then return

and perpetuation of poverty. with many recruits and with fresh relish

I also asked the young musician for the Greater Scandinavia they are

Another Group at " Shelter House.

about the condition of his fellow-Scan-
dinavians, where their poor could best
be studied. He replied that there were
none. Individual helplessness was
cared for by individual charities and
the churches. That is what might be
expected. The Scandinavian immigra-
tion has been, on the whole, the finest
addition to the Northwest. They are
largely agriculturists, are temperate,
industrious, strong, frugal, and hardy.
Not seldom do great colonies of them go
on cheap excursions back to visit the Fa-
therland. They pass through Chicago —
men, women, and children — with bands
playing and flags flying ; they cross the

building among us. Those who do re-
main in the cities are helpers worth
having. The girls make the best house-
servants — strong, intelligent, respectful,
and self-respecting ; and the men, though
not blameless in the matter of drink, yet
are not among the willing slaves to it.
On the whole, they see the alterna-
tive presented to them — the two kinds
of happiness already spoken of — and
make what seems to us the wisest choice
between them. The servants, as cooks
and " second girls," earn from three to
five or six dollars a week besides their
board and lodging, and the demand
for such as have anything like a fair

14

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

knowledge of their business is always
ahead of the supply. They dress well,
save money, and spend immense sums
in helping their friends here and in the
Fatherland.

In the " North Division," near the
great gas-works, exists a large colony
which of old earned the name of "Lit-
tle, Hell " and which presents features
of deep shadow with gleams of growing
light — a dark cloud with a silver lining.
Many of the men are gas-work laborers,
doing hard duty, earning large wages,
and drinking deep draughts. They are
of three races — Irish, German, and Scan-
dinavian— the first-named the most able
and the most turbulent. The wages
earned since the works were started, if
they had been wisely used, would have
bought the entire plant ; would have
vested every dollar of the vast and prof-
itable stock in the workers. The latter
would now be the capitalists. But that
is a mere truism. The wage-earners of
the whole country would be the capital-
ists if it were not that they have pre-
ferred to take their joy drop by drop.

The bright lining of the dark cloud
hovering about the gas-works is the
Unity Church Industrial School and
Boys' Club near by, and the Saint
James's Church and Central Church
(Swing's) Missions, not far away. The
former (which I happen to know most
about) was started in 1876 by the wom-
en of Robert CoUyer's church, in an
effort to do something for the poorest
and most neglected children, the diffi-
culty being that this class w^as soon
supplanted by a better class, less in
need of help — "people more anxious
for what they could get than what they
could learn." The others, children of
the drunken and vicious, were always
hardest to reach and to keep hold of.

From this grain of mustard-seed has
grown a great tree. The excellent and
benevolent Eli Bates bequeathed to the
enterprise $20,000, which was used for
the construction of a brick building
having all the a^^pliances for an indus-
trial school, and there the worthy Unity
Church people spend time and money
to good purpose. There are classes in
various branches, and a large and well-
kept creche.

A noticeable feature of this " lay
mission " is the Boys' Club, where, for
several months every year, meetings
have been held on several evenings each
week to give the youth of the neigh-
borhood rational and wholesome fun
with some incidental instruction. The
boys range from eight to sixteen years
old, and were at the start a "hard lot."
Yet they ahvays had some traits of good
feeling. The young women teachers
always found them easier to manage
than did the men. And even when dis-
cij)line had to be maintained by force,
the majority was sure to be on the side
of law and order. As far as j)Ossible,
the boys are made to manage their own
games and exercises, showing some-
times a good deal of ability. They
number, on ordinary evenings, about
sixty, the "picnic aggregate" reaching
to a hundred and fifty. The older boys
are w orkers during the daytime ; the
younger, attendants on public and pa-
rochial schools.

There is but little want among the
families. Their houses are small and
not crowded together ; but the house-
holds occupy generally only two or
three rooms each.

Whether influenced by the various
missions near b}', hy the paving and im-
provement of streets, or by other causes,
or partly by the one and partly by the
others, the place is losing its old char-
acter, and even its ugly sobriquet is
almost forgotten.

In Chicago the " fashion " and the
larger part (though not b}^ any means
all) of the wealth of the city are on
the "South Side" and "North Side,"
where also the deepest poverty and deg-
radation are to be found. On the great
" West Side " are the industrious and
prosperous workers, with their tens of
thousands of labor -bought homes. It
may be a new idea to the denizens of
older cities that laborers should, can,
and do own their dwelling-places, both
land and building. Far more than half
the homes in Chicago are so owned and
occupied. The chief part of real-estate
speculation is the buying of suburban
acres and subdividing and selling them
in lots to thrifty workmen. Purchase
for the sake of putting up houses to

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

15

rent as dwellings (excejjt in the case of
flats) is now extreniel}^ rare. The chief
agent in this homestead movement is to
be found in the numerous "building so-
cieties," * wherein the mechanic deposits
his savings as they accrue, and then when
he wishes to build his home he draws
from the society whatever he may have
laid up, and borrows from it what he
may need in addition, paying a pre-
mium in addition to the usual interest.
(This premium and interest inure to the
benefit of the other depositors.) Mem-
bership in a building society, and the
hope of a bit of ground all his own, are
wonderful incentives to temperance in
the man and econoni}- in the wife. And
when the lot is selected, how he clings
to it ! Beer and whiskey are forgotten.
Even schooling and some other good
and proper cares are apt to be post-

vate fireside, and the " lamp in the win-
dow," he is in peril of his life.

On the West Side are also, especially
in winter, the unemployed : some of
whom could not find work if they would,
some would not if they could, and some,
when they can and do work, make the
omnipresent saloon their savings-bank ;
a bank which takes in good money but
pays out only false tokens.

I recently accompanied one of the
" Volunteer County Visitors " on her
w\alk in search of the peo2:)le who should
be helj^ed by charity, public or private.
AVe walked through a half - mile of
street lined with the crowded habita-
tions of the poor. At the farther end
of it are visible the moving trains of the
Fort Wayne Railway, and above and be-
yond these the masts and funnels of

Cdi-Otr^--'^.

A Waif at the Mission Dormitory,

poned. A city of such homes is safe
from anarchy. As for any wielder of
torch and dynamite, as soon as he steps
forth into the light of the humble pri-

* See the article on Building and Loan Associationg,
in ScRiBNER's Magazine for June, 1889.

shipjDing. Being just outside the old
" burnt district," its houses are of wood,
ancient, squalid, dilapidated. There is
not more than about one saloon to every
street corner, therefore this is far from
an " infested " region. It is chiefly oc-

16

AMONG THE POOR. OF CHICAGO.

The " Bad Lands."

cupied by Italians, who are not, as 3'et,
the sots and terrors of the social sys-
tem, and do not seem likely ever to be-
come so. Groups of them are idling
about, well enough dressed, but low-
browed and ill-favored, looking with
apparent surliness on visitors come to
spy out the nakedness of the land.
Within the houses we find the families
crowded into two small rooms each, or
thereabouts ; and in those two rooms
are all the operations of existence to be
carried on in each case. Sleeping, eat-
ing, cooking, washing, ironing, sickness,
child-bearing, nursing, living, dying,
and burying — these considerations force
themselves on the mind and suggest
dismal pictures as one fancies a Ufe so
spent.

Yet as to mere room, warmth, shelter,
dryness, and convenience, the inhabi-
tants are better accommodated than is
the campaigning soldier in his tent,
having no furniture, clothing for night
or day, or other appliances for comfort,
except those he can carry with him from

camp to camp in addition to his arms
and accoutrements. But women and
children are not soldiers. Camp miser-
ies would kill them ; one who has suf-
fered such privation can scarcely feel
the proper degree of pity for these crea-
tures— warm, dr}^ fat, clothed, safe, at
leisure and at liberty.

The poorest and most wretched house-
hold we found that day w^as that of an old
soldier, a gray-haired man of education
and (at some time) of intelligence, once
a lieutenant in a volunteer regiment.
He was wounded at the battle of Fair
Oaks. There he lies, grimy and ver-
min-infested, in a filthy bed, with a
young grandchild beside him in like
condition, and a drunken wago of a
woman, ramping and scolding in the
two rooms which constitute the family
abode. She is quite the most repulsive
being yet met Avith. A little inquiry
develops the fact that this man was in
the Soldiers' Home at Milwaukee (and
could return there to remain, if he
wished), well fed, clothed, and cared for,

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

17

and that lie left there because : " You
see you cau't stand it to be kept down
all the time, and moved back and forth,
and here and there, whether you like it
or not." And he moved his black paws
back and forth, and here and there, on
the dingy bedclothes, to indicate how
the Home deprived him of his freedom
— his " liberty " to pass his time in the
living death which his present condi-
tion seems to the onlooker.

Chicago's "Hull House" is already
widely known as the " Toynbee Hall "
of the "West, though the parallelism be-
tween the two institutions is far from
absolute and complete. In the first
place, Hull House was started and is
carried on by women, with only the oc-
casional and exceptional help — welcome
though it is — of the other sex. Then,
too, the system is as different as are
the conditions in which the two institu-
tions are placed. Its best service in
stimulating the intellectual life of the
neighborhood has been in the establish-
ment of its college - extension classes,
which have grown into what is practi-
cally an evening college, with thirty
courses weekly and a membership of
one hundred and fifty to two hundred
students of a high order.

In a widely different sphere is its
strictly philanthropic worth. Yet, even
here, Hull House is not a mission, since
no especial religion is inculcated and no
particular social reform is announced
as the object of its being. If people in
the humbler classes of its visitors learn
there to live good, clean, temperate
lives, it is through the demonstration of
the enduring beauty and gayety of such
a life as contrasted with the lurid and
fleeting joys of the other. Hull House
parlors, class-rooms, gymnasium, lib-
rary, etc., are the rivals of the swarming
grog-shops. Nobody, not even the orna-
ments, of the college-extension classes,
is more welcome than the poor fellow
who has begun to feel that he can no
longer struggle against poverty and
drink, and nobody is less pointed at,
preached at, or set upon than he. The
choice is open to him, right hand or left
hand as he sees fit, and it surely seems
as if no sane human being could hesi-
tate. At least the boy growing up with
Vol. XIL— 2

the choice before him, and the light
shining on the parting of the ways, will
take — is taking — the one those devoted
young women are making so inviting to
his footsteps.

It is not charity that Hull House of-
fers, any more than it is precejjt. True,
there are some cases which arise, out-
side the business of the House, where
public or private beneficence is turned
toward deserving helplessness. But
that is not strictly Hull House work.
The latter consists in bestowing friend-
ship and sympathy, the sisterly heart,
hand, and voice, on all who are willing
to come within its sweet and pleasant
influence.

With characteristic wisdom and good
feeling the Board of the grand Chicago
Public Library (free to all) has j)laced
one of its sub-stations in the reading-
room of Hull House ; and in that large,
handsome, well-lighted apartment ap-
plications for books are taken, and the
books are delivered and returned, all
quite without expense of any kind to the
reader.

The building which contains the lib-
rary and reading-room has been added
to the Hull House structures by the
liberality of Edward B. Butler. The
same building contains a studio in which
drawing - classes are held each even-
ing, and an admirably fitted art-exhibit
room in which some of the best pict-
ures in Chicago are shown from time
to time. The humanitarian side of the
Hull House activity is maintained by
the Nursery, the Kindergarten, the
Diet Kitchen, the District Nursing, and
the Industrial Classes. Its activities
are multiform that they may meet the
needs, not alone of the enterprising nor
yet the poor, but of its neighborhood
as a whole. That it has met such a need
is shovni by the fact that the weekly
membership of its club and classes is
nine hundred.

The Creche, or Day-Nursery, is surely
as bright, sunny, and pretty a room as
an}^ ever devoted to that angelic pur-
pose. Two little, low tables, two dozen
little, low chairs, each holding a pathetic
little figure, dear to some mother's heart,
and a young lady as busy (and some-
times as puzzled) as a pullet with a

18

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO,

brood of ducklings — these are the dra-
malii^ personce. It is luncheon time,
and with much pains the babes have
been brought to reasonable order, side
by side, each restless pair of hands
joined in a devotional attitude far from
symbolic of the impatient being behind
them. One small creature remains re-
bellious, and stands against the wall in
tearful protest. The guardian angel
explains that the small creature misses
its mother, whereupon a visitor lifts it
in his arms, and all is peace.

The Creche was only started last year,
and has flourished greatly. The num-
bers vary from twenty -five to thirty,
being governed by a curious law — the
prevalence of house - cleaning ! "When
many mothers can find jobs of scrub-
bing (which, by the way, earns a dollar
and a half a day), then many babies are
the helpless beneficiaries of the good
offices of Hull House. But the benefit
is not a gift ; Hull House gives out no
alms ; every child is paid for at five
cents a day.

The Sewing-Class is, if possible, a still
more beautiful sight. Twenty or thirty
little girls are gathered about low tables
sewing away for dear life, and sitting
among them are several young " soci-
ety" women, guiding the immature
hands and thoughts. It is proudly said
that no social pleasures are allowed to
stand in the way of this philanthropic
duty.

From an admirable pamphlet entitled
"HuU House: A Social Settlement," I
condense the following sketch of labors
and efibrts :

Monday Evenings : Social Club, thirty
girls. Debating Club, thirty young men.
(The two clubs join later in the evening.)
Athletic Class. Drawing Class. Greek
Art Class. Mathematics Class. English
Composition Class.

Tuesday Evening : Working People's
Social Science Club. (Addresses and
discussions led by judges, lawyers, and
business men.) Gymnasium. Drawing
Class. Cooking Class. American His-
tory. Heading Party. Caesar. Latin
Grammar. Political Economy. Mod-
ern History.

And so on through the week. The
noticeable varieties of interest include
(besides the branches already named)

Singing, Needlework, Diet Kitchen, Bi-
ology, Shakespeare, Lilies and Ferns,
Victor Hugo, German Reception, Chem-
istry, Electricity, Clay Modelhng, Eng-
lish for Italians, Women's Gymnastics,
etc. This vast curriculum is only for
the evenings ; the mornings and after-
noons and the Sundays have their own
programmes ; and it may well be imag-
ined that no business establishment
goes far beyond this beehive of benevo-
lence in orderly bustle and activity.

Hull House is fairly supplied with
means. The use of the property it oc-
cupies is freely and generously bestowed
upon it by Miss Helen Culver, to whom
the property was devised by the late
Charles J. Hull, Avhose old family resi-
dence it was. Then, too, the needs of
the institution are wonderfully small
compared with the ever-widening and
deepening sphere of its influence.

Miss Jane Addams and Miss Ellen
Gates Starr are the young women whose
hearts conceived it, whose minds planned
it, and whose small hands started it and
have managed it thus far.

One of the young women had some
private means of her own ; and such is
the sway of their gentle influence among
those who know them that when they
are told that money must come, lo ! it
appears. And, what is more, when they
are forced to admit that their strength
— unfortunately not superabundant —
has reached its limit, other young
helpers are at hand and the work never
flags.

There exist in Chicago other benevo-
lent institutions whose very number and
variety preclude description. The City
Directory contains the addresses of 57
asylums and hospitals, 28 infirmaries
and dispensaries, 41 missions, 60 tem-
perance societies, lodges, etc., and thirty-
seven columns of secret benevolent as-
sociations, camps, lodges, circles, etc.
The city is honeycombed with philan-
thropic associations in all magnitudes,
shapes, and forms, from the ancient and
honorable "Belief and Aid " (which won
deathless fame after the Great Fire)
down to the latest "Working-Girls'
Luncheon Club," the Ursula, instituted
by the graduates of an advanced school
to provide and furnish, at cost, mid-day
meals in the business districts for their

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO,

19

toiling sisters. (There are several sucli
clubs, and more are forniiug.) Every-
one of the hundreds of churches is a
centre of charitable effort. It becomes
a net-work so all-pervading that one
wonders that any should slip through,
after all, and perish of want, as occasion-
ally happens, nevertheless.

What is known as the "Poor Jews'
Quarter" (as contradistinguished from
the splendid homes of their richer co-re-
ligionists) lies near the western end of
Twelfth Street Bridge, and to the south-
ward of the West Side Italian quarters
already spoken of. Certainly it is not
the abode of ease, luxury, and elegance ;
its odors are not those of flowery
meads, its architecture is not marked
by either massiveness or ornamentation,
its streets and alleys are not grassy
(though they look as if they might be
fertile under proper cultivation), and
its denizens are more remarkable for
number than for attractiveness. On
the other hand, the region is still less
suggestive of a " Ghetto," according to
any prevailing tradition of those abodes.
Children, ranging from infancy to ado-
lescence, and from invalidism to rude
health, throng the sidewalks. Many of
these children have never seen a tree
or a blade of grass. " In our summer
country excursions," said a lady of Hull
House, "we have much pleasure in
watching them — they kneel down some-
times so as to study the grass and feel
it with their hands." Yet the sidewalk
seems to furnish a tolerable substitute
for the grass-plat, and the passer-by has
to edge close to street or fence to keep
clear of the flying rope, turned by two
girls, while a little string of others are
awaiting their turn to jump, each one
who " trips " taking the place of one of
the turners — just as is done by their
richer fellow-mortals, better fed and
better dressed, but perhaps not more
joyous and unregretful.

In the midst of this swarming colony
rises — taU, large, handsome, and solid —
the "Jewish Training School," under
the management of a strong band of the
solid Israelites of the city (representing,
of course, solid millions of money) and
the superintendency of Professor Ga-
briel Bamberger. Fifty thousand dol-

lars a year is wisely and economically
expended here, and eight hundred chil-
dren and youths, of both sexes, and
all races and religions, are taught and
cared for. The classes in drawing and
clay-modelling are especially notable.

Not far away is the " Shelter House "
of the " Society in Aid of Russian Refu-
gees." There the members of this un-
fortunate class find surcease of their
woes and persecutions in a blessed har-
bor of temporary refuge, whence they
are scattered to various employments
and chances to earn an honest living,
free from imperialism, ofiicialism, priest-
craft, and military service. They are a
sturdy-looking set, and will not be long
in learning that their greatest ill-treat-
ment is turned to their greatest good
luck when they arrive at the " Shelter
House," as they are doing at the rate of
more than ten a day. They are " sub-
merged" no longer.

When the back streets of Chicago are
undergoing their spring cleaning, the
mass of mud collected for removal in
this quarter is incredible. The piles
along the street-side are as high as they
can be made to stand erect, and as
close together as they can be. This is
the accumulation of the months of
December to March inclusive — the
months when snow, frost, and short
days impede the work so that a dollar
laid out does perhaps not forty cents'
worth of good. Then, too, the cold
renders the vile deposit less hurtful
to health, and the moisture and the
frost keep it from flying about in the
form of dust. The main streets are
cleaned even when there is snow on the
ground.*

One characteristic development of
business-like philanthropy in Chicago is
in the "Liberty Bell" and "Friendship"
buildings for the accommodation of
working-men. They are not germane to
the subject of poverty, except to show its
absence, prevention, or alleviation. The
first-named was an experiment in the
direction of furnishing to working-men
good accommodations at rates almost

* Even in well-swept London the streets are neglected
in winter. " In one street is the body of a dead dog, and
near by two dead cats, which he as though they had slain
each other ; all three have been crushed flat by t,he traffic
Avhich has gone over them, and they, like everything else,
are frozen and harmless."— Labor and Life of the People,
vol. ii., p. 96, London, 1892.

20

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

noniinal. A man is there offered a l)atli,
a shave, aud the use of a lauudry (both
provided with hot and cold water and
soap), and a clean bed in a clean and
ventilated room, all for ten cents. The
whole main floor is devoted to a waiting-
room with chairs and tables. In' this
room one sees from fifty to one hundred
men, old and young, talking, smoking,
reading newspapers, and the place is
filled Avith the hum of conversation. In
one corner is a group discussing work
and wages ; in another the younger fel-
lows have made their newspapers into
balls which they toss one to another.
There is no drinking, no singing, and no
boisterous mirth. " They take their
pleasure sadly, according to their wont,"
as Froissart remarks concerning their
faraway ancestors.

From the profits earned by the "Lib-
erty Bell " the " Friendship " has been
built. There things are more hand-
somely done. Not only are there no
beds in tiers, as at the other place ; but
each is entirely inclosed in a locked
space, eight feet high, and protected by
charged electric wires, so that the tenant
and all his belongings are safe from in-
trusion or theft. The same accommoda-
tions (in more elegant form) are offered
as in the former place, and the entire
charge is fifteen cents. The originator
of the pleasant and profitable scheme is
now abroad, looking for further knowl-
edge wherewith to provide further im-
provements.

At each place a good meal is served,
in a restaurant attached, at an addi-
tional charge of ten cents. The savings
of the men are accepted and cared for
by the concern, and they amount to a
very considerable sum. The men are
largely dock-workers, sailors waiting for
the opening of the lakes, mechanics out
of a job, workers at light trades and
callings about town, etc. All are com-
fortably clothed and quite free from any
marks of want.

This is a pleasant aspect of the labor
situation ; but it is to be remembered
that here we have only the able-bodied
single men, the class which is last to
feel the griping hand of poverty. Wom-
en and children, the difficult and dis-
tressing element in the social problem,
are in all this left out of the account.

The dock-lal)orers amcmg these men —
the largest class — earn from twenty to
twenty-five cents an hour.

On the North Side (275 Indiana Street),
is the "Home for Self-su2:)porting Wom-
en," which, as its name implies, does a
service for the other sex somewhat simi-
lar to that offered to men at the " Friend-
ship." For obvious reasons the difficul-
ties in dealing with the stronger sex are
greatly magnified when the weaker is
in question. Yet, great or small, those
difficulties are braved, and, to a large
extent, conquered. Better entertain-
ment must be (and is) provided ; larger
charges must therefore be imposed, and
that on individuals whose wages are
smaller. Still the entei^rise is nearly
self-supporting, and when kindly fate
shall inspire some rich and benevolent
friend of woman to pay off a $10,000
mortgage on the realty of the Home,
then its net income will overtake its
outgo, and even in time exceed it, mak-
ing its devoted ministers (all women)
able to extend its influence in an ever-
increasing ratio. Meantime the annual
reports are written in an admirable
style of good-humored na'lvete which
shows that work and worry cannot
daunt or sadden those whose hearts are
in their business. It is a most worthy
and successful effort at the best kind of
help ; but it still leaves untouched the
problem of family helplessness^ — the soft,
elastic, unbreakable bond which binds
the hands and feet of mothers.

Near the centre of business are two
institutions for the care of homeless
newsboys, bootblacks, and other young
street workers, the " Waifs' Mission
and Training School "and the "News-
boys' Home." The former has a school,
a dining-room and kitchen, a doimitory
with fifty beds, a bath-room, a gym-
nasium, a printing-office, etc., and its
plan includes military drill (Avith a brass
band formed among the boys them-
selves), instruction in the printing busi-
ness, and the finding of places for boys
old enough to enter steady employment.
Its patrons and managers include judges
of court, business men and capitalists,
and a board of charitable women. The
number of boj^s accommodated is lim-
ited to the number of beds.

An institution somewhat analogous to

Vol. XII.— 3

^2

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

Laundry and Bath at the Liberty Bell

this is the "Illinois School of Agricult-
ure and Manual Training for Boys,"
placed on three hundred acres of farm-
ing land at Glen wood, not far south of
the cit}' limits. Until this school was
started (1887) there was absolutely no
place to which a boy could be sent who
was thrown upon the world by any of
the lamentable casualties to which every
community is subject — orphanage, de-
sertion, forced separation from drunken
or criminal parents. The courts of cer-
tain counties make use of this as a ref-
uge for sach boys, and allow a certain
small monthly stipend for each ; but
this is necessarily far short of the abso-
lute requirements of proper subsistence,
clothing, and education, and more money
than the school has yet received could
be well used in it. The boys are '^vo-
vided with homes, chiefly with farmers,
and the average outlay for each, up to
the time when he is so provided for, is
only about $60. The future life of the
boy is kept in view and recorded ; al-
most always wdth results that justify the
efforts.

The Newsboys' and Bootblacks' Home
is the oldest of the institutions of its
class. It cares for some fifty or sixty

boys, giving them decent sustenance
and 23rotection at lowest cost, and also
providing for their amusement when
circumstances permit. Some philan-
thropic persons object to these refuges
of the human waifs and strays on the
ground that they encourage boys to
run away from their families. To this
there seem to be two possible answers —
first, that every lodge, circle, hospital,
asylum, and refuge runs to some extent
against the family relation, not even
excepting the fashionable club-houses ;
next, that the boys in the missions have
perhaps found a better home than they
left ; that the change for them is a stej)
upward, not downward. As far as one
can see, it is a change from the gutter to
the mission.

The siveat-shop is a place wdiere, sep-
arate from the tailor-shop or clothing-
warehouse, a " sweater " (middleman)
assembles journeymen tailors and
needle-women, to work under his super-
vision. He takes a cheap room outside
the dear and crowded business centre,
and within the neighborhood where the
w^ork-people live. Thus is rent saved
to the employer, and time and travel to

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

23

the employed. The men can and do
work more hours than was possible un-
der the centralized system, and their
wives and children can help, especiall}'
when, as is often done, the g-arments
are taken home to "finish." (Even the
very young can pull out basting-
threads.) This " finishing " is what re-
mains undone after the machine has
done its work, and consists of " felling "
the waist and leg-ends of trousers (j^aid
at one and one-half cent a pair), and, in
short, all the " felling " necessary on every
garment of any kind. For this service,
at the prices paid, they cannot earn more
than from twenty -five to forty cents a day,

and from 20,000 to 23,000 women and
children. The wages are reckoned by
'•piece-work," and (outside the "finish-
ing ") run about as follows :

Girls, hand-sewers, earn nothing for
the first month, then as unskilled
workers they get $1 to §1.50 a week,
$3 a week, and (as skilled workers) $0
a week. The first-named class consti-
tutes fifty per cent, of all, the second
thirty per cent., and the last twenty
i)er cent. In the general work men are
onl}' employed to do button-holing and
pressing, and their earnings are as fol-
lows : "Pressers," §8 to $12 a week;
" underj)ressers," $4 to $7. Cloak op-

Liberty Bell."

and the work is largely done by Italian, erators earn $8 to |12 a week. Four-
Polish, and Bohemian women and girls, fifths of the sewing-machines are fur-
The entire number of persons em- nished by the " sweaters" (middlemen) ;
ployed in these vocations may be stated also needles, thread, and wax.
at 5,000 men (of whom 800 are Jews), The "sweat-shop" day is ten hours;

24

AMONG THE POOK OF CHICAGO.

but iiiiiny t'lko work lioiiio to f^ct in over-
time ; aud occasionally the sliops them-
selves are kept open for extra work,
from which the hardest and ablest
workers sometimes make from §14
to JIG a week. On the other hand, the
regular work - season for cloakmaking
is but seven montlis, and for other
branches nine months, in the year.
The average weekly living expenses of a
man and wife, with two children, as es-
timated by a self-educated workman
named Bisno, are as follows : Rent (three
or four small rooms) $2 ; food, fuel, and
light, J|4 ; clothing, $2, and beer and
spirits, $1.

The first matter complained of is the
wretchedness of the quarters. The pro-
posed remedy for this is the establish-
ment by clothiers of outlying w^orkshops
which shall be clean, light, and ventilat-
ed— in other words, not "sweat-shops."
A city ordinance enacts that rooms pro-
vided for workmen shall contain space
equal to live hundred cubic feet of air
for each person employed ; but in the
average " sweat-shop " only about a
tenth of that quantity is to be found.
In one such place there were fifteen men
and women in one room, which con-
tained also a pile of mattresses on which,
some of the men sleep at night. The
closets were disgraceful. In an adjoin-
ing room were piles of clothing, made
and unmade, on the same table with
the food of the famiiy. Two dirty little
children were playing about the floor.

The second complaint regards the
public good. It is averred, with ap-
parent reason, that clothing should not
be exposed to contamination and possi-
ble infection in rooms not set apart
for working-rooms, especially in private
houses, where members of the family,
young and old, may quite possibly be
ill of dangerously contagious fevers and
other complaints. The danger of con-
tagion from the hands of the workman
himself is multiplied in proportion as
the tenement is crowTled where the gar-
ments are taken for work.

Another complaint, urged with much
feeling, is that when the workers set up
a "Union" shop of their own, where
they did the very best work at prices as
low as those charged at the " sweat-
shops," but (by saving the profits of a

middleman) were able to give more to
the workers, they were deliberately and
confessedly " frozen out " by the with-
holding of patronage by the clothing
firms, and this after having been in
prosperous and peaceable o2:)eration for
two years. The " sweaters " could not
force down w^ages as low as they wished,
because the workers in the " Union "
shops were doing so well. Therefore
they got the employing firms to refuse
work to the men's own establishment,
and throw it all into the middleman's
hands. A firm of employers for whom
the association had worked two years
were instrumental in this incredible
cruelty. It is said by the workmen that
they were driven to their action by
others in the business, for when the little
co-operative concern applied for work,
they w^ere referred to an association of
the employing firms, and were there ab-
solutely refused.

The " sweating system " has been in
operation about twelve years, during
which time some firms have failed, while
others have increased their production
tenfold. Meantime certain " sweaters "
have grown rich ; tw^o having built from
their gains tenement-houses for rent to
the poor workers. The wholesale cloth-
ing business of Chicago is about $20,-
000,000 a year.

Mr. Bisno, the w^orkman to whom I
have alluded, has been led b}' his reading
toward Socialism (ver}^ far from Anarch-
ism), and he thinks that poverty and
drink are parent and child — poverty the
parent. A talk with him would be an en-
lightenment to any person who had not
already adequate knowledge of the mean-
ing of the short phrase "A good day's
work." He would get a new idea of the
unusual ability, mental and manual, the
unflagging speed, the unwearied appli-
cation which go to the earning of a day's
wages of the higher grades. He thinks
that he could not maintain such speed
without some liquid stimulus, in which
other equally good workers think he is
mistaken. (At the same time he is ex-
tremely moderate.) He says that beer
is sold at five cents the measured pint
(yielding two-and-a-half glasses), and
that it is freely brought into the " sweat-
shops," wherein, in fact, the w'orkers are
entirely independent of personal control,

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO,

25

their work alone being subject to inspec-
tion and criticism. The inspection is
close and constant, and failure entails
the doing over of the job. Spoiling (such
as tearing while ripping spoiled seams)
leads to deductions from pay. The lat-
ter is very rare.

Division of labor is good ; scatter-
ing of workers from great groups into
smaller groups is good ; employment of
women in their own homes is good ; pre-
vention of theft is good, and cheapness
of garments is good. Unwholesome at-
mosphere, moral and material, is bad ;
insufficient wages is bad ; possibility
of infection is bad, and child -labor is
(usually) bad. How shall the good be
preserved and the bad cured or allevi-
ated ?

At the head-quarters of the West Side
police one is in the near neighborhood
of the "Anarchist Riot " of 1886. In that
building the police force was mustered
and formed for its march out to the an-
archist meeting-place, 500 feet distant ;
and there 67 of the police, killed and
wounded, were laid when brought back
a few minutes later. The messenger in
attendance is one of the severely wound-
ed, now too much shattered to do more
than light tasks about the station. Con-
versation with some of the men at this
station has led me to a new appreciation
of the magnitude of the issues then and
there fought out, and the finality of the
settlement arrived at. A lieutenant of
police recently said to me :

" The whole thing is played out.
They will never make another experi-
ment. There is no interest in anarchy
or socialism any more, and no meetings
to speak of. They do get together,
some of them, at Twelfth Street Turner
Hall, but you'd never know that they
had ever planned a riot or loaded a
bomb. No ; they have no connection
with hardship and poverty. They can
always get their beer, and that's the
main thing with them."

These quiet and unassuming officers
of law and order know that they did
their duty, and think that their success
was a foregone conclusion. They do
not know that though other " stronger"
governments could have put down an-
archy by force of arms, and hanged or
Vol. XII.— 4

shot the insurgents by martial law, yet
this is perhaps the only government
on earth which could have met such a
movement by the ordinary police power,
and then have given the guilty a long,
public trial before " a jury of their
peers," and have relied on a verdict of
conviction, a judgment of death, and the
deliberate execution of that judgment.

Mr. Joseph Greenhut (himself a So-
cialist, somewhat out of sympathy with
the alleviation of poverty, its absolute
cure being, in his view, possible by
changes in the constitution of society),
furnishes many statistics showing the
ruling rates of wages earned in some
hundreds of trades and callings, from
which the following are selected :

Per diem.
Bricklayers, stone-cutters, and

stone-masons $4 00

Plasterers 3 50 to $4 00

Carpenters 2 50 to 2 80

Bridge-builders 2 50 to 3 25

Ship-carpenters and caulkers. . 2 00 to 3 50
Machinists, blacksmiths, and

wagon-makers 2 00 to 2 50

Pattern-makers and horse-sho-

ers 2 75 to 3 50

Engineers 2 00 to 5 00

Grain-trimmers 2 75 to 3 50

Lumber-shovers 3 00 to 6 00

Sewer-builders 2 00 to 3 00

Plumbers, gas-fitters, painters,

photographers, printers, etc. 2 00 to 3 50
Boot- and shoe-makers, cigar-
makers, millers, stereotypers
and electrotypers, copper, tin,
and sheet-iron workers, brass
finishers, upholsterers, etc . . 1 75 to 3 00
Iron and steel mill-workers,

japanners, etc 1 50 to 6 00

Tailors and suit-makers 1 00 to 3 00

Type-founders, furriers, book-
binders, furniture-workers,

distillers, brewers, etc 1 50 to 3 00

Sailors (with board) 1 50 to 2 00

Farmers 1 50 to 3 00

Coopers, fish-packers, gravel-
roofers, freight-house men,
laundrymen, makers of iron
and lead pipe, wire-goods,

vault-lights, etc 1 50 to 2 50

Brick-makers 1 00 to 3 00

Planing-mill hands 1 25 to 2 25

Harness-makers, musical in-
strument-makers 1 25 to 3 00

Market-men. ice-wagon men, etc. 1 50 to 2 75
Packing and slaughter-house

men 1 25 to 4 00

Lumber-yard hands 1 25 to 1 50

Dock laborers 1 00 to 2 00

Confectioners, millinery and
straw-goods makers, hair-
workers, etc 1 00 to 3 00

26

AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO.

Per diem.

Female clerks $1 00 to $2 75

Glove and mitten-makers. . . .CO cents to 3 00

IW the week.

Drug clerks $12 00 to $25 00

Telegraph and telephone

operators 10 00 to 20 00

Bakers and barbers 10 00 to 14 00

Stablemen 9 00 to 15 00

Teamsters 9 00 to 12 00

Dressmakers 6 00 to 15 00

Office stenographers and type-
writers 6 00 to 20 00

Mr. Greenliut estimates the immi-
grant nationalities (including their chil-
dren) composing Chicago as follows :
Germans, 400,000 ; Irish, 210,000 ;
Sclavonians, 100,000 ; Scandinavians,
110,000 ; English, Scotch, and Welsh,
80,000 ; French Canadians, 15,000 ; Ital-
ians, 15,000 ; French, 5,000 ; Colored,
13,000 ; and Chinese, 2,000.

No one doubts but that the drink-
bill of Chicago— estimated at $1,000,000
a week, of which three-fourths comes
from the pockets of the poor — would
change into prosperity, practically, all
the adversity of the unfortunate classes,
just as the drink -bill of Russia —
$1,000,000 a day — would supplant fam-
ine by abundance. Much poverty comes
from drink that does not come from
drunkenness. A man may spend in drink
the total profit on his earnings, the total
surplus above necessary outgoes, and it
may — usually does — amount to an in-
surance fund which, well invested, would
form a respectable fortune during his
prosperous years. Then, when old age,
sickness, or accident befalls, he is penni-
less. His poverty springs from drink ;
no matter if he never was drunk in his
life. The man who drinks up what he
might save is as short-sighted as the
husbandman who should needlessly eat
up his seed-wheat.

" Paying off" is often done in saloons,
in which the paymaster may or may not
be interested. It is a vile and hurtful
practice. A late article in a Chicago
paper contains the following words on
this theme :

Contractor Piatkiewicz said some of his work-
men habituall}'^ spent for liquor half their earnings,
and that on one pay-night, several years ago, he
recollected that out of a total of #480 due his men,
the chips in the basket gave to the saloon-keeper
$200. To add to this, he said that as many " treats

all around " were made as there were men in the
saloon. From a large numhcr of sources it was
learned that it is the custom with the Polish labor-
ers— the violation of which means disgrace — for
each man on pay-night to treat all his fellows, the
bartender and contractor included, and for the two
latter, when it comes their turn, to treat the men.
It is needless to say that the contractor and bar-
tender rarely have to pay for what they "set up "
to the crowd.

The possible remedy for this state of
things — if there be any remedy — is out-
side the province of the present essay.
Suffice it to say here, that the non-expert
observer, however sympathetic, is prone
to feel that any effort at relief of the
" chosen miseries " which does not strike
at the cause of the choice, is futile.

A late issue of the Chicago Tribune
had the following suggestive paragraph :

Work Waiting for Unemployed.

the statement about chicago's army of idle
men refuted.

"The statement that there are 30,000 to 50,000
laboring men out of employment to-day in Chicago
is false," said Oscar Kuehne yesterday. Mr.
Kuehne is the General Agent of the German Be-
nevolent Society and is in a position to know. " I
could have furnished," he continued, ■" during the
month of March, employment to oOO or 400 more
men than I did, if I had had the men to fill the ap-
plications that came into my office. Farmers from
within a radius of thirty miles of Chicago come to
me to supply them with farm-laborers, and when I
tell them that 1 haven't men for them, and can't
get the sort of men they want, they ask in surprise
where these .50,000 unemplo3^ed in Chicago are. At
one o'clock this afternoon there were thirty farm-
ers in my office after laborers. They would have
employed fifty men, but I had to disappoint them.
The truth of the matter is that there is no excuse
for the idleness of an energetic j'oung man who is
not married. He can get work if he wants it.
For a married man there is more excuse. He is
not free to move about as the unmarried man is,
and is more limited in his choice of occupations.
We find it more difficult to get work for men of
families."

There is some chosen poverty which
is not necessarily connected with drink.
Many instances arise in the minds of
men and W'Omen who are trying to do
their philanthropic duty.

The pitiable man is he who cannot
get work to do, and in so far as this
article on poverty in the West does not
present the harrowing pictures of want
elsewhere, it must be accounted for in
the same way as was the shortness of
the celebrated chapter on " Snakes in
Iceland." Work and w^ages, seed-time
and harvest, have not yet failed in the
land. And the art of makino^ the wise

GETTING OUT THE FLY-BOOKS.

27

choice of possible joys, though not yet
fully learned, is gaining ground.

The overwhelming tendency of
modern life is toward the cities. It al-
most seems as if they would have to be
walled about in order to keep in the
country the proportions — four-fifths at
least — which must remain there in or-
der to provide food for all. Everything
done " to alleviate the condition of the
poor in great cities " works in the direc-
tion of bringing more into them ; and
no argument or persuasion, or more
solid consideration of betterment, pre-
vails to get them out after once im-
mersed in the pleasurable excitement of
gregarious existence ; they would rather
starve in a crowd than grow fat in
quietude — especially if the " crowd " is
sprinkled with aromatic " charity."

Humanity, like other semifluids,
moves in the line of least resistance
and most propulsion. Idleness drifts
toward where commiseration and alms-
giving are most generous and unques-
tioning ; love of drink toward where
beer and liquor are most plentiful. The
free soup-kitchen is a profitable neigh-

bor for the saloon. Labor is a blessing
— in disguise ; and a free gift is often a
disguised curse.

Then is a part of the prevalent phil-
anthroj^ic feeling, though coming from
the noblest part of our nature, tainted
with sentimentality and sensationalism ?
Is it, to a certain extent, the vagaiy of
good men and women who, consciously
or unconsciously, regard physical labor
as only a necessary evil ? Is it part of
the new creed which sees in drink not
the cause but the consequence of want
and misery ? Quien sabe ? At any rate,
if any statement should be made of the
Western aspect of the matter, as it ap-
pears to men who regard duly paid toil
as the condition of well-being, which
statement did not present this possi-
bility as at least an obtruding suspicion,
it would be false and defective.

" In the sweat of thy face shalt thou
eat bread " was not a curse but a bless-
ing, and so shall be until a dreary Utopia
prevail, competition giving place to com-
bination, mankind being beaten up into
an omelet, and excelling and excellence
no more.

GETTING OUT THE FLY-BOOKS.

By Leroy Milton Yale.

HEN spring seems still
afar off, when nights
are sharp and patch-
es of snow lie about,
in spite of the frost
the maple feels the
sweet juices in all
its fibres. The same nameless influence
touches the angler, his blood moves, he
has no more choice than the budding
tree. He must see his fly-books. Every

article of his outfit — creel, hobnail, or
rod — has its charm to rouse memory or
quicken imagination ; but in the book
is hidden the subtlest spell of all. Move
but a fly from its folds and up swarm
the recollections and the dreams — rec-
ollections . of a past in which all joy
is fresh, all disappointment forgotten,
dreams of a future fiUed " much more
abundantly." Not dreams alone. To
the observant angler running brooks

28

GETTING OUT THE FLY-BOOKS.

have indeed been books, and their stones
have preached him sermons, the notes
whereof lie in the pages of these same
fly-books.

Said a witty friend : " It is extraor-
dinary with what contempt your true
angler looks upon any method which
will really catch fish." The wit pierces
near the heart of the matter. Any
method which will only catch fish ?
Yes. The true angler is not he whose
pole is but the weapon of his predatory
instinct. The love of the art must be
above the greed of prey. With the bois-
terous fisherman and the picnicker with
a fishing-rod we have no concern. But
among actual sportsman - like anglers
the manifestations of the enjoyment of
the recreation are as various as tem-
peraments. Each exaggerates some of
its pleasures, but he best realizes them
whose rod is a divining wand, who has
the widest sympathy with the outer
world, whether it touch him through
his scientific insight, his artistic sensi-
bility, or that nameless poetic feeling
which longs for the sunshine, the wind,
and the rain. We may for a moment
envy him who tells of great game taken
from some far-off lake, but our hearts
go out to him who bids us share his
little brook "when the Sanguinaria is
in bloom."

It is curious to observe how surely
this note of sympathy with nature was
struck four hundred years ago by
Dame Juliana Berners, and how it reap-
pears as a leading motive in the best of
angling books all the way down to our
day, whether Walton discourses to his
scholar or Norris is "fly-fishing alone."
Curious, too, is the vein of moralizing
which runs through the elder Eng-
lish writers on angling, whether from
the fashion of the time or from direct
imitation of Dame Juliana, their model
in so many things else. Although crit-
icism denies the authorship of "The
Treatyse of Fj^sshynge wyth an Angle "
to the Dame, one cannot doubt as he
reads it that it is the work of some
ecclesiastic, who naturally would give
first place to the only field sport per-
missible in those days to the cloth. It
was almost an inspired foresight which
placed the work in such connection that
it would be read only by "gentyll and

noble men" and kept out of "the hondys
of eclie ydle persone whyche wolde de-
sire it yf it were enpryntyd allone by
itself ... to the entent that the for-
sayd ydle persones whyche sholde haue
but lytjdl mesure in the sayd dysporte
of fysshyng sholde not by this meane
utterly dystroye it." The words in which
the duties of an angler are expressed
are as serious as in our day are deemed
suitable to a marriage service or the
installation of a pastor. Would that
they all, from "I charge and requyre
you in the name of alle noble men," to
the closing benediction, "And all those
that done after this rule shall haue
the blessjmge of god and saynt Petyr,
whyche he theym graunte that wyth his
precyous blood vs boughte," were burnt
with the " plumers wire " into the
memory of every greedy and ill-man-
nered angler.

An evidence of the solace that is found
in angling is the fact that out of the
troublous times of King and Parlia-
ment have come dovni to us at least
three works on the art. Walton, who
mourned his "monarch slain," Venables,
whose disastrous West India campaign
brought him to disgrace and the Tower,
and the Cromwellian trooper, Richard
I*ranck, wandering abroad, all consoled
themselves with the rod and writing of
its joys. Perhaps the chastening of
sorrow joined with the gentle art to
sweeten that charming letter which the
Boyalist Walton prefixed to the book
of the Roundhead Venables. Charming
books both have written, and one wishes
that the same could be said of Franck,
for he was a better naturalist and " all-
round " fisherman than either of them.
But whatever may have been in his con-
troversial heart, there is little of " sweet-
ness and light " in his style.

Now to the fly- books. There is no
reason why the fly-fisher should con-
temn his brother of the bait-rod. Often
quite the reverse, if real angling skill be
laid in the balance. The angler's circle
is quite wide enough for everyone who
fishes in the true spirit, whether he casts
his fly over the costliest of salmon pools
or anchors his punt across the head of
a gudgeon s^dm. But there is room
also for a proper regret that he who
uses bait alone has never had opened

GETTING OUT THE FLY-BOOKS,

29

to him all the delights of his pastime.
Many places cannot be really fished with
a fly. It is a legitimate matter of choice
to decline to fish such places, but let the
refusal be really from love of sport and
not from priggish affectation. There is
good ground for Francis's hint that
the degree of Master in Angling should
be given only to a proficient in all its
branches.

The advantages of the fly are ob-
vious enough. It is always ready, bait
must be procured for each occasion.
"I wish," said a lady one day, "that you
would teach my husband to use the fly,
for I observe that when you desire to
go a-fishing, you go, but he raises the
whole village for four days to collect
his baits." Besides, it is a gratification
to avoid giving pain, even if slight, to
living bait. A still greater practical
advantage is that the fly does not mor-
tally wound any fish, and such as (by
reason of size or for any other cause) are
not wanted for the basket, may be re-
turned to the water unharmed. Un-
harmed ? Probably entirely so. In bait-
fishing many an undesired fish is bas-
keted because wounds of its gills or
gullet make its survival improbable if
it were returned to the water. But a
fly is not swallowed unless a bait has
been added to it. It goes no farther
than the mouth, and — by trout at least
— is instantly recognized as a decep-
tion, and if it has not been fastened at
the moment of seizure, is immediately
rejected. That the presence of a hook
in the mouth of predatory fish causes
little, if any, pain becomes more prob-
able the more their behavior is watched.
Their mouths being their only prehen-
sile apparatus, we should expect these
parts to be but slightly sensitive to
pain, and such seems from observation
to be really the case. Such fish often
seize and swallow others so protected
with spines that the angler handles
them with great caution. Most anglers
of experience have seen a fish take a fly
repeatedly, or take a second while still
struggling to be free of the first, so
that it was perhaps landed by two an-
glers at once. I have knowledge of a
bluefish taking off three large hooks
baited for striped bass and coming to
gaff on a fourth, when all four were re-

covered from its mouth. For experi-
ment's sake, the writer once caught, un-
hooked and returned to the water the
same trout four times within a few-
minutes (it being plainly visible all the
time), and finally drove it out of the
pool with a stick lest it should swallow
the bait and be destroyed if it were al-
lowed another opportunity. It may be
said that in these two instances hunger
overcame the fear of pain. But what
shall be said of another experience of
the writer, when, after playing a grilse
for some minutes and losing him, anoth-
er cast brought to the fly a fish which
proved to be the same one. The fly was
fast in his lower jaw, while in his upper
jaw a fresh and bleeding tear half an
inch in length showed whence it had
just broken away.

To the negative advantage of pain
avoided we may add the positive one
that fly-fishing is for many reasons the
most interesting form of angling. Fish
take the artificial fly best when feed-
ing upon the natural insects, which diet
(as has been shown experimentally for
trout at least) gives weight and strength
more rapidly than any other. They are
then more inclined to "sport," they
fight harder, and, it may be added, are
more valued for the table. The grat-
ification is enhanced by the greater del-
icacy of tackle made possible by the
flexibility and elasticity of the rod ne-
cessary to fly-casting, and it is certain-
ly a greater pleasure to outwit the game
by a clever imitation of a fly than by an
actual gross lump of food. But the es-
sential charm, we think, lies beyond
the mere use of a fly, for trolling a
fly is scarcely less lethargic than any
other trolling, while minnow-casting is
nearly as delightful as fly-casting. The
gentle but continuous activity of fly-
fishing gives it interest; the endeavor
to put the fly accurately and delicately
just where the angler would have it
makes it as absorbing as any trial of
marksmanship. The fascinating sus-
pense of waiting for the rising fish.
(There is one under the azalea bush !)
Out goes the fly toward the marked
spot. (A yard more, and gently, or it
is hung up.) The breathless seconds as
it sweeps down over it, the restraint of
the space of a heart's beat before the

30

GETTING OUT THE FLY-BOOKS,

turn of the wrist, and then the struggle.
These are the charms of fly-fishing the
bait-fisher cannot share.

There must always be differences of
taste as to what kind of fly-fishing is
the highest branch of the art. In Eng-
land and America trout-fishing has gen-
erally been put into the first place.
Certainly nowhere can the skilful an-
gler more fully bring into play all his
resources. The game is small com-
pared to a salmon, for instance ; but
the trout of much - fished waters be-
comes possessed of a knowledge, a cun-
ning and a wariness which are worthy
of all respect, and the overcoming of
which adds a mental exercise to the
many other charms of this variety of
angling. On asking an experienced
friend which he thought the more en-
joyable, salmon- or trout-fishing, I got
the answer, "They cannot be com-
pared. Trout-fishing is like a sym-
phony— all is harmony. One can en-
joy the sky, the air, the trees, the water,
the tackle and the fish; but when one
is fast to a salmon, it is ' circus ' all the
time." This answer touches the essen-
tial difference ; the gentle exercise typ-
ical of angling is replaced by a more
laborious occupation and the calm en-
joyment by a struggle. To me, at
least, no such struggle has left such
charming memories as have some hours
of trout-fishing (what pictures they
are !), when the capture was of so little
moment that only the choicest fish went
into the creel. The expression, " Salm-
on-fishing spoils one for everything
else," has often a truth beyond the
speaker's intent. Any fishing which
makes the capture of the fish, or of any
particular fish, important, is so far
*' spoiled " as a recreation. Besides,
the planning and the commercial de-
tails essential to securing salmon-fish-
ing go far to remove it from the do-
main of sport to that of business.

Here, side by side, lie the book of
salmon flies and a box of tiny duns and
spinners for dry-fly fishing. In them-
selves they embody the contention of
theories : up-stream or down-stream
fishing, close imitation or " colorology,"
sunk-fly or dry-fly. Warm discussion,
earnest disputes, hot words almost
(strange accompaniments of the " gentle

art "), have been stirred up by them,
and all needlessly. The dissension is
more about names than facts. Under
the one title of fly-fishing have been
confused fly-fishing proper and what,
for the sake of a name, I have called
feather-baiting. In both the lure is
similar as to materials and structure, but
the latter method in its principles and
practice resembles fly - fishing proper
no more than it does minnow- casting.
In fact, the "fly-minnow," or "Alexan-
dra," would serve very well as a type of
this style of fishing. Between the two
styles are many intermediate shades,
but typical examples only are taken
for illustration.

By fly-fishing proper I mean the
method of the purist as practised, let
us say, upon a Hampshire chalk-stream,
with water clear and fine. As nearly
as painstaking search for materials and
exactness in tying can avail, his flies
are reproductions in size, shape, and
color of the actual insects usually
found upon the stream to be fished.
They are indeed marvels of delicate
imitation. Upon the finest of casting
lines he places usually but one fly, in
order that it may float down stream in
the most natural manner possible. Nor
will he indulge in any aimless casting,
any " chuck-and-chance-it " work, as he
would style it. Patiently he awaits the
rising of a feeding fish, marks its place
as accurately as he can, gets well below
and casts his fly, still dry, as lightly as
he is able, above the point marked and
allows it to float without tug or strain
jauntily down stream until it passes
over the fish. If it is not taken it is
dried by a few casts in the air and
again put over the fish. If it is taken,
there can be little doubt, not only from
theory but from comparative experi-
ments, that it is taken for the natural
fly of which it is the avowed counter-
feit. This is, I think, fly-fishing in the
strict sense of the term. In such
streams, with fish made wary by long
experience, to use coarse flies, to cast
carelessly, or even to fish down stream,
would probably put every neighboring
fish off its feed or drive it to the shelter
of its hold. In our wilder waters such
nicety is not yet necessary, and may
even be less successful than less exact-

GETTING OUT THE FLY-BOOKS,

31

ing methods. But where it is applic-
able, the writer can testify that it adds
to the other pleasures of fly-fishing the
charm that always attends delicacy of
manipulation and certainty of aim.

Note the difierences between this
kind of fly - fishing and the " feather-
baiting." Take a salmon -fly, for in-
stance. It is a combination in a con-
ventional shape, of colors — the result
of experience or experiment — which
resembles nothing which the maker
ever saw in nature, and if, as some
maintain, it is taken by the salmon,
because it has seen something like it,
that something was certainly not a nat-
ural fi.j. The salmon-fly is usually cast
— as accurately and delicately as may
be, of course — across the current, and
swings in a curve down to the fish,
half or wholly submerged. Coming in
such a manner it may possibly be taken
for a larva, hardly for a fly, whatever be
its color. What is true of the salmon-
fly is at least equally true of all large
flies which are intended to be worked
" sink and draw." While this method
cannot in strictness be considered fly-
fishing, there can be no doubt of its
success. Trout are often so wild as
to have no suspicion of guile, when
they will seize any object which attracts
their attention. If the water is big,
turbulent, or turbid, only a large and
showy lure will be visible. There were
some pools in the Nipigon in its less
frequented days, where the best suc-
cess attended, not salmon-flies even,
but bass-flies of extraordinary gaudiness
and of a size to merit Foster's name
of " the American half-ounce." What
they took the fly for, if for anything in
particular, may be a matter of doubt ;
probably simply as a prey which might
furnish food. More recently an ac-
quaintance has told me that in a sea-
son of low water, when disappointment
had been universal, he had good success
in this river with the use of midge-flies
and light casts.

This question, why the fly of the
salmon-fly type is taken, has been much
discussed in connection with salmon-
fishing. Formerly the belief, that salm-
on never fed while in fresh water,
complicated the inquiry. The con-
trary being now well established, it

is altogether probable that the fly is
seized for examination as possible food.
There is a curious difference between
the ordinary behavior of a trout and
a salmon. As a rule, a trout which
takes a small fly apparently in mis-
take for a living insect, rejects it al-
most instantly if it can. The salmon,
on the contrary, usually starts for his
hold with the fly in his mouth to ex-
amine it there, possibly because of a
habit acquired while feeding upon
Crustacea in the sea. Whether a
fresh-run fish takes a fly, or any given
fly, on account of its resemblance in
the water to some kind of food known
at sea, is one of the open questions.
But after the fish have been some time
in fished water they become usually
much more wary. It is interesting to
watch their behavior, which seems
sometimes to be the result of simple
curiosity, or possibly of a halting be-
tween hunger and a timidity born of
experience. For instance, casting over
a pool in which the fish were easily
seen, I have had a pair lying near
each other rise cautiously to inspect
each new fly ; rarely would they come
twice to the same one. The keen-eyed
gaffer in his wrath, as they circled
around each and retired, exclaimed,
" Confound them ! They don't mean to
take it ; they start from the bottom
with their mouths shut." After a fish
has run the gauntlet of a score or two
of pools it becomes very knowing and
few flies will move it. I recall a suc-
cess with a fl}^ tied with the avowed
purpose of presenting an outre com-
bination which would certainly be un-
familiar. It is hard, as has been said,
to be sure whether in such cases it
be curiosity or chastened greed that
excites the fish. In some cases it
must certainly be the latter. For in-
stance, for a week the many and tanta-
lizingly visible occupants of the " Hos-
pital " pool — ill-omened name — resisted
all the blandishments of my friend and
myself, when one evening unexpectedly
they began rising very cautiously, fol-
lowing the fly as it went down stream,
and only touching it as it was being
drawn up for the back cast, as if the evi-
dence of its departure excited them irre-
sistibly to embrace a last chance. But

32

GETTING OUT THE FLY-BOOKS.

whatever this motive be, it probably ac-
counts for multitudes of instances in
which somebody's " fancy," tied on the
spot, brings up fish after all the stand-
ard favorites have proved worthless.
This success of the aforesaid fancies is
too often "for this occasion only."

But there again are instances which
lead to the belief that the fish some-
times rises through anger, aversion, or
a desire to attack and drive away the fly.
Here it is possible that a resemblance
is seen to something which has else-
where been an annoyance. Sometimes
the reason of the anger is evident, as
when a heavy male salmon makes open-
jawed rushes at the casting-line which
holds his mate captive. But ordinarily
the reason of the attraction or annoy-
ance excited by a fly must be merely a
matter of conjecture. A friend of the
writer, a very skilful and observant an-
gler, relates the following instance : On
one of those depressing days in which
salmon are very abundant, plainly visi-
ble and absolutely indifferent to the
angler's solicitation, he laid down his
rod and for experiment's sake dragged
or floated over the head of an accessible
fish various salmon-flies fastened to a
cord. One fly after another passed ap-
parently unnoticed, certainly unheeded,
until the " Jock Scott " was used. Then
the fish seemed to be uneasy. The ex-
periment was repeated several times,
and as often as this fly came over him
his ordinary indifference gave place to
disturbance ; he would move himself,
often turning his head away or moving
sidewise, until the fly had passed.
Whether this dislike was due to a re-
semblance of the fly to something else,
or to a recollection of an unpleasant
struggle with such a fly, can only be
guessed. The sporting of salmon with
leaves which float down stream, and with
the appearance of which they must be
quite familiar, seems to be due to pure
frolic, like the circling " walk-arounds "
of leaping trout sometimes seen in an
eddy.

About special flies this article has
nothing to say. Out of the enormous
list of special patterns of salmon-flies
pertaining to various rivers, a certain
peerage of "general" flies has been

gathered by the suffrages of universal
experience, and to it from year to year
others are elevated. But the steady
way in which these standard patterns
displace the special ones from their own
strongholds forces one to believe that
the latter had usually little else than
tradition and local pride in their favor.
Exceptionally, some peculiarity of light
and water will give a real advantage to
a local favorite, and when this advantage
is associated with some singularity of
color or structure, it is quite possible
that the fly may resemble something
known as food or as an enemy to the
salmon. But if one takes a dozen or
twenty approved standard patterns he
cannot fail to notice that every one has
some peculiarity — as brilliancy, striking
color, or strong contrast — that makes
it an object likely to attract attention
in the water.

The pleasures of fly-fishing are not
confined to those who have access to
trout brooks and salmon rivers. The
widespread black bass readily takes the
fly, and many humbler fish, such as
chub and sunfish, give good sport if the
tackle be suitably light. Indeed, almost
any fish that feeds near the surface will
take the moving sunken fly, whether in
fresh or salt water. The resources of
the fisherman are much increased in
the South by the use of the fly in shal-
low bays, harbors, and lagoons. Game
fish of large size and excellent quality
are thus taken in abundance. In the
North the pollack, the various herrings,
shad, and white perch are among the
most interesting of the fish to be so ta-
ken. Young bluefish in tideways give
excellent sport, but their teeth are so
destructive that a material stouter than
feathers — such as bright-colored flan-
nel— is needed to form the lure, if it is
to last.

The fly -books are still full of un-
touched "heads of discourse," yet let
us close them with but this remark :
that he who ties his own flies and makes
his own rods and tackle will have a
keener personal interest in his pastime
and give it an additional pleasure which
he may enjoy in the long winter even-
ings when the weary man craves a light
amusement.

WHITE EDITH.

By Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

A STORY RE-TOLD.*

Above an ancient book, with a knight's crest
In tarnished gold on either cover stamped,
She leaned, and read — a chronicle it was
In which the sound of hautboys stirred the pulse.
And masques and gilded pageants fed the eye.
Though here and there the vellum page was stained
Sanguine with battle, chiefly it was love
The stylus held — some wan-cheeked scribe, perchance,
That in a mouldy tower by candle-light
Forgot his hunger in his madrigals.
Outside was winter ; in its winding-sheet
The frozen Year lay. Silent was the room,
Save when the wind against the casement pressed
Or a page rustled, turned impatiently.
Or when along the still damp apple-wood
A little flame ran that chirj)ed like a bird —
Some wren's ghost haunting the familiar bough.

With parted lips, in which less color lived
Than paints the pale tea-rose, she leaned and read.
From time to time her fingers unawares
Closed on the palm ; and oft upon her cheek
The pallor died, and left such transient glow
As might from some rich chapel window fall
On a girl's cheek at prayer. So moved her soul,
FrofQ this dull age unshackled and divorced.
In far moon-haunted gardens of romance.
But once the wind that swept the palsied oaks,
As if new-pierced with sorrow, came and moaned
Close by the casement ; then she raised her eyes.

* See ScRiBNER's Magazine for January, 188S.

84 WHITE EDITH.

The light of dreams still fringed them while she spoke
"I pray you tell me, does this book say true?
Is it so line a thing to be a queen ? "

As if a spell of incantation dwelt
In those soft syllables, before me stood,
Colored like life, the phantasm of a maid
Who in the childhood of this wrinkled world
Was crowned by error, or through dark intent
Made queen, and for the durance of one day
The royal diadem and ermine wore.
In strange sort wore — for this queen fed the starved,
The naked clothed, threw open dungeon doors ;
Could to no story list of suffering
But the full tear was lovely on her lash ;
Taught Grief to smile, and black Despair to hope ;
Upon her stainless bosom pillowed Sin
Repentant at her feet — like Him of old ;
Made even the kerns and wild-men of the fells,
Drawn thither sniffing pillage in the air.
Gentler than doves by some unknown white art,
And saying to herself, '^ So, I am Queen ! "
With lip all tremulous, reached out her hand
To the crowd's kiss. What joy to ease the hurt
Of bruised hearts ! As in a trance she walked
That live-long day. Then night came, and the stars,
And blissful sleep. But ere the birds were called
By bluebell chimes (unheard of mortal ear)
To matins in their branch-hung priories —
Ere yet the dawn its gleaming edge lay bare
Like to the burnished axe's subtle edge.
She, from her sleep's caresses roughly torn.
The meek eyes blinking in the torches' glare,
Upon a scaffold for her glory paid
The roses on her cheek. For it befell
That from the Northland there was come a prince,
With a great clash of shields and trailing spears
Through the black portals of the breathless night,
To claim the sceptre. He no less would take
Than those same roses for his usury.
What less, in faith ! The throne was rightly his
Of that sea-girdled isle : so to the block
Forthwith the ringlets and the slender throat.
A touch of steel, a sudden darkness, then
Blue Heaven and all the hymning angel-choir !
No tears for her — keep tears for those who live
To mate with sin and shame, and have remorse
At last to light them to unhallowed earth.
Hers no such low-hung fortunes. Once to stand

IVHITE EDITH, 35

At her soul's height in that celestial air,
With no hoarse raven croaking in one's ear
The coming doom, and then to have life's rose
Struck swiftly from the cheek, and thus escape
Love's death, black treason, friend's ingratitude,
The pang of separation, chill of age,
The grief that in an empty cradle lies,
And all the un spoke sorrow women know —
That were, in truth, to have a happy reign !
Has thine been happier. Sovereign of the Sea,
In that long-mateless pilgrimage to death?
Or thine, whose beauty like a star illumed
Awhile the dark and angry sky of France,
Thy kingdom shrunken to two exiled graves?
Sweet old-world maid, a gentler fate was yours !
Would he had wed your story to his verse
Who from the misty land of legend brought
Helen of Troy to gladden English eyes.
There's many a queen that lived her grandeur out,
Gray-haired and broken, might have envied you,
Your Majesty, that reigned a single day !

All this, between two heart-beats, as it were.
Flashed through my mind, so lightning-like is thought.
With lifted eyes expectant, there she sat
Whose words had sent my fancy over-seas.
Her lip still trembling with its own soft speech.
As for a moment trembles the curved spray
Whence some winged melody has taken flight.
How every circumstance of time and place
Upon the glass of memory lives again ! —
The bleak New England road ; the level boughs
Like bars of iron across the setting sun ;
The gray ribbed clouds piled up against the West ;
The windows splashed with frost ; the fire-lit room.
And in the antique chair that slight girl-shape.
The auburn braid about the saintly brows
Making a nimbus, and she white as snow !

" Dear Heart," I said, " the humblest place is best

For gentle souls — the throne's foot, not the throne.

The storms that smite the dizzy solitudes

Where monarchs sit — most lonely folk are they ! —

Oft leave the vale unscathed ; there dwells content,

If so content have habitation here.

Never have I in annals read or rhyme

Of queen save one that found not at the end

The cup too bitter ; never queen save one.

36 IVHITE EDITH.

And she — her empire lasted but a day !

Yet that brief breath of time did she so fill

With mercy, love, and holiest charity,

As more rich made it than long drawn-out years

Of such weed-life as drinks the lavish sun

And rots unflower'd." "Straight tell me of that queen

Cried Edith : " Brunhild, in my legend here,

Is lovely — was that other still more fair?

And had she not a Siegfried at the court

To steal her talisman ? — that Siegfried did.

Yet Kriemhild wed him. Was your queen not loved ?

Tell me it all ! " With chin upon her palm

She listened, ever in her ardent eyes

The sapphire deepening as I told the tale

Of that girl-empress in the dawn of Time —

A flower that on the vermeil brink of May

Died, with its folded whiteness for a shroud ;

A strain of music that, ere it w^as mixed

With baser voices, floated up to heaven !

Without was silence, for the wind was spent
That all the day had pleaded at the door.
Against the rosy sunset the gaunt oaks
Stood black and motionless ; among the boughs
The sad wind slumbered. Silent was the room.
Save when from out the crumbling apple l^ranch
Came the wren's twitter, faint, and fainter now,
Like a bird's note far heard in w^oodlands dim.
No word was spoken. Presently a hand
Stole into mine, and rested there, inert.
Like some new-gathered snowy hyacinth.
So white and cold and delicate it was.
I know not what dark shadow crossed my heart,
What vague presentiment, but as I stooped
To lift the fragile fingers to my lip,
I saw it through a mist of strangest tears —
The thin white hand invisible Death had touched !

THE ART OF RAVENNA.

By E. H. and E. W, Blashfield.

The traveller wlio to-day goes from
Home to Florence by rail, througli the
noble mountains of Tuscany and Um-
bria, bridges in a seven-liours' journey a
gap of ten centuries in the history of
art. He leaves behind him the temples
and arches, the Vatican's marble popu-
lation of half-nude gods and heroes ; he
comes to mediaeval towers, to saints and
virgins, and the frescoed folk of the four-
teenth century swathed in their heavy
Vol. XIL— 5

garments. The abrupt transition be-
wilders him, the sudden change in his
artistic surroundings is almost inexplic-
able. How did it come to pass ? The
gods and athletes did not all die at once,
nor the saints spring fully armed with
attribute and symbol from the brain of
Giotto ; surely there was some inter-
mediate period of anticipation and rec-
ollection when these incongruous ele-
ments were slowly fused together, and

38

THE ART OP KAFENNA.

z^-

the Arts, who illus-
trates for all time
the name of her
asylum.

In those days
Havenna was still
a port; but the
sea, which made
her greatness, has
by receding de-
stroyed her politi-
cal importance,
thus leaving her
to hold the more
surely, in her slow
decay, the build-
ings of a time
which she alone
among cities fully
represents — a time
when pictorial
Christian art had
just emerged from
her prenatal con-
dition of the cata-
combs into the
light of imperial
favor, and the ar-
chitecture of the
Roman was begin-
ning to be that of
the Christian.
Thus Ravenna be-
came the splendid
reliquary which
preserved the dry
bones of antique
art, to be quick-
ened by the breath
of the Renaissance.
A unique link in
the chain, she is
the anomaly of
Italian towns — a
when some dim projection of the medi- city of antitheses ; of pure water in the

A Ravennese Gentleman.
(Interior of San Apoilinare Nuovo.)

seval saint stood side by side with a fast-
fading memory of the antique demi-god.
To find the vanished centuries that
wrought this transformation, one must
ride northeast for seven hours more to
the Adriatic marshes.

midst of poisonous marshes, of impreg-
nable refuge among treacherous mo-
rasses.

Saved and lifted to high fortune by
her submerged territory, when all Italy
elsewhere sunk under the waves of bar-

Fourteen hundred years ago, when It- barian invasion ; guarded, not besieged.

aly flamed behind the horsemen of Al-
aric, the Emperor Honorius fled to the
strongest city in the land, Ravenna ;
and with his corrupt and motley court
went one noble fugitive, the genius of

by the pestilence which walked without
her walls, she is antithetical even in su-
perficial appearance, and until our own
times. Without are mean streets and
rough facades ; within, color and splen-

THE ART OF RAVENNA.

39

dor ; advanced radicalism to-day has
usurped the stroiighokl of Greek hier-
archy ; upon her friezes are the gaunt
and wasted faces of the Byzantine wom-
en, and in her thoroughfares are the
most beautiful of Italian girls.

Ravenna is the end of the old, the be-
ginning of the new. " Toward Eome all
ancient history tends, from Rome all

modern history springs ; " l)ut here for a
brief moment the broad current of his-
tory was dammed up into this little sjjace,
then ebbing away, even as the Adriatic
has done, it left Ravenna full of strange,
stranded monuments of a time that has
elsewhere been swept out upon the tide
into the ocean of oblivion. Among the
graves of the buried past, the sarcoph-

T.f.V

The Tribune of the Princesses in St. Vitalius.

40

THE ART or RAVENNA.

agi of exarcliR, ra2')ta,iiis, and priests,
which lie scattered in the churches and
the streets — waifs from the shipwreck
of Italy when Alaric burst uj)on her —

are the sepulchres and effigies of three
rulers who ej^itomize the art -history
of the city : of Galla Placidia, the con-
quered Roman princess, who subjugated
in her turn and married her captor, and
preserved to Ravenna what remained
of old-time splendor ; of Theodoric the
Ostrogoth, who infused the vigor of the
north into worn-out forms ; of Justin-
ian the Emperor, who dowered the city

Vvith the art heritage of the Greek. The
mausoleum of Placidia and the Baptis-
tery represent the first of the three
groups into which the buildings of the
city fall ; those remains of the Tlieodo-
sian epoch being followed by the works
of the Ostrogothic period, San Apolli-
nare Nuovo and the tomb of Theodoric ;
while the last group, that of Justinian,
boasts San Vitale and " St. Apollinaris
in the Fleet." The little mausoleum of
Placidia may claim a first visit. There,
for eleven hundred j^ears, her body sat
upright in jewelled cerements in her
sarcophagus, and was the very type of
her city's mission. For in Ravenna an-
tique art grew rigid, swathed away in
the embalming-cloths of conventionality,
gilded and stiffened, mummied within
the stone-walls till eight centuries hav-
ing rolled by the spirit of antiquity arose
again and the chrysalis was forgotten,
even as Galla's actual body crumbled
in fire and ashes at a moment when
the Renaissance had attained its full
strength. '^" The little church is under
the invocation of Saints Nazarius and
Celsus, is only forty-six feet long by
forty broad, and upon the outside might
be taken for some house in which the
workmen were wont to lay away their
tools at night. Inside it is as if one
had crept into the heart of a sapphire.
Blue — the blue that glistens jewel-like
on the peacock's neck — is the prevailing
color, with great gold disks and drink-
ing stags and dull red borderings. Here
one may put on the robe of a catechumen
and be of a church which, tiny as is the
building, stands erect at its full height,
omnipotent over conquerors and con-
quered, among pagans to be dispersed
and barbarians to be converted.

Upon its vaults and friezes, as upon
the leaves of a missal, Christianity has
written in jewelled letters for all men to
read, and in the midst of a tottering
world this new handwriting on the wall
appeared to the Belshazzar of the Roman
decadence. To read it to-day some of

* Eleven cer-turies Galla sat in state, diademed and
jewelled, in the darkness ; but in 157T some children
peering throngh an aperture in her sarcophafifus, wshing
to see better, thrust in a lighted brand, and she was
burned — robes, cjT)ress-wood chair, and all — a strangely
grotesque ending of this grim memorial ; for, ^vith all its
beauty, her little church stands as a monument to three
invasions, and to the beginning of such slaughter, mis-
ery, and depopulation as the world has not seen before
or since.

=s: H

't^i

^ ^' ^^> '

42

THE AKT OF RAVENNA.

the historical conditions of the time
must be studied. The earlier Caesars
and the founders of the Church had alike
been in their <^raves for nearly four cen-
turies ; but the Eoman empire had de-
cayed and fallen, while the persecuted
Church of Christ had arisen, though with
a strangely altered spirit, to a mighty
stature.

These mosaic pictures expressed the
momentous changes of their time, and
a new art was announced in their forms
and colors. Of the epoch which, reach-
ing from about 400 a.d. to 565, includes
the buildings of Galla, Theodoric, and
Justinian, Byzantium was the real the-
atre, Ravenna only an echo, but an echo
which has come to us clear and distinct,
while the voice of the parent city has
been almost lost in the tumult of the
crusades and of the Turkish conquest.
The age was one of disintegration, yet
one in which particles were beginning to
crystallize into new and lasting shapes ;
the blood of the empire, poisoned by
luxury and tyranny, w^as drained by the
sword of the sectary within, of the bar-
barian without. Theologians massacred
each other for the difference of a letter
in the alphabet ; the factions of the
chariot races slew one another in the
hippodrome and divided the whole city
into two camps, while the Goth waited
uj^on the frontier to destroy the survi-
vors. Thousands of men, smitten with
a strange madness, left family and coun-
try and fled to the desert, to starve and
pray and see visions, far from all human
ties and duties.

It was an age of saints and school-
men, of petty emperors and great gen-
erals. Ravenna, and Ravenna alone, has
preserved it for us in the traces of that
strange civilization of Constantino^^le
which lingered on for a thousand years
till the sword of the Moslem gave the
death-blow to what had been so long in
dying. Rome w^as no more, and with
the founding of Constantinople a new
order of things began. The city which
rose upon the Bosj^horus inherited the
vices but not the virtues of paganism ;
the military spirit, the religious tolera-
tion, the perfect administration of an-
tique Rome disappeared. Outside, the
barbarian was more frequently bribed
than driven from the frontier, alternately

betrayed and defended l)y venal gener-
als. The city, unmindful of its danger,
abandoned itself to its passion for brawl-
ing and chattering. The strife of the ri-
val chariot factions — the greens and the
blues — filled the streets with bloody
tumult and shook the throne' itself.
Only second in popular interest were
the religious dissensions, and all classes,
from the Emperor to the fisherman,
joined in these struggles. The subtle
Greek intellect — ever given to word-
spinning — seized upon the dogmas of
the new faith, tore them to shreds, pieced
them together again, broidered them
over with new devices, and, like Penel-
02)e of old, spent days and nights in
weaving and ravelling the tangled web
of theolog3^ The Sophists rose to life
again in the heresiarchs and churchmen,
and there came no new Socrates to si-
lence them. Disputation grew deadly.
What had been mere difference of opin-
ion with those who w^ere but aeekers
after truth, became matter of life and
death with those who arrogantly claimed
to h.2iwe found the truth.

The annals of the time are filled Avith
these fierce outbursts of sectarian ha-
tred, mad riots, oecumenical councils
packed with armed ruffians, and savage
Nitrian monks, where, after the inevita-
ble violence and bloodshed, a heavy
bribe to the Emperor's cook or chief
eunuch settled the doctrinal point at
issue. For the Emperor was grand in-
quisitor in matters of faith, the Empress
not inactive, and more than once, to
quote the words of Cyril, " the holy Vir-
gin of the court of heaven found an ad-
vocate in the holy Virgin of the court
of Constantinople."

The citizen who had left far behind
him the days of the palestra and the
academy, now^ decked in curiously em-
broidered garments and loaded with
jewels passed his time in the circus, an
eager partisan of the greens or blues,
tarred on his favorite bishop in the
hotter strife of the synod, applauded
some popular preacher in the churches,
or, stripped of his adornments, walked
barefoot in penitential procession.

The schools of philosophy were closed,
and human reason, lulled to sleep by
fonnuJce, dreamed fitfully or muttered
incoherently in nightmare creed quar-

"Yesterday and to-day."

Altar frout of fifth century in San Francesco— still serving for the daily mass.
[Printed in " American Illustration of To-day," Vol. XI.]

u

THE ART OF RAl^ENNA.

rels. The Cliiircli was the great career Church used thciii, clothin<< the teach-
open to ambition, and liunian energy ing, as did her founder, in the garb of
rushed impetuously into the new chan- symbolism, a language that could be un-

'4 J \/

In the Quarter of the Fleet.

nel. The artists were now enlisted in
its service. Through its first centuries
of faith and charity Christian dogma
was so simple, its ideal so constantly
present in men's minds, that no palpable
image was needed to explain the one or
recall the other ; but in the later days
of dogmatic definition, wdien the Church-
men were tying up their faith in ortho-
dox packets, the artists were required
to label them with all the quaint figures
of ecclesiastical heraldry. "Pictures
are the books of the ignorant," said St.
Augustine, and to teach the ignorant the

derstood by the barbarian and the slave.
But in what material should these eter-
nal truths be expressed ? Painting and
sculpture w'ere pagan and aristocratic,
governed entirely by antique tradition ;
devils inhabited the statues of heathen
gods, and before the image of the Em-
peror many a Christian had gone to mar-
tyrdom. There remained a minor art
unpolluted by heathen w orship, used for
merely decorative purposes to ornament
a fountain, line a niche, or enliven a pave-
ment. This could be safely employed
without evoking comparisons in the

THE ART OF RAl^ENNA

45

minds of the less devout or more artistic worshii^iocrs. Just as a converted
heathen slave might rise from one church dignity to another, until he ascended
the bishox^'s throne, so mosaic — at first, a cheerful household decoration — when
Christianized, became solenm — hieratic, exchanged its dress of simple colors for
a gorgeous robe of purple and gold, climbed to church-wall and dome, and
there set forth the mysteries of the faith and the glories of heaven. Yet this new
art was pagan in form and feeling ; as the fathers of the Church imitated the
language of Plato and Seneca, so the Christian artist borrowed the imagery of
jDaganism for the service of his faith. It was the spirit
of antiquity that animated him ; its serenity, its cheer-
ful accej^tance of inevitable law, its keen sense of the
beauty of life were strong wdthin him as he cai^ved the
sarcophagus or decorated the apse.

There w^ere no images of suffering or punishment,
no crucifixion, no last judgment, not even a martyrdom,
though the young Church was still ruddy from her
baptism of Ijlood. When later the art that had its
humble origin in the night of the catacombs flourished
in an imj^erial city on the walls of mighty basilicas its
spirit w^as unchanged. The conversion of Rome had
left it unconverted. Greek example, Greek modera-
tion still guided the artist's hand, for the true artist
is ever half a pagan. So, fraught with a new meaning,
the imagery of paganism found ready welcome within
the Church. Here w^e still see the vintage trodden
out by loves, only now it is the vintage of the Lord ;
the winged funeral genii become guardian angels of

Ambassadors to Caesar.

the Christian's tomb ; the crown of the Emperor the re-
ward of the blessed ; the palm of the victorious athlete the
martyr's emblem. The goddesses yield their attributes ;
the dove becomes the visible sign of the Holy Spirit ;
Juno's peacock the symbol of immortalit}- ; Diana's stag
the hart of the Psalmist ; and as in these same mosaics the
Magi bring gifts to the Mother of God, so each dethroned goddess pays tribute to
the new Queen of Heaven. Diana's crescent, Minerva's serpent, lie beneath her
feet ; Cybele gives the chair of state, Circe the aureole, Juno the matron's veil and

4G

THE ART OF RAl^ENNA.

crown, Flora her roses and lilies, and Isis
places the Divine Child in Mary's arms.
Here even are the heroes of Greek myth,
chosen for some likeness to the founder
of Christianity : Mercury leading the
spirits of the departed ; Orpheus, who
descended into hell to save a soul, and
who draws all men to him by the power
of music ; Hercules, wdio came into the
world to punish the wicked, to deliver
the oppressed, to do the tasks and bear
the burdens of others. In this Chris-
tianized Pantheon the only purely new
symbols are the fish, the monogram of
Christ, the cross, the ship struggling
through the waves, and the lamb. The

Tne Crypt of San Francesco.

good shepherd — loveliest figure of all —
was a precious heritage from Greece.

When later historic scenes were in-
troduced the same antique spirit char-
acterized them. The artist's childhood

might have thrilled at his grandfather's
tal(!S of the l)lood and martyrdom of
Diocletian's time ; his eyes might have
looked with pride at the mr.rks of tor-
ture for the faith existent upon the
limbs of some old house-servant, yet
when he made his cartoon for the mosaic
he put upon it Daniel among the lions,
the sacrifice of Isaac, the children un-
harmed amid the flames, but no more
intemperate or realistic allusion to the
persecutions which filled the records of
the Church.

Tradition was strong within him, and
the artist of Eavenna had not lost its
dignity and self-restraint. Outside the
mad controversialists
might riot — Donatist
ruffians clubbing to
death in default of the
steel their creed for-
bade them — sticks and
stones a-flying ; but in-
side the arches of the
Baptistery, at his quiet
work, the artist in-
stinctively resisted the
bigotry and intoler-
ance of his ej^och.
Only one ominous fig-
ure in the tomb of
Placid ia shows the
schisms that were di-
viding the Church —
the figure of the Sav-
iour burning the her-
etical books. By an
unconscious irony it is
placed directly oj)po-
site the benign image
of the Good Shepherd,
and the two conflict-
ing aspects of Chris-
tianity— its bitter in-
tolerance and its loving-
charity — confront each
other in this narrow-
space. The sun of
Greek art was setting,
but it still shone upon
Ravenna. The mosaic-
ist of San Apollinare
saw about him in the streets the stiff-
robed Byzantines ; but he had seen, too,
the pagan temples with their friezes and
tympana, and their figures clad in sim-
ple sweeping draperies, so that his long

THE ART OF RAVENNA.

47

Rain-bound Under the Porch of St. Vitaline.

procession of virgins and martyrs moved
in measured harmonies like tlie eplieboi
and caiiepliorse of the Parthenon. The
grand white -robed angels, the brown-
locked, beardless Christ of the apse were
calm and stately, line and mass were still
noble ; beauty had passed awa}^ but an-
tique dignity had survived the sack of
Bome, and in a fallen Greece the mem-
ory of the Zeus at Olympia had not yet
quite faded.

But it was onlv a tradition, not a liv-
ing reality. Tradition taught the artist
a certain grandeur of composition, a
conventional position of head and hands,
a good treatment of the general lines of
the drapery ; but it could do no more
for him. There was no body under the
drapery, no muscles to move the head
or raise the hands. The face was a weak-
ened copy of the antique tyj^e, the cra-
nium shrunken and elongated ; the great

DRAWN By E. H, BLASHFIELD.

A Votive Offering — to St. Vitalius.
Costume of Byzantine Empress of sixth century.

ENGRAVED BY H. WOLF.

THE ART OF RAl^ENNA.

49

hollow eyes and pinched lips had no life
in them. They could not move. What
Medusa of decadence had stricken these
people to stone? what had so changed
the type, so utterly transformed the
ideal of the artist ? Where were the ath-
letes, the gods, the goddesses, he loved
so well, and how came these hollow-eyed
wraiths in their place? Was it inca-
pacity of the artist or degeneracy of the
models ? It was both, as the history and
conditions of Bj^zantium tell us. The
Greek of Pericles's day, when he carved
a god or an athlete, went to the gymna-
sium or palestra and found his model in
the youths who flashed by in the foot-
race ; watched the evenly developed
muscles strain and rise and fall in the
tug of the wrestling bout ; talked with
the panting ephebos as he scraped the
dusty oil from the limbs that were to be
translated into marble.

He found the long folds of his drap-
eries in the sweep of the procession, his
faun or Bacchante in the rhythmical
changes of the choragic dance, and his
fellow-citizens were his best models ;
his work was patriotic, ethical ; art was
yet in the service of religion — a grate-
ful service, for the gods of that religion
were idealized and deified mortals. In
superior strength and beauty was their
godhood made manifest, and these es-
sential attributes could be expressed in
marble. Thus to the Greek the statue of
his god was at once ethical and aesthetic.
Ethical — for the Hermes of the palaestra
spoke eloquently to the Greek youth :
Exercise, be temperate, be patient, give
your country a good soldier. Esthetic
— for the Greek had a love for the
beauty of the human body unique in
the history of art, and as beauty was to
him the visible expression of the good,
so a well-developed body was the high-
est form of beauty. Compare these con-
ditions with those of Byzantium in the
sixth -century. Of the Byzantine ar-
tist was required something which can-
not be expressed by form or color.
A new rehgion had arisen, which, far
from honoring the body, regarded it
as an instrument of shame and deg-
radation, its corporal instincts as temp-
tations of the devil, its strength and
beauty as a snare ; the flesh was to
be mortified by fasting and penance.
Vol. XII.— 6

To the fathers of the Church it was a
sin to frequent the baths or throw the
discus ; better in unwashed sanctity to
throw stones at heretic Arians. Greek
temperance, Roman self-control had
yielded to the fanaticism which filled the
desert with many a Laura, emptying the
camp and the gymnasium. The world
was changed, the hardy legionary had
become the gilded soldier of Honorius's
palace or the undisciplined Gothic mer-
cenary— servant to-day, master to-mor-
row ; the calm athlete, with Umbs bronzed
in the healthful sun of the palsestra, was
replaced by the macerated ascetic, black-
ened and burned in the scorching African
desert, and the tranquil beauty of the
Greek statue gave way to the self-tor-
turing genuflections of Stylites ujDon his
pillar. The body was to be reduced till
it became a semi-transparent envelope
for the soul, a slender bond to hold the
aspiring spirit to earth, and the plastic
arts soon felt the influence of this as-
ceticism. The artists were required to
give tangible form to the new ideal.
To this task they were inadequate ; ex-
pression, dramatic movement, strong
personality they could not achieve ; they
could only diminish and attenuate. The
body had to be covered, and they soon
forgot how the members of this covered
body were put together.

Costume, too, had become stifi* and
formal. Instead of the clinging draperies
of antiquity, that showed the muscles
under their folds, the Byzantines loaded
themselves with heavy robes of gold
embroidery, or when they wore thin tis-
sues covered them with whole Bible
stories in needlework that falsified all
natural lines. The simple mantle shrank
to a cape or scarf, clumsy and stifl" with
jewels, and the swathed body became a
mere prop for a mass of brocade and
gems.

Under such conditions the artists soon
forgot the lessons of the past ; each new
figure was but a weakened copy of some
forerunner's copy, and, as at Mount
Athos or in modern Russia, art-work was
taught by certain well-known and un-
changeable formulae. But while art be-
came degraded in fonn it grew glorious
in color. This color was the gift of the
East to the western world ; oriental sub-
tlety filled the intellectual atmosphere^

50

THE ART OF RAVENNA,

oriental color-feeling dominated the aes-
thetic sense, and the sun of Greek art,
which rose white and clear in the East,
set in the purple and crimson that live
upon the walls of Ravenna.

After Galla's mausoleum and the Bap-
tistery, also of the Theodosian epoch,
and which was repaired as early as 451
A.D., in the history of Ravenna we follow
the fortunes of those Goths who were
the eastern brothers of Placidia's Ataulf,
and come to San Apollinare. The ba-
silica lifts its ugly front of blackened
brick, flanked by a simple round tower,
and giving no hint of its interior
beauty. Within it is difficult to con-
ceive of anything more delightful to
the eye than its gold scroll-work upon
blue, its dull red upon gold. There
are in the world few richer decorations
than the frieze of saints and virgins
moving across the solemn color of the
church. It is a three-aisled, round-
arched basilica, the friezes filling mag-
nificently the place which developed in-
to the triforium in later churches, while
panels of mosaic cover the walls between
the windows of the clear-story. *'New
St. ApoUinaris " it is called. It was new
nearly fourteen hundred years ago, and,
as it rose, course upon course, above the
house-tops, it saw in the distance the
masts of the galleys in the port of Clas-
sis, where later the bell-tower of the
other church built to the same saint took
their place.

When Theodoric the heretic raised
this golden house for his Arian bishops,
Martin — not ApoUinaris — received the
dedication, and in violet tunic still heads
the procession of the saints. It was four
hundred years later that fear of the Sar-
acen caused the removal of the patron's
bones from the Classis, and gave a new
name to the church. In the earlier times,
when its flooring was being laid, the
sound of the purple shoes of the Em-
perors of the West had hardly died away
from the pavement of Ravenna, and after
the Ostrogoths, when they were to come
again on the feet of the exarchs of that
Justinian and Theodora, who still blaze
upon the walls of San Vitale. A little
later and the floor of our basilica
heard a very different tread, and rang to
the mailed heels of Charlemagne. Seiz-
ing both the shadow and the substance

the great Charles took the crown and the
prestige at Rome, the columns and the
bass-reliefs at Ravenna ; as guarded by
Frankish soldiers wain after wain laden
vdth the spoils of Theodoric's palace,
the white oxen of Emilia straining at
the yoke, creaked away toward Ingel-
heim and Aix-la-Chapelle. Franks and
even Lombards were, however, still in
the future when the Greek workmen on
their scaffolding above the capitals
stood before the growing frieze, labo-
riously building with little cubes of gold
and color this " Palatium " of Theo-
doric, this " Classis " with its towers
and ships, shaping the magi and add-
ing one virgin after another tiU the
whole tale of twenty-two stood proces-
sional and complete, facing the saints
and patriarchs of the other side. He
was a real artist this Greek, for he was
of a real art epoch. When he worked
upon the friezes, somewhere about the
year 560, the founder of the church,
Theodoric, had been long laid away
under the giant monolith which covers
his tomb, and his land had passed into
the hand of the B^'zantine Justinian, in
whose city of Constantinople a true art-
growth was stirring. There, in the new
capital of the world, ideas as new as the
city were springing up, and the nation
was in that state of agitation and fer-
ment at all times productive of great re-
sults for good or evil.

A double evolution was being accom-
plished. From the theological counter-
currents, the ideas of bishops — Greek,
Latin, and African— the evolution of dog-
ma ; from the art experience of East and
West — the arcades of Spalato and of Syr-
ia and the color-feeling of the oriental —
the evolution of a new architecture. The
Greek had become master again in art.
For five hundred years he had served
the Roman, and now in throwing away
his livery of sei-vice he threw away, too,
all that false ornament which the Roman
had borrowed from him, and falsified in
the borrowing. The Greek was master
once more and he determined that his
architectural ornament should be what
it had always been in his time of free-
dom— structural. Not that he meant
to raise temples and propylsea ; he served
a new God, and the new service had new
needs, for which the vault of the Roman

THE ART OF RAI^ENNA,

51

was admirably fitting. The arch, there-
fore, he kept, and made the ruling prin-
ciple. But the heavy cornices, which
once under a roof protected nothing
from a rain which did not fall ; the super-
imposed orders, with their pediments
and colonnettes, stuck unmeaningly up-
on structural masonry he rejected un-
hesitatingly, substituting surfaces with
but slight projections, lightly though
richly carved, where the columns were
true weight-bearers, and there were no
useless members. In color, too, he was
an innovator.

The ancient Greek, simple in his taste
and restricted by comparative poverty,
used delicately painted stuccoes upon his
buildings. The wealthy Roman, quar-
rying from the whole known world,
replaced them with costly marbles,
which he collected from the ends of the
earth. The polished columns and in-
crusted slabs would admit of no less
lustrous fellowship in decoration ; by
the side of their splendid depth of tone
stucco and painting in fresco looked
poor and cheap. It was necessary to
find a wall-covering equally rich and
powerful in which the figures of saints,
angels, and emperors, and the composi-
tions from Bible history could be rep-
resented. The chemistry of the earth
had given the marbles, with their end-
less variety. The Greek set to work
the chemistry of the laboratory. With
antimony, copper, tin, etc., he made slabs
of glass almost as various as the marbles ;
then cutting them into little cubes he
produced with them the richest artificial
color in the world.

Our Greek artist had thus risen supe-
rior to the decadent citizens about him ;
perhaps he had stood in the crowd at
the completion of Saint Sophia, and had
heard Justinian exclaim, " Solomon, I
have outdone thee." Indeed, in that
great church, with its wide reposeful
curves and spaces, its cupola, its simple
round arches springing directly from
the capitals, its long rows of polished
columns, he had given the typical ex-
ample of an architecture which was to
deeply influence the most solemn church
interior in Italy — that of Saint Mark's
of Venice — and to impress the German
feeling so strongly as to give its own
name of Byzantine to many a Rhenish

church for many a century to come.
So it is not enough to accredit Justinian
with his great code and pandects, or
even with the exploits of those prac-
tically pious smuggler missionaries, the
good old gentlemen who came journey-
ing home from the far East with silk-
worms packed in their walking-sticks.
Besides the lawyer and manufacturer we
recognized in him the art patron of the
black-browed, close-curled artisan who
stood upon the scaffold of this church.
The patron of him, and of his many-
sided brethren who busied themselves in
the provision of art for all men : making
costumes. Christian in their swathing
of the body from head to foot, Greek in
the transparency of their many-wrinkled
tissue ; making sculpture, which western
monks borrowed long after they had
become architects and builders for them-
selves ; providing eight centuries of
Madonnas painted by receipt till Giotto
tore up the prescription and made one
for himself. Ravenna's was an age of
decadence, the end of the Roman empire ;
but it was also an age of beginnings of
art propaganda, and the Greek artisan
was the first of a series of proselytizers
extending to Manuel Chrysoloras in the
fifteenth century. San Vitale, founded
526, consecrated in 547, and supposed
to be a derivation from the golden Tem-
ple of Antioch, built by Constantine, is
a typically Byzantine building and the
antecedent of the church which Charle-
magne raised at Aix-la-Chapelle. To the
architect as builder it is interesting as
the first western domed church — the
dome raised by Greek workmen long
after Italy had forgotten the cunning
which curved the cupola of the Pantheon
and vaulted the baths of Caracalla. To
the architect as decorative artist, and to
all men, it is beautiful by reason of the
wonderful mosaics which cover its choir
from arch to pavement.

It is hard to say enough of their unique
color, which is not silvery and gray, like
that of modern schools of painting ; not
tender like the Umbrian, or warm and
golden like that of the great Venetians,
but deep, glowing, and solemn, like the
tone of a bell or the thunder of an or-
gan. There are the gold of Byzantium,
the purple of Caesar, the blues and greens
of the chariot factions. The walls glisten

52

THE AKT OF RAl^ENNA.

with a sheen like that on a peacock's
neck, or the wings of a moth butterfly —
with tawny red like the rind of a pome-
granate, the blue of the Persian tur-
quoise melting imperceptibly into green,
and orange glowing into red or darken-
ing into purple. Even the delicate col-
umns, coiffed with strange capitals, are
more like Indian ivory than marble. To
call it all an Aladdin's cave would be to
suggest the hard glitter of gems ; this is
rather a soft and solemn splendor. Still
the place shines with gold, and may
have suggested jewels to the imagina-
tions of northern conquerors. The
Norseman of Caesar's Varangian Guard,
as he looked into the royal mausoleum
in the old times, when against the
deep-toned mosaic Placidias's sarcopha-
gus still glittered with its covering of
silver plates, may well have thought
that here indeed was the " dwarfs' work,"
here the " dragon's treasure," here the
gnomes' cavern of Scandinavian tradi-
tion ; and the crusading minnesinger may
have echoed in his song of the Venus-
berg his memories of the rich vaulting
of St. Vitalius. In the discreet and skil-
ful use of gold and in the toning of large
masses these early mosaics far surpass
those of St. Mark's at Venice. Among
the latter, many of the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries make spots upon their
vast gold backgrounds, while even the
earlier ones lack the dignity of the ex-
amples at Ravenna. Gold predominates
there also, but in smaller masses than at
Venice, next comes dark blue, then a
green, neither warm nor cold, graduated
with a yellower green, a very beautiful
creamy white, dull red, and a fine pur-
plish brown follow in lesser quantities.
The curious blunting of all angles by
the little cubes, and the consequent lines
of reflected light emphasizing the archi-
tecture is a not altogether pleasing, but
noticeable and essential effect in mosaic
woA. It is not too much to say that
no decorative wall-covering can equal
mosaic. In the first place, it is prac-
tically imperishable ; Michael Angelo
affirmed that oil-painting was for women,
and only fresco for men ; but his master,
Ghirlandajo, said well that mosaic was
the true painting for eternity. The
frescoed people of Lippi and GozzoU
flake and drop from the walls ; the pan-

els of the cinque-cento crack, and the
tempera breaks away ; the canvases of
Giorgione and Tintoretto blacken and
moulder, but Justinian and Theodora,
upon the choir of San Vitale, shine as
brightly as if Belisarius were still afield,
and Varangers yet in harness guarding
the palace of Constantinople.

If you go up into the galleries you
wiU find the cubes not a whit less fresh
than those you buy now at Murano.
Again, this glass paste — opaque, semi-
opaque, and transparent — is equalled
in depth and richness by nothing ex-
cept the finest stained glass. Lastly, in
their bed of cement, made with pow-
dered travertine and linseed-oil, the little
cubes cannot be laid so that their faces
shall be upon a perfectly level plane ;
the result is the varied tonality pro-
duced by a thousand different degrees
of reflection, giving an indescribable
richness of surface ; while the actual
gradations are remarkable, masses which
from below seem smooth spots of color,
proving to be exquisite modulations
running through twenty or more shades
of green, or blue, or brown.* The main
body of San Vitale has been restored in
the true spirit of seventeenth-century
bungling, and the painted rose gar-
lands of the dome, a proof of how far
human beings can be unperceiving of
the fitting, moulder away in the damp-
ness from the water which now and then
rises stealthily upon the flooring of the
church, as if it would reflect in homage
the columns which, with their anchor-
carved capitals are spoils from some an-
tique temple of Neptune — foul water,
however, and befitting the stricken fort-
unes of the god. But the choir is splen-
did from top to pavement, not an inch un-
covered. With the instinct of true artists,
who knew that in mosaic work it was aU
or nothing, and that no ordinary pigment
could stand beside it, the}'^ have clothed
the whole in a glittering jewelled mail,
flowing over every jut and angle, the soft

* During our last visit to Ravenna Ave were fortunate
enough to climb to the very dome of the Baptistery, where
workmen were putting supporting-irons into loosened
portions of the mosaic. Seen close at hand, these mo-
saics were wonderf ill in their freedom of treatment. The
color was used almost as in a huge sketch painted with a
full brush, and was, in the flesh tones, suggestive of the
best Pompeian fresco work. In the great pictures of
Theodora and Justinian at San Vitale, which we also
examined on a scaffolding, and which are a century later,
the handling is more " serre," the colors deeper and more
solemn, but less atmospheric.

THE ART OF RAVENNA.

53

color of which is yet an impenetrable ar- Santa Maria in Portof uori, away out
mor, hard enough to utterly resist the among the swamps, raises its towers,
tooth of time, which has so gnawed the once a light-house to the Eoman ships,

/.i

Vittoria and Teresa,
Types of the women of Ravenna, to-day.

other portions of the church. On either
side of the high altar the reflected gold
of the vestments and groundwork glows
dully like smouldering embers ; indeed
it is the final smouldering of antique art,
from which a brand shall be snatched
for the rekindling. But this glorious
color ends by going to the head, like
strong wine, and provoking all sorts of
impossible analogies.

Outside Ravenna dykes stretch be-
tween fat rice-tields, where Sidonius's
frogs still croak in the stagnant water ;
Vol. XII. —7

still a Christopher to the devout peas-
ant, and three miles of the old Flamin-
ian way bring one to the church of St.
Apollinare in Classe — the last building
of the great age of Ravenna. Less well
preserved than its namesake of the city,
it nevertheless has splendid mosaics, is
big, solemn, utterly lonely, and cold
with the damp of twelve hundred win-
ters.

In the apse and upon the tribune are
saints, angels, and the faithful sheep of
the church ; and in the medallions

54

THE ART OF RAyENNA,

above the nave arches are the one hun-
dred and thirty archbishops of Ravenna,
a ghostly synod, still throning it over
dead Christian quarrels, and sole sur-
vivors of a busy port whose bits of
sculptured marble are found in every
cubic yard of the marsh mud. The
bishops look down upon huge sar-
cophagi, that seem to go processionally
about the church, and in the spring
upon the poisonous water which in-
vades the nave, and with the scummy
surface of its gilded pools appears to
mock the color of the mosaics. There
was none of the warm smell of incense
and of candle-smoke in the bare basil-
ica, and in spite of the sun that shone
still through upper windows to comfort
the grim bishops, all seemed so chill
and earthy that one was glad to get
away as the shadows climbed the yet

Quei Pretini " — " Those Priestlings."

ruddy tower, and the great, lonely
church began to cover its rough brick-

work with a cobwebby white robe of
fever mist.

After Justinian seven centuries of
oblivion followed for liavenna, when
the greatest name of the Italian mid-
dle ages, that of Dante, illustrated her
again. He died here in exile, and the
Piazza of San Francesco, where he
lies buried, epitomizes Ravenna — Greek,
mediaeval, and Republican. There, in
the pleasant sunlight under the Gothic
arches, are the sarcophagi of early
Christians, dispossessed now and ten-
anted by Ravennese lords of the Middle
Ages ; opposite is the accredited house
of Francesca da Rimini ; Lord Byron's
window is just beyond ; at one's right
is the tomb of Dante, and at one's left,
loaded with wreaths, a memorial tablet
to Mazzini — the Divine Comedy, Childe
Harold, and the epopee of modem
Italian indeiDendence !

J.

Could one ask for richer
suggestiveness of art and
history ?

Under the church of
San Francesco is a fine
crypt, the stairs descend
into deep green water,
and in the transparent in-
tervals of its scum-flaked
surface the columns are
seen going down into
what looks a home for
water - snakes and ugly
crawling things. Within
the church the paper
roses of to-day decorate
an altar of the fifth cen-
tury with its beardless,
Phoebus-like Christ, while
opposite are splendid
sarco}3hagi. These early
Christian sarcophagi of
Ravenna are a feature of
the city ; they stand in
the streets and in the
churches, and there are
many at San ApoUinare
in Classe with the mo-
s tives of the mosaics re-

peated upon them —
doves, stags, and lambs
all enlaced in a tangle of
vine and acanthus.
We made several visits to Ravenna,
and a pleasant web of modern interest

THE ART OF RAVENNA.

55

was interwoven with its antiquities,
thanks to Mariano. "We had not been
fifteen minutes in the city the last time
before Mariano constituted himself our
body-servant.

He was thirteen 3'ears old, an orphan,
a student in the life-class, a future sol-
dier, and a present lover, telling us that
he adored a young lad}^ in the mantua-
making business.

He knew every sacristan in town, and
the pretty girls who could be induced
to sit for their portraits ; never an old
capital or inscription was found in re-
pairing some church or house but he
heard of it at once and hurried us there.
Once in a church he was a good Catho-
lic, like every Italian, but not ultra-de-
vout. " Quel pretini " " those priest-
lings," he said with a grin, as the pretty
curly-haired acolytes filed up the aisle
at Saint Francis. Take him altogether,
with his republicanism, his dilettanteism,
and his infant gallantry, he was young-
Ravenna epitomized. He understood
very well the difference between antique,
early Christian, and cinque-cento, and
talked to us glibly of Francesca da Rim-
ini, Justinian, Byron,
and Anita Garibaldi
all at once. Anita is
the heroine of Ra-
venna. Ftying with . .^
her husband in 1849
from the Austrian
soldiery, she died of
exposure and fa-
tigue, and was bur-
ied in the pine wood.
The cabin where she
breathed her last is
religiously shown by
the people, and they
have erected a large
monument to her in
the city. The ap-
pearance of Raven-
nese streets is poor,
almost miserable.
There are a few Re-
naissance palaces, for Venice gave a sec-
ond season of prosperity to the town,
and it is still about the columns of

Saint Mark that the city life centres.
One of them was suggestive ; a stone
bishojD stood at the top, below sat a
workingman reading his paper, and
behind him, plastered upon the shaft,
were bill-^Dosters urging all to vote for
Cipriani, a candidate who had been in
the galleys for his political opinions.
" The Ravennese," said an Italian ac-
quaintance, are "un popolo cattivo,"
which we read to be " radical republi-
can." AVe sat often in the large but
dingy cafe by these columns, where Ma-
riano ordered two-cent cups of coffee,
with luxurious anticipativeness and con-
fidence in our solvency, repaying us
by much harmless gossip and by point-
ing out the handsomest woman in the
city.

This was not an easy selection to make
either, for in Ravenna we saw more lovely
women than anywhere else in Italy ; not
occasional beauties as in other towns.
They seemed to go about in threes and
fours, all handsome, of a noble, round-
chinned, straight-nosed type. Often and
again when some door of church or bap-
tistery was opened to us, a lovely dark
head showed itself
against a halo of gold
mosaic, like a visible
Madonna Avaiting to
unlock for us Para-
dise itself, instead of
the gates of a Raven-
nese basilica. With
its art and its peo-
ple, its dead past
and its living mem-
ories, one would will-
ingly in the record
of the Italian cities
linger over the gor-
geously emblazoned
page which bears the
name of "Ravenna
I'Antica ; " but, how-
ever hurried, no lover
of art should forego
at least one visit to
its churches, which, like the agate and
onyx of the desert, rough-crusted and
ugly without, are within all glorious.

..r'

DRAWN BY W. L. METCALF.

That kind of an accident,' said he." — Page 69.

m::=^r'M^

THE WRECKER.

By Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Oshoiirne,

CHAPTER XXIV.

A HARD BARGAIN.

The ship which thus appeared before
the castaways had long " tramped " the
ocean, wandering from one port to an-
other as freights offered. She was two
years out from London, by the Cape of
Good Hope, India, and the Archipelago ;
and was now bound for San Francisco
in the hope of working homeward round
the Horn. Her captain was one Jacob
Trent. He had retired some five years
before to a suburban cottage, a patch of
cabbages, a gig, and the conduct of
what he called a Bank. The name ap-
pears to have been misleading. Bor-
rowers were accustomed to choose
works of art and utility in the front
shop ; loaves of sugar and bolts of
broadcloth were deposited in pledge ;
and it was a part of the manager's duty
to dash in his gig on Saturday evenings
from one small retailer's to another, and
to annex in each the bulk of the week's
takings. His was thus an active life,
and to a man of the type of a rat, filled
with recondite joys. An unexpected
loss, a law -suit, and the unintelligent
commentary of the judge upon the
bench, combined to disgust him of the

Copyright, 1891, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Vol. XII.— 8

business. I was so extraordinarily for-
tunate as to find, in an old newspaper,
a report of the proceedings in Lyall v.
The Cardiff Mutual Accommodation
Banking Go. " I confess I fail entirely
to understand the nature of the busi-
ness," the judge had remarked, while
Trent was being examined in chief ; a lit-
tle after, on fuller information — "They
call it a bank," he had opined, " but it
seems to me to be an unlicensed pawn-
shop " ; and he wound up with this ap-
palling allocution: "Mr. Trent, I must
put you on your guard ; you must be very
careful, or we shall see you here again."
In the inside of a week the captain dis-
posed of the bank, the cottage, and the
gig and horse ; and to sea again in the
Flying Scud, where he did well and gave
high satisfaction to his owners. But
the glory clung to him ; he was a plain
sailor-man, he said, but he could never
long allow you to forget that he had
been a banker.

His mate, Elias Goddedael, was a
huge viking of a man, six feet three and
of proportionate mass, strong, sober, in-
dustrious, musical, and sentimental. He
ran continually over into Swedish mel-
odies, chiefly in the minor. He had
paid nine dollars to hear Patti ; to hear
Nilsson, he had deserted a ship and two

and Lloyd Osbourne. All rights reserved.

58

THE WRECKER.

months' wages ; and he was ready at
any time to walk ten miles for a good
concert or seven to a reasonable play.
On board he had thi-ee treasures : a can-
ary bird, a concertina, and a blinding
copy of the works of Shakespeare. He
had a gift, peculiarly Scandinavian, of
making friends at sight : an elemental
innocence commended him ; he was
without fear, without reproach, and
without money or the hope of making it.

Holdorsen was second mate, and
berthed aft, but messed usually with the
hands.

Of one more of the crew, some image
lives. This was a foremast hand out of
the Clyde, of the name of Brown. A
small, dark, thickset creature, with
dog's eyes, of a disposition incompara-
bly mild and harmless, he knocked about
seas and cities, the uncomplaining whip-
top of one vice. "The drink is my
trouble, ye see," he said to Carthew,
shyly ; " and it's the more shame to me
because I'm come of very good people
at Bowling down the wa'er." The letter
that so much affected Nares, in case the
reader should remember it, was ad-
dressed to this man Brown.

Such was the ship that now carried
joy into the bosoms of the castaways.
After the fatigue and the bestial emo-
tions of their night of play, the ap-
proach of salvation shook them from all
self-control. Their hands trembled,
their eyes shone, they laughed and
shouted like children as they cleared
their camp ; and some one beginning to
whistle Marching Through Georgia^ the
remainder of the packing was con-
ducted, amidst a thousand interrup-
tions, to these martial strains. But the
strong head of Wicks was only partly
turned.

"Boys," he said, "easy all! We're
going aboard of a ship of which we
don't know nothing ; we've got a chest
of specie, and seeing the weight, we
can't turn to and deny it. Now, sup-
pose it was some kind of a Bully Hayes
business ! It's my opinion we'd better
be on hand with the pistols."

Every man of the party but Hemstead
had some kind of a revolver ; these were
accordingly loaded and disposed about
the persons of the castaways, and the
packing was resumed and finished in

the same rapturous spirit as it was
begun. The sun was not yet ten de-
grees above the eastern sea, but the
brig was already close in and hove to,
before they had launched the boat
and sped, shouting at the oars, toward
the passage.

It was blowing fresh outside with a
strong send of sea. The spi-ay flew in
the oarsmen's faces. They saw the
Union Jack blow abroad from the Fly-
ing Scud, the men clustered at the rail,
the cook in the galley door, the captain
on the quarter-deck with a pith helmet
and binoculars. And the whole familiar
business, the comfort, company, and
safety of a ship, heaving nearer at each
stroke, maddened them with joy.

Wicks was the first to catch the line
and swarm on board, helping hands
grabbing him as he came and hauling
him across the rail.

" Captain, sir, I suppose ? " he said,
turning to the hard old man in the pith
helmet.

" Captain Trent, sir," returned the
old gentleman.

"Well, I'm Captain Kirkup, and this
is the crew of the Sydney schooner
Currency Lass, dismasted at sea Janu-
ary 28th."

" Ay, ay," said Trent. " Well, you're
all right now. Lucky for you I saw
your signal. I didn't know I was so
near this beastly island, there must be
a drift to the south'ard here ; and when
I came on deck this morning at eight
bells, I thought it was a ship afire."

It had been agreed that, while Wicks
was to board the ship and do the civil,
the rest were to remain in the whale-
boat and see the treasure safe. A
tackle was passed down to them ; to
this they made fast the invaluable chest,
and gave the word to heave. But the
unexpected weight brought the hand at
the tackle to a stand ; two others ran to
tail on and help him ; and the thing
caught the eye of Trent.

" Vast heaving ! " he cried sharply ;
and then to Wicks : " What's that ? I
don't ever remember to have seen a
chest weigh like that."

" It's money," said Wicks.

"It's what? " cried Trent.

" Specie," said Wicks ; " saved from
the wreck."

THE WRECKER.

59

Trent looked at him sharply.
" Here, let go that chest again, Mr. God-
dedael," he commanded, " shove the
boat off, and stream her with a line
astern."

" Ay, ay, sir ! " from Goddedael.

" What the devil's wrong ? " asked
Wicks.

"Nothing, I daresay," returned Trent.
" But you'U allow it's a queer thing
when a boat turns up in mid-ocean with
half a ton of specie — and everybody
armed," he added, pointing to Wick's
pocket. " Your boat will lay comfort-
ably astern, while you come below and
make yourself satisfactory."

" O, if that's aU ! " said Wicks. '' My
log and papers are as right as the mail ;
nothing fishy about us." And he
hailed his friends in the boat, bidding
them have patience, and turned to follow
Captain Trent.

" This way. Captain Kirkup," said the
latter. "And don't blame a man for
too much caution ; no offence intended ;
and these China rivers shake a fellow's
nerve. All I want is just to see you're
what you say you are ; it's only my
duty, sir, and what you would do your-
self in the circumstances. I've not al-
waj^s been a ship-captain : I was a ban-
ker once, and I tell you that's the trade
to learn caution in. You have to keep
your weather - eye lifting Saturday
nights." And with a dry, business-like
cordiality, he produced a bottle of gin.

The captains pledged each other ; the
papers were overhauled ; the tale of
Topelius and the trade was told in ap-
preciative ears and cemented their ac-
quaintance. Trent's suspicions, thus
finally disposed of, were succeeded by a
fit of profound thought, during which
he sat lethargic and stem, looking at
and drumming on the table.

"Anything more ? " asked Wicks.

" What sort of a place is it inside ? "
inquired Trent, sudden as though Wicks
had touched a spring.

"It's a good enough lagoon — a few
horses' heads, but nothing to mention,"
answered Wicks.

"I've a good mind to go in," said
Trent. " I was new rigged in China ;
it's given very bad, and I'm getting
frightened for my sticks. We could set
it up as good as new in a day. For I

daresay your lot would turn to and
give us a hand ? "

"You see if we don't ! " said Wicks.

" So be it then," concluded Trent.
"A stitch in time saves nine."

They returned on deck ; Wicks cried
the news to the Currency Lasses ; the
foretopsail was filled again, and the brig
ran into the lagoon lively, the whale-
boat dancing in her wake, and came to
single anchor off Middle Brooks Island
before eight. She was boarded by the
castaways, breakfast was served, the
baggage slung on board and piled in
the waist, and all hands turned to upon
the rigging. All day the work contin-
ued, the two crews rivalling each other
in expense of strength. Dinner was
served on deck, the officers messing aft
under the slack of the spanker, the men
fraternizing forward. Trent appeared
in excellent spirits, served out grog to
all hands, opened a bottle of Cape wine
for the after -table, and obliged his
guests with many details of the life of a
financier in Cardiff. He had been forty
years at sea, had five times suffered
shipwreck, was once nine months the
prisoner of a pepper rajah, and had seen
service under fire in Chinese rivers ;
and the only thing he cared to talk of,
the only thing of which he was vain, or
with which he thought it possible to in-
terest a stranger, was his career as a
money-lender in the slums of a seaport
town.

The afternoon speU told cruelly on
the Currency Lasses. Already exhaust-
ed as they were with sleeplessness and
excitement, they did the last hours of
this violent employment on bare nerves ;
and when Trent was at last satisfied
with the condition of his rigging, ex-
pected eagerly the word to put to sea.
But the captain seemed in no hurry.
He went and walked by himself softly,
like a man in thought. Presently he
hailed Wicks.

"You're a kind of company, aint you,
Captain Kirkup ? " he inquired.

"Yes, we're all on board on lays," was
the reply.

"Well, then, you won't mind if I ask
the lot of you down to tea in the
cabin ? " asked Trent.

Wicks was amazed, but he naturally
ventured no remark ; and a little after,

60

THE 1VRECKEK,

the six Currency Lasses sat down with
Trent and Gocldedael to a spread of
marmalade, butter, toast, sardines,
tinned tongue, and steaming tea. The
food was not very good, and I have no
doubt Nares woiild have reviled it, but
it was manna to the castaways. God-
dedael waited on them with a kindness
far before courtesy, a kindness like that
of some old, honest countrywoman in
her farm. It was remembered after-
wards that Trent took little share in
these attentions, but sat much absorbed
in thought, and seemed to remember
and forget the presence of his guests al-
ternately.

Presently he addressed the China-
man,

" Clear out ! " said he, and watched
him till he had disappeared in the stair.
"Now, gentlemen," he went on, "I un-
derstand you're a joint-stock sort of
crew, and that's why I've had you all
down ; for there's a point I want made
clear. You see what sort of a ship this
is — a good ship, though I say it, and
you see what the rations are — good
enough for sailor-men."

There was a hurried murmur of ap-
proval, but curiosity for what was com-
ing next prevented an articulate reply.

" Well," continued Trent, making
bread pills and looking hard at the
middle of the table, "I'm glad of course
to be able to give you a passage to
'Frisco ; one sailor-man should help an-
other, that's my motto. But when you
want a thing in this world, you gener-
ally always have to pay for it." He
laughed a brief, joyless laugh. "I have
no idea of losing by my kindness."

" We have no idea you should, Cap-
tain," said Wicks.

" We are ready to pay anything in
reason," added Carthew.

At the words, Goddedael, who sat
next to him, touched him with his el-
bow, and the two mates exchanged a
significant look. The character of Cap-
tain Trent was given and taken in that
silent second.

" In reason ? " repeated the captain
of the brig. " I was waiting for that.
Reason's between two people, and
there's only one here. I'm the judge ;
I'm reason. If you want an advance
you have to pay for it " — he hastily cor-

rected himself — "If you want a passage
in my ship, you have to pay my price,"
he substituted. " That's business, I be-
lieve. I don't want you ; you want
me."

" Well, sir," said Carthew, " and what
is your price ? "

The captain made bread pills. " If I
were like you," he said, " when you got
hold of that merchant in the Gilberts,
I might surprise you. You had your
chance then ; seems to me it's mine
now. Turn about's fair play. What
kind of mercy did you have on that Gil-
bert merchant ? " he cried, with a sud-
den stridency. " Not that I blame you.
AH's fair in love and business," and he
laughed again, a httle frosty giggle.

" WeU, sir ? " said Carthew, gravely.

"Well, this ship's mine, I think?" he
asked sharply.

" Well, I'm that way of thinking me-
self," observed Mac.

"I say it's mine, sir!" reiterated
Trent, like a man trying to be angry.
" And I tell you all, if I was a driver
like what 3'^ou are, I would take the lot.
But there's two thousand pounds there
that don't belong to you, and I'm an
honest man. Give me the two thousand
that's yours, and I'll give you a passage
to the coast, and land every man- jack
of you in 'Frisco with fifteen pounds in
his pocket, and the captain here with
twenty-five."

Goddedael laid down his head on the
table like a man ashamed.

" You're joking," cried Wicks, purple
in the face.

" Am I ? " said Trent. " Please jonr-
selves. You're under no compulsion.
This ship's mine, but there's that
Brooks Island don't belong to me, and
you can lay there till you die for what I
care."

" It's more than your blooming brig's
worth ! " cried Wicks.

"It's my price anyway," returned
Trent.

" And do you mean to say you would
land us there to starve ? " cried Tommy.

Captain Trent laughed the third time.
" Starve ? I defy you to," said he. "I'U
sell you all the provisions you want at a
fair profit."

" I beg your pardon, sir," said Mac,
" but my case is by itself. I'm working

THE WRECKER.

Gl

me passage ; I got no share in that two
thousand pounds nor nothing in my
pockut ; and I'll be glad to know what
you have to say to me ? "

" I aint a hard man," said Trent.
"That shall make no difference. I'll
take you with the rest, only of course
you get no fifteen pound."

The impudence was so extreme and
startling, that all breathed deep, and
Goddedael raised up his face and looked
his superior sternly in the eye.

But Mac was more articulate. ^'And
you're what ye call a British sayman, I
suppose ? the sorrow in your guts ! " he
cried.

" One more such word, and I clap
you in irons ! " said Trent, rising glee-
fully at the face of opposition.

"And where would I be while you
were doin' ut ? " asked Mac. " After
you and your rigging too ! Ye ould
puggy, ye haven't the civility of a bug,
and I'll learn ye some."

His voice did not even rise as he
uttered the threat ; no man present,
Trent least of all, expected that which
followed. The Irishman's hand rose
suddenly from below the table, an open
clasp-knife balanced on the palm ; there
was a movement swift as conjuring ;
Trent started half to his feet, turning a
little as he rose so as to escape the table,
and the movement was his bane. The
missile struck him in the jugular ; he
fell forward, and his blood flowed among
the dishes on the cloth.

The suddenness of the attack and the
catastrophe, the instant change from
peace to war and from life to death,
held all men spellbound. Yet a moment
they sat about the table staring open-
mouthed upon the prostrate captain and
the flowing blood. The next, Godde-
dael had leaped to his feet, caught up
the stool on which he had been sitting,
and swung it high in air, a man
transfigured, roaring (as he stood) so
that men's ears were stunned with it.
There was no thought of battle in the
Currency Lasses ; none drew his wea-
pon ; all huddled helplessly from before
the face of the baresark Scandinavian.
His first blow sent Mac to ground with
a broken arm. His second dashed out
the brains of Hemstead. He turned
from one to another, menacing and

trumpeting like a wounded elephant, ex-
ulting in his rage. But there was no
counsel, no light of reason, in that ecs-
tasy of battle ; and he shied from the
pursuit of victory to hail fresh blows
upon the supine Hemstead, so that the
stool was shattered and the cabin rang
with their violence. The sight of that
post-mortem cruelty recalled Carthew
to the life of instinct, and his revolver
was in hand and he had aimed and fired
before he knew. The ear -bursting
sound of the report was accompanied by
a yell of pain ; the colossus paused,
swayed, tottered, and fell headlong on
the body of his victim.

In the instant silence that succeeded,
the sound of feet pounding on the deck
and in the companion leaped into hear-
ing ; and a face, that of the sailor Hol-
dorsen, appeared below the bulkheads
in the cabin doorway. Carthew shat-
tered it with a second shot, for he was a
marksman.

" Pistols ! " he cried, and charged at
the companion. Wicks at his heels.
Tommy and Amalu following. They
trod the body of Holdorsen underfoot,
and flew up-stairs and forth into the
dusky blaze of a sunset red as blood.
The numbers were still equal, but the
Flying Scuds dreamed not of defence,
and fled with one accord for the fore-
castle scuttle. Brown was first in flight ;
he disappeared below unscathed ; the
Chinaman followed head-foremost with
a ball in his side ; and the others shinned
into the rigging.

A fierce composure settled upon
Wicks and Carthew, their fighting
second wind. They posted Tommy at
the fore and Amalu at the main to
guard the masts and shrouds, and going
themselves into the waist, poured out a
box of cartridges on deck and filled the
chambers. The poor devils aloft bleat-
ed aloud for mercy. But the hour of
any mercy was gone by ; the cup was
brewed and must be drunken to the
dregs ; since so many had fallen, all
must fall. The light was bad, the cheap
revolvers fouled and carried wild, the
screaming wi'etches were swift to flatten
themselves against the masts and yards
or find a momentaiy refuge in the hang-
ing sails. The fell business took long,
but it was done at last. Hardy the

62

THE WRECKER.

Londoner was shot on the foreroyal
yard, and hung horribly suspended in
the brails. Wallen, the other, had his
jaw broken on the maintop-gallant cross-
trees, and exposed himself, shrieking,
till a second shot dropped him on the
deck.

This had been bad enough, but worse
remained behind. There was still
Brown in the forepeak. Tommy, with
a sudden clamor of weeping, begged for
his Hfe. " One man can't hurt us," he
sobbed. " We can't go on with this. I
spoke to him at dinner. He's an awful
decent little cad. It can't be done.
Nobody can go into that place and mur-
der him. It's too damned wicked."

The sound of his supplications was
perhaps audible to the unfortunate be-
low.

" One left, and we all hang," said
Wicks. " Brown must go the same
road." The big man was deadly white
and trembled like an aspen ; and he had
no sooner finished speaking than he
went to the ship's side and vomited.

" We can never do it if we wait,"
said Carthew. " Now or never," and he
marched toward the scuttle.

" No, no, no ! " wailed Tommy, clutch-
ing at his jacket.

But Carthew flung him off, and
stepped down the ladder, his heart ris-
ing with disgust and shame. The
Chinaman lay on the floor, still groan-
ing ; the place was pitch dark.

" Brown ! " cried Carthew, " Brown,
where are you ? "

His heart smote him for the treacher-
ous apostrophe, but no answer came.

He groped in the bunks ; they Avere
all empty. Then he moved toward the
forepeak, which was hampered with
coils of rope and spare chandlery in
general.

"Brown ! " he said again.

*' Here, sir," answered a shaking voice ;
and the poor invisible caitiff called on
him by name, and poured forth out of
the darkness an endless, garrulous ap-
peal for mercy. A sense of danger, of
daring, had alone nerved Carthew to
enter the forecastle ; and here was the
enemy crying and pleading like a fright-
ened child. His obsequious *' Here, sir,"
his horrid fluency of obtestation, made
the murder tenfold more revolting.

Twice Carthew raised the pistol, once
he pressed the trigger (or thought he
did) with all his might, but no explo-
sion followed ; and with that the lees of
his courage ran quite out, and he turned
and fled from before his victim.

Wicks sat on the fore-hatch, raised
the face of a man of seventy, and looked
a wordless question. Carthew shook his
head. AVith such composure as a man
displays marching toward the gallows.
Wicks arose, walked to the scuttle, and
went down. Brown thought it was Car-
thew returning, and discovered himself,
half crawling from his shelter, with
another incoherent burst of pleading.
Wicks emptied his revolver at the voice,
which broke into mouse-hke whimper-
ings and groans. Silence succeeded,
and the murderer ran on deck like one
possessed.

The other three were now all gathered
on the fore-hatch, and Wicks took his
place beside them without question
asked or answered. They sat close, like
children in the dark, and shook each
other with their shaking. The dusk con-
tinued to fall ; and there was no sound
but the beating of the surf and the oc-
casional hiccup of a sob from Tommy
Hadden.

"God, if there was another ship!"
cried Carthew of a sudden.

Wicks started and looked aloft with
the trick of all seamen, and shuddered
as he saw the hanging figure on the
royal yard.

"If I went aloft, I'd fall," he said sim-
ply. "I'm done up."

It was Amalu who volunteered,
climbed to the very truck, swept the
fading horizon, and announced nothing
within sight.

"No odds," said Wicks. "We can't
sleep. . . ."

" Sleep ! " echoed Carthew ; and it
seemed as if the whole of Shakespeare's
Macbeth thundered at the gallop through
his mind.

" WeU, then, we can't sit and chitter
here," said Wicks, " till we've cleaned
ship ; and I can't turn to till I've had
gin, and the gin's in the cabin, and who's
to fetch it ? '

"I will," said Carthew, "if any one
has matches."

Amalu passed him a box, and he went

THE WRECKER.

63

aft and down the companion and into
the cabin, stumbling upon bodies. Then
he struck a match, and his looks fell
upon two living eyes.

"Well?" asked Mac, for it was he
who still survived in that shambles of a
cabin.

" It's done ; they're all dead," an-
swered Carthew.

" Christ ! " said the Irishman, and
fainted.

The gin was found by the elbow of
the dead captain ; it was brought on
deck, and all hands had a dram, and
attacked their farther task. The night
was come, the moon would not be up
for hours ; a lamp was set on the main-
hatch to hght Amalu as he washed
down decks ; and the gaUey lantern was
taken to guide the others in their grave-
yard business. Holdorsen, Hemstead,
Trent, and Goddedael were first dis-
posed of, the last still breathing as he
went over the side ; Wallen followed ;
and then Wicks, steadied by the gin,
went aloft with a boathook and succeed-
ed in dislodging Hardy. The China-
man was their last task ; he seemed to
be light-headed, talked aloud in his un-
known language as they brought him
up, and it was only with the splash of
his sinking body that the gibberish
ceased. Brown, by common consent,
was left alone. Flesh and blood could
go no farther.

All this time they had been drinking
undiluted gin like water, three bottles
stood broached in different quarters ;
and none passed without a gulp. Tom-
my collapsed against the mainmast ;
Wicks fell on his face on the poop lad-
der and moved no more ; Amalu had
vanished unobserved. Carthew was the
last afoot ; he stood swaying at the
break of the poop, and the lantern,
which he still carried, swung with his
movement. His head hummed ; it
swarmed with broken thoughts ; mem-
ory of that day's abominations flared up
and died down within him, like the light
of a lamp in a strong draught. And
then he had a drunkard's inspiration.

" There must be no more of this," he
thought, and stumbled once more below.

The absence of Holdorsen's body
brought him to a stand. He stood and
stared at the empty floor, and then re-

membered and smiled. From the cap-
tain's room he took the open case with
one dozen and three bottles of gin, put
the lantern inside, and walked preca-
riously forth. Mac was once more con-
scious ; his eyes haggard, his face drawn
with pain and flushed with fever ; and
Carthew remembered he had never been
seen to, had lain there helpless, and was
so to lie aU night, injured, perhaps dy-
ing. But it was now too late ; reason
had now fled from that silent ship. If
Carthew could get on deck again, it was
as much as he could hope ; and casting
on the unfortunate a glance of pity, the
tragic drunkard shouldered his way up
the companion, dropped the case over-
board, and fell into the scuppers help-
less.

CHAPTER XXV.

A BAD BARGAIN.

With the first color in the east, Car-
thew awoke and sat up. A while he
gazed at the scroll of the morning bank
and the spars and hanging canvas of the
brig, like a man who wakes in a strange
bed, with a child's simplicity of won-
der. He wondered above all what ailed
him, what he had lost, what disfavor had
been done him, which he knew he should
resent, yet had forgotten. And then,
like a river bursting through a dam, the
truth rolled on him its instantaneous
volume ; his memory teemed with speech
and pictures that he should never again
forget ; and he sprang to his feet, stood
a moment hand to brow, and began to
walk violently to and fro by the com-
panion. As he walked he wrung -his
hands. "God — God — God," he kept
saying, with no thought of prayer, ut-
tering a mere voice of agony.

The time may have been long or
short ; it was perhaps minutes, perhaps
only seconds, when he awoke to find him-
self observed, and saw the captain sit-
ting up and watching him over the break
of the poop, a strange blindness as of
fever in his eyes, a haggard knot of cor-
rugations on his brow. Cain saw himself
in a mirror. For a flash they looked
upon each other, and then glanced guil-
tily aside ; and Carthew fled from the
eye of his accomplice, and stood lean-
ing on the taffrail.

64

THE WRECKER.

An hour went by, while the day came
brighter, and the sun rose and drank up
the clouds : an hour of silence in the
ship, an hour of agony beyond narration
for the sufferers. Brown's gabbling
prayers, the cries of the sailors in the
rigging, strains of the dead Hemstead's
minstrelsy, ran together in Carthew's
mind, with sickening iteration. He
neither acquitted nor condemned him-
self : he did not think, he suffered. In
the bright water into which he stared,
the pictures changed and were repeated :
the beresark rage of Goddedael ; the
blood- red light of the sunset into which
they had run forth ; the face of the bab-
bling Chinaman as they cast him over ;
the face of the captain, seen a moment
since, as he awoke from drunkenness
into remorse. And time passed, and
the sun swam higher, and his torment
was not abated.

Then were fulfilled many sayings, and
the weakest of these condemned brought
relief and healing to the others. Amalu
the drudge awoke (like the rest) to sick-
ness of body and distress of mind ; but
the habit of obedience ruled in that
simple s]oirit, and appalled to be so late,
he went direct into the galley, kindled
the fire, and began to get breakfast. At
the rattle of dishes, the snapping of the
fire, and the thin smoke that went up
straight into the air, the spell was lift-
ed. The condemned felt once more
the good dry land of habit under foot ;
they touched again the familiar guide-
ropes of sanity ; they were restored to
a sense of the blessed revolution and
return of all things earthly. The cap-
taiti drew a bucket of water and began
to bathe. Tommy sat up, watched him
awhile, and slowly followed his exam-
ple ; and Carthew, remembering his last
thoughts of the night before, hastened
to the cabin.

Mac was awake ; jjerhaps had not
slept. Over his heacl Goddedael's ca-
nary twittered shrilly from its cage.

" How are you ? " asked Carthew.

"Me arrum's broke," returned Mac ;
*' but I can stand that. It's this place
I can't abide. I was coming on deck
anyway."

" Stay where you are, though," said
Carthew. "It's deadly hot above, and
there's no wind. I'll wash out this — "

and he paused, seeking a word and not
finding one for the grisly foulness of
the cabin.

"Faith, I'll be obliged to ye, then,"
replied the Irishman. He spoke mild
and meek, like a sick child with its
mother. There was now no violence
in the violent man ; and as Carthew
fetched a bucket and swab and the stew-
ard's sponge, and began to cleanse the
field of battle, he alternately watched
him or shut his eyes and sighed like a
man near fainting. "I have to ask all
your pardons," he began again pres-
ently, " and the more shame to me as I
got ye into trouble and couldn't do
nothing when it came. Ye saved me
life, sir ; ye're a clane shot."

"For God's sake, don't talk of it ! "
cried Carthew. "It can't be talked of ;
you don't know what it was. It was
nothing down here ; they fought. On
deck — O, my God ! " And Carthew,
with the bloody sponge pressed to his
face, struggled a moment with hysteria.

"Kape cool, Mr. Cart'ew. It's done
now," said Mac ; " and ye may bless
God ye're not in pain and helpless in
the bargain."

There was no more said by one or
other, and the cabin was pretty well
cleansed when a stroke on the ship's
bell summoned Carthew to breakfast.
Tommy had been busy in the mean-
while ; he had hauled the whaleboat
close aboard, and already lowered into
it a small keg of beef that he found
ready broached beside the galley door ;
it was plain he had but the one idea —
to escape.

" We have a shipful of stores to draw
upon," he said. "Well, what are we
staying for ? Let's get off at once for
Hawaii. I've begun preparing already."

" Mac has his arm broken," observed
Carthew ; " how would he stand the
voyage ? "

"A broken arm?" repeated the cap-
tain. " That all ? I'll set it after break-
fast. I thought he was dead, like the
rest. That madman hit out like — " and
there, at the evocation of the battle, his
voice ceased and the talk died with it.

After breakfast the three white men
went down into the cabin.

" I've come to set your arm," said the
captain.

THE IVRECKEH,

61

"I beg your pardon, Captain," re-
plied Mac ; " but the lirrst thing ye
got to do is to get this ship to sea.
We'll talk of me arrum after that."

"O, there's no such blooming hur-
ry," returned Wicks.

"When the next ship sails in ye'll
tell me stories ! " retorted Mac.

" But there's nothing so unlikely in
the world," objected Carthew.

"Don't be deceivin' yourself," said
Mac. " If ye want a ship, divil a one'll
look near ye in six year ; but if ye don't,
ye may take my word for ut, w^e'll have
a squadron layin' here."

" That's what I say," cried Tommy ;
" that's what I call sense ! Let's stock
that whaleboat and be off."

"And what will Captain Wicks be
thinking of the whaleboat ? " asked the
Irishman.

"I don't think of it at all," said
Wicks. "We've a smart-looking brig
under foot ; that's all the whaleboat I
want."

" Excuse me ! " cried Tommy. " That's
childish talk. You've got a brig to be
sure, and what use is she ? You daren't
go an;^^^here in her. What port are
you to sail for ? "

" For the port of Davy Jones's Lock-
er, my son," replied the captain. "This
brig's going to be lost at sea. I'll tell
you where, too, and that's about forty
miles to windward of Kauai. We're
going to stay by her till she's down ;
and once the masts are under, she's
the Flying Scud no more, and we never
heard of such a brig ; and it's the crew
of the schooner Currency Lass that
comes ashore in the boat, and takes
the first chance to Sydney."

" Captain, dear, that's the first Chris-
tian word I've heard of ut ! " cried Mac.
" And now, just let me arrum be, jewel,
and get the brig outside."

"I'm as anxious as yourself, Mac,"
returned Wicks ; " but there's not wind
enough to swear by. So let's see your
arm, and no more talk."

The arm was set and splinted ; the
body of Brown fetched from the fore-
peak, where it lay stiff and cold, and
committed to the waters of the lagoon ;
and the washing of the cabin rudely
finished. All these were done ere mid-
day ; and it was past three when the

first cat's-paw ruffled the lagoon, and
the wind came in a dry squall, which
presently sobered to a steady breeze.

The interval was passed by all in fe-
verish imi)atience, and by one of the
party in secret and extreme concern of
mind. Captain Wicks was a fore-and-
aft sailor ; he could take a schooner
through a Scotch reel, felt her mouth
and divined her temper like a rider
with a horse ; she, on her side, recog-
nizing her master and following his
wishes like a dog. But by a not very
unusual train of circumstance, the
man's dexterity was partial and circum-
scribed. On a schooner's deck he was
Rembrandt or (at the least) Mr. Whist-
ler ; on board a brig he was Pierre Gras-
sou. Again and again in the course
of the morning he had reasoned out
his policy and rehearsed his orders ;
and ever with the same dej^ression and
weariness. It was guesswork ; it was
chance ; the ship might behave as he
expected, and might not ; suppose she
gybed, he stood there helpless, a rider
without bit or spur, beggared of all the
proved resources of experience. Had
not all hands been so w^eary, had he
not feared to communicate his own.
misgivings, he could have towed her
out. But these reasons sufficed, and
the most he could do was to take all
possible precautions. Accordingly he
had Carthew aft, explained what was
to be done with anxious patience, and
visited, along with him, the various
sheets and braces.

" I hope I'll remember," said Car-
thew. "It seems awfully muddled."

" It's the rottenest kind of rig," the
captain admitted : "all blooming pock-
et handkerchiefs ! And not one sailor-
man on deck ! Ah, if she'd only been a
brigantine, now ! But it's lucky the
passage is so plain ; there's no manoeu-
vring to mention. We get under way
before the v^nd, and run right so till
we begin to get foul of the island;
then we haul our wind and lie as near
southeast as may be till we're on that
line ; 'bout ship there and stand
straight out on the port tack. Catch
the idea ? "

"Yes, I see the idea," replied Car-
thew, rather dismally, and the two in-
competents studied for a long time in

6G

THE IVRECKER.

silence the complicated gear above
their heads.

But the time came when these re-
hearsals must be put in practice. The
sails were lowered, and all hands
heaved the anchor short. The whale-
boat was then cast adrift, the upper
topsails and the spanker set, the yards
braced up, and the spanker - sheet
hauled out to starboard.

"Heave away on your anchor, Mr.
Carthew."

"Anchor's gone, sir."

" Set jibs."

It was done, and the brig still hung
enchanted. Wicks, his head full of a
schooner's mainsail, turned his mind
to the spanker. First he hauled in
the sheet, and then he hauled it out,
with no result.

"Brail the damned thing up!" he
bawled at last, with a red face. " There
ain't no sense in it."

It was the last stroke 6i bewilder-
ment for the poor captain, that he had
no sooner brailed up the spanker than
the schooner came before the wind.
The laws of nature seemed to him to
be suspended ; he was like a man in a
world of pantomime tricks ; the cause
of any result, and the probable result
of any action, equally concealed from
him. He was the more careful not to
shake the nerve of his amateur assist-
ants. He stood there with a face like
a torch ; but he gave his orders with
aplomb ; and indeed, now the ship was
under way, supposed his difficulties
were done.

The lower topsails and courses were
then set, and the brig began to walk
the water like a thing of life, her fore-
foot discoursing music, the birds flying
and crying over her spars. Bit by bit
the passage began to open and the
blue sea to show between the flanking
breakers on the reef ; bit by bit, on
the starboard bow, the low land of the
islet began to heave closer aboard.
The yards were braced up, the spanker-
sheet hauled aft again ; the brig was
close-hauled, lay down to her work like
a thing in earnest, and had soon drawn
near to the point of advantage, where
she might stay and lie out of the la-
goon in a single tack.

Wicks took the wheel himself, smell-

ing and swelling with success. He
kept the brig full to give her heels,
and began to bark his orders : " Keady
about. Helm's a-lee. Tacks and sheets.
Mainsail, haul." And then the fatal
words : " That'll do your mainsail ;
jump forrard and haul round your
foreyards."

To stay a ship is an affair of knowl-
edge and swift sight ; and a man used
to the succinct evolutions of a schooner
will always tend to be too hasty with a
brig. It was so now. The order came
too soon ; the topsails set flat aback ;
the ship was in irons. Even yet, had
the helm been reversed, they might
have saved her. But to think of a
stern-board at all, far more to think of
profiting by one, were foreign to the
schooner-sailor's mind. Wicks made
haste instead to wear ship, a manoeuvre
for which room was wanting, and the
Flying Scud took ground on a bank of
sand and coral about twenty minutes
before five.

Wicks was no hand with a square-
rigger, and he had shown it. But he
was a sailor and a born captain of men
for all homely purposes, where intellect
is not required and an eye in a man's
head and a heart under his jacket will
suffice. Before the others had time to
understand the misfortune, he was
bawling fresh orders, and had the sails
clewed up, and took soundings round
the ship.

" She lies lovely," he remarked, and
ordered out a boat with the starboard
anchor.

"Here ! steady ! " cried Tommy.
"You aint going to turn us to, to
warp her off? "

"I am though," returned Wicks.

" I won't set a hand to such tomfool-
ery for one," replied Tommy. " I'm
dead beat." He went and sat down
doggedly on the main hatch. "You
got us on ; get us off again," he added.

Carthew and Wicks turned to each
other.

"Perhaps you don't know how tired
we are," said Carthew.

" The tide's flowing ! " cried the cap-
tain. " You wouldn't have me miss a
rising tide ? "

" O gammon ! there's tides to-mor-
row ! " retorted Tommy.

THE WRECKER.

G7

*' And I'll tell you what," added Car-
thew, "the breeze is failing fast, and
the sun will soon be down. We may
get into all kinds of fresh mess in the
dark and with nothing but light airs."

"I don't deny it," answered Wicks,
and stood awhile as if in thought.
" But what I can't make out," he began
again, with agitation, "what I can't
make out is what you're made of ! To
stay in this place is beyond me.
There's the bloody sun going down —
and to stay here is beyond me ! "

The others looked upon him with
horrified surprise. This fall of their
chief pillar — this irrational passion in
the practical man, suddenly barred out
of his true sphere, the sphere of action
— shocked and daunted them. But it
gave to another and unseen hearer the
chance for which he had been waiting.
Mac, on the striking of the brig, had
crawled up the companion, and he now
showed himself and spoke up.

" Captain Wicks," he said, " it's me
that brought this trouble on the lot of
ye. I'm sorry for ut, I ask all your
pardons, and if there's any one can say
'I forgive ye,' it'll make my soul the
lighter."

Wicks stared upon the man in amaze ;
then his self-control returned to him.
"We're all in glass houses here," he
said ; "we ain't going to turn to and
throw stones. I forgive you, sure
enough ; and much good may it do
you!"

The others spoke to the same pur-
pose.

"I thank ye for ut, and 'tis done
like gentlemen," said Mac. "But
there's another thing I have upon my
mind. I hope we're all Prodestan's
here ? "

It appeared they were ; it seemed a
small thing for the Protestant religion
to rejoice in !

"WeU, and that's as it should be,"
continued Mac. "And why shouldn't
we say the Lord's Prayer ? There can't
be no hurt in ut."

He had the same quiet, pleading,
childlike way with him as in the morn-
ing ; and the others accepted his pro-
posal, and knelt down without a word.

" Knale if ye like ! I'll stand." And
lie covered his eyes.

So the prayer was said to the accom-
paniment of the surf and seabirds, and
all rose refreshed and felt lightened
of a load. Up to then they had cher-
ished their guilty memories in private,
or only referred to them in the heat of
a moment and fallen immediately silent.
Now they had faced their remorse in
company, and the worst seemed over.
Nor was it only that. But the petition
" Forgive us our trespasses," falling in
so apposite after they had themselves
forgiven the immediate author of their
miseries, sounded like an absolution.

Tea was taken on deck in the time of
the sunset, and not long after the five
castaways — castaways once more — lay
down to sleep.

Day dawned windless and hot. Their
slumbers had been too profound to be
refreshing, and they woke listless, and
sat up, and stared about them with
dull eyes. Only Wicks, smelling a hard
day's work ahead, was more alert. He
went first to the well, sounded it once
and then a second time, and stood
awhile with a grim look, so that aU
could see he was dissatisfied. Then he
shook himself, stripped to the bu£^
clambered on the rail, drew himself up
and raised his arms to plunge. The
dive was never taken. He stood in-
stead transfixed, his eyes on the hori-
zon.

"Hand up that glass," he said.

In a trice they were all swarming
aloft, the nude captain leading with
the glass.

On the northern horizon was a fin-
ger of gray smoke, straight in the wind-
less air like a point of admiration.

" What do you make it ? " they
asked of Wicks.

" She's truck down," he replied ; no
telling yet. By the way the smoke
builds, she must be heading right
here."

" What can she be ? "

"She might be a China mail," re-
turned Wicks, "and she might be a
blooming man-of-war come to look for
castaways. Here ! This ain't the time
to stand staring. On deck, boys ! "

He was the first on deck, as he had
been the first aloft, hauled down the
ensign, bent it again to the signal-hal-
yards, and ran it up, union down.

68

THE WRECKEK.

"Now hear me," he said, jumpinj:^
iiito his trousers, " and everything I
say you grip on to. If that's a man-
of-war, she'll be in a tearing hurry ; all
these sln2)S are what don't do nothing
and have their expenses paid. That's
our chance ; for we'll go with them,
and they won't take the time to look
twice or to ask a question. I'm Cap-
tain Trent ; Carthew, you're Goddedael ;
Tommy, you're Hardy ; Mac's Brown ;
Amalu — Hold hard ! w^e can't make a
Chinaman of him ! Ah Wing must
have deserted ; Amalu stowed away ;
and I turned him to as cook, and was
never at the bother to sign him.
Catch the idea ? Say your names."

And that pale company recited their
lesson earnestly.

" What were the names of the other
two ? " he asked. " Him Carthew shot
in the companion, and the one I caught
in the jaw on the maintoj^-gallant ?"

"Holdorsen and Wallen," said some
one.

" Well, they're drowned," continued
Wicks ; " drowned alongside trying to
lower a boat. We had a bit of a squall
last night : that's how we got ashore."
He ran and squinted at the compass.
"Squall out of nor'-nor'-west-half-west ;
blew hard ; every one in a mess, falls
jammed, and Holdorsen and Wallen spilt
overboard. See ? Clear your blooming
heads ! " He w^as in his jacket now, and
spoke with a feverish impatience and
contention that rang like anger.

" But is it safe ? " asked Tommy.

" Safe ? " bellowed the captain.
"We're standing on the drop, you
moon-calf! If that ship's bound for
China (which she don't look to be),
we're lost as soon as we arrive ; if she's
bound the other way, she comes from
China, don't she? Well, if there's a
man on board of her that ever clapped
eyes on Trent or any blooming hand
out of this brig, we'll all be in irons in
two hours. Safe ! no, it ain't safe ; it's
a beggarly last chance to shave the
gallows, and that's what it is."

At this convincing picture fear took
hold on all.

" Hadn't we a hundred times better
stay by the brig?" cried Carthew.
" They would give us a hand to float
her off."

"You'll make me waste this holy
day in chattering ! " cried Wicks.
" Look here, when I sounded the well
this morning there was two foot of
water there against eight inches last
night. What's wrong ? I don't know ;
might be nothing ; might be the worst
kind of smash. And then, there we
are in for a thousand miles in an open
boat, if that's your taste ! "

" But it may be nothing, and anyway
their carpenters are bound to help us
repair her," argued Carthew.

" Moses Murphy ! " cried the captain.
" How did she strike ? Bows on, I be-
lieve. And she's down by the head
now. If any carpenter comes tinker-
ing here, where'll he go first? Down
in the forepeak, I suppose ! And then,
how about all that blood among the
chandlery ? You would think you were
a lot of members of Parliament dis-
cussing PlimsoU ; and you're just a
pack of murderers with the halter
round your neck. Any other ass got
any time to waste? No? thank God
for that ! Now, all hands ! I'm going
below, and I leave you here on deck.
You get the boat cover off that boat ;
then you turn to and open that specie
chest. There are five of us ; get five
chests, and divide the specie equal
among the five — put it at the bottom —
and go at it like tigers. Get blankets,
or canvas, or clothes, so it won't rattle.
It'll make five pretty heavy chests, but
we can't help that. You, Carthew —
dash me ! — You, Mr. Goddedael, come
below. We've our share before us."

And he cast another glance at the
smoke, and hurried below with Carthew
at his heels.

The logs were found in the main
cabin behind the canary cage ; two of
them, one kept by Trent, one by God-
dedael. Wicks looked first at one,
then at the other, and his lip stuck
out.

" Can you forge hand of write ? " he
asked.

"No," said Carthew.

" There's luck for you — no more can
I ! " cried the captain. " Hullo ! here's
worse yet, here's this Goddedael up to
date ; he must have filled it in before
supper. See for yourself : ' Smoke ob-
served.'— 'Captain Kirkup and five

THE IVRECKER.

69

hands of the schooner Currency La.s.s'.'
Ah ! this is better," he added, turning
to the other log. " The okl man ain't
written anything for a clear fortniglit.
We'll dispose of your log altogether,
Mr. Goddedael, and stick to the old
man's — to mine, I mean ; only I ain't
going to write it up, for reasons of my
own. You are. You're going to sit
down right here and fill it in the way I
tell you."

" How to explain the loss of mine ? "
asked Carthew.

"You never kept one," replied the
captain. " Gross neglect of duty.
You'll catch it."

"And the change of writing?" re-
sumed Carthew. " You began ; why do
you stop and why do I come in ? And
you'll have to sign anyway."

" O ! I've met with an accident and
can't write," replied Wicks.

" An accident ? " repeated Carthew.
" It don't sound natural. What kind of
an accident ? "

Wicks spread his hand face-up on the
table, and drove a knife through his
palm.

" That kind of an accident," said he.
" There's a way to draw to windward of
most difficulties, if you've a head on
your shoulders." He began to bind up
his hand with a handkerchief, glancing
the while over Goddedael's log. "Hul-
lo ! " he said, " This'll never do for us —
this is an impossible kind of a yarn.
Here, to begin with, is this Captain
Trent trying some fancy course, least-
ways he's a thousand miles to south'ard
of the great circle. And here, it seems,
he was close up with this island on the
sixth, sails all these days and is close
up with it again by daylight on the
eleventh."

" Goddedael said they had the deuce's
luck," said Carthew.

" Well, it don't look like real life—
that's all I can say," returned Wicks.

"It's the way it was, though," argued
Carthew.

" So it is ; and what the better are we
for that, if it don't look so ? " cried the
captain, sounding unwonted depths of
art criticism. " Here ! try and see if
you can tie this bandage ; I'm bleeding
like a pig."

As Carthew sought to adjust the hand-

kerchief, his patient seemed sunk in a
deep muse, his eye veiled, his mouth
partly open. The job was yet scarce
done when he sprang to his feet.

" I have it," he broke out, and ran
on deck. "Here, boys ! " he cried, " we
didn't come here on the eleventh ; we
came in here on the evening of the sixth,
and lay here ever since becalmed. As
soon as you've done with these chests,"
he added, " you can turn to and roll out
beef and water breakers ; it'll look more
shipshape — like as if we were getting
ready for the boat vo^^age."

And he was back again in a moment,
cooking the new log. Goddedael's was
then carefully destroyed, and a hunt be-
gan for the ship's papers. Of all the ago-
nies of that breathless morning, this was
perhaps the most poignant. Here and
there the two men searched, cursing,
cannoning together, streaming with
heat, freezing with terror. News was
bawled down to them that the ship was
indeed a man-of-war, that she was close
up, that she was lowering a boat ; and
still they sought in vain. By what ac-
cident they missed the iron box with
the money and accounts, is hard to
fancy ; but they did. And the vital
documents were found at last in the
pocket of Trent's shore-going coat,
where he had left them when last he
came on board.

As he fingered them. Wicks smiled
for the first time that morning. " None
too soon," said he. " And now for it !
Take these for me ; I'm afraid I'll get
them mixed if I keep both."

" What are they ? " Carthew asked.

" They're the Kirkup and Currency
Lass papers," he replied. " Pray God
we need 'em again ! "

"Boat's inside the lagoon, sir," hailed
down Mac, who sat by the skylight do-
ing sentry while the others worked.

"Time we were on deck, then, Mr.
Goddedael," said Wicks.

As they turned to leave the cabin, the
canary burst into piercing song.

"My God! "cried Carthew, with a
gulp, "we can't leave that wretched
bird to starve. It was poor Godde-
dael's."

" Bring the blooming thing along ! "
cried the captain.

And they went on deck.

70

THE IVRECKER.

An ujifly brute of a modern man-of-
war lay just without the reef, now quite
inert, now giving a flap or two with her
propeller. Nearer hand, and just with-
in, a big white boat came skimming to
the stroke of many oars, her ensign
blowing at the stern.

" One word more," said Wicks, after
he had taken in the scene. " Mac, you've
been in China ports ? All right ; then
you can sj^eak for yourself. The rest of
you I kept on board all the time we were
in Hong-Kong, hoping you would de-
sert ; but you fooled me and stuck to
the brig. That'll make your lying come
easier."

The boat was now close at hand ; a
boy in the stern-sheets was the only of-
ficer, and a poor one plainly, for the
men were talking as they pulled.

" Thank God, they've only sent a kind
of a middy ! " ejaculated Wicks. "Here
you, Hardy, stand for'ard ! I'll have
no deck hands on my quarter-deck," he
cried, and the reproof braced the whole
crew like a cold douche.

The boat came alongside with perfect
neatness, and the boy ofiicer stepped
on board, where he was respectfully
greeted by Wicks.

" You the master of this shij) ? " he
asked.

" Yes, sir," said Wicks. " Trent is my
name, and this is the Flying Scud of
Hull."

" You seem to have got into a mess,"
said the officer.

" If you'll step aft with me here, I'll
tell you all there is of it," said Wicks.

" Why, man, you're shaking ! " cried
the officer.

" So would you, perhaps, if you had
been in the same berth," returned
Wicks ; and he told the whole story of
the rotten water, the long calm, the
squall, the seamen drowned ; glibly
and hotly ; talking, with his head in the
lion's mouth, like one pleading in the
dock. I heard the same tale from the
same narrator in the saloon in San
Francisco ; and even then his bearing
filled me with suspicion. But the offi-
cer was no observer.

" Well, the captain is in no end of a
hurry," said he ; " but I was instructed
to give you all the assistance in my
power, and signal back for another boat

if more hands were necessary. What
can I do for you ? "

" O, we won't keep you no time,"
replied Wicks, cheerily. " We're aU
ready, bless you — men's chests, chrono-
meter, j:)apers and all."

" Do you mean to leave her ? " cried
the officer. " She seems to me to lie
nicely ; can't we get your ship off? "

" So we could, and no mistake ; but
how we're to keej) her afloat's another
question. Her bows is stove in," re-
plied Wicks.

The officer colored to the eyes. He
was incompetent and knew he was ;
thought he was already detected, and
feared to expose himself again. There
was nothing further from his mind than
that the captain should deceive him ; if
the captain was pleased, why, so was
he. " All right," he said. "Tell your
men to get their chests aboard."

"Mr. Goddedael, turn the hands to
to get the chests aboard," said Wicks.

The four Currency Lasses had waited
the while on tenter-hooks. This wel-
come news broke upon them like the
sun at midnight ; and Hadden burst
into a storm of tears, sobbing aloud as
he heaved upon the tackle. But the
work went none the less briskly for-
ward ; chests, men, and bundles were
got over the side with alacrity ; the
boat was shoved off ; it moved out of
the long shadow of the Flying Scud,
and its bows were pointed at the pas-
sage.

So much, then, was accomplished.
The sham wreck had passed muster ;
they were clear of her, they were safe
awav ; and the water widened between
them and her damning evidences. On
the other hand, they were drawing
nearer to the ship of war, which might
very well prove to be their prison and
a hangman's cart to bear them to the
gallows — of which they had not yet
learned either whence she came or
whither she was bound ; and the doubt
weighed upon their hearts like moun-
tains.

It was Wicks who did the talking.
The sound was small in Carthew's ears,
like the voices of men miles away, but
the meaning of each word struck home
to him like a bullet. "What did you
say your ship was ? " inquired Wicks.

THE WRECKER,

71

" Tempest, don't you know ? " re-
turned the officer.

" Don't you know? " What could that
mean ? Perhaps nothing : perhaps that
the ships had met already. Wicks took
his courage in both hands. . " Where is
she bound ? " he asked.

" O, we're just looking in at all these
miserable islands here," said the officer.
"Then we bear up for San Francisco."

"O, yes, you're from China ways,
like us ? " pursued Wicks.

" Hong-Kong," said the officer, and
spat over the side.

Hong-Kong. Then the game was up ;
as soon as they set foot on board they
would be seized ; the wreck would be
examined, the blood found, the lagoon
perhaps dredged, and the bodies of the
dead would reappear to testify. An im-
pulse almost incontroUable bade Car-
thew rise from the thwart, shriek out
aloud, and leap overboard ; it seemed
so vain a thing to dissemble longer, to
dally with the inevitable, to spin out
some hundred seconds more of agonized
suspense, with shame and death thus
visibly approaching. But the indomi-
table Wicks persevered. His face was
like a skull, his voice scarce recogniz-
able ; the dullest of men and officers (it
seemed) must have remarked that tell-
tale countenance and broken utterance.
And still he persevered, bent upon certi-
tude.

"Nice place, Hong-Kong ?" he said.

" I'm sure I don't know," said the of-
ficer. " Only a day and a half there ;
called for orders and came straight on
here. Never heard of such a beastly
cruise." And he went on describing
and lamenting the untoward fortunes
of the Tempest.

But Wicks and Carthew heeded him
no longer. They lay back on the gun-
nel, breathing deep, sunk in a stupor of
the body : the mind within still nimbly
and agreeably at work, measuring the
past danger, exulting in the present
relief, numbering with ecstasy their ul-
timate chances of escape. For the voy-
age in the man-of-war they were now
safe ; yet a few more days of peril, ac-
tivity, and presence of mind in San Fran-
cisco, and the whole horrid tale was
blotted out ; and Wicks again became
Kirkup, and Goddedael became Carthew

— men beyond all shot of possible sus-
picion, men who had never heard of the
Flying Scud, who had never been in
sight of Midway Reef.

So they came alongside, under many
craning heads of seamen and projecting
mouths of guns ; so they climbed on
board somnambulous, and looked blind-
ly about them at the tall spars, the
white decks, and the crowding ship's
company, and heard men as from far
away, and answered them at random.

And then a hand fell softly on Car-
thew's shoulder.

"Why, Norrie, old chappie, where
have you dropped from ? All the world's
been looking for you. Don't you know
you've come into your kingdom ? "

He turned, beheld the face of his old
schoolmate Sebright, and fell uncon-
scious at his feet.

The doctor was attending him, a while
later, in Lieutenant Sebright's cabin,
when he came to himself. He opened
his eyes, looked hard in the strange
face, and spoke with a kind of solemn
vigor.

"Brown must go the same road,"
he said; "now or never." And then
paused, and his reason coming to him
with more clearness, spoke again :
"What was I saying? Where am I?
Who are you ? "

"I am the doctor of the Tempest,"
was the reply. " You are in Lieutenant
Sebright's berth, and you may dismiss
all concern from your mind. Your
troubles are over, Mr. Carthew."

" Why do you call me that ? " he
asked. "Ah, I remember — Sebright
knew me ! O ! " and he groaned and
shook. " Send down Wicks to me ; I
must see Wicks at once ! " he cried, and
seized the doctor's wrist with uncon-
scious violence.

" All right," said the doctor. " Let's
make a bargain. You swallow down
this draught, and I'll go and fetch
Wicks."

And he gave the wretched man an
opiate that laid him out vdthin ten
minutes and in all likelihood preserved
his reason.

It was the doctor's next business to
attend to Mac ; and he found occasion,
while engaged upon his arm, to make
the man repeat the names of the Flying

72

THE WRECKER.

Scuds. It was now the turn of the cap-
tain, and there is no doubt he was no
longer the man that we have seen ; sud-
den relief, the sense of perfect safety, a
square meal and a good glass of grog,
had all combined to relax his vigilance
and depress his energy.

"When was this done? "asked the
doctor, looking at the wound.

" More than a week ago," replied
Wicks, thinking singly of his log.

"Hey?" cried the doctor, and he
raised his head and looked the captain
in the eyes.

"I don't remember exactly," faltered
Wicks. \^

And at this remarkable falsehood, the
suspicions of the doctor were at once
quadrupled.

" By the way, which of you is called
Wicks ? " he asked easily.

" What's that ? " snapped the cap-
tain, falling white as paper.

" Wicks," repeated the doctor ; "which
of you is he? That's surely a plain
question."

Wicks stared upon his questioner in
silence.

" Which is Brown, then ? " pursued
the doctor.

" What are you talking of ? what
do you mean by this ? " cried Wicks,
snatching his half -bandaged hand away,
so that the blood sprinkled in the sur-
geon's face.

He did not trouble to remove it.
Looking straight at his victim, he pur-
sued his questions. " Why must Brown
go the same way ? " he asked.

Wicks fell trembling on a locker.
"Carthew told you," he cried.

"No," replied the doctor, "he has
not. But he and you between you have
set me thinking, and I think there's
something wrong."

"Give me some grog," said Wicks.
" I'd rather tell than have you find out.
I'm damned if it's half as bad as what
any one would think."

And with the help of a couple of
strong grogs, the tragedy of the Flying
Scud was told for the first time.

It was a fortunate series of accidents
that brought the story to the doctor.
He understood and pitied the position
of these wretched men, and came whole-
heartedly to their assistance. He and

Wicks and Carthew (so soon as he was
recovered) held a hundred councils and
prepared a policy for San Francisco.
It was he who certified " Goddedael "
unfit to be moved in the sick bay, and
smuggled Carthew ashore under cloud
of night ; it was he who kept Wicks's
wound open that he might sign vdth
his left hand ; he who took all their
Chile silver and (in the course of the
first day) got it converted for them
into portable gold. He used his influ-
ence in the wardroom to keep the
tongues of the young officers in order,
so that Carthew's identification was
kept out of the papers. And he ren-
dered another service yet more impor-
tant. He had a friend in San Francisco,
a millionaire ; to this man he privately
presented Carthew as a young gentle-
man come newly into a huge estate,
but troubled with Jew debts which he
was trying to settle on the quiet. The
millionaire came readily to help ; and
it was with his money that the wrecker
gang was to be fought. What was his
name, out of a thousand guesses ? It
was Douglas Longhurst.

As long as the Currency Lasses could
all disappear under fresh names, it did
not greatly matter if the brig were
bought, or any small discrepancies
should be discovered in the wrecking.
The identification of one of their num-
ber had changed all that. The small-
est scandal must now direct attention
to the movements of Norris. It would
be asked how he, who had sailed in a
schooner from Sydney, had turned up
so shortly after in a brig out of Hong-
Kong ; and from one question to an-
other all his original shipmates were
pretty sure to be involved. Hence
arose naturally the idea of preventing
danger, profiting b}^ Carthew's new-
found wealth, and buying the brig un-
der an alias ; and it was put in hand with
equal energy and caution. Carthew lived
alone in lodgings under a false name,
picked up Bellairs at random, and com-
missioned him to buy the wreck.

"What figure, if you please?" the
lavr^er asked.

" I want it bought," replied Carthew.
"I don't mind about the price."

"Any price is no price," said Bellairs.
" Put a name upon it."

THE IVRECKER.

73

" Call it ten thousand pounds then,
if you like ! " said Carthew.

In the meanwhile, the captain had
to walk the streets, appear in tlie con-
sulate, be cross-examined by Lloyd's
agent, be badgered about his lost ac-
counts, sign papers with his left hand,
and repeat his lies to every skipper in
San Francisco : not knowing at what
moment he might run into the arms of
some old friend who should hail him
by the name of Wicks, or some new
enemy who should be in a position to
deny him that of Trent. And the lat-
ter incident did actually befall him,
but was transformed by his stout coun-
tenance into an element of strength.
It was in the consulate (of all untoward
places) that he suddenly heard a big
voice inquiring for Captain Trent. He
turned with the customary sinking at
his heart.

" You ain't Captain Trent ! " said the
stranger, falling back. "Why, what's
all this ? They tell me you're passing
off as Captain Trent — Captain Jacob
Trent — a man I knew since I was that
high."

" O, you're thinking of my uncle as
had the bank in Cardiff," replied Wicks,
with desperate aplomb.

"I declare I never knew he had a
nevvy ! " said the stranger.

" Well, you see he has ! " says Wicks.

" And how is the old man ? " asked
the other.

" Fit as a fiddle," answered Wicks,
and was opportunely summoned by the
clerk.

This alert was the only one until the
morning of the sale, when he was once
more alarmed by his interview with
Jim ; and it was with some anxiety
that he attended the sale, knowing only
that Carthew was to be represented,
but neither who was to represent him
nor what were the instructions given.
I suppose Captain Wicks is a good life.

In spite of his personal appearance and
his own known uneasiness, I suppose
he is secure from apoplexy, or it must
have struck him there and then, as he
looked on at the stages of that insane
sale and saw the old brig and not very
valuable cargo knocked down at last
to a total stranger for ten thousand
pounds.

It had been agreed that he was to
avoid Carthew, and above all Carthew's
lodging, so that no connection might
be traced between the crew and the
pseudonymous purchaser. But the hour
for caution was gone by, and he caught
a tram and made all speed to Mission
Street.

Carthew met him in the door.

" Come away, come away from here,"
said Carthew ; and when they were
clear of the house, " All's up ! " he
added.

" O, you've heard of the sale then ? "
said Wicks.

" The sale ! " cried Carthew. " I de-
clare I had forgotten it." And he told
of the voice in the telephone, and the
maddening question : Why did you
want to buy the Flying Scud ?

This circumstance, coming on the
back of the monstrous improbabilities
of the sale, was enough to have shaken
the reason of Immanuel Kant. The
earth seemed banded together to defeat
them ; the stones and the boys on the
street appeared to be in possession of
their guilty secret. Flight was their
one thought. The treasure of the Cur-
rency Lass they packed in waist-belts,
expressed their chests to an imaginary
address in British Columbia, and left
San Francisco the same afternoon,
booked for Los Angeles.

The next day they pursued their re-
treat by the Southern Pacific route,
which Carthew followed on his way to
England ; but the other three branched
off for Mexico.

EPILOGUE :

TO WILL H. LOW.

Dear Low : The other day (at Mani-
hiki of all places) I had the pleasure to
meet Dodd. We sat some two hours
Vol. XII.— 9

in the neat, little, toy-like church, set
with pews after the manner of Europe,
and inlaid with mother-of-pearl in the

74

THE JVRECKER.

style (I suppose) of the New Jerusalem.
The natives, who are decidedly the
most attractive inhabitants of this
planet, crowded round us in the pew,
and fawned upon and patted us ; and
here it was I put my questions, and
Dodd answered me.

I first carried him back to the night
in Barbizon when Carthew told his
story, and asked him what was done
about Bellairs. It seemed he had put
the matter to his friend at once, and
that Carthew took it with an inimitable
lightness. "He's poor, and I'm rich,"
he had said. "I cannot afford to smile
at him, I go somewhere else, that's
all — somewhere that's far away and
dear to get to. Persia would be found
to answer, I fancy. No end place, Per-
sia. Why not come with me?" And
they had left the next afternoon for
Constantinople, on their way to Tehe-
ran. Of the shyster, it is only known
(by a newspaper paragraph) that he re-
turned somehow to San Francisco and
<iied in the hospital.

'' Now there's another point," said I.
•" There you are off to Persia with a
millionaire, and rich yourself. How
come you here in the South Seas, run-
ning a trader ? "

. He said, with a smile, that I had not
yet heard of Jim's last bankruptcy. "I
was about cleaned out once more," he
said ; " and then it was that Carthew
had this schooner built, and put me in
as supercargo. It's his yacht and it'r
my trader ; and as nearly all the ex-
penses go to the yacht, I do pretty
well. As for Jim, he's right again ; one
of the best businesses, they say, in the
West, fruit, cereals, and real estate ;
and he has a Tartar of a partner —
Nares, no less. Nares will keep him
straight, Nares has a big head. They
have their country places next door at
Saucelito, and I stayed with them time
about, the last time I was on the coast.
Jim had a paper of his own — I think he
has a notion of being senator one of these
days — and he wanted me to throw up
the schooner and come and write his edi-
torials. He holds strong views on the
.State Constitution, and so does Mamie."

" And what became of the other three
'Currency Lasses after they left Car-
fjhew ? " I inquired.

"Well, it seems they had a huge
spree in the city of Mexico," said Dodd ;
and then Hadden and the Irishman
took a turn at the gold fields in Vene-
zuela, and Wicks went on alone to
Valparaiso. There's a Kirkup in the
Chilean navy to this day, I saw the
name in the papers about the Balma-
ceda war. Hadden soon wearied of
the mines, and I met him the other
day in Sydney. The last news he had
from Venezuela, Mac had been knocked
over in an attack on the gold train.
So there's only the three of them left,
for Amula scarcely counts. He lives
on his own land in Maui, at the side of
Hale-a-ka-la, where he keeps Godde-
dael's canary ; and they say he sticks
to his dollars, which is a wonder in a
Kanaka. He had a considerable pile
to start with, for not only Hemstead's
share but Carthew's was divided equal-
ly among the other four — Mac being
counted."

" What did that make for him alto-
gether ? " I could not help asking, for
I had been diverted by the number of
calculations in his narrative.

" One hundred and twenty - eight
pounds nineteen shillings and eleven
pence halfpenny," he replied, with
" That's leaving out what little he won
at Van John. It's something for a Ka-
naka, you know."

And about that time we were at last
obliged to yield to the solicitations of
our native admirers, and go to the pas-
tor's house to drink green cocoanuts.
The ship I was in was sailing the same
night, for Dodd had been beforehand
and got all the shell in the island ; and
though he pressed me to desert and
return with him to Auckland (whither
he was now bound to pick up Carthew)
I was firm in my refusal.

The truth is, since I have been mixed
up with Havens and Dodd in the de-
sign to publish the latter's narrative, I
seem to feel no want for Carthew's so-
ciety. Of course I am wholly modern
in sentiment, and think nothing more
noble than to publish people's private
affairs at so much a line. They like it,
and if they don't, they ought to. But
a still small voice keeps telling me they
will not like it always, and perhaps not
always stand it. Memory, besides, sup-

THE WRECKER,

m

plies me with the face of a pressman
(in the sacred phrase) who proved alto-
gether too modern for one of his
neighbors, and

Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum epic

— nos precedens, as it were, marshal-
ling us our way. I am in no haste to
be that man's successor. Carthew has
a record as " a clane shot," and for
some years Samoa will be good enough
for me.

We agreed to separate, accordingly ;
but he took me on board in his own
boat with the hard- wood fittings, and
entertained me on the way with an ac-
count of his late visit to Butaritari,
whither he had gone on an errand for
Carthew, to see how Topelius was get-
ting along, and, if necessary, to give
him a helping hand. But Topelius
was in great force, and had patronized
and — well — out-manoeuvred him.

" Carthew will be pleased," said
Dodd ; " for there's no doubt they op-
pressed the man abominably when they
were in the Currency Lass. It's dia-
mond cut diamond now."

This, I think, was the most of the
news I got from my friend Loudon ;
and I hope I was well inspired, and
have put all the questions to which
you would be curious to hear an an-
swer.

But there is one more that I daresay
you are burning to put to myself ; and
that is, what your own name is doing
in this place, cropping up (as it were
uncalled-for) on the stern of our poor
ship ? If you were not born in Ar-
cadia, you linger in fancy on its mar-
gin ; your thoughts are busied with
the flutes of antiquity, with daffodils,
and the classic poplar, and the foot-
steps of the nymphs, and the elegant
and moving aridity of ancient art.
Why dedicate to you a tale of a caste
so modern ; — full of details of our bar-
baric manners and unstable morals ; —
full of the need and the lust of money,
so that there is scarce a page in which
the dollars do not jingle ; — full of the

unrest and movement of our century,
so that the reader is hurried from place
to place and sea to sea, and the book
is less a romance than a panorama ; — in
the end, as blood-bespattered as an

Well, you are a man interested in all
the problems of art, even the most vul-
gar ; and it may amuse you to hear the
genesis and growth of The Wrecker.
On board the schooner Equator, almost
within sight of the Johnstone Islands
(if anybody knows where these are)
and on a moonlit night when it was
a joy to be alive, the authors were
amused with several stories of the sale
of wrecks. The subject tempted them ;
and they sat apart in the alleyway to
discuss its possibilities. "What a
tangle it would make," suggested one,
" if the wrong crew were aboard.
But how to get the wrong crew there ? "
— "I have it! "cried the other; "the
so-and-so affair ! " For not so many
months before, and not so many hun-
dred miles from where we were then
sailing, a proposition almost tanta-
mount to that of Captain Trent had
been made by a British skipper to
some British castaways.

Before we turned in, the scaffolding
of the tale had been put together. But
the question of treatment was, as usual,
more obscure. We had long been at
once attracted and repelled by that very
modern form of the police novel or
mystery story, which consists in begin-
ning your yarn anywhere but at the
beginning, and finishing it anywhere
but at the end ; attracted by its pecu-
liar interest when done, and the pecu-
liar difficulties that attend its execu-
tion ; repelled by that appearance of
insincerity and shallowness of tone,
which seems its inevitable drawback.
For the mind of the reader, always bent
to pick up clews, receives no impression
of reality or life, rather of an airless,
elaborate mechanism ; and the book re-
mains enthralling, but insignificant, like
a game of chess, not a work of human
art. It seemed the cause might lie
partly in the abrupt attack ; and that if
the tale were gradually approached,
some of the characters introduced (aS
it were) beforehand, and the book
started in the tone of a novel of man-

76

THE WRECKER.

ners and experience briefly treated, this
defect might be lessened and our mys-
tery seem to inhere in life. Tlie tone
of the age, its movement, the mingling
of races and classes in the dollar hunt,
the fiery and not quite unromantic
struggle for existence, with its changing
trades and scenery, and two types in
particular, that of the American handy-
man of business and that of the Yankee
merchant sailor — we agreed to dwell
upon at some length, and make the
woof to our not very precious warp.
Hence Dodd's father, and Pinkerton, and
Nares, and the Dromedary picnics, and
the railway work in New South Wales
— the last an unsolicited testimonial
from the powers that be, for the tale
was half written before I saw Carthew's
squad toil in the rainy cutting at South
Glifton, or heard from the engineer of
his " young swell." After we had in-
vented at some expense of time this
method of approaching and fortifying
our police novel, it occurred to us it
had been invented previously by some
one else, and was in fact — however pain-
fully different the results may seem —
the method of Charles Dickens in his
later work.

I see you staring. Here, you will
say, is a prodigious quantity of theory
to our halfpenny worth of police novel ;

and withal not a shadow of an answer
to your question.

Well, some of us like theory. After
so long a piece of practice these may
be indulged for a few pages. And the
answer is at hand. It was plainly de-
sirable, from every point of view of con-
venience and contrast, that our hero
and narrator should partly stand aside
from those with whom he mingles, and
be but a pressed-man in the dollar hunt.
Thus it was that Loudon Dodd became
a student of the plastic arts, and that
our globe-trotting story came to visit
Paris and look in at Barbizon. And
thus it is, dear Low, that your name
appears in the address of this epilogue.

For sure, if any person can here ap-
preciate and read between the lines, it
must be you — and one other, our friend.
All the dominos will be transparent to
your better knowledge ; the statuary
contract will be to you a piece of an-
cient history ; and you will not have
now heard for the first time of the dan-
gers of Roussillon. Dead leaves from
the Bas Breau, echoes from Lavenue's
and the Rue Bacine, memories of a com-
mon past, let these be your bookmark-
ers as you read. And if you care for
naught else in the story, be a little
pleased to breathe once more for a mo-
ment the airs of our youth.

^c^=v>

END.

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

Bv N. S. Shaler.

HE spaces of the sea
have shared with the
vaster realms of the en-
circling" heavens the
manifold excursions of
the imagination, ever
since man began to
speculate concerning
the unseen parts of nat-
ure. The poet and the
philosopher whose
paths upon the land
most often lie far apart,
have alike sought to
tread over the hidden
ocean floors. For a time
the spaces of the sky,
because they are more
visible than the sub-
Living crinoid. merged realm, were the
Showing at the top favorite field for specu-
the arms which lation. The Greeks, by

branch from the ca- « , , , • i i *^

lyx which encloses tar the most richly en-

iuhSse'lS^ro* dowed in constructive
like processes which imagination of any of

attach it to the hot- j.i • ■ ^

torn. the ancient peoples,

gave little thought to
the regions beneath the sea. The true
love of the deep, and interest in its hid-
den regions, is a matter of modern days.
The people of northern Europe have
felt these motives more strongly than
those of any other lands. The Scandi-
navians were the first navigators of our
race who learned the pleasure which
comes to those who break into an un-
known sea ; a thousand years ago they
dared in frail barks the fierce tempests
of the North Atlantic ; led thereto by
no clearly defined purpose of conquest
or propagandism, but inspired, it would
seem, by the pleasure of dangerous cruis-
ing. It is principally among the people
who share this Scandinavian blood that
we find that vivid interest in all that per-
tains to the ocean which has led to some
of the most learned and interesting in-
quiries of modern science ; researches
which have created the branch of learn-
ing which is termed thalasography, or
the description of the ocean.

The study of the ocean depths is an
extremely difficult inquiry : we know
far more concerning the form of the
moon's surface, though that sphere is a
quarter of a million miles away, than
we can ever hope to learn of the shape
of the ocean-fioors. There are few in-
struments as yet devised which can
give us any considerable information
as to the conditions at any great depth
below the surface. A century ago the
only apparatus of submarine research
was the plummet, by which the navi-
gator, to learn the position of shallows,
sounded for the depth of at most a
few hundred feet. A little tallow on
the bottom of the lead brought up
some fragments of the sea - floor, and
showed whether it was sandy, muddy,
or covered with fragments of shells. A
hundred years ago nothing was known
as to the greater depths of the ocean.
The lines to which the sounding leads
were attached were limited in length to
about six hundred feet ; when the bot-
tom was not found with them the ves-
sel was said to be " off sounding." The
depth beneath her keel was then left
to conjecture. With the modern in-
crease in curiosity concerning the
ocean, the lines were lengthened and
the weights increased, so that some
information began to be received as
to the deeper parts of the sea. But
there were many and serious difficul-
ties encountered in these explorations.
The lines had to be of considerable
size to sustain the heavy plummets,
and the friction of these cords on the
water, though not noteworthy in shal-
lows, became very great when a mile
or more of depth was encountered.
In the abysmal portions it required
hours for the weight to drag the hemp-
en rope to the bottom, and a yet lon-
ger time to lift it again to the ship's
deck. In very deep water so slow was
the descent of the weight, that it was
not easy to tell when it had attained
the ocean-floor. Moreover as the ocean
waters are often pervaded by currents

78

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA,

of considerable velocity which move iu
various directions, the thick cord in its
downgoing would often flex, now this
way and now that, and thus give very
exaggerated records of the depth at
any point.

The most important of these diffi-
culties encountered in exploring the
depth of the sea, have, through the
skill of the American and English ex-
plorers of thalassal problems, been
overcome. The lead is no longer
hung on a rope, but is attached to a
fine steel w^ire which, because of its
tenuity and smoothness, slips easily
through the water ; the weight is so ar-
ranged that when it strikes the bottom
it is at once detached from the wire
which is thus easily wound back to
the drum from which it was lowered,
while the plummet itself is left to be
entombed in the strata forming on the
sea-floor. Although these very clever
inventions, as well as the complicat-
ed and beautiful machinery, by which
the miles of delicate wire may be low-
ered and hoisted in the rolling sea,
have made it possible for a proper-
ly equipped exploring ship to deter-
mine, in a tolerably accurate manner,
the depth of water at any point, the in-
formation which is gained even by very
numerous soundings, though valuable,
is very meagre. Let us fancy that the
atmosphere was as impenetrable to
vision as the depths of the ocean, and
that creatures which dwelt above it
should seek to learn the shape of the
land by means of a few thousand sound-
ings disposed in lines here and there,
so as to give what we may term sec-
tions, over the surface of the terra
firma. We can easily imagine that the
information would be very incomplete.
Such a gorge as the Grand Cafion of
Colorado would have but a bare chance
to be unnoted ; a volcanic peak like
^tna, though it rises two miles above
its base, would most likely escape ob-
servation.

If our imagined super-terrestrial be-
ings should limit their inquiries to the
facts developed by the plummet, they
would have but the most general no-
tions as to the form of the surface they
were exploring. We can conceive them
using the other aids in their research

Avhich have been used by the explorers
of the deep sea : the dredge, a con-
trivance like a scoop, Avhich is dragged
over the bottom, so as to collect a sam-
ple of the deposits which are forming
there, and of the state of the surface
over which it passed. A few thousand
essays with this instrument would cer-
tainly give some notion as to the nature
and variety of the organic forms which
people the coast of this sphere, and are
contributing their bodies to its dust
on sea-floor and land. Yet we readily
fancy that these observations would af-
ford but an inadequate basis on which to
construct a picture of the hidden realm.
So, too, the thermometers which give us
the ranges of temperature in the depths,
and the instruments which collect wa-
ter from the various levels of the sea,
in order that it may be subjected to
chemical analysis, though they j^rovide
us with valuable information, do not
give us anything like the accurate data
for determining the cHmatology of the
ocean-floors that we have secured from
the land. Similar observations on the
land made by beings in the upper air,
even if they were applied only to the
natural wildernesses of the earth, would
afford only details which would require
exceeding skill to frame into important
and trustworthy general views. This
skill has fortunately been allotted to
the naturalists who have prosecuted the
modern studies concerning the oceans :
no department of modern science has
so well combined the daring of the
man of action with the patient labor
of the closet student ; hardly any other
has so profited by the advance in the
mechanic arts. The methods of the
students of the deep sea may indeed
serve as a model of the scientific re-
search which is so characteristic of
our century, for they combine in an
admirable way patience in difficult in-
quiry with skill in interpretation. The
affirmed results, at least those which
are likely to prove interesting to the
general student, are among the most
fascinating chapters in the history of
the earth.

The student who from the familiar
studies of the land surface — studies
which we are all insensibly making in
the daily experiences of our ordinary

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

79

lives — comes to the margin of the sea,
is naturally led to the opinion that the
ocean - floors have a form essentially
like that of the continental fields. At
the shore he finds the mountains and
vallej^'s of the land passing by a gradual
decline of the surface below the level
of the water. The emerged mountain-
tops often form a fringe of islands ex-
tending some distance from the coast-
line, and the valleys are prolonged as
deep bays which penetrate far into the
land. Thus the land and the sea ap-
pear to be blended in a way that very
naturally leads to the supposition that
the ocean-floor is merely an inundated
portion of its coast, differing from the
dry parts only in certain minor feat-
ures, such as river - vallej^s which are
due to actions peculiar to the land.

Naturalists for a long time adopted
this popular view concerning the con-
ditions of the sea-bottom. Observing
that the greater part, if not the whole,
of the land was made up of sediments
which had been accumulated on the sea-
floor, naturalists were led to the idea
that sea and land had often changed
places ; no part of the earth for any long
period escaping from the invasions of
the deep. Gradually, with the advances
in knowledge concerning the history of
the earth, these students
have been driven to other
views. While they are
thus forced to allow that
the continents have been
subjected to great altera-
tions of form, a part of
their surface from time
to time sinking beneath
the sea while other por-
tions which had long been
under water rose above
its surface, they find good
evidence that, as a whole,
the seas and lands have
not changed places but
that the greater oceans
have been permanent
features in the physiogno-
my of this planet. There
is doubtless a debatable
area next the shores of each continent,
which is now won to the realm of
the land and now to the domain of the
waters, but there remains a vast field.

probably including more than half the
oceanic area, which for a great time,
perhaps since organic life has tenanted
this sphere, has been always in the con-
dition of deep sea.

Accepting this view as to the toler-
able permanence of land and sea with
the greater assurance, because it has
slowly won its way to belief over the
previous opinions and prejudices of
students, we are prepared to find that
the conditions of the ocean-bottom are
in many regards entirely unlike those
of the land. It is easy to see that the
shape of the land is mainly determined
by a contest between the down -wear-
ing action of the water which falls up-
on its surface as rain or snow, or is
swung against it in tides and waves,
and the uprising movement which lifts
the mass of the continent and wi'inkles
the underlying rocks into mountain
folds. Rivers and glaciers have battled
with these ascending masses of strata,
they have carved out the valleys and
gorges which fret the land in every di-
rection ; even the plains which appear to
feel little of this erosive action generally
owe their horizontal aspect to the fact
that the wearing agents have done their
most effective work in these areas. We
readily perceive that all this mighty

Diagram showing the Position of a Deep-sea Dredge as the Line is Paid Out
from the Stern of the Ship.

etc., show the position and effect of the weight which
to bring the dredge into the proper attitude.

The letters G, G^
is used

machinery of flowing rivers and beat-
ing waves has no place in the depths
of the sea. It is true that the ocean
has great streams upon its surface,

80

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

some of which, for certain parts of their
courses, move with the speed of the
larger rivers, but these swift currents
are superficial things, they rarely if
ever touch the bottom except where
they come upon the shores of conti-
nents or islands, but flow upon a base
of deep-lying nearly motionless water.
While everywhere upon the land, even
in the most arid regions, there are oc-
casional rains, and for a time the tor-
rents do their appointed work of wear-
ing aw^ay the surface of the earth, the
deeper ocean -floors are practically al-
ways the seat of deposition, that is,
they are receiving contributions of sedi-
ment from the rivers of the land, from
the waves and tides of the shores, from
the vast amounts of dust thrown out
of volcanoes as well as that which falls
from the celestial spaces. In a word
the land is characteristically the place
where the strata are in the course of
destruction, and the sea-floor the la-
boratory where these materials are sep-
arated from the water, partly by gravi-
ty and partly by the growth of organic
forms, and built again into compact
rocks.

The result of these differences in
conditions is, that while the land is
carved into innumerable valleys which
mark the process of its destruction, the
sea-floor is prevailingly horizontal, for
that is the shape which the growing
deposits assume as they are deposit-
ed. But there are yet other influences
which serve to give to the sea - floor a
uniform aspect. Chief among these
we must reckon the prevailing absence
of true mountains in the fields which
are covered by the ocean waters. Al-
though these vast realms contain nu-
merous elevations, some of which are
of magnificent proportions, it seems
tolerably certain that true mountains —
that is, elongated heights produced by
the folding of rocks into ridges and
furrows — do not occur in the abysmal
portions of the ocean.

The evidence of this lack of moun-
tains in the deep seas, though inferen-
tial, is very satisfactory in its nature.
We note that the average depth of the
sea, as determined by many thousand
soundings as well as by the speed with
which the waves caused by earthquakes

travel over their basins, is about fifteen
thousand feet, while the portion of the
marine fields where the depth exceeds
twenty thousand feet is extremely lim-
ited, and the most profound abyss yet
encountered in sounding is only about
twenty-eight thousand feet below the
surface. In the land we find many
hundred peaks which exceed fifteen
thousand feet in height, and some
score which rise twenty thousand feet
above the sea level. There are indeed
several considerable areas of moun-
tainous country where extensive fields
attain a greater height than the aver-
age depth of the sea. It is thus at
once plain that if mountains developed
in the ocean-floor as freely as they do
on the land there would be a great
number of them rising above the plane
of the seas, but the fact is that there
is not a single distinct mountain peak
rising above the water level at any
great distance away from the margins
of the continents. All the numerous
islands of the wdde oceans are either
coral reefs or the summits of volcanic
cones.

It is furthermore evident that if
mountains grew upward from the sea-
floor they would attain the surface of
the water without being subjected to
any erosion, which has robbed the ele-
vations of the land of a great part of
their height. If we carefully examine
any of the great mountainous peaks of
the continents we find that they have
been much worn away by the rivers, tor-
rents, frost or glaciers, which have al-
ways operated upon them, but moun-
tains growing upon the sea-floor would
be safe from these assaults until they
rose above the surface of the water.
We would on this account expect to
find them even more abundant and of
loftier forms in the marine areas than
on the parts of the earth's surface
which rises above the sea. We are
therefore forced to the conclusion that
mountains do not form upon the sea-
floor, or if they develop there they at-
tain no such dimensions as they ex-
hibit upon the land.

Although the deeper sea-floors prob-
ably lack mountains, they are not with-
out striking reliefs which if they could
be seen would present all the dignity

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA,

81

which their size gives to the Himala-
yas or Andes : the difference is that
these elevations are not true mountains
but volcanic peaks sometimes isolat-
ed, again accumulated in long narrow
ridges but all made up of matter poured
out from craters or through great fis-
sures in the crust. So numerous are
these heaped masses of lava and other
ejections from these vents that there
is hardly any considerable area of the
oceans where they do not rise above
the surface ; there are indeed thousands
of these volcanic peaks distributed from
pole to pole. Yet it is likely that only
a small part of these elevations attain
the surface of the ocean. Probably the
greater part of them remain buried be-
neath the sea, and are only imperfectly
perceived when the sounding lead indi-
cates an elevation of the bottom. Thus
on the floor of the North Atlantic there
is evidently a long irregular chain of
these elevations extending from the
Icelandic group of islands southward
to the Azores. If an explorer could
view this part of the sea - bottom he
would probably find that the line of
craters was as continuous as that ex-
hibited by the volcanoes of the Andes.
In the invisible landscape of the sea-
floor volcanoes play the part of moun-
tains on the land. It seems indeed
clear that these elevations, due to the
action of the earth's interior fires, are
in their way as characteristic of the
deeper seas as the mountains are of
the land portion of the continents : the
volcanic field is so essentially marine
that of the hundreds of vents that
have been in activity within the his-
toric period not one is situated more
than three hundred miles from the mar-
gin of the sea.

Besides the volcanic peaks the sea-
bottom in certain parts of the tropics
and in the regions near to the equa-
torial realm which are swept over by
warm ocean currents is beset with the
singular elevations formed by coral
reefs. Next the shore these reefs take
on the form of long submerged walls,
sometimes many hundred miles in
length and only a hundred feet or so
in height. To the eye they would ap-
pear as singularly regular and artificial
terraces, their crests on an exact level

for a considerable part of their length.
Here and there the wall would present
port-like openings through which the
streams of the tides and rivers find en-
trance and egress. The reefs of the
deeper sea present a very different as-
pect, they are generally in the form of
very lofty cones rising steeply from the
depths of the ocean to the height of a
few feet above the level of the water.
On their tops there is generally a shal-
low cup - shaped depression of a few
score feet in depth bounded by the
low flat wall of the living reef of coral
sand which had been formed along
the shore. The origin of these deep
atoll sea-reefs is not yet perfectly un-
derstood. Mr. Darwin's explanation,
long considered satisfactory but now
brought into doubt, was to the effect
that they were produced wherever a mas-
sive coral growth was formed around
the flanks of a slowly down- sinking isl-
and, the polyps building their lime-
stone wall upward as the peak lowered
into the depths of the sea. Dr. John
Murray, the well-known oceanographer,
has recently shown that these basin-
shaped reefs may be formed wherever
shallows are produced in situations
where they are swept over by a warm
marine current. The upward growth
of the coral tends to form a cap upon
the shoal which extends upward to
near the level of low tide. Attaining
this altitude, the central part of the
mass begins to dissolve away, and the
process of solution continues until a
basin is formed, while on the outside
margin of the reef the polyp communi-
ties continue to grow, and from the
debris which they afford under the beat-
ing action of the waves the ring-like isl-
and is formed. Although there might
be cases in which the elaborate h}^othe-
sis of Mr. Darwin is applicable, there
can be no doubt that by far the greater
part of the atolls have developed in the
manner indicated by Dr. Murray.

Yet another singular feature in the
topography of the oceans is found in
the great shelf- like shallows Avhich usu-
ally border the margins of the conti-
nents. These remarkable features are
best known along the coasts of the
North Atlantic, perhaps for the reason
that there alone is the form of the bot-

82

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

torn well known. In going from New
York to Liverpool, the traveller for
the first hundred miles of his east-
ward course passes over a portion of
the sea where the water rarely exceeds

Calyx, Arms, and a Part of the Stem of a Metacrinus — one
of the Sea Lilies.

A representative of a group which abounded in the
early geological periods, but which is rare in the seas
of the present time.

five hundred feet in depth, the bottom
slopes gradually toward the central por-
tion of the ocean, at the rate of about
five feet to the mile. There are occa-
sional broad swales on the nearly level
floor, but as a whole it is much more
nearly plain than any similarly exten-
sive part of the prairie land of the Mis-
sissippi Valley. This gradual descent
toward the deep sea is terminated by an
abrupt slope where the bottom plunges
at the rate of from ten to one hundred
feet to the mile, from the crest of the
submerged plain to the abysmal depths
of the ocean.

Unlike most of the submarine topog-
raphy it is possible for us to get a
clear idea as to the general character
of this part of the sea-bottom from
certain portions of the dry land which
have recently been elevated above the
watery envelope. While it is true that
nearly if not quite all parts of the con-
tinents have been formed on the ocean-
floor, the greater portion of the land
surface has been so much warped by
mountain building, and made uneven

by stream action that the original im-
press of the marine conditions has
been entirely lost. In the southern por-
tion of North America, from Virginia
through the lowlands of the Carolinas,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and a
part of Texas and Louisiana, we have a
portion of this shelf, which was formed
when the shore was farther inland and
when the area in question was below
the level of the sea, constituting a por-
tion of the continental deposits such
as is now submerged along our shores.
Like that part of the submarine plain
which is still under water, this lowland
of the southern Atlantic coast-lands is
extremely level with a slight dip toward
the ocean dej)ths, and a faintly undu-
lating surface, the irregularities not
usually causing a difference of altitude
in one square mile of more than five or
six feet. Examining into the materials
which compose this emerged portion of
the continental shelf, we find that they
consist in part of detritus which the
waves and rivers have worn away from
this land, and conveyed a little way
from the ancient shore, together with
quantities of fossils which in their life-
time drew their solid parts from the
sea- water. Although nowhere else do we
find any other so perfect and extensive
a fragment of the continental shelf
lying above the level of the sea, there is
here and there about the great lands
evidence that this is the common nat-
ure of these deposits. We may there-
fore conclude that they are mainly
made up of sediments brought to the
sea from the neighboring hills and
plains of the land.

Until within recent times geologists
have generally held to the opinion that
the lands and seas had occasionally
changed positions, so that the conti-
nental areas were from time to time
lowered into the deep, and the floors of
the abysmal seas, by a similar alternat-
ing movement, lifted into the realm of
the air. The researches of Dr. Murray
and others appear to indicate that this
alternation of relations does not occur.
Nowhere on the land have we yet found
clear evidence going to show the exist-
ence of any deposits such as are formed
in the abysmal regions of the ocean.
The students of the subject are now

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

83

coming to believe that, while the conti-
nents have been subjected to frequent
oscillations, portions of the surface of
each becoming depressed to a moder-
ate depth beneath the ocean while other
parts are extended farther into the field
of waters, these great lands are never
deeply submerged, and that correspond-
ingly the abysmal realms are never con-
verted into dry land. This view finds
much support in the fact that each of
the continental areas has a somewhat
peculiar assemblage of life which is evi-
dently continued in unbroken succes-
sion throughout the greater part of the
time which is recorded in the pages of
the great stone book whose leaves are
the strata of the successive formations.
As the past is the index to the future,
we may anticipate in the future of this
ancient though still youthful sphere,
that geographers will often have to re-
frame the charts of land and sea, but it
is doubtful if they will ever delineate as
continents those portions of the sphere
which are now in the deeper parts of the
ocean.

We have now considered the princi-
pal topographic features of the sea-
floors, and have noted the fact that
they consist mainly of extensive plains
with gentle slopes toward the deep
water extending for some distance from

bottoms of abysmal depths : volcanic
peaks generally grouped in long ranges,
and lastly the shore walls and steep cap-

Tomopteris.

A curious worm-like animal inhabiting the surface of
tropical seas.

the shore, and terminating in steeper
slopes which lead down into deeper
water : broad undulating fields in the

Globergorina.

A member of the Foraminifera, a groxip of lowly an-
imals which live in the superficial parts of the warm
open sea, and whose remains fall in great quantities to
the bottom. (Much magnified.)

topped cones of the deep sea coral-reefs
or isles. We will therefore turn our
attention to the organic forms which
people this vast realm — forms so nu-
merous and varied, that we can only
consider their more important aspects,
limiting ourselves in the discursive in-
quiry to those features which seem to
throw light on the general history of
life. The first matter to be noted is
that now, as in all the past ages of the
earth, the creatures which tenant the
sea are in organization much inferior
to those dwelling on the land. This is
true, not only of the organic forms as
a whole, but essentially so of every
separate group of animals and plants.
Thus in the vegetable kingdom, the
truly marine species contain no true
flowering forms ; none which have de-
vised the functionally and structural-
ly separated parts of root, stem, and
leaves, or which combine their ofiices
to afford the well-ordered life of the
familiar vegetation of the land. Al-
though the sea-floor is generally cov-

84

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

ered by a coating of detritus far richer
in the elements of plant growth than
the surface of tiie land, it does not
serve the sea-plants as a soil ; they send
no roots into it ; they take no nourish-
ment from it, but derive all their sus-
tenance from the water which envel-
opes their stems and fronds. Although
there are many diverse forms of marine
vegetables, the species are generally
small and weak structures, only one
group, the Macrocystis, is known to
attain any great bulk. This tenant of
the Pacific and Antarctic Oceans, has a
stem extending from the bottom of the
sea to the crown which floats at the
surface of the water, and the plant
may have the length of one thousand
feet or more. Remarkable as is this
structure it is lowly organized, and
does not deserve to be compared with
our more highly developed land plants,
which, in every feature by which we
measure superiority, are far above their
kindred of the sea.

Although the animal forms of the
deep are proportionally far more diver-
sified, and attain to relatively higher
states of life than the plants of that
realm, they are also much inferior to
their relatives of the land. Each of the
great types has its representatives
among the marine forms, and certain of
them, as for instance the group of ani-
mals commonly known as radiates, to
which the polyps and star fishes belong,
are, with some trifling exceptions of
species which live in fresh water, con-
fined to the sea. But all the mammals,
birds, and insects, the groups which
contain the intelligent animals, are es-
sentially the creations of the conti-
nents ; the few members of the series
which have developed close and perma-
nent relations with the ocean, such as
the whales, penguins, and rare marine
insects, have clearly been derived from
characteristic land forms, which, in the
rude struggle for existence, have been
forced to resort for subsistence to the
sea. The greater part of the higher
life avoids the sea, for it is to them a
place of death.

Nothing is clearer than the fact that
all our land animals have been derived
from parent stocks which had their
origin in the waters ; it is not so cer-

tain as to plants, but it is iirqhahle that
they, too, were first nurtured in the sea.
In the land areas these great groups
of animal and vegetable organisms at-
tain their perfection. The articulates
and vertebrates are at their best above
the level of the waters, and in them
alone do we find intellectual species.
How does it come about that though
the deep has been the cradle of these
varied creatures it has not been the
place of their fuller development ? The
answer is plain, and in it we shall find
some most important teaching. A com-
mon view of the action of natural selec-
tion is that, given a full measure of in-
crease and a fair share of variation, the
struggle for existence will bring about
a steadfast gain in the fitness of a form
for the duties of life in its proper sta-
tion, and that in time almost any meas-
ure of advance may be attained. But
the failure of the marine forms to win
their way to the organic and intellec-
tual successes of the higher life is suf-
ficient evidence that time and struggle,
infinite toil and pain, ceaseless life and
death will not alone enable life to win
the upward way. Many other condi-
tions, which, in a question-begging man-
ner, we term the influences of environ-
ment, must enter into the inconceivably
complicated equation which determines
the fate of living beings. The struggle
^ for existence has been as bitter in the
seas as upon the land, it might well be
maintained that it is far more intense
in the water than in the animal realm,
and it has endured for a far greater
time. What, then, is the reason for the
lagging behind of the marine life ?

It may well be that this slow^ ad-
vance, or rather, we should term it, this
widespread failure of the aquatic life in
all that regards elevation in structure
and function, is due to many difi'erent
causes, but there is one cause which
may, of itself, perhaps, in large part,
account for the tardy evolution of the
inhabitants of the sea. This is the im-
perfect nature of the breathing process
which is inevitable in all truly aquat-
ic animals. Marine animals necessar-
ily depend for their process of respira-
tion on the small amount of air which
is dissolved in the water, a part of
which they appropriate by means of

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

85

their

gills. The '--
result is that
in proportion
to their size a gill-
bearing animal, at
best, has not the
tenth part of the
access to o x y g e n
which is enjoyed by
the ordinary land
forms. Now, on the
amount of this gas which _

comes in contact with the ^:

blood depends the share ^

of nervous energy and J

muscular power of an an-
imal : the force which j)ro- ^f ■
pels their bodies or their
brains is as much a matter of com-
bustion as that which is generated in a ^
steam boiler. This respiratory process "^
is necessarily slow in all gill-breathers, .i
which take the air from the exceeding
dilution in water where it does not
constitute one hundredth of the mass, as com-
pared with lung - breathers where the oxygen
can be supplied as rapidly as needed. There
is another condition of the sea which
has, doubtless, much retarded the ad-
vance of its tenants ; the greater part
of its life dwells in utter darkness. At
one hundred feet in depth the vertical ^
sun yields only a twilight, and below
one thousand feet it is perpetual night.
As a large part of intellectual life de-
pends upon the knowledge acquired by jn the foreground the upward growth and lateral enlarge-
Sight, we easily perceive that the utter mentof volcanic cones is indicated. The largest of these
-J ^ , i? i.1 "^ T • 1^^"^ t)een levelled oft and occupied bvau atoll. In the dis-
aarKness OI the deeper sea is most un- tance a volcano, stlll active, is in a state of slight eruption.

Vol. XII.— 10

Suggestions concerning Subnnarine Volcanoes, Coral Reefs,
and Volcanic Islands. *

86

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

favorable to the development of intelli-
gent beinii^s.

With this understandin*^ of the gen-
eral limitations of marine life we are

enee. The only marine animals which
have been observed to have any dis-
tinct markft of intelligence are the
forms which have the habit of resort-

Sketch showing the Arrangement for Dredging in the Deep Sea.
The dredge is seen in the foreground. The fringed tassels are intended to entangle objects which rest upon
the bottom. The drum-like piece of apparatus is a set of springs intended to prevent the breaking of the line
by sudden strains.

not surprised to find that the animals
of the sea are almost completely lack-
ing in habits of an intellectual order.
Save in a few forms, as, for instance, the
species of fish which weave a rude nest
of sea - weed, they make no construc-
tions such as are so commonly produced
by land animals. They rarely emit an}^
sound in the nature of a sexual call ;
they never dwell in organized com-
munities of a social sort ; the sexes
rarely if ever mate, even for a season.
"With them life in general has not
risen above the plane of mere exist-

ing to the shore, especially the seals,
which are descended from the land ani-
mals in the kinship of our bears and
dogs ; and are, in fact, not properly to
be classed as marine animals, at least,
in their more essential qualities. There
seems to be not sufficient nervous en-
ergy to spare from the ceaseless tur-
moil of the combat which goes on
among these creatures of the sea, to
afford the basis for intellectual devel-
opment. All the small share of force
which these creatures with their scanty
supply of oxygen can engender goes

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

87

to the labor of fliti^lit and chase ; the
ceaseless stru*j;'gle to obtain food or to
avoid falling- a prey to their enemies.
Although the mental processes of these
creatures of the deej) are limited, their

ited section is ujion or near the bottom,
and within a short distance of the top
of the water ; 3'et the whole of this deej)
section is open to certain grou2)s of be-
ings, and has a share of occupants. The

physical growth is marvellously vigor- result is that, to each square mile of

ous, and creates an amazing variety of
forms, which are so far hidden below
the veil of the waters that even the
eager search of the naturalists has but
imperfectly disclosed them.

The immediate conditions of aquatic
life differ in many important ways
from those of the land. In the latter
realm the weight of the animal or
plant is not sensibly diminished by the
buoyancy of the air ; the result is that
the creatures have in all cases to dwell
mainl}' on the surface ; even the most
volant of the birds and insects spend
the greater part of their life on the
surface of the ground. The result is
that the quantity of these land forms

ocean surface, there are usuall}^ many
times the number of individual beings
which we find in an equal area of the
land. As each of these creatures dies,
even if it live out its term of existence,
its bodily parts become the food of
many hungry mouths which are exactly
adapted to the task of bringing its car-
cass back to the living state. Some-
thing of this same speedy conversion
of the dead to the uses of life is seen
upon the land, but what we see there
affords but an imperfect image of the
swiftness with which the translation
goes on in the sea.

The movements of the organic ma-
chinery in the deeper seas, unlike those

which can find a place for existence is of the land, are unaffected by the pro-
determined by the room afforded by a cess of seasons. In the shallow water
shallow zone next the soil ; the depth next the shore the summer's heat and
of this stratum is practically limited winter's cold have some effect uj^on
between the bot-
tom of the true
soil and the top
of the vegetation
which occupies
its field ; in other
words the stra-
tum occupied by
organic life on
the dry land is
limited in thick-
ness to a few
score feet, and in
the vast treeless
regions is but a
foot or two in
vertical extent.
In the oceans,
however, because
the greater part
of the creatures
may freely float
or swim in the
water, the realm
w h i c h living
things can occu-
py is vastly great-
er. It may extend from the surface their tenants. In winter, at least in
downward to the depth of four miles or high latitudes, fishes, with rare excep-
more. It is true that the most inhab- tions, especially the schooling species,

Antennarius.

A creature related to our shore goose-fish, but adapted to live in water of a depth of a

hundred fathoms.

88

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

desert the shores, and in any niolhisks
migrate into deei)er waters ; but in the
profounder sea, where neither day nor

Figure of a Free Polyp Community, related to the Sea Fans.

Each little serration on the leaflets of the frond-like
body is a separate individual.

night, summer or winter, bring any
pause to the contest of life or any change
in its conditions from age to age since
these abyssal regions became first ten-
anted by organisms — the contest has
been without any of these pauses of
the winter sleep, which on the land is

eyident, eyen in the tropics and in high
latitudes.

This continuity in the organic histo-
ry of marine creatures makes it possi-
ble for a number of singular communi-
ties of animals to deyeloj) in its waters,
the like of which are unknown in the re-
gions which are enyeloped Ijy the air.
In the latter region all the animal
species consist of separate indiyiduals
Ayhich may be associated in intellectual
communities and colonies, such as those
of the bees and ants, or in the herds of
the herbiyora or the flocks of birds ;
but in no case do we find them united
by a physical bond. It is otherwise
in the sea. There, many groups con-
sist of indiyiduals which are knit to-
gether in the manner of the polyps
and sj^onges ; the seyeral animals of-
ten to the number of millions com-
bining their bodies to form yast or-
ganic associations, which may build the
monumental structures of the fringing,
or atoll reefs. This structural union
in the life of the marine animals is par-
alleled on the land in the j^lants where
many separate buds are associated in a
single bush or tree, but none of the
land animals haye any such union of
their bodies ; such associations are pos-
sible in plants, eyen in regions where
there is winter cold, because they be-
come essentially lifeless while the frigid
conditions preyail. It is easy to see that
it would be quite impossible for the
more highly organized animal creatures
to enter on such combinations in the
open air.

Another peculiarity in the enyiron-
ment of aquatic animals de2:)ends on
the capacity of water for floating sub-
stances. AH these forms on the land
haye to be endowed with the j^ower of
moving that they may seek their food,
but in the sea the water floats the food
to many waiting mouths, and the creat-
ures may dwell fixed to the same place
on the bottom from their birth to their
death, waiting patiently for the cur-
rents to bring them their nourishment.
All the corals and sponges, and nearly
half the mollusks, obtain their supj^ly
of food in this manner ; perhaps one-
half of the marine species trust to this
chance of gathering their aliments from
the passing water.

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

89

For a century or more naturalists
have known a great deal concerning
the marine organisms Avliicli dwell in
the shallow water next the shore. They
long ago learned the amazing richness
of these littoral forms. The census
of species amounts now to more than
one hundred thousand distinct forms ;
it is, however, of late that they have
ascertained that the deeper parts of
the ocean-floors have also an abundant
and varied peopling. Although the
study of the abysmal life of the seas is

views concerning the origin and history
of organic life. These creatures of the
abysmal regions of the ocean appear
mainh' to have l)een derived, by a pro-
cess of variation, from those which once
inhabited the shallower waters next the
shore. The greater part of these shore
dwellers are exceedingly intolerant of
the enormous pressure of the dee2)er
waters, as well as of the low tempera-
ture and total darkness which exist
there. Certain forms have, however,
acquired the ability to withstand these

A Group of Fishes of Peculiar Form, such as Inhabit Moderate Depths in the Sea.

The bottom form is a flounder, with both eves on the same side of the head to fit it for l\ing flat upon the
bottom. The third from the base of the picture is provided with fringed appendages which attract the atten-
tion of its prey, and bring them so near that they may be captured in one leap.

but just begun, and the knowledge
which has been gained is probably but
a small part of that which will be gath-
ered during the coming years, the re-
sults of the inquiries, in many ways, are
not only most interesting, but in the
highest degree important in shaping our

peculiar conditions, as generation by
generation through the geologic ages
they have crept awa}' from the realms
of fierce combat next the shores, to the
less contested fields of the oj^en and
deeper seas. Through all the geologic
ages this selection of especially j^re-

90

THE DEPTHS OE THE SEA,

pared groups for the sin^^'ular stations
or habits of the ocean depths lias been
goinii^ on, with the result that the life
of those dark and pressure-burthened
regions are now tenanted by eminent-
ly peculiar animals, hy species which
ever surprise the student who is accus-
tomed alone to the forms which dwell
near the shores.

One of the most striking features

in the seas, but now have abandoned
the fields of more active combat, which
are usually the seat of the greatest ad-
vance.

In the profounder seas the inverte-
brate life ap].)ears to have a larger share
than is secured by the vertebrae, or back-
boned animals ; yet there are a num-
ber of fishes known in these depths,
and it seems likely that these tenants of

Figure of a Sponge, such as Inhabits the Deeper Parts of the Sea.

connected with the animals of the deep
seas, is the frequency with which we find
there living species which remind us of
kinds which in former geologic peri-
ods dwelt in the coastal districts of the
oceans. It seems that many of these
ancient creatures, when they no longer
could hold their own against the more
highly organized and developed animals
which inhabited the favored stations
next the shores, shrunk away into the
deep water, and in that undesired part
of the world found an asylum, where,
amid the changeless environment, they
have dwelt for ages, unaltered. Thus
the vast profounds of the deep have
become a sort of almshouse, where-
unto antiquated forms have retired be-
fore the overwhelming pressure which
the newer and higher life ever imposes
upon its ancestors. From the results
of the relatively trifling explorations
which have, as yet, been made, there
seems good reason to hope that in time
we may win from the deep the nearest
living representations of many creat-
ures which once occupied a large place

the deep sea may be numbered by thou-
sands of species. Among the finned
tenants of the profounder parts of the
ocean, we find the most startling depart-
ures from the types with which we are
familiar in coastal waters. In general
shape they differ little from their kin-
dred which dwell in the sunlit shal-
lows. The differences are largely in the
mechanism of the senses, especially of
the ej^es. These organs undergo sur-
prising variations with reference to the
enduring of the darkness of these
deeps. In certain of the species the
sight not only fails, but the visual ap-
paratus entirely disappears ; in others
the eyeballs become very much en-
larged and the nervous apparatus in-
creased, and are evidently arranged to
catch mere glim^^ses of light. As it is
certain tliat no trace of sunlight can
ever penetrate through the deep which
overlies the realm where these animals
dwell, the adaptation of these eyes to
the needs of different vision at first ap-
peared to be a very inexplicable mat-
ter. Some recent discoveries provide us

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

91

with what seems to be an adequate ex- to the conditions of utter darkness
planation of the enigma. It has been after lon<2f aj^es of experience in the
found that certain of the denizens of reahns of li<^ht ; under circumstances
the deep sea-floors have phosphorescent which, so far as we can perceive, are ab-
parts of their bodies which serve
to give light in the manner in
which it is yielded by the fa-
miliar fire-flies and glowworms.
The end secured by these light-
giving parts is probably the
attraction of the sexual mates
of the creatures. In the utter
darkness of the ocean this in-
dispensable end could be at-
tained in no other way ; even
the flshes appear to have this
beautiful provision for avoiding
the most serious evils of the
darkness in which they are com-
pelled to exist.

It is evident that the fishes
with large eyes would also have
a decided advantage in the pur-
suit of food, for their keen vis-
ion would enable them to discern the
glimmer of the phosphorescent light
for some distance through the still,
clear water. The difficulty comes in the
case of those fishes which under the
same general conditions of existence in
darkness, combined with the same need
of food, and of finding their mates, have
not only failed to better their sight, but
have aljandoned it altogether. There
is, perhaps, no other simple instance in depths to which the light penetrates, we

Sternoptyx Diaphana.

A fish of singular form from the open sea, and possibly inhabiting
the greater depths.

solutely identical, the creatures enter
upon widely divergent paths of varia-
tion. The lesson we may read in these
facts seems plain ; it is to the effect
that environment alone is not compe-
tent to determine the way followed by
a species in its process of change.

In the sunlit regions of the surface
of the open oceans, even in the under
water of the sea, down to the utmost

which we may so well perceive the car
dinal difficulty which the extreme se-
lectionist encounters in his effort to
explain all the complications of the or-
ganic world by the single hypothesis

have a zone of waters in which the va-
riety of form is very limited, and the
greater part of them belong to the
lower orders of being. From this part
of the sea few fishes have been obtained,
for the creatures like to
dwell onl^^ where there is an
abundance of varied food.
In this zone the most in-
teresting forms are the low-
ly protozoa whose bodies, to
the eye, appear as mere bits
of translucent jelly, essen-
tially unorganized, but
which secrete shapely shells,
showing that the apparent
simplicity which they pre-
sent to our eyes is due to
our imperfect knowledge of
them. Dwelling in myriads
of the survival of the fittest. Here are in the superficial parts of the sea, these
two groups of like creatures introduced foraminifera, as they are termed, sink at

A Member of the Genus Scopelus.
Showing the large eves common in fishes which swim in the depths of
toe sea to which the lisrht of the sun does not penetrate. The eyes are
probably specially adapted to perceiving the phosphorescent glow of
various animals.

Suggestions as to the History of a Sunken Ship

In parts of the sea near the shore wliere the accumula-
tion of sediment is rapid. Of tlie two ships upon the bot-
tom that in the fore'j;round must have come to rest cen-
turies before the other.

death to the bottom, over which they
accumulate a thick coating' of minutely
divided limestone powder, forming a layer of
ooze as unsubstantial as the finest snow. A
large j)art of the North Atlantic, particularly
that vast level tract beneath the central por-
tion of the sea, known as the telegraphic pla-
teau, because it was crossed by the first tele-
graphic cable which w^as laid, is covered with
this chalk-like substance. Along with these
shelly bits derived from animals which have
dwelt near the surface, there goes into the
waste which accumulates on the floor, the re-
mains of creatures which dwelt upon the bot-
tom ; thus it comes about that the fossils
which we find in any stratum may have been
nurtured under very various conditions : in
part they may have dwelt on the floor of the
deep sea, in the cold and dark waters of
these regions and, in part, in the troj^ical
climate of its surface.

We have already alluded to the coldness
of the w^ater which is found at great
depths beneath the surface of even the
warmest parts of the open oceans. Wher-
ever in such situations examinations of
the temperature at the bottom have been

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

93

made it has been found to be very
near the freezing point. There seems
to be but one possible explanation
of this singular fact, which is the fol-
lowing, viz. : On the surface of the
oceans there is a system of warm cur-
rents, such as the Gulf Stream, which
flow in great volume from the tropics
toward the poles. These tides of wat-
er have to be, in some manner, re-
turned to the tropical districts. In
part this is effected by certain counter
currents which set southward along
the surface of the sea ; but the volume
of these superficial movements flow-
ing toward the tropics is small as com-
pared with the streams which flow over
the surface into the circumpolar seas.
The principal return or compensating
movement of the water appears to be
brought about by a massive drift of
the fluid which has been chilled nearly
to the freezing point in high latitudes
and then creeps, probably with extreme
slowness, along the bottom until it may
attain the equator. There, very gradu-
ally, it rises and takes the place of the
part of the sea-water which has been
driven away by the currents moving
toward the arctic and antarctic regions.
The prime movers of the superficial
streams, like that which flows from the
Gulf of Mexico to the North Atlan-
tic, are the trade-winds * and thus it
comes about that the really arctic cli-
mate of the deep sea-floors of all the
open oceans is caused by these wonder-
ful permanent winds.

On the bottom of all the seas there
is constantly gathering a coating of ma-
terials derived from the bodies of ani-
mals and plants which perish there, or
which fall down upon the floor from the
higher parts of the water ; with this
is mingled, more or less finely divid-
ed rocky matter. If the portion of the
submarine surface where the accumu-
lation is making is near the coast line,
these several mineral substances may
be derived from the land and brought
into the sea by the rivers or dragged
away from the beaches by the reflux of
the tides. In high latitudes the ice-
bergs raft off from the land quantities
of stony fragments which, when the
ice is melted, fall swiftly to the bottom.

• See The Instability of the Atmosphere, Vol. II., p. 107.
Vol. XIL— U

But this importation of detritus from
the continents can effect but a small
portion of the ocean-floors : it is prob-
able that the greater part of the sedi-
ment, other than that derived from or-
ganic remains which come to rest on
these surfaces, is thrown out from vol-
canoes. The amount of these ejections
from active craters is very great. It
seems certain that in a little over a cen-
tury the volcanoes of the Javanese dis-
trict alone have cast into the sea not
less than one hundred and fifty cubic
miles of dust and pumice. As this
matter contains a good deal of gas in
the form of small vesicles, it may float
to a great distance and undergo much
chemical change before it finally comes
to rest on the ocean-floor. Each bit
of this pumice or ash may indeed jour-
ney all the world about before it is de-
cayed and falls to pieces or is weighted
down by the small animals and plants
which adhere to its surface. The
quantity of this igneous matter which
is cast into the sea is probably far
greater than that brought down to the
deep by all the rivers, and in volume,
the contribution is probably only ex-
ceeded by that which is worn from the
shores of the sea itself by the action of
the waves and tides.

In the endless procession of fragments
which are brought to the ocean-floor by
the very varied actions which lead, in
time, all things down to its depths, there
perhaps to await their far-off resurrec-
tion into continents which are yet to
be, we must reckon the remains of man
himself ; the debris of his body and his
arts which strew that portion of the
earth hidden from our eyes by the
sea. There is a rather common, but
erroneous notion, to the effect that
a human body, or even a ship, will not
sink to the bottom of the profounder
abysses of the oceans, but will, on ac-
count of the density of the waters at a
great depth, remain suspended at some
distance above the surface of the earth.
This is an error. No other fate awaits
the drowned sailor or his shij) than
that which comes to the marine creat-
ures who die on the bottom of the sea ;
in time their dust all passes into the
great storehouse of the earth even as
those who receive burial on the land.

94

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.

However deep the sea, it is but a few
hours before the body of a man who
finds his grave in the ocean is at rest
upon the bottom ; it there receives the
same swift service from the agents
which, in the order of nature, are ap-
pointed to care for the dead, as comes
to those who are reverently inhumed
in blessed ground. All save the hard-
est parts of the skeleton are quickly
taken again into the realm of the liv-
ing, and even those more resisting por-
tions of the body, in time are, in large
part, appropriated by the creatures of
the sea-floor, so that before the dust re-
turns in the accumulating water to the
firm set earth it may pass through an
extended cycle of living forms.

The fate of animal bodies on the sea-
floor is well illustrated by the fact that
beneath the waters of the Gulf Stream,
where it passes by southern Florida,
there are, in some places, quantities of
bones, apparently those of the manitee,
or sea-cows, a large herbivorous mam-
mal, which, like the seal, has become
adapted to aquatic life ; these creatures
plentifully inhabit the tropical rivers
which flow into the Caribbean Sea, and
are, though rarely, found in the streams
of southern Florida. At their death
they drift out into the open water and
are swept away to the northward by the
ocean current. For some weeks, per-
haps, the carcasses are buoyed up by
the gases of decomposition which are
retained by their thick, oily skins ; as
these decay and break the bodies fall to
the bottom. When the dredge brings
up fragments of their skeletons we find
the bits bored through and through,
like insect-eaten wood, by the many
animals which are fitted to consume
them. It is evident that in a short
time these bones become reduced to
powder.

It is otherwise with the ships which
founder in the deep sea. They doubt-
less remain for centuries as monuments
of the strange doings of the masterful
creature of the land. Whatever the atti-
tude of the craft when it is overwhelmed
by the waters it is likely that a moment
after it descends below their surface,
it rights itself, assuming the position
it occupies when sailing in quiet wa-
ters. The weight of the ballast neces-

sarily brings it into this position. In
this attitude the vessel falls steadfastly,
but not very swiftly, until it strikes the
bottom. It may require in the average
depth of the sea, which is about three
miles, a quarter of an hour or more be-
fore an ordinarily laden wooden vessel
finds its long resting place. The blow
with which it comes upon the sea-floor
is not likely to dismast the vessel or
to wreck its hull ; the shock usually
comes upon mud - like materials, suffi-
ciently yielding to give a little to the
blow, so that the violence of the con-
tact is diminished and the upright po-
sition and integrity of the hulk is main-
tained.

As soon as the sunken wreck is at
rest we may imagine that it becomes
the subject of careful inquiry on the
part of a host of hungry creatures who
await such windfalls from above. Pen-
etrating the spaces of the hold they
make avail of all that can serve them
as food. More slowly certain forms,
which bore in wood, vdll honeycomb
all the timber until the beams and
planks are reduced to mere shells.
At the same time a host of species
which have the habit of attaching their
living skeletons to any firm support,
crust over and festoon with their bod-
ies all the external parts of the wreck,
and serve to bind the frail structure to-
gether. In the course of time the fab-
ric becomes a mere ghost of a ship, it
holds together only because the ocean
is perfectly motionless and its parts
are buoyed up by the water about
them. In the course of ages the weight
of the incrustation increases so that
at last some part is borne down and
through the shock which this causes
the shadowy relict may at once melt in-
to dust.

We must conceive a somewhat differ-
ent fate for the modern iron ships
which find their last haven in the quiet
waters of the ocean-floor. Because of
their greater weight they will fall more
swiftly and strike with greater violence
on the bottom. They are, on this ac-
count, more likely to be ruined by the
last blow they are to receive. More-
over their iron sides and beams afford
no food to the marine animals ; never-
theless they are attacked by the sea*

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA,

95

waters and their decay probably pro-
ceeds so rapidly, and the gravitative
energy of their metallic parts is so
great, that they more quickly fall into
ruins, which can hardly be as pictur-
esque as those of the older type of ves-
sels. It is doubtful if the wrecks of
any of the modern men-of-war which
have foundered at sea will hold to-
gether for fifty years, while those sunk
during the action of Trafalgar may en-
dure for centuries in the grim sem-
blance of battle ships.

The idea that ships are likely to be
buried in the accumulations which are
forming on the deeper sea-floor, rests
upon a mistaken conception as to the
speed with which sediments are laid
down at a distance from the shore.
These deposits of the open oceans are so
slowly made that we must decree it ex-
cessive to suppose that a depth of a sin-
gle inch can be formed in a thousand
years. It is likely that in no case, save
near the coast line, or in the rare places
where the showers of volcanic waste
bring an unusually large amount of
detritus, can a ship be buried in the ac-
cumulating strata so as to be preserved
in a recognizable form. If the creat-
ures of the far future, to whom it may
be given to scan the rocks which are
now forming and are hereafter to be
uplifted into dry land, are to find a
trace of their remote ancestors in the
deposits, they will secure it, not by find-
ing the hulks of great vessels, proba-
bly not from the bones of men or the
common implements which serve them
in seafaring, but from the objects com-
posed of glass, or more likely those
made of the rarer metals such as gold
and platinum. Of the vast wreckage
of an iron warship such as the Cap-
tain, which sunk in the Bay of Biscay,
the hulk, great guns, shot, and shell,
the timber and all the forms of its crew
will probably disappear before they are
entombed in the slowly gathered strata.
The geological remainder will perhaps
be the coal of her fuel store, the gold
of the watches and trinkets and the
massive glass objects which abound in
such a ship ; in all but a small, and
little indicative, part of what went to
the bottom of the sea when the vessel
foundered.

It has, to many persons, been an in-
teresting speculation as to the aspect
of the countless wrecks which have
been swallowed up by the North Atlan-
tic since the churn of waters has been
ploughed by the keels of ships. Their
number is probably to be reckoned by
the tens of thousands, and the greater
part of them lie in a comparatively
small part of that field. If we count
this portion of the Atlantic which is
most peopled with wrecks as having an
area of 3,000,000 square miles and esti-
mate the total number of such ruins
within this space as 30,000 we would
have an average of one sunken shij) for
each hundred square miles of surface.
If all these crafts were at once sailing
over the surface of the sea we should,
from the deck of any one of them, be
likely to note the masts of several
others. But as they lie on the floor of
the ocean the greater part of them are
probably reduced to low mounds of
rubbish, so that if the ocean-floor were
converted into dry ground, and we
crossed it in a railway, seeing the fields
as we do the prairies, it would require
an attentive eye to discern the exist-
ence of many of these remains.

It is a singular, and perhaps some-
what humiliating fact, that the most
conspicuous and indelible record which
man is making in the strata now form-
ing on the sea-floor is written in the
bits of coal and ash which are cast
from our steamships as they pursue
their way over the ocean. The quan-
tity of this debris is very great, and un-
like the wrecks it is very evenly scat-
tered along the paths followed by our
steam marine. It is likely that already
in the track of our transatlantic com-
merce, not a square rod would fail to
give a trace of this waste from our coal-
burning engines. As this material is
not attacked by the marine animals,
and is very little affected by the other
agents of decay, it will doubtless be
very perfectly preserved in the strata
which are to bear the records of our
time. In the eventual formation of a
deposit containing a notable quantity
of cinders, it may be that our succes-
sors in the far hereafter will interpret
our, perhaps otherwise, unrecorded
ways of voyaging.

THE HOUSE OVER THE WAY.

By Charles E. Carryl.

T was a shabby, three-
story house on the
shady side of fifty,
and on the north
side of the street.
Judged by its dimen-
sions, it might have
been called small for its age ; viewed
from without, its appearance was thor-
oughly disreputable ; considered as to
its probable interior, it suggested din-
giness and a possible prevalence of
rats, and regarded as a dwelling, it
might have been promptly set down as
a house not to be gone into except un-
der compulsion. Closed blinds, in the
rhomboidal stages of decay, hung
askew at the windows, shutting in the
various rooms from the sunlight and
the air ; ramshackle iron railings, rusty
and loose in the sockets, ran along the
line of the area and straggled, all awry,
up the steps, and the front door shame-
lessly displayed to passers-by a sullen-
looking coat of blotchy varnish, blis-
tered and weather-beaten by the suns
and storms of many years. As if to
emphasize its repellent features it was
flanked upon one side by a respectable
dwelling, smart in all the glory of well-
painted walls and brass door-fittings,
and upon the other by a tall apart-
ment-house that dwarfed its three-
story neighbor into a squat ugliness
that brought all its obtrusive shabbi-
ness into strong relief.

Young Doctor Ledyard, gazing across
the street at it from his office window,
reflected professionally upon its prom-
ise as a sort of hot-house for the rapid
propagation of ills of the typhoid
school, speculated as to the probable
percentage of contagion in its mil-
dewed wall-papers, and drew appalling
deductions concerning the clrainage
from the appearance of sodden damp-
ness that clung to the outer bricks.
In the earlier stages of this sort of in-
ferential diagnosis he had awaited, with
placid confidence, the outcome of these
assumed morbific conditions ; but prac-

tice is slow in materializing from the-
ories, and at the end of three years'
occupancy of his present quarters he
was still without a single summons for
medical aid from the premises over the
way.

With his attention thus drawn from
time to time to the unsightly dwelling,
Ledyard had gradually become aware
of a certain air of stealth that marked
the movements of its occupants and
those of a solitary visitor whom he had
observed, at infrequent intervals and
invariably after nightfall, furtively en-
tering, or cautiously emerging from,
its uninviting portal. The occupants
were evidently but two in number, a
master of the house above stairs and
a maid-of -all-work below, a frowsy, mid-
dle-aged woman who issued from the
lower door but once a day, and, after a
brief absence, returned carrying vari-
ous small parcels wrapped in the ochre-
colored straw paper peculiar to grocers'
shops of the cheaper class. The vis-
itor, so far as could be observed, was
a heavily built man of seafaring as-
pect, who uniformly entered the house
through the lower door, and as in-
variably made his exit from the upper
one about an hour later. On several
occasions, when Ledyard chanced to
notice his arrival, he thought he de-
tected a suspicious bulge in the set of
the visitor's pilot-coat, that suggested
the carriage of concealed freight ; but
with this peculiarity he had no con-
cern, and, beyond an occasional sur-
mise as to the motive of his repeated
visits, gave the matter no particular
thought. In the course of time, how-
ever, certain eccentricities of habit on
the part of the occupant of the house
attracted his attention, and eventually
aroused his curiosity in a marked de-
gree.

The man was apparently a foreigner,
small in stature and sallow in complex-
ion, with an amplitude of coat-tail and
an upward curl in the toes of his boots
that suggested early associations with

THE HOUSE OyER THE WAY,

97

Houndsditch and the Minories ; and
his observable habits supplemented
these somewhat unprepossessing pe-
culiarities with a certain furtiveness of
movement that vaguely pointed at
doings without the pale of the law.
Quite consistently with these habits
he invariably kept himself housed until
nightfall, at which hour Ledyard re-
peatedly saw him stealthily appearing
in his doorway and, from its shadow,
casting a reconnoitring glance up and
down the street, sometimes withdraw-
ing slightly as people passed, and
never actually emerging until the coast
was fairly clear. This singular pre-
caution frequently kept him hovering
in his doorway for many minutes, with
Ledyard an interested spectator from
his office window ; occasionally it re-
sulted in his final withdrawal and the
closing of the door. In grotesque ac-
cord with these manoeuvres, the errand
that called him forth seemed absolute-
ly purposeless and trivial. It con-
sisted in a hurried shuffle down the
street, followed by an almost immedi-
ate return on Ledyard's side of the
way ; and here, pausing on the curb,
the foreigner would scan the entire
front of his own dwelling with an air
of extreme solicitude, then hurrying
across the street, would let himself in
with a latch-key and finally vanish from
sight for another twenty -four hours.
All this was done with an indescribable
sneakiness of movement that caused
Ledyard eventually to invest him with
a sort of malodorous mystery, and his
suspicions that the man was engaged
in illegal practices of some description
were strongly reinforced by an inci-
dent that occurred during his observa-
tion of his habits.

Ledyard had concluded, from seeing
light shining through the closed blinds
of a room on the second floor, that this
was the apartment occupied by the
shady master of the house, and he was
glancing across at it from his bedroom
window one stormy night when a sud-
den furious blast of wind swept through
the street, and getting a hold on one
wdng of the blind, tore it open and
swung it back with a crash against the
side of the house. The window was
without shade or curtain, and the in-

terior of the room, well lighted, was
instantly exposed to view, revealing to
Ledyard's gaze the occupant on his
knees, engaged in sorting over a num-
ber of small packages that lay about
him on the floor. The view, however,
was but momentary. The man sprang
to his feet, instantly turned out the
light, and, a moment after, Ledyard
heard him drawing to and securing the
blind.

In this desultory observation of his
apparently disreputable neighbor, Led-
yard had casually noticed the marked
contrast aftbrded by the occupant of
the well - appointed dwelling immedi-
ately adjoining the house over the way.
He was a prosperous - looking man,
large in person and with a clean-
shaven, florid face that gave him the
appearance of a well-nourished come-
dian ; and it was his custom to come
forth from his respectable doorway
with a sort of parade that invited, or
rather defied, attention as distinctly as
the stealthy manner of his shabby
neighbor seemed to shun it. Ledyard,
whose mind was somewhat too much
upon other persons' concerns, set him
down as a man of affairs from his con-
stant habit of appearing with an over-
coat and umbrella, and with a large
valise of the kind known as a dress-
suit case, as if his calls out of town
were frequent and imperative. The ad-
dress of a letter, inadvertently left by
the postman at Ledyard's door, had in-
formed him that this gentleman's name
was Glade ; of the foreigner's name he
remained in ignorance until the occur-
rence of the singular adventure about
to be related.

Ledyard had returned to his office
late one evening and was solacing him-
self with a pipe, prior to turning in for
the night, when his servant announced
a caller ; no name being given, and no
message except that the business was
urgent. The visitor, upon being shown
into the office, proved to be a remark-
ably plain-featured woman of middle
age, so poorly attired that Ledyard at
once set her down as one of the gratu-
itous patients occasionally allotted to
him by the local dispensary. He was,
consequently, somewhat surprised when
she stated, without preamble and with

98

THE HOUSE OyER THE WAY,

singular abruptness of manner, that
Mr. Kriecher was out of his mind.

"Kriecher?" said Ledyard, inquir-
ingly.

The woman responded to this query
by a sidelong jerk of her head toward
the house over the way, and Ledyard,
thus enlightened, recognized in her the
foreigner's maid-of-all-work. Replying
to his further inquiries, she went on to
say with her former abruptness that
after ailing for a few days her employer
had taken to his bed, and that being
forbidden to go to his room unless
summoned, she had heard him, from be-
low stairs, talking to himself incoher-
ently ; also that, not knowing of any rel-
ative or friend who could be called in,
she had assumed the responsibility of
going for a doctor. This concise state-
ment was supplemented by the blunt
remark, "It's a fever."

" Of course it's a fever," said Ledyard,
with a glow of indignation at this tardy
corroboration of his diagnosis. "He
ought to have had it months ago ; " and
with this expression of resentment at
the slow materialization of the overdue
malady, he selected one or two specif-
ics from his office - shelf and followed
the woman across the street.

It seemed to him quite in accord
with the air of mystery that appeared
to invest the house that the woman
took him in through the lower en-
trance, explaining, by way of apologj^,
that the upper door could be opened
only with a pass-key which Kriecher
always kept about his person ; and a
pronounced disrelish for the business
in hand suddenly asserted itself when
he was bluntly told how to find his pa-
tient's room, and then was left to make
his own way up- stairs. The main hall-
was dimly lighted by a small oil lamp
burning on a table, and Ledyard, noise-
lessly ascending the next flight, found
himself at the door of Kriecher's room.
He paused for a moment, listening to
the muttered ravings of the sick man
within, and then, softly pushing open
the door, entered.

Kriecher was tossing about on a huge,
old-fashioned post bedstead, curtained
with musty and faded hangings, and
Ledyard's practiced glance detected at
once in the mahogany-colored flush

upon his face, the suffusion of his eyes
and the restless tremor of his hands
upon the coverlet, all the symptoms of
the delirium of typhoid. The sick man's
gaze became instantly fixed with an ex-
pression of intense apprehension upon
his visitor, and he made a motion as if
to leave the bed, but Ledyard restrained
him, quietly but firmly, explaining at
the same time his errand. Then dis-
solving some hydrate of chloral in a
tumbler of water he induced him to
swallow the sedative. The effect was
not immediate, of course, and Ledyard
seated himself beside the bed to await
the result, meanwhile surveying with
considerable interest the apartment
about which he had so frequently spec-
ulated.

The room was dingy and uninviting
to the eye, and was j)ervaded by a close
and stuffy atmosphere which Ledyard
sniffed with strong professional disap-
probation. The appointments were
scant in number and of such hetero-
geneous character as to convey the im-
pression to the casual observer of hav-
ing been selected at random from the
stock of a dealer in second-hand goods,
the only article of furniture at all out
of the common run being an enormous
wardrobe that stood like a fixture close
up against the side wall of the house.
A cheap carpet, worn to the warp, cov-
ered the floor, and the walls were hung
with a flock-paper of singularly hideous
pattern, both conveying an indescrib-
able suggestion of mouldiness that
quite accorded with Ledyard's premoni-
tions concerning the premises. During
the few minutes devoted to this cursory
inspection his patient had succumbed
tq the quieting draught, and he found
himself confronted with the problem of
the next step to be taken.

The situation was sufficiently em-
barrassing. The disease, while not con-
tagious, was certainly endemic and re-
quired either the immediate removal of
the patient or a prompt restoration of
proper sanitary conditions in his pres-
ent quarters. The first of these alter-
natives promised a task of discouraging
proportions with a certain element of
pecuniary risk, while the other held
such possibilities of ramifying compli-
cations as to render its immediate ac-

THE HOUSE Ol^ER THE WAY.

99

complishment extremely doubtful, and
neither commended itself to a physi-
cian not particularly interested in the
sick man, and knowing nothing what-
ever of his connections or of his re-
sources. Under these circumstances, a
few minutes' reflection pointed out to
Ledyard the wisest course to take. He
determined, in short, to call in a male
nurse who lived near enough at hand
to be immediately accessible, and, leav-
ing him in temporary charge of the
sick man, to go at once to one of the
commissioners of Charities and Cor-
rection and surrender the case to the
care of that department. Kriecher was
reasonably certain to remain under the
influence of the chloral for an ensuing
half-hour at least, and Ledyard stole
softly down- stairs, briefly explained his
purpose to the servant below, and then
hurried away in search of the nurse.

The man was not at home ; and this
accident, as the sequel proved, was the
means of bringing upon Ledyard the
most startling episode of his profes-
sional life. There was no time for de-
lay and he returned at once to his ofiice,
despatched his man after another nurse
living far uptown, and then hurried
across the street to Kriecher's house.
The maid-of-all-work, who had appar-
ently remained on sentry duty at the
lower door during the entire period of
his absence, reported everything qui-
et, and ascending to the sick-room he
found Kriecher still sleeping heavily.
It was now very late, and Ledyard, in-
wardly imprecating the unlucky chance
that had imposed upon him the neces-
sity of a night-watch, drew the bed-
curtains, opened one of the windows
and pushed back the blind, and lower-
ing the light to a mere glimmer, seated
himself between the window and the
bed and resigned himself to the weary
duty of awaiting the arrival of the nurse.

Perhaps nothing is more soporific in
its effect, even upon the most appre-
hensive watcher, than the peculiar si-
lence of a sick-room ; and in this case
the remote isolation of the servant in
the lower story contributed a sense of
solitude almost as absolute as though
Ledyard had been the solitary occupant
of the house. Not even the ticking of
a clock disturbed the stillness, and be-

yond the scarcely audible respiration
of the sick man, or the occasional dis-
tant rumble of a vehicle, not a sound
broke the air. Apart from the neces-
sity of combating drowsiness, the situa-
tion was a depressing one, and Ledyard
tried to meet the first and to enliven
the other by again fixing his attention
upon the contents of the room.

It was during this somewhat forlorn
diversion that he found his thoughts
reverting again and again with una«-
countable persistence to the wardrobe
standing against the wall. With the
singular fascination peculiar, under cer-
tain circumstances, to inanimate ob-
jects, this ungainly article of furniture
gradually concentrated his attention
upon itself until he presently found his
thoughts riveted with a sort of fatu-
ous intensity upon its keyhole. This,
a narrow slit in a circular disk of metal,
indicated a patent lock of some descrip-
tion, and Ledyard began surmising that
here was probably the lock-up of some
sort of illegal deviltry, there being no
sign elsewhere of the array of packages
which the incident of the open blind
had once exposed to view. Thus re-
flecting, he was reminded of the hour
by the toll of a distant church clock
striking one. Following up this diver-
sion of his thoughts he began drowsily
calculating how soon the nurse might
be expected to arrive, and this kind of
rumination being sedative in effect he
presently fell into a doze.

Weary as he was, Ledyard slept
lightly, the sense of responsibility prob-
ably serving as a bar to profound slum-
ber ; but he repeatedly lost conscious-
ness and as frequently roused himself
to sufficient alertness to turn his eyes
to the bed beside him. He was vaguely
aware, during one of these waking mo-
ments, of the sound of footsteps pass-
ing up the steps of the adjoining house,
followed by the reverberation of a clos-
ing door, but the impression conveyed
was so faint that it was instantly ob-
literated by the lapse into unconscious-
ness that ensued.

This desultory napping was accom-
panied, like the sleep of fever, by a con-
stant succession of fantastic dreams in
which the wardrobe played a migratory
part, moving weirdly about the room,

100

THE HOUSE Ol^ER THE WAY.

and occasionally yawning like a huge
maw and revealing horrors of unspeak-
able quality that repeatedly brought
Ledyard to his waking senses with that
indescribable fluttering of the heart
that follows sudden emergence from
the realms of nightmare. These re-
curring visions were extremely vivid,
and seemed to lose something of their
grotesque improbability in the peculiar
atmosphere of his surroundings. Con-
sequently, when he was presently awak-
ened from one of these fitful slumbers
by the sound of a voice, he sat mo-
tionless in his chair, uncertain as to
whether some one had actually spoken
or whether he had been startled by the
mere phantasy of a dream.

All was perfectly silent, save for the
measured respiration of the sick man,
but to Ledyard's excited fancy the air
seemed to be fairly vibrating with the
echoes of the sound that had aroused
him from his sleep. The voice had
spoken three times, calling Kriecher's
name in a hard, metallic tone, with a
quality as resonant as if the word had
been shouted through a speaking-trum-
pet, and the impression of its actual
utterance was so distinct that he await-
ed its repetition with every faculty at
its utmost tension. At this moment of
alert apprehension, as his gaze searched
every part of the darkened room, a new
and most unpleasant development ar-
rested his attention. The light of the
moon, low in the southern sky, streamed
in through the opened window, and
falling upon the wardrobe against the
wall, brought it out in strong relief
from the surrounding obscurity, and in
this luminous revealment he became
aware that its door was noiselessly
opening outward.

It would be unfair to Ledyard to
state that his own unwholesome specu-
lations, and the train of distorted im-
agery that had followed in his dreams,
had actually affected his mental re-
sources ; but under the peculiar influ-
ences of the situation it certainly oc-
curred to him that this ungainly arti-
cle of furniture had suddenly assumed
a ghostly volition of its own, and he
received this apparently supernatural
manifestation with a bristling sensa-
tion at the back of his scalp and a pro-

nounced development of goose-flesh.
His common - sense, however, immedi-
ately banished this gruesome idea by
assuring him that the seeming phenom-
enon was readily attributable to an im-
perfectly fastened lock or some equally
commonplace cause, and it was there-
fore a rude shock to his nerves when
this comforting conclusion was abruptly
dispelled in its turn by a startling reve-
lation. A presence in the wardrobe
announced itself by the apparition of a
face, dimly discernible in the obscurity
of the interior as though it had been
floating, bodiless, in the air.

Ledyard's first idea was that a burg-
lar was concealed in the wardrobe, and
he sat for a moment absolutely ap-
palled by the thought of being con-
fronted with such an emergency, and
conscious that the pulsations of his
heart were distinctly audible in the
dead silence of the room. The distress-
ing suspense that followed this impres-
sion was, however, of brief duration.
The face was advanced to the aperture
of the door, like that of a Ruthven
seeking the rays of the moon, and as
the light fell upon it, Ledyard recog-
nized the broad, smooth features of
Glade, the occupant of the adjoining
house. The eyes, for a moment, sur-
veyed the room, the curtained bed, and
his own motionless figure as he sat in
his chair ; then the face was withdravni
and the door was noiselessly closed.

The thought of this apparently re-
spectable citizen hiding himself, like a
thief in a pantry, seemed so preposter-
ous that, for a moment, Ledyard was
inclined to doubt the evidence of his
own senses and to treat the matter as
the delusion of a demoralized imagina-
tion ; but reflection immediately con-
nected the apparition with the incident
of the calling voice and gave it sub-
stance and reality. An unpleasant in-
ference at once suggested itself : Glade's
concealment in his neighbor's room, and
his interrupted attempt to communi-
cate with him, pointed unmistakably
to some sort of unholy alliance between
the two men. Following this conclu-
sion, there suddenly arose in Ledyard's
mind the contingency of Glade's emer-
gence from his place of concealment,
accompanied by such disquieting re-

THE HOUSE Ol^ER THE WAY.

101

flections as to the possible results that
his manhood was not proof against the
strain thus put upon it, and he left the
room, stole noiselessly down the stairs,
and explaining to the servant below
that he would presently return, went
out into the street.

The time when Kriecher might be
expected to awake from his enforced
sleep had already passed, and Ledyard,
having assumed the responsibility of
looking after him until his plans for
relief could be carried out, was unwill-
ing to entirely desert his post. He ac-
cordingly crossed the street and began
walking back and forth along the block,
glancing up at the dimly-lighted win-
dow of Kriecher's room as he passed
and repassed the house, trusting that
this somewhat remote surveillance
would temporarily suffice to apprise
him of any immediate need of his ser-
vices. His mind at first was in a whirl
of agitation at what he naturally con-
sidered an escape from an awkward
trap ; but as his brain cooled and re-
covered its poise under the freshening
influence of the night air, he recalled
the fact that no overt act had been
committed, and that his surmises had,
after all, received their alarming color-
ing largely from the one element of
mystery that enveloped the adventure.
Here a question of his duty in the mat-
ter obtruded itself. He had in full meas-
ure the scruples of his craft against the
revelation of awkward secrets learned
in the privacy of the sick-room, and a re-
cent appointment to the police medical
staff had, curiously enough, developed
in him an extreme caution about carry-
ing cock-and-bull stories to that dej)art-
ment ; but it seemed fairly debatable
whether professional reticence, in a case
lying quite without his own clientele
and not of his own seeking, should
stand between presumed malefactors
and the law.

These reflections chased one another
through his mind in a confused jostle
for consideration until there presently
emerged from the rack one thought
which confronted him as an emergency
to be met at once. This was the unde-
niable reality of a concealed presence
in the apartment of a man too ill either
to approve of or denounce it, and it

seemed to him that, in this case, the
helpless and friendless condition of the
patient jierhaps gave the physician an
unusual latitude in the matter of dis-
cretion. Thus reasoning, he was con-
sidering the propriety of reporting at
the nearest police station the details of
his recent experience, when he became
aware that a male figure, barely dis-
cernible in the obscurity, was standing
at the lower door of Kriecher's house
apparently awaiting admittance. Dis-
turbed as he was by his recent experi-
ence, he found this sudden presence,
unheralded by any observable approach,
singularly startling ; then, surmising
that the nurse had probably arrived
unnoticed, he crossed the street, and
as the figure became more distinctly
discernible he recognized the seafaring
man whose skulking visits he had so
frequently noticed in the past. The
servant stood in the doorway speaking
with him in an undertone, and as Led-
yard came up she said, "It's Captain
Trent, sir," and withdrew into the hall,
leaving the two men together.

*' Are you the doctor ? " said the
new-comer, facing about and speaking
rather abruptly.

" I am," replied Ledyard, with equal
directness. "Are you a friend of Mr.
Kriecher ? "

The seafaring man received this in-
quiry with a half laugh. " I'm as near
a friend as he's likely to have," he said.
" What's the matter with him ? "

" Typhoid," said Ledyard, " much ag-
gravated by neglect and delay. As the
case stands, he's in a bad way." As
he said this, the stranger, advancing
slightly from the shadow of the door-
way, brought his person well within
the range of a street - lamp standing
opposite the adjoining house, and Led-
yard, observing him closely, saw that
he was a man of perhaps thirty-five or
thereabouts, of the conventional sailor
type and exceedingly muscular in build.
His face, in bright relief in the radiance
of the lamp, showed clear-cut, regular
features, tanned and roughened by ex-
posure to the weather ; and Ledyard
noticed that he had dark, extremely
brilliant eyes, that were scanning his
own countenance in turn with a direct
steadiness of gaze singularly at variance

102

THE HOUSE OyER THE WAY.

with his preconceived idea of the man's
furtive habits. His appearance, on the
whole, was rather prepossessing than
otherwise, and Ledyard, hastily sur-
mising that he might be sufficiently in
Kriecher's confidence to offer some ex-
planation of what had occurred, deter-
mined to make a confidant of him. He
accordingly asked him to step into the
hallway, and, closing the door, told him,
with the single reservation of his rec-
ognition of Glade, the facts of his ex-
traordinary experience. The Captain,
leaning against the wall with his hands
in his pockets, listened with apparent
interest, but with such an inscrutable
expression on his face that Ledyard
was quite unable to determine whether
he knew the solution of the mystery
or not. At the point where Ledyard,
with some embarrassment, confessed his
retreat, he interrupted him to ask if
he had drawn apart the curtains and
looked at Kriecher before leaving the
room, and upon his replying in the neg-
ative, relapsed into his former atten-
tive silence. With this exception he
made no comment or inquiry until the
story was ended, when he punctuated its
conclusion by remarking " The devil ! "
with much emphasis.

Ledyard was disappointed by this
indifferent reception of his budget
of marvels and, somewhat chagrined,
went on to unfold his plan for transfer-
ring the charge of his patient ; but
here Trent broke in upon him sharply.
" That won't do," he exclaimed. " I'll
take care of him myself. I'd do as
much as that for a sick dog. Let's go
up and have a look at him."

There was something about this con-
temptuous dismissal of the gruesome
features of the affair that brought the
color to Ledyard's face as he recalled
his late somewhat precipitate flight
from the room ; but he had a guilty
consciousness that his patient certainly
needed looking after by this time, and
he therefore acceded to the proposal
without demur, and the two men went
together softly up the stairs.

As they reached the landing just out-
side Kriecher's door Ledyard was as-
tounded at seeing that the room was
perfectly dark, and his heart sank with
a misgiving that something had gone

wrong during the parley in the hall be-
low. Trent, however, promptly pro-
duced a pocket lantern, and, sliding the
cover, turned a slender stream of light
from its bull's-eye through the door-
way. As this miniature search-light
illumined the bed, both men saw at a
glance that it was vacant, with the dis-
ordered coverings thrown in a heap
against the foot-board ; and then, as
the slender cone of radiance was throvm
upon every portion of the room in
turn, it became evident that Kriecher
had disappeared, and the wardrobe was
exposed to view with its door tightly
closed. This preliminary survey hav-
ing been completed, Trent entered the
room, lighted the gas, and silently
pocketing his lantern turned an inquir-
ing eye upon the discomfited doctor.

Ledyard's response was prompt and
to the point. " There can be no devil-
ish hallucination about the sick man,'*
he exclaimed, " and his life depends up-
on my finding him at once and getting
him back into bed."

" Quite right," said Trent, in his
quick, decided way. "We'll look him
up," and again producing his revelatory
lantern, a search through the house was
begun.

To Ledyard's relief this proved to be
an extremely simple matter, as they
presently discovered that, with the ex-
ception of Kriecher's room, the entire
house above the basement floor was ab-
solutely unfurnished. A search through
bare rooms and empty closets is soon
accomplished, and in ten minutes the
two men had explored every nook and
corner from the attic down, and found
themselves in the main hall with the
now thoroughly frightened servant,
without having discovered a trace of
the missing patient.

In this dilemma Ledyard immediately
conjectured that Kriecher, in his de-
lirium, had wandered out into the
street, and he proposed a search in that
direction, suggesting, as a last resource,
the sending out of a general alarm
through i)he police ; but here Trent laid
his hand upon the doctor's arm and
pointed significantly to the door, and
Ledyard, following this indication with
his eyes, saw that a long, heavy bolt run-
ning longitudinally along the stile was

THE HOUSE Ol^ER THE WAY.

103

shot into the socket on the jam above.
This silent evidence against exit was un-
answerable, and Ledyard, with an un-
pleasant crawling sensation running up
and down his spine, turned a startled
look upon his companion and then
caught desperately at his last straw —
"the windows."

"All shut and as tight as battened
hatches," replied Trent, quite coolly. " I
looked at every one of them as we went
along. My good woman," he contin-
ued, addressing the servant without
waiting for any reply from Ledyard,
" do you go below and stay there until
we call you up," and as the woman disap-
peared down the lower stairs he turned
again, with a strange light in his eyes,
and added : " And now, doctor, if your
nerves are in good order we'll look up
your ghost."

Ledyard, thus abruptly recalled from
his professional solicitude to the almost
forgotten episode of the wardrobe, felt
that never in his life had he received a
more distasteful invitation ; but there
was a cool composure in Trent's man-
ner of making the proposition that led
him to fancy the man was perfectly in-
formed as to what lay before him.
Rather vaguely relying upon this sur-
face indication of confidence, he made a
sign of acquiescence and followed the
sailor up-stairs with a thrilling sense
of an impending crisis of no ordinary
quality.

The room was as they had left it, with
the gas burning brightly and with the
impress of Kriecher's body still discern-
ible in the bed, as though appealing to
them to look up his vanished person-
ality. Trent, with a grim saggestive-
ness of the burglar in his methods,
went to work vdth extraordinary readi-
ness. Placing his lantern on a chair
he took a revolver from his pocket and
handed it to Ledyard without a word ;
then, diving into another pocket he
produced a sort of dwarf crowbar flat-
tened out at each extremity into a broad
claw. This he inserted into the crev-
ice of the wardrobe door, threw his
weight upon it, and with a powerful
wrench snapped the lock. As the door
swung open he stepped quickly back
into an attitude of alert preparation,
but to Ledyard's intense relief nothing

emerged. The interior of the wardrobe
was exposed to view — quite empty, save
for a few articles of shabby clothing
hanging limp and flat against its sides.

Ledyard confidently expected to see
Trent's eyes again turned upon him in
mocking inquiry, but, to his surprise,
the sailor stood motionless with his gaze
riveted upon the empty interior before
him. Twice he muttered something to
himself and Ledyard caught the words
"panel" and "lockers of the brig;"
then, without turning his eyes, he said
abruptly : " What was the face like ? "

Ledyard hesitated for a moment be-
fore replying, and Trent rej^eated his
question with an angry stamj) of his
foot. " It was a face I had seen before,"
said Ledyard.

" Whose ? " said Trent, imperatively.
• "It was the face of Glade," said Led-
yard, not venturing upon further delay ;
" the face of the man who lives next
door."

Trent turned and stared hard at him
for an instant as if not comprehending
this reply ; then a dark flush overspread
his face and with an oath he sprang
into the wardrobe and hurled himself
against the paneling at the back. The
frail wood splintered with a crash at
the impact, and, as it gave away, he
disappeared through the oj)ening as
though he had been thrown from a cata-
pult. The next moment Ledyard heard
him calling for the lantern, and spring-
ing, in his turn, into the wardrobe he
turned the gleam of its light through
the broken panel. For an instant there
was revealed to him, on a door beyond,
a bright disk of light, with the figure
of Trent, furiously plying his crowbar,
appearing and vanishing upon its mar-
gin with the fantastic abruptness of a
slide in a magic-lantern. Then came
the sharp metallic snap of a broken
lock, and as the door swung open, the
intervening vista became dimly dis-
cernible with the stalwart form of the
sailor outlined in silhouette against
the luminous background of a lighted
room. Trent instantly stepped forward
into the light, and Ledyard, drawn by
the mere volition of association with the
other's movements, passed through the
splintered panel and found himself in
the adjoining house.

104

THE HOUSE Ol^ER THE WAY.

Although this sudden change of en-
vironment was sufficiently startling,
Ledyard immediately realized what had
occurred, the whole affair being, in-
deed, readily comprehensible. He and
Trent had simply passed through a sec-
ond wardrobe, standing, like Kriecher's,
close against the side of the room, and
concealing an opening through the par-
ty-wall that separated the two houses ;
but what this covert connection might
presage excited, at the moment, no in-
terest in his mind, his attention being
diverted by his peculiar surround-
ings and by Trent's extraordinary con-
duct.

The floor of the room was strewn
with an infinite variety of small mo-
rocco-covered and paper boxes of every
conceivable shape, all empty, and with
their covers scattered about in every
direction. Trent, entirely ignoring Led-
yard's presence, stood motionless for a
moment, surveying this litter with di-
lated nostrils and with a gleam of fury
in his eyes ; then apparently following
up, with the confident tenacity of a
bloodhound on a trail, whatever purpose
had taken possession of him, he pulled
open drawer after drawer in the various
articles of furniture, trampling, in his
search, the boxes under foot into shape-
less wrecks as though they had been
animate objects of his wrath. Ledyard,
closely observing him, conjectured that
he had expected to find Kriecher, in a
freak of delirium, hiding in his own
wardrobe, and that something in the
appearance of the panel, coupled with
the admission of Glade's appearance,
had revealed to him the existence of a
concealed means of communication ;
but while this theory explained Trent's
indifference to the account of the call-
ing voice and the apparition of the face,
and, moreover, took the edge from the
fine display of courage which had so im-
pressed Ledyard, it utterly failed to ac-
count for his sudden outbreak of fury
at the discovery. Here, however, Led-
yard's speculations, and his half-formed
intention of hazarding an inquiry, came
abruptly to an end. Trent had suddenly
paused in his rummaging operations,
and appeared to be listening intently to
some sound that had caught his ear,
and in the lull that ensued a sibilant

whispering in the hall became distinct-
ly audible through the half-open door.
To Ledyard's astonishment, Trent, with
the unhesitating boldness which had
characterized all his movements, at once
strode out of the room and demanded,
with angry peremptoriness, informa-
tion as to the whereabouts of the master
of the house. The reply, in a confused
treble of feminine voices, was to the ef-
fect that Mr. Glade had hurriedly gone
out about ten minutes before, taking
with him an unknown visitor with
whom he had been heard quarrelling
in his room. Trent's only comment was
a frightful oath, followed by the sound
of his heavy tread hastily descending
the stairs, and the next moment the
echoing slam of the outer door pro-
claimed his exit into the street.

Ledyard instantly realized the awk-
ward position in which he was placed
by this unlooked-for desertion, and his
first impulse was to follow Trent's ex-
ample and leave the house at once ; but
this intention was frustrated in its in-
ception by the sudden appearance in
the doorway of two dishevelled and
extremely agitated maids. Ledyard's
appearance, equipped as he was with
a dark-lantern and a revolver, was not'
reassuring, and the women, uttering
shrieks of horror, fled tumultuously up-
stairs, while Ledyard, thorouglily de-
moralized by this encounter, hastily
laid his house-breaking outfit on the
floor and made a precipitate retreat
through the broken panel. The advent-
ure had assumed an aspect that prom-
ised the most serious consequences,
and heartily imprecating the folly that
had led him to connect himself with it,
he rushed through Kriecher's desert-
ed room, hurried down the stairs, and
ran through the lower hall out into
the street. Here he found his man and
the now useless nurse listening open-
mouthed to the servant's confused re-
cital of details, and hastily instructing
them to remain on the spot till his re-
turn, he went direct to the nearest po-
lice station.

Feeling perfectly convinced that a
man in Kriecher's condition must nec-
essarily collapse before going very far,
Ledyard's first care was to have a gen-
eral alarm sent out instructing patrol-

THE HOUSE OFER THE WAY,

105

men to look for an escaped patient de-
lirious from typhoid fever. This pro-
fessional duty having been discharged,
his next step was to give the sergeant
all the details of the concurrent circum-
stances. The officer, at first lending a
somewhat indifi:erent ear to the recital,
presently called in two sharp-featured
detectives to hear the particulars, and
Ledj-ard observed that the three fre-
quently exchanged significant glances
of intelligence as the story progressed.
The necessary formalities of noting
down the names and descriptions of
the parties concerned, the street num-
bers of the houses, and the hours of
the night marking the several events
having been completed, the sergeant
dryly remarked that "an hour ago
would have done just as well," and sup-
plemented this expression of opinion
by advising the doctor to go home to
bed. It was two o'clock, and Ledyard
began to realize that he was footsore
and weary. He therefore made his way
home, dismissed his guards, and tum-
bled into bed utterly fagged out.

On the day but one following this
adventure Ledyard was much refreshed
by coming across the following article
in his morning newspaper :

"Bbeak-up of a Smuggling Syndicate.

" The revenue officers, on information
supplied by the police, report the dis-
persal of the smuggling agency which
has for so long defied all their attempts
at discovery, and which, doubtless, has
supplied the market with large quanti-
ties of lace, jewellery, and other readily
concealable contraband goods of excep-
tional value. Unfortunately no seizure
of property was effected, and the prin-
cipals, excepting one man, escaped and
have thus far eluded all attempts to
trace them. The captured man, an
undersized foreigner named Kriecher,
was found ill in the street, having ap-
parently been abandoned by his com-
rades, and died in hospital early this
morning of typhoid fever, presumably
accelerated by the exposure incidental
to his attempt at flight.

" The methods employed by the gang
were unusual and not devoid of a cer-

tain grotesque cleverness. The smug-
gling proper was evidently managed
with remarkable adroitness by a sea-
faring dare - devil named Trent. The
empty cases discovered give no clue to
the source of supply on the other side
of the water, but estimates as to the
probable value of the contents indicate
a considerable amount of capital em-
barked in the enterprise. But the pict-
uresque features of the game are those
which marked the distribution of the
contraband material after it had been
landed at this port, it having been evi-
dently well known to the parties to the
scheme that the marketing of high-
grade goods, except by the regular im-
porters, is an extremely ticklish under-
taking. The missing links in the chain
of evidence have been supplied in part
by several servants employed on the
premises who are under detention by
the revenue authorities.

"The plan resorted to was the utili-
zation of two adjoining dwellings, one,
intentionally squalid, being occupied
by the foreigner already referred to,
and the other b}^ a well-appearing fel-
low named Glade, who seems to have
had a certain mercantile standing, and
whose role was that of travelling agent
for various nebulous foreign houses.
The contraband goods having been de-
livered to the foreigner, were by him
transferred to his confederate in the
adjoining house through an opening
in the intervening wall, ingeniously
concealed by clothes-presses built up
against the sides of the rooms thus
connected. Duplicate keys to the
presses, a sliding panel in the opening,
and a speaking-tube to announce readi-
ness for action, completed the equip-
ment.

"The conveyance of the goods into
the first house was effected by Trent
with extraordinary boldness, by the
simple device of wrapping the parcels
in coarse straw-paper, and handing
them on successive mornings to Kriech-
er's servant, at an obscure shop where
her small marketing was done. Thus
convoyed by butter, eggs, and cheese,
the contraband material was safely
housed, and the most vigilant watch
upon the agent's premises would have
failed to detect any delivery of goods.

106 THE HOUSE OI^ER THE WAY.

The sale was subsequently effected in the trio of smugglers bagged, but for

distant cities by the simple device of the absolutely fatuous conduct of a

carrying the articles to such points in physician who had been called in to

an ordinary traveller's valise. attend the sick man. This gentleman,

" It was the hand of disease that whose name we suppress from motives
pointed out to the eye of the law this of hardly merited consideration, ap-
well-laid plan of fraud, and wrought pears to have behaved with an utter lack
its downfall. The occupant of the of reflection and presence of mind which
humbler dwelling having been stricken borders upon imbecility. It is a mat-
down by a fever, which produced de- ter of record, taken down from his own
lirium, his showier neighbor attempted lips, that while sitting in Kriecher's
to communicate through the tube, and, room awaiting the arrival of a nurse
failing to elicit a rej^ly, reconnoitred, who was to assume charge of the sick
with the result of discovering his con- man, he not only heard Glade calling
dition. It is the theory of the police through the tube to his confederate
that, in this emergency, either deter- bjit also subsequently saw him open the
mining to take advantage of the other's door of the clothes-press and leisurely
helpless condition by decamping with survey the apartment. Furthermore,
the spoil in hand, or fearing the un- by his own admission, voluntarily made
earthing of the plot. Glade was pack- in subsequently reporting these occur-
ing up the stock for removal when he rences to the authorities, he had from
was interrupted by the unexpected ap- his own dwelling, directly opposite the
pearance of the invalid who entered premises in question, frequently no-
a violent protest. In this dilemma he ticed suspicious actions on the part of
probabty played upon the delirious Kriecher, and had speculated, with a
fancy of his companion and induced strong affirmative bias, on the probabil-
liim to fly from some imaginary dan- ity of his being engaged in illegal prac-
ger, afterward abandoning him in the tices of some description. It will hardly
street. In any event, the departure be credited that, under these impelling
was discovered by the inopportune ar- circumstances, a practising physician,
rival of the nautical dare-devil, who, in presumably equipped with brains and
a vigorous search for the patient, came other deducing paraphernalia, found
upon the concealed passage, of which the simple expedient of promptly re-
he had apparently, and probably for porting these suspicious incidents to
prudential reasons, been kept in igno- the police so indefinitely presented to
ranee, his conduct indicating that he what he was pleased to call his mind,
had no previous knowledge of Glade's that he delayed action until the last
connection with the business. Finding of the gang had disappeared. We are
that he had been hoodwinked he burst inclined to suspect, from the precipit-
like a cyclone through the panel into ancy with which the doctor retreated
the adjoining house, and discovering at Glade's appearance, that the young
that the spoil was gone, started off af- gentleman's nerves were so unstrung
ter the fugitives, presumably with horn- by his adventure that he was incapable
icidal intent, and has not since been of utilizing that best of all prompters —
heard of. common-sense."

" The exasperating part of the whole
affair is the fact that the contraband Ledyard did not preserve the news-
material might have been secured, and paper.

THE EVOLUTION OF A CITY SQUARE.

By Samuel Parsons, Jr.

DO not know why it is that
city squares are generally
treated as mere open spaces
of greensward with shade-
trees dotted over them.
Poverty of designing abihty,
probably, and lack of knowl-
edge of what might be done
to beautify such places will entirely suf-
fice to account for this baldness of treat-
ment. In the minds of many people ma-
ples and elms, Norway spruces and ar-
bor-vitses make up a nursery catalogue
of ornamental trees ; and as Norway
spruces and arbor-vitses generally come
to grief in city squares, there remain
only maples and elms. It is a pity that
so much ignorance and thoughtlessness
are rife in this respect, for there are city
squares all over the country that might
be greatly improved by the application
of a little lawn - planting intelligence.
When a portion of a city is improved
there are always spaces of ground at the
junctions of streets, plots of irregular
shape, triangles, etc., that could be
readily made to lend an elegant air to
the neighborhood by the judicious use
of a few trees, shrubs, and flowers. I
do not wish by this to convey the idea
that I would limit the area of city squares
to that of such small spaces. Far from
it. I beUeve the allotment for public
squares should be of the most liberal
character — ten, twenty, fifty acres — es-
pecially if this allotment can be made
before the ground of the city is largely
built on. I will even go further and
say that it will pay to establish these
large squares or parks long after the city
has attained important magnitude, Mr.

Andrew H. Green and other leading
promoters of park interests will, I am
sure, bear me out in this statement. It
goes, of course, without saying that it
will pay from a sanitarian and sesthetic
point of view, but it will also j^ay in the
rise of value of adjacent land caused by
the establishment of a park. Nero was
not such a reckless spendthrift as ap-
pears at first sight, when he made a great
park of hundreds of acres right in the
centre of densely populated old Rome.
There might readily have been genuine
statesmanlike forethought and sagacity
in what must have seemed at the time a
reckless exercise of power. Doubtless
many old rookeries situated adjacent
to this park must have disappeared,
and stately palaces appeared in their
stead. "What a charming place, more-
over, this great park must have been,
situated in the midst of picturesque
Rome of the first century. It was
doubtless arranged with fine taste, too,
for Nero, or his architects, seem to
have had sound ideas concerning the
decoration of parks and villas, and a
fine appreciation in some cases of the
treatment that retains natural effects.
But I did not intend to digress to the
consideration of great parks. Even in
these liberal days we are fortunate if we
can get, in the midst of a great city, a
number of small breathing-places of two
or three acres, half an acre, or a few
hundred square feet of greensward.
Then, as I have said, there are often
vacant places, triangles, and irregular
spaces, not suited for building lots, that
seem to be left unoccupied, perforce, as
we might say. It is of these more lim-

108

THE EVOLUTION OF A CITY SQUARE.

ited spaces that I wish to speak, and of
the methods by which they can be most
readily evolved into attractive city
squares. The large parks can take care
of themselves better, but these small
parks are too often neglected and unde-
veloped. When we come, however, to the
actual improvement of these small
squares, we generally find the work too
zealously pursued in the way of plant-
ing large trees, and the apparently minor
details of grading, securing good green-
sward and attractive shrubs neglected.
The thickly planted trees, in a few years,
deform and destroy each other, and in-
stead of grass, noxious weeds occupy
the densely shaded spaces. I have found
fifty feet a good limit to fix for the set-
ting out of large shade trees, such as
elras and maples, not only for city
squares, but for all road-side and lawn
planting. The old idea of common, in a
back-country village, has unfortunately'-
been too frequently applied, with little
development, to the construction of city
squares ; but the city squares should, in
reality, be a highly developed commoriy
built on definite artistic principles, and
not on the cow-path theory, and the hap-
hazard system of planting. I should say,
moreover, at the outset, that I do not
intend to lay down any strict rules, but
rather to suggest principles of work-
ing. Even in New York and its sub-
urbs differences of climate and soil
may affect the planting and arrange-
ment of walks, etc., in ways hard to
foresee.

It is, however, necessary to choose il-
lustrations somewhere, by which may be
indicated the way in which city squares
should be evolved out of primary con-
ditions. The cases chosen are meant to
be merely typical, and in order to have
them within reach of many of those who
are likely to read these pages I have
selected certain city squares in the busi-
est part of lower New York. The native
soil of this portion of New York is so
barren and sandy, and the neighbor-
hood so crowded and dusty, that only
extremely rugged and vigorous plants
will grow there at all. All evergreens,
all beeches, oaks, and a hundred other
trees fail here entirel5^ You can de-
pend, therefore, on the certainty that
plants used in these parks are capable of

thriving in almost any soil or climate
north of Charleston and east of the
Rocky Mountains. The parks I am go-
ing to consider have been, as will appear,
laid out on a definite artistic theory;
maps have been made, proper drainage
lines established, and the desired com-
binations of trees and shrubs, grass and
flowers, carefully studied. The first illus-
tration I have taken is Jeannette Park,
which most New Yorkers will remem-
ber as Coenties Slip, an old inlet run-
ning between regular docks up from the
East River, not far from the foot of
Broad Street. It was a well-known spot
in colonial times, and much business
was done thereabouts by the old Dutch
burghers. A celebrated hostelry stood
there long before the Revolution, and
in quite recent times it will be remem-
bered as a busy place for loading and
unloading produce, and for huckstering
of all sorts. It has been alwa^^s a quaint,
historic neighborhood, in the midst of
busy, unceasing trade.

The time at length arrived, how^ever,
when the old slip came to be thought
something of a nuisance. Busy people
were annoyed at being obliged, on their
way along South Street, to make a con-
siderable detour around the head of the
slip. Sundry drunken sailors and other
reckless folks, moreover, had a way, it
was said, of falling overboard in the slip,
as it suddenly yawned across their path
along the docks. In a word, the bene-
fit of the inlet to shipping was found
to be overbalanced by its general in-
convenience. Finally, therefore, the slip
was filled up with ordinary dumping ma-
terial.

But thrifty citizens passing by were
still not pleased when they were con-
fronted by an open stony waste covered
withpedlers' wagons, trucks, and booths
for the sale of sundry and various arti-
cles. In one way and another, therefore,
pressure was brought to bear on the
public authorities to induce them to lay
out the territory in question as a park.
It had many advantages for this pur-
pose. The neighborhood was a crowded
one, with many business houses, drink-
ing shops, etc., and hereabouts also
dwelt many longshoremen and other
poor folk. No park existed for a long
distance to the east, and to the north

Vol. XII.— 12

110

THE El/OLUTION OF A CITY SQUARE.

there was nothing until you came to
the Cit}' Hall. Daily travel from other
parts of the city was incessant and
crowded. For beauty of outlook noth-
ing could surpass this spot down town
except the Battery. Fresh breezes blew
across it, and vessels jiassed and re-
passed, and the quiet or tossing water
made a panorama of great and abiding
interest.

The slip and surrounding streets be-
longed to the city, so that it was not
necessary, as in most cases of park-
making, to have a biU passed in the
Legislature at Albany authorizing the
city to take, condemn, and pay for the
required land. A few thousand dollars
was secured by the passage of a bill at
Albany permitting the allowance of a
sum of money in the budget of expenses
of the Park Dej^artment, fixed yearly by
the Board of Estimate and Apportion-
ment.

This apparently simple operation,
however, involved several years of de-
lay. The newspapers, of course, lent
most efficient aid in creating the neces-
sary amount of agitation in favor of the
project, and finally the work was fairly
commenced. In 1886, as Superintend-
ent of Parks in New York City, it be-
came my duty to lay out and actually
construct and plant this Coenties Slip
Park. Previous to this time the slip had
been merely filled up with a lot of crude
material of a most promiscuous char-
acter, and a stone coping and walk of ce-
ment concrete constructed around it.

The first thing I undertook in con-
nection with the future work was the
preparation of a complete plan of the
walks, lawns, and planting. This I
studied out with much care, and the
final result was only attained after fre-
quent and long discussions with the engi-
neers of the department and the com-
missioners. I remember one of the
commissioners, for a long time, insisted
on making the park an open square,
without fence or railing. He wanted it
laid out with two straight walks cut-
ting diagonally across, thus saving a few
feet of travel for specially hurried pas-
sers-by. This discussion partly grew out
of the fact that Union Square and several
other parks of the city (which, by the bye,
had winding and not straight paths), were

denuded offences and the public seemed
satisfied. I contended, however, that
this i^ark, and indeed most other parks,
required some sort of fence to prevent
the ubiquitous dog and other animals
from dashing recklessly about and de-
stroying shrubs and flowers irretrievably.
It seemed to me — and much experience
of my own, as well as that of other com-
petent experts proved this impression
correct — that every park, whether smaD
or large, ought to have an enclosure of
some kind. Aside from the protection
from marauders thus afforded, a fence
masked throughout with a border line
of trees and shrubs suggested to the
loiterer on the park-benches and walks
a grateful sense of seclusion and ([uaai
ownership. Even the tramp could feel,
as long as he sat upright and behaved
himself, that here were grass, flowers,
and trees made, as it were, into an ex-
clusive picture for himself alone.

I finally secured the adoption of my
idea of fence and winding boimdary
walks by dint of taking tw^o of the Park
Commissioners to Coenties Slip and
there readily convincing them of the
correctness of my views. The bird's-
eye view given on p. 109 shows clearly
how the park was laid out. The fence was
of iron, about four feet high, and six
to twenty feet inside winds a sinuous
path thirteen feet wdde. This extend-
ed around the entire park, thus secur-
ing the greatest possible central lawn
space, and broad, park-like effect. In
either of the four corners a heavy plan-
tation of trees and shrubs was arranged,
in order to mask the square look of the
park. One corner had a group of five
Lombardy poplars among the shrubs.
These, as their final dimensions were
lofty, were intended to shut out the ob-
jectionable Elevated Bail way close- by.
In another corner, among shrubs, was an
American linden, in another an Ameri-
can elm, and in still another, always
growing among shrubs, some Lombardy
poplars again, used to mask a different
view of the Elevated Railway. Between
these corners, along the fence, and grow-
ing out of shrubs, but never nearer than
fifty feet, were set American elms, Nor-
way maples, and American lindens ;
and over on the main central lawn space
were single shade - trees of the same

THE EVOLUTION OF A CITY SQUARE.

Ill

kinds and large groups of combined
shrubs and trees. These several groui:)s
on both sides of the walks were so dis-
l^osed as to mass together solidh' in ap-
pearance and suggest the idea of walks
winding at certain points through a
single mass of shrubs and trees. This
was the general theory of the plan
adopted by the Park Board, and the
next thing was to commence the work of

izing an ordinary dumping-ground. It
was necessary, therefore, to transport to
the spot the actual soil in whicli the
grass and plants must grow.

But even the top soil of lower New
York was so sandy and unfertile that it
was out of the question to use it for
park-making. On looking around the
outskirts of New York carefully, I de-
cided that the best article of the kind I

Jl ILL<f

Canal Street Park, New York.

actually constructing or evolving from a
ver}^ primitive condition the park prop-
er. In most cities of the country it
would have been now onl}^ necessary to
trench or plough the soil, and, after grad-
ing, to spade in a liberal supply of ma-
nure. It was not so with Jeannette Park,
recently thus named after the daughter
of the late James Gordon Bennett. Rub-
bish filled up the slip, that is, crude
earth, biickbats, coarse sand, and the
very miscellaneous materials character-

could secure, within reasonable distance,
would be found in Brooklyn, the soil
there being heavier and richer than
that of any part of Manhattan Island.
I tried New Jersey, but finally obtained
what I wanted, for a satisfactory price,
just across the river from Jeannette
Park. With this material the park was
filled from two to three feet deep.
Wherever trees and shrubs v/ere to be
set, there the rich mould was most lib-
erally used ; for a rich soil of considera-

112

THE EVOLUTION OF A CITY SQUARE,

Abingdon Square, New York.

ble dej^th is specially necessary where
the smoke and dust of a crowded city
tend continually to clog and impede
the growth of grass and plants. I should
have said, however, that one portion,
viz., the walks of the park, staked out
in accordance with the map, were, of
course, not filled with rich mould. It
may seem unnecessary to note so evi-
dent a matter, but such mistakes are
often made, and much excellent mould
is thus wasted. Along the walk -bor-
ders bluestone curbs were set, about a
foot deep, and showing two inches above
the surface of the walk. These curbs
were cut and set along the curving paths
with much difficulty and expense. It
has not been my practice to use these
curbs in city squares, as any worn
places on the walk-borders can be readily
and inexpensively rej^aired from time to
time with fresh sod, and a less artificial
effect produced. The commissioners,
however, in this case, insisted on using
curbing, and I certainly could not say
it was positively bad practice, only ex-

pensive, and not really necessar}^ After
the curbs were set, or, to speak more
exactly, just before they were set, the
walks were filled in with a foot of stone
of various sorts, broken, wherever neces-
sary, into pieces one, two, and three
inches in diameter. On top of this came
sand, and then asphalt blocks shaped
like large bricks, and made of asphalt
and gravel mixed and pressed in moulds.
This kind of walk has the advantage of
being easily repaired, but is apt, unless
laid with great care, on a properly grad-
ed foundation, to look and be uneven.
The grading of the surface of the park
was, perhaps, the most difficult part of
the work to carry out successfully.
Drainage had to be considered, the best
conditions for the plants secured, and
withal a general artistic effect attained.
Wherever the trees and shrubs were to
stand, the ground being intentionally
raised for the natural effect desired, and
the proper depth of soil, there was,
of course, a swelling or slightly rolling
surface develoj)ed. This was subdued

THE EVOLUTION OF A CITY SQUARE.

113

as much as possible in the central lawn,
go as to secure breadth of effect and
simplicity of treatment.

I have dwelt on the character of the
trees, but that of the shrubs was also
interesting. Shrubs are not generally
found on public squares, why, I do not
know. Doubtless simple ignorance and
lack of interest in lawn-planting are
sufficient causes to assign. Nothing can
be more brilliant and attractive in its
way than a fine collection of trees and
shrubs on a city park situated like that
on Coenties Slip. Evergreen shrubs
fail in such places. We have seen, also,
that the best effects are often obtained
by planting trees and shrubs together,
although some trees may and should be
planted singly, a little away from the
shrub groups ; but remember that you
must, if you wish to have groups of
mingled trees and shrubs thrive, plant
them out at the same time. If shrubs
are set out alongside trees, after the
roots of the trees have had possession of
the ground ten or fifteen years, the
shrubs, if they live, will soon assume a
sorry shape.

The reader should visit Jeannette Park
in summer, if only to note the variety
and beauty of the coloring and form of
the shrub leaves and flowers. Beauty of
leaf is, I think, evidently more valuable
than that of flower ; for leaves last all
summer, and sometimes throughout the
autumn. Look at this purple berberry !
What could be finer in the way of color-
ing, although it does not blaze from afar
like its neighbor. This neighbor, the
golden elder (Sambucus nigra aurea), is,
in June, a great mass of molten gold — of
concentrated sunlight, with picturesque
shadows and outhnes. This color, more-
over, lasts nearly all summer. If you
plant this charming shrub, don't forget
to prune it more or less every winter or
early spring, otherwise it will become
straggling and sparsely supplied with
leaves, and, worst of all, lose its beauty
of colorins".

The mainstay, the staple of shrub-
planting in New York, however, has been
the privet, and by preference the Cal-
ifornia privet {LiguMrum ovalifolium).
It will grow where scarcely anything but
a honey-locust or osage orange would
thrive, and is far more clean, elegant,
Vol. XII.— 13

and effective as a shrub than either of
them. I respect the honey-locust grown
as a tree, but not cut back to a shrub.
On the other hand, the privet must be
cut back occasionally, or it will grow
leggy and thin, altogether an unsatis-
factory-looking object. In Jeannette
Park are dozens of California privets,
vigorous and bright and shining of leaf.
They help to mask the corners, and also
form an important part of the groups
upon the lawn. Among the large shrubs
used were the weigela and red-stemmed
dogwood (Cornus sanguinea), two ex-
cellent shrubs, under most conditions,
in city parks. The brilliant red- or
purple-leaved Prunus Fissardi has also
done well here, as it has in other parts
of New York ; but it has not been em-
plo3^ed in general culture long enough
to judge of its ultimate success. The
Forsylhia viridissima also does well in
this park, and in spring droops pendu-
lous masses of small golden bells ; and
in fall the Hydrangea paniculata grandi-
flora sends out splendid great trusses of
compound flowers, which are first white,
then purple, and finally crimson. Eho-
dotyiDus kerrioides, a hardy shrub from
Japan, was also frequently used, and pre-
sented an elegant appearance, with its
light -green, crinkled foliage. Two of
the best shrubs in Jeannette Park, or
anywhere else, especially in barren dis-
tricts, are the American thorns (Cratce-
gus coccinea and Crus-galli). The leaves
of these thorns are dark green, shining,
and individual in character, and in size
they equal that of most small trees.
The Loniceras, or standard honeysuc-
kles, have done well in Jeannette Park,
especially Lonicera fragrantissima, which
is rich looking and remarkably effective
in its coloring and drooping masses. Be-
sides these large-growing shrubs, there
were used smaller growing ones that
bordered the groups of large kinds, such
as Kerria Japonica, Thunberg's barberry,
the snow-berry [Symphoricarpos race-
mosus), and the other Symphoricarpos,
the Indian currant, botanically defined
as vulgaris or glomeratus. The finest of
these shrubs is Thunberg's barberry.
Its masses and outlines are particularly
picturesque, and the small, dark green
leaves are hardy and effective in a great
variety of exposures. In several isolated

114

THE EVOLUTION OF A CITY SQUARE,

positions, standing generally just a little
apart from the main groups, was a note-
worthy shrub, with large and effective
leaves, Viburnum Sieholdii. This great,
dark, glistening shrub, with ridged, crin-
kled, and rugged-looking leaves, attracts
the eye at once. It is little known and
used, but should not be neglected.

This list does not, of course, include
all the shrubs that would be likely to
succeed in Jeannette Park ; but they are
all excellent and reliable, and I have
learned by much experience and many
mishaps that a short list of shrubs and
trees is a good list to employ.

I must not forget to point out the
beauty of the summer decoration of this
park. There are coleuses, red and yel-
low, geraniums, pyrethrums, etc., wind-
ing in and out and round about the
shrub groups in bands of vivid color,
diversified by flanking masses of great
purple- and green-leaved cannas. The
use of the beautiful varieties of cannas,
green-leaved, bronzed -leaved, and red,
that have been sent over lately from
France and elsewhere, cannot be too
highly commended for the desired sub-
tropical effects in city parks. Another
most effective subtropical plant is the
Musa Enseta, with its great, broad
leaves, growing often eight or ten feet
high from the base to the tip of the
actual leaf. This species is better than
Musa Gaveyidishii, the commonly known
banana-tree, not only on account of its
beautiful red midrib, but because it
stands up better against high winds. It
is a good idea to plant these musas in
the middle of a group of cannas, as the
tendency of the unsupported leaves of
the Musas to beat about and tear in
high winds, on account of their great
size, is thus diminished. The combina-
tion of the great miisa leaves with those
of the cannas is very effective from the
similarity of their coloring and outline.

From either corner of Jeannette Park
you catch long vistas between shrubs,
surrounded by flashing bands of color
bedding, back to solid masses of shrubs
and towering trees in the opposite diag-
onal comer near the Elevated Eailway.
The park consists of about two-thirds of
an acre of land, and is just large enough
to enable the planter to so grade his
ground and so dispose his trees and

shrubs as to secure some genuine effect
of breadth and distance. On few parks
of the coimtry, whether large or small,
does this effect appear in any satisfactory
manner, and one reason for this is that
so few shrubs are used. It is Kke leav-
ing off a painter's palette some funda-
mental and important color, and expect-
ing him to produce a well-composed and
painted picture.

The proper place to see Jeannette Park
at its best is on the nearest part of the
Elevated Railway, where the cars round
the sharp curve. Here the jewel-Hke,
richly decorative effect of the park is
spread out in a bird's-eye view, and be-
yond, a few yards away, rolls the East
River, with its varied shipping and in-
cessantly dancing waves. Think what
a boon this 2)ark becomes to the tired
laborer and his wife and children as
they linger on the park benches enjoy-
ing the river breeze on an evening of
some stifling August day. I have cho-
sen Jeannette Park as a special illustra-
tion, because I consider it an excellent
instance of the genuine lawn-planting
results that can be attained in what
may be called the smallest lawn space,
where such effects can be readily accom-
plished. Understand, there is, I think,
a limit to this vista treatment. You
must not make your landscape-garden-
ing effects petty. The Japanese may
give such work their own peculiar charm
of treatment, but it is in the Japanese
way, and this way has no real relation
to any of our park work. The brilliant,
jewel-like effect of the bedding is, I
think, specially suited to parks situated
as Jeannette is, among crowded houses
on three sides. In large rural parks,
like the Central, in New York, and the
Prospect, in Brooklj-n, little or no bed-
ding should be employed, for lq essence
bedding is artificial and unsuited to rural
surroundings.

There are other small parks in New
York that are so much smaller than
Jeannette, that for many years it was
not thought best to open them to the
public for fear of the ravages of the
multitude. One of the best features of
Mr. A. S. Hewitt's reign as Mayor was
his persistent advocacy of the opening
of these small parks in the interest of
the crowded tenements that surrounded

THE EVOLUTION OF A CITY SQUARE.

115

them. He accomplished his purpose of
opening these parks during his term of
office, and to him is chiefly due the credit
of giving to the pubUc the use of the
following small squares and triangles :
Jackson Square, Abingdon Square, Ca-
nal Street Park, Duane Street Park, and
Christoph er Street Park. Of these Canal
Street Park is the largest, and Duane
Street Park the smallest, their size vary-
ing from one-third to one-ninth of an
acre. They are all on the west side of
town, and are situated between Duane
Street and Fourteenth Street. The treat-
ment of these parks by Mr. Calvert Vaux
and myself was made very simple. It
consisted of a bordering plantation of
trees and shi'ubs arranged on the prin-
ciples applied in Jeannette Park. Fortu-
nately fences already existed around the
plots. The walks either wound around
the outskirts along the fence, leaving a
border for planting of five or ten feet, as
in Jackson Square, or they cut diagonal-
ly across the long narrow parks, leaving
a comparatively large lawn space on one
side. In Jackson Square the central
space was made a great bouquet of brill-
iant flowers and leaves, in the middle
musas and cannas, and round them bril-
liant, glowing acalyphas, coleuses, and
geraniums. The effect of this park was
extremely decorative, with the central
show;^^ bedding, flanked and nested as it
were among masses of trees and shrubs.
The neighborhood of this park is re-
spectable but populous, and it is won-
derful on a warm evening to see the
dense masses of people that crowd the
park benches and smooth asphalt walks.
At Canal Street Park the length of the
main lawn space was such as to secure
something in the nature of a vista, and
with this was associated the same jew-
el-like effect of bedding and the same
charm of trees and shrubs. Abingdon
Square has been so long crowded with
fine trees that a winding walk ending
in a little plaza, and bordered by a few
shrubs and little bedding was all that
could be satisfactorily done. Shrubs
and flowers would not thrive in such
deep shade. At Duane Street a diag-
onal walk has been introduced, swelling
out to a considerable width at one point
between the three entrances. Beyond
this there are only three small bits of

green grass on either side, a few shrubs
along the fence, and a small flower-bed ;
but even this is a boon to the crowded
neighborhood. In Christopher Street
Park the shade from old trees was so
dense that only a bordering plantation
of shrubs could be secured, and these
were mostly privets. No bedding would
thrive in such shade. A diagonal walk
has been made here, with the usual
widening at one point, where children
can play and their elders walk about a
bit with more freedom. Along the en-
tire length of this path park benches
were arranged. These benches with
foot-rests we have been accustomed in
New York to place in the grass, thus
securing more space on the walks for
both grown people and children.

It will be readily seen from what I
have said that in several of these small
city parks we have had to contend with
many unfavorable conditions. The parks
could have been treated more success-
fully in some cases if we could have
started de novo, as we did in the case of
Jeannette Park.

There is another interesting experi-
ence we have had with these small parks,
and that is the perfection with which we
have been able to maintain them. Be-
fore Mr. Hewitt carried through his en-
terprise of opening them, it was deemed
impossible that the public w^ould be
able to use them without utter destnic-
tion coming daily to the shrubs, flowers,
and grass. The mere friction of the
passing multitude, it was thought, would
ruin the grass borders. Three years of
experience has, however, proved this be-
lief to be a fallacy. People, as a rule,
treat the place with respect, and often
themselves reprimand grown-up people
and children who seem to be likely to
injure the grass or flowers. There is
actually a guard set by the neighbors,
and, to our surprise, the grass and
flowers look as well as they do in Cen-
tral Park.

It is, of course, comparatively expen-
sive to keep these small parks in order,
for one gardener is obliged to spend
nearly his whole time in the summer on
each one of them, mowing, watering, cul-
tivating plants, and, above all, sweeping
and gathering up litter. This last item
occupies much time daily in the small

116 TO TROJAN HELEN.

parks of a crowded city. There must ligent scheme of treatment, it would

be also a police-officer on guard most of find in the early future great profit in

the time. But no tax-payer in a great the way of health and adornment. In

city Hke New York could, I think, grudge nearly every city in the United States

this expense if he would take the trouble these small squares could be established

to visit one of these small parks and see and treated in an approved manner

the people — especially the women and more readily than in New York. The

the little ones — enjoying the grass and land would be less expensive, and the

flowers. New York is singularly lacking conditions more favorable. There should

in grass and trees, and these small parks be, as lately suggested in Garden and

are therefore green oases, in the midst of Forest, a great National Park Associa-

piles of brick and mortar, that are in- tion, and similar branch associations in

valuable. every town and city in the country. These

If a large city, in the early days of its associations could then exert a powerful

grow^th, would only set aside numerous influence on the authorities in the way

open spaces at the junction of avenues, of securing the adoption of proper and

and establish a comprehensive and intel- liberal methods of park-making.

TO TROJAN HELEN.

By W. G. van Tassel Siitphen.

Thy heart is a restless sea,

Scourged white by windy whips ;
A fathom deep
Lies dreamless Sleep
With Silence at her lips.

Thy heart is a garden sweet
Wherein all greenness grows.

Whose blood was shed

That burns so red
The blush upon the rose ?

Thy heart is a desert voice
That ever lureth men,
Unrecking scath,
Upon a path
That turneth not again.

Thy heart is a palace fair,

Where all the world is guest ;
With one, strait room
Where none may come

Save he who loveth best.

Thy heart is the world's desire
For which men strive in vain.

Yet thy love lost

Were w^orth the cost
Another's heart to gain.

THE PIANNER MARES.

By Martha McCitlloch JVilliams.

ATE summer lay ripe
and heavy along the hill-
tops. A hot shimmer-
ing splendor filled the
valleys at noontide.
W h i t e woolly clouds
sailed slow athwart a
skv, blue, intense, palpitant with vivid
Hght.

All the streams were shrunk to bare
threads of bright water. No bird sang,
save here and there a languid note, just
after dawn. But the crows were noisier
than ever. Their caw-cawing filled all
the air as they flew so straight, so swift,
over the cornfields just beginning to
yellow.

They flew high, too, and for the most
part to southward. 'Eiah Gant's eyes
followed them a little enviously.

"Ef only I had the wings o' them
burreds," he said to himself. "I'd
mighty soon find out what the news
was."

Yet throughout his seventy years
'Eiah had been noted as a slow, patient,
incurious man. He was tall and lean,
with deep-set blue eyes, and a fleece of
white beard rippUng down over the
homespun shirt that was his only upper
garment. There were grass stains all
over his copperas trousers, and a thick
powdering of red earth upon the coarse
boots into which they were thrust. Al-
together he looked a working farmer
to whom news of what went on outside
his own fences must be supremely un-
important. In one hand he carried a
bridle, in the other a small basket of
coarse salt. The field he had just en-
tered was perhaps forty acres in extent,
a smiling level of native blue grass, set
here and there with clumps of sassafras,
crab-apple, and wild thorn. Upon three
sides a semicircle of sharp-wooded hills
inclosed it. On the fourth a gray bluff
rose perpendicularly forty feet in air,
but so far away from the pasture's edge
as to proclaim a wide stream at its foot.
The bed of it was so deeply worn as to
make access from that side impossible.

And only a goat could go safe over the
hills, except at the path dowii which
'Eiah Gant had just scrambled to this
lower level.

Notwithstanding, he looked about
him apprehensively and started visibly
when no living creature save a vanish-
ing crow met his eye. " I wonder ef
they're — gone, er jest a-layin' in the
shade ! " he said aloud, then whistled
low and clear, peering sharply about
from under the shelter of his hand.

A rush of frolic hoofs, a chorus of
whinnys answered him. From every
hand galloped a mare, sleek, saucy, with
tossing mane, with streaming tail, head
daintily upheld, and hoofs that spurned
the entanglement of tall grass. Black,
gray, chestnut, silver-roan, dappled bay,
a thought too stout to be thoroughbred,
yet fine of line, with flat clean legs and
jjerfect action, they crowded upon him,
nipping one at the other, thrusting ta-
-pev muzzles under his arms, • over his
shoulders, whinnying a welcome as he
walked toward the salting place. A
minute later each was eagerly Hcking up
her allotted portion from a bare spot of
earth. 'Eiah Gant eyed them with af-
fectionate apprehension. "All here —
safe an' hearty — but God knows fer how
long," he said, walking slowly among
them, patting flank or shoulder or arch-
ing crest, till he reached a big black
creature, evidently the mother and mon-
arch of the herd. She wore a bell and
had a frisking foal at foot, a yearling
filly muzzling in the salt beside her.
A lively batting of ears greeted her mas-
ter, who stopped three feet away to say,
" So ye're full o' fight yit Planner, spite
o' bein' twenty years old. An' a sightly
critter too, ye wouldn't be wuth three
days' purchase, ef I took ye outer here
whar them blue-coats can't find ye.
The gray ones wouldn't spar ye neither
wherfo' lay low old gal, don't neigh too
loud and raise no ruction. Eemember
how long we've been together ; we're
old now, an' I want us to see the last o'
one another."

118

THE PIANNER MARES.

Planner was in a reckless mood. Ee-
gai'dless of her master slie rushed
squealing at a beautiful, sleek chestnut,
who stood guard over her salt, daintily
tasting it now and then, and ready to
do battle for it with all comers. She
met the assault, with a lightning wheel
that planted both heels hard and fair
upon Pianner's quarter. Instantly 'Riah
was between the combatants, had seized
the aggressor's fore top, bridled her, and
was saying, " Consarn ye sassy old pic-
tur, fightin' must be in the a'ar."

The sound of loose stones rolling
away from a hasty foot on the path
made him turn in fright to face a slen-
der, sun-burned young fellow, whose
weather-stained slouch hat, pulled low
over his eyes, shadowed without con-
cealing the sunshine of his face. His
gray cavalry uniform w^as torn and
faded, but the grace of gentle blood
shone through and redeemed it. Three
feet away from the elder man he stopped
and bared his head, and said, courteous-
ly : " Good-day, sir. You seem to have
plenty of mighty fine stock." "I'm mor-
tal af eared I won't have it long," 'Riah
Gant said, with half a groan. The ex-
pected had happened. A soldier had
crept into this equine paradise — desola-
tion must follow as day follows night.
" I'm afraid you won't indeed," the new--
comer responded, " that is, not if our
friends in blue stumble on them. Bet-
ter sell me that chestnut — she looks like
the wind could hardly catch her. I will
give you both your pockets full of good
Confederate money for her."

'Riah Gant fell back a pace saying,
huskily, " Who are ye, young feller ? —
whut are ye a-talkin' about ? Don't you
know them's the Planner mares ? "

The young soldier laughed outright,
saying, "I'm John Gray — at your ser-
vice— most times I do business in ' Mr.
Forrest's critter compan}'.' Just now
my especial segment of it, Napier's com-
mand, is investigating the possibility of
crossing the Cumberland, to have a bit
of fun with Colonel Mason who is keep-
ing house on the other side."

"Be ye right shore now, ye ain't no

spy ? "

" Upon my honor, no — merely a scout,
detailed to follow this creek of yours to
its junction with the river, in hope of

finding there shoal water that we can
ford."

" Stranger hereabout, I reckon ! "

"Never set foot here before."

" Never heard on' 'em ? "

"Who?"

" Them — the Planner mares," with an
impatient wave of his hand.

" Never ! What's their history ? "

"Don't know as they've got any.
That thar black critter was foaled the
day I fust seen er planner, so I named
her arter it. She's brought me 'leven
colts, nine on 'em mares, an' Gray Plan-
ner, an' Mary Planner, an' Planner Sil-
ver-tail, an' June Planner, ain't fer be-
hind thar mammy. Fust an' last thar's
been the rise o' forty Planners, an' not
one ever fetched me less 'n three hun-
dred, cash. Here you see whut's left on
'em — whut I've hid away in this creek-
parster, tryin' to save 'em fer my gran'-
sons."

" Have you no sons ? "

" Three, leastways, I had. Tom's in
the Fo'teenth, with Lee in Virginny ;
Bill's in the Forty-second, at Port Hud-
son, the last I heard on 'im ; an' Jim,
w^ell ! he married into Kaintuck, an' his
wife's folks is fer union. They tole 'im
ter stay out an' let the yothers settle it,
but I ses ter him, ' Jim, I fit at Orleans
with ole Hickory, ef ye don't want me
ter be 'shamed o' ye, git up an' fight fer
whut ye say's the right,' so he up an'
raised er comj)any, an' is Cap'n Gant,
as big an' blue er Yankee as any o' the
rest. He's somewhere to'rds Chatty-
noogy now, so wharever thar's any
fightin' ye see, thar may be news fer
me."

" What is Jim's regiment ? "

" Eighth Kaintucky Cavalry. Did
you ever happen ter run up agin 'em ? "

The gray-coat nodded.

"Put up a pretty good fight? I'd
hate powerful bad fer Jim's company to
tuck tail an' run for no thin'."

" Well, they made it interesting for
us," the scout said, with a smile, adding,
after a minute, " Maybe you'll see Jim
before long. I hear the regiment has
been ordered back to help Mason hold
the outpost. How far is it from here ? "

"A matter o' ten miles, not countin'
the river. Are ye right shore thar's
goin' ter be a fight ? "

THE PIANNER MARES.

119

" Can't say certain, it looks like it.
Why do you ask ? "

" Fer this reason ; when my boys
went off I took thar famblies to take
keer on — Jim's as well as the rest. Be-
tween 'em they muster seven boys from
twelve to fifteen, an' the last one of 'em,
crazy ter jine the cavalry an' leave me
with nary plough-boy. Every rascal of
'em can shoot an' ride like fun, so I
promised 'em if they'd stay an' thar was
ever a fight in hailin' distance of us, I'd
take 'em all to see it."

*' Wouldn't you take a shot or two ? "

" I don't know as we could, ye see
Betty swars she ain't goin' to be lef be-
hind— she Jim's daughter, jest seven-
teen— an' the pizenest little rebel of the
lot. Ef this here war lasts much longer,
I'm afeard she'll be totin' of er gun her-
self. She's jest crazy now fer the boys
ter go."

" Good for Betty, wish there were
more like her. But does she disown
her father ? " young Gray asked, strok-
ing the glossy rump of the nearest mare.

'Biah Gant smiled grimly as he an-
swered, "No, she says 'Pap's pap no
matter what happens,' but I reckon Fust
Leftenant Ware o' Jim's company knows
pretty much her opinion of 'Lincoln-
ites,' an' how little use she's got fer 'em.
I'm right down sorry now that the gal
ain't a boy. If she was she'd be a sol-
dier right. Why, sir ! she's got a copy
o' Hardee's ticktacks, an' fetches them
boys down here on Sunday evenin's,
mounts 'em ba'ar-back, and drills 'em
like er major. It's right down pretty,
now it is, ter see 'em goin' by twos, by
fours, left wheel an' right face, an' break
ranks, an' so on. It's hard to tell which
likes it best, the boys or the critters."

The soldier pulled off his hat and
bowed low, saying, " Major Betty, I sa-
lute you. Some day I hope to see you
— not at the head of the Planner mares.
A word of caution though to you, sir.
What you have told me is very interest-
ing, but it would not be quite harmless
if I were the spy I might so easily be.
You have taken me on trust, to prove
that I deserve it, I will tell you that we
cross the river at dark and hope to sur-
prise the outpost before the moon rises."

A dull pallor showed in 'Riah Gant's
face. He fingered the reins of Planner's

bridle nervously for a minute, then said,
looking down as he spoke, " Be ye shore
Jim's regiment is thar ? "

" Not a bit ; if we were I think we
would ride some other way to-night.
In fact it is to get there ahead of him
that we are hurrying so," the young sol-
dier said, saluting and turning away.
'Biah Gant put out a detaining hand.
" Come long to the house — I reckon you
ain't had a square meal in a crow's age,"
he said, unbridling Planner as he spoke.

" I am hungry, that's a fact. A steady
diet of roasting ears is apt to leave a
fellow with a haunting memory of fried
chicken, hot biscuit, and the rest of it,"
young Gray said, smiling, " but really I
doubt if there is time."

"Well, a cold snack's better'n nothin'
— Betty won't be many minutes fixin'
that fer ye, so git yer critter — I see ye
lef him up thar top o' the hill — an' come
along," the old man said, with his hands
on the top rail of the fence, over which
the next minute he clambered slow and
heavily.

Five minutes of breathless climbing
brought them out into the orchard, that
ran down to the wooded hilltop. A
ripe heavy fragrance filled the air of it,
the aroma of yellow horse apples, deep
red sweetings, and streaked fall pippins,
that covered the ground under the
gnarled bending trees. Tall weeds grew
either side the path. A big w^hite mas-
tiff dashed through them, put his paws
on his master's breast, and tried to lick
his face. " Down, Bulge ! down, sir !
Whar is Betty? You two ain't never
very fer apart," the old man said, pat-
ting the big creature's head. As if in
answer to the question a wagon came
in view piled high with apples and
driven by a slim, dark-eyed girl, in a
home-spun frock. She stood bolt up-
right upon the whifile-trees, dangerously
near the heels of the two shaggy mules.
A cloud of stout lads ran after, their
arms flying like windmills as they tossed
apple after apple upon the heap.

At sight of the old man they set up a
shout, " Cider, grandpap ! cider ! Say,
mayn't we beat some ef Betty'll go with
us to the creek?" "They're 'fraid to
go without me — 'fraid to drive the wagon
here 'count o' yellow-jacket nests," the
girl added, then perceiving the young

120

THE PIANNEK MAKES.

stranger she grew rosily sileut, yet held
her perch behind the team.

"Betty, I want you — the rest on ye
go down to the creek with the wagin',''
the old man called. The girl came for-
ward, half-shy, half-eager, and returned
3'oung Gray's salute with a little old-
fashioned courtesy. "He's one o' our
hungry soldiers — 'tend to him while I
feed his critter," 'Eiah Gant said, then
as the two went through the back door
into the big square log house — "I don't
know as ever I sot eyes on a likelier
couple then them two."

Betty's mother was away visiting in
Kentucky. The two aunts safe in the
weaving house at the other side of the
yard. Most days, indeed, found them
there — there were so many boys to
clothe besides the grandfather and the
little flock of slaves. And homespun
was quite the only wear in this debata-
ble land where soldiering was all the
trade that thrived.

Betty's frock was outgrown. She had
shot up amazingty since last spring. It
ended well above the ankle, and showed
a glimpse of home-knit stocking above
the awkward shoes of her grandfather's
own cobbling. But that mattere'd little
beside a face full of fire and sweetness,
set about with wind-blown tendrils of
moist, dark shining hair. Young Gray
watched her with tender, vague delight,
breathed through with a sort of pity for
"Fust Lef tenant Ware." Something in
this face recalled another that he had
kissed at the parting under Mississippi
magnohas. What if she had spurned
him for doing his duty as he saw it ?
He was at once too much a soldier, a
gentleman, not to recognize and honor
the honest convictions of a foe. Some-
how he had a great longing to make
this child-woman understand that war
is for a day and love for all time. But
he spoke to her only of external things
— of camp, and march, the fortunes of
war, the tricksy humors of a partisan's
raiding. She heard him with eyes far
more eloquent than his tongue, saying
at last with a little shiver, " Ah ! what it
is to be a soldier ! "

"It is better, much better, to be a
woman," he said, bending to kiss light-
ly her small, sun-burned hand.

Three hours after he rode away, Bet-
ty, sitting with her chin in her hand
upon the stone piazza steps, heard the
beat of many hoofs, cut through, as it
were, accented, with the tinkle of a bell.
Turning she saw her grandfather mount-
ed upon the chestnut, June Pianner
with the old mare haltered and trotting
beside him as though she trod on air.
Behind him rode her one brother, her
six cousins, barefoot, in shirt - sleeves,
but each with a gun over his shoulder.
Intuitively she understood. They wei^
riding off to the fight. Yesterday she,
too, would have gone, and dashed with
mad rejoicing through the hottest lead-
en hail. Now her heart fluttered, sank,
at the bare thought. She held one hand
hard above it, as her grandfather called
softly, " Betty ? "

" Well, sir ? " going up to the chest-
nut's head.

" Oh ! I say, Betty, just you keep
Pianner here in the stable, will ye?
We had to fetch the bell to git the rest
outer the parster."

Betty nodded. " Yes, I know." 'Eiah
Gant looked at her amazed. For three
hours he had been steeling himself
against her pleadings to go along, and
here she was not even asking why, or
wherefore, of this sudden exodus.
Peering sharply into her eyes, he asked,
" Be ye sick, Betty ? 'Pears like ye are
feverish in the color o' your cheeks."

" No, I am wxU, perfectly. What
must I do while — while you are gone ? "

"Say nothin' to nobody, white or
black, about whar your grandpap is,
ner when ner how he went. Git yer
aunt Sue an' Melindy ter arguin' 'bout
infant baptism — that'll keep' em from
bein' oneasy ; leave Bulge loose, an' go
to sleep as soon as ye can to-night."

"I'd rather sit up," Betty said, sub-
missively, then sprang to the pommel,
flung her arms tight about her gTand-
father's neck, laid her cheek to his for
one brief second, then slid down, caught
Planner's bridle and hurried away, with
no look backward at the motley horse-
men who rode straight out into the sun-
set.

The moon rose that night at ten
o'clock. At nine as the bugle was sound-
ing Horse and Away, Sergeant Gray
rode into the partisan's camp. A mighty

THE PIANNEK MARES.

121

merry lot of ragged rebels it was, fel-
lows of infiuite jest, laughing, siuging,
leaping over the camp-fires, in which
their supper of green corn had just been
roasted. In front of them the river
ran broad and shallow, with a clamor of
ripples under- voicing the million katy-
dids. Four miles on the hither side
lay the outpost, a stockade crowning a
loft}^ hill, at whose foot nestled a strag-
ghng county town. Stores of all sorts
had been accumulated there, arms, mu-
nitions, clothes, medicines. To secure
or destroy them was what urged Colonel
Napier to the desperate undertaking — a
cavaliy charge upon breast- works with
a superior force behind them.

He listened to the scout with spark-
ling eyes, flung his hat in air and said
aloud, " We're in luck, boys — we are un-
expectedly reinforced."

A hubbub of excited murmurs ran
through the camp. A minute later the
rebel yell rang through the soft star-
light, as 'Riah Gant and his troop came
out of the dusk beyond. Colonel Na-
pier wrung the old man's hand, shouted
" Forward " and keeping his new ally
well at his bridle-rein plunged at once
into the stream.

All got safely over it, cHmbed the
bank opposite and walked their horses in
slow silence along the sandy river road.
Then somehow the walk became a trot,
the trot a dead run, that swept in pickets
and sentries as chaff before a whirlwind,
that spread a cloud of horsemen with
lightning of gun-fire and thunder of
hoofs, up and down till it swelled over
the sleeping stockade, before drowsy
drummers could beat three bars of the
long roll. Panic fell on the defenders.
Such audacity must mean all Forrest's
division, twelve thousand strong. Col-
onel Mason, half-dressed, flung down
his sword despairing — the low beams of
the rising moon fell in ghostly silver on
the white signal of surrender.

It was a bloodless victory, more sur-
prising to the victors than even to the
vanquished. After it Bedlam broke out.
All the dark silent houses woke to life
and light, and blossomed garden wise in-
to red, white and red. Women wrapped
themselves in the flag-folds to smile ec-
statically from lighted windows. Men
bared their heads at the sight, and em-

braced one another in the street. For
eighteen months almost, their eyes,
their hearts, had hungered for it. Now
they were drunken with joy as with new
wine.

And 'Riah Gant was the hero of it all.
Colonel Napier himself said the sight of
the rugged old fellow with the brave
boys at his back was better than a thou-
sand men. The prisoners, even, as they
were paroled came around to look curi-
ously at him — many to shake his hand.
They got a heart-Avarm grip, too. "I've
got a boy in blue, little as ye'd think it
from the company I keep," he said, to
Colonel Mason and his staff* who had
been granted full honors of war. The
blue-coat smiled grimly. Now that he
had seen the slenderness of the force
whose impetuous onset had overwhelmed
him, rage and shame possessed him.
He had surrendered to less than half of
his own force, and must stand idly by,
while the railway bridge flamed red
against the night. The track was torn
up, the rails bent and twisted on heaps
of blazing ties. He must watch, too,
the breaking against tree-tiiinks of the
arms his men had polished so carefully,
see his field-battery spiked, his maga-
zine despoiled, the stores so carefully
gathered go up in a pillar of flame and
smoke. Colonel Napier knew but too
well he could not hold what he had
won. AU the night was a babel of shouts
and laughter and swift destruction and
horsemen galloping to and fro.

In the town no eye closed ; every door
was open, and fair women ran to their
gates, eagerly offering wine, coffee,
fruit, food to their deliverers. Joy en-
dured for the night if weeping came
with the morning, whose first faint light
showed the gray horsemen headed south,
clothed, armed, mounted with the spoil
of their foes.

Well to the column's head came the
Planner mares, all tricked out in cap-
tured trappings, their young riders
brave in blue and brass. 'Riah Gant,
even, riding at Colonel Napier's elbow,
had wrapped himself in blue from the
chill of dawn. Young Gray was with
the advance guard at the very front,
erect, alert, open-eyed, though full half
the troopers dropped heavily over the
saddle-bow fast asleep.

122

THE PIANNEk MARES,

The first level sunbeams shot athwart
the clear valley and showed him far
ahead a faint rustle of dust, out of
which a half-minute later, he caught the
gleam of carbines, the clank of sword
and stirrup, and over all the red, white,
and blue streaming gallantly in the
breeze. Swiftly, swiftly it all came on
— so swiftly, indeed, that though the
advance guard fell back at the trot, the
new-comers were close behind when
the main body was reached.

Oh, then was a stirring sight. The
bugle blew — fall in, platoons — close
order, to right, to left, the horsemen
formed, rank upon rank, a centaur each,
yet a fitted part of war's dread machine.
'Riah Gant looked long and close at the
attacking column. His eye was still as
keen as when it had sped its bullets at
Pakenham and his red - coats. " Hit's
right down awkward, it is now, that's
Jim, sure's you're born," he said, nod-
ding toward the tall Federal command-
er. " An' all his regimint behind him,
too. If somethin' don't happen, I don't
see what we'll do."

Something did happen. Out from the
blue ranks came a low, exultant, com-
plaining whinny. Each Planner mare
answered it, then, spite of curb, or rein,
or frantic spurring, ran hard as she
could la}^ leg to earth toward the spot
whence it came.

Who can explain a panic ? One min-
ute, and all about, fields, roads, hill-side,
were full of flying troopers, men who but
last night rode unquailing into the very
jaws of death. The valley rung with
clamor, shouts, shrieks, rattle of carbine
volleys, roll of drum and trumpet, a lit-
tle later death-cries of horse and man.
In vain Colonel Napier sought to stem
the tide of flight and chase ; in vain his
brave lieutenants flung themselves be-
fore the fugitives, swearing, praying, be-
seeching. Dropping shots were all that
answered, the sheets of fire from their

pursuers that emptied saddles by the
dozen gi-ew more deadly all the while.

Ten minutes of it — and the stars and
stripes flew victorious over a blood-
stained field. Colonel Napier had es-
caped to fight and die upon another.
Young Gray lay smiling with wide blue
sightless eyes still grasping the colors
he had caught from the hand of their
flying bearer. So 'Riah Gant found
him, a sight to melt the hardest heart.
He touched his son's sleeve, not in sup-
plication, but with a tinge of authority,
as he said, "You'll bury him so, Jim.
'Twas him w^on ye the fight."

So indeed it proved. Jim pushing
across country to relieve the threatened
outpost had overridden his horse and
halted at his father's house in search of
a fresh one. There he found only Pl-
anner, whose call to her mates bore such
unlooked-for fruit.

They made a grave for young Gray in
the Gant burying-ground, and laid the
flag he died for folded above his breast.
First Lieutenant Ware — a Captain now
— rode head of the guard of honor that
followed his gallant foe. Over the open
coffin he said to Betty, standing white
and tearless on the other side, " Must I
bury these with him ? or send them to
— her," nodding toward the girl's pic-
tured face, he held in his hand. " We
found them next his heart," he went on,
"this and the testament with 'Laure'
outside."

Betty held out her hand. AMien the
picture was placed in it, she laid it, face
down, against the dead man's cheek.
" Send the book back — she wdll need
comfort — but let him have the picture,"
she said, very low. Captain AVare looked
at her through misty eyes. There was
something new, rare, wonderful in her
face. Bending, he took her into his arms,
and tears of joy, of tender grief, of love
and reconciliation fell from two pairs of
eyes upon the flowers in the open coffin.

'•'% 11"

J ..,"...'V'''!'W';".,1 miymMu^: • . ;''''i'';'[r7^

1C"^>-

IN MARBLE PRAYER.

(Canterbury, 1891.)

By Julia C. R. Dorr,

So still, so still they lie
As centuries pass by,

Their pale hands folded in imploring prayer ;
They never lift their eyes
In sudden, sweet surprise ;

The wandering winds stir not their heavy hair ;
Forth from their close-sealed lips
Nor moan, nor laughter, slips,

Nor lightest sigh to wake the entranced air !

Yet evermore they pray !

We creatures of a day
Live, love, and vanish from the gaze of men ;

Nations arise and fall ;

Oblivion's heavy pall
Hides kings and princes from all human ken,

While these in marble state,

From age to age await
The rolling thunder of the last amen !

Not in dim crypts alone,
Or aisles of fretted stone.

Where high cathedral altars gleam afar ;

And the red light streams down
On mitre and on crown.

Till each proud jewel blazes like a star ;
But where the tall grass waves
O'er long-forgotten graves.

Their silent worship no rude sounds can mar!

Dost Thou not hear and heed?
O, in Earth's utmost need

Wilt Thou not hearken, Thou who didst create ?
Not for themselves they pray
Whose woes have passed for aye ;

For us, for us, before Thy throne they wait !
Thou Sovereign Lord of All,
On whom they mutely call.

Hear Thou and answer from thine high estate !

HISTORIC moments:

THE RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENT.

By J. K. Upton.

N the first Monday
of December, 1874,
the Congress of the
United States con-
vened to find the
country still suffer-
ing from the finan-
cial panic of the
previous year, aris-
ing, it was generally believed, from the
redundant circulation of the irredeem-
able legal tender notes of the Govern-
ment, of which there was then outstand-
ing $382,000,000. Besides these notes
there was also outstanding of fractional
notes convertible into the legal tenders
$44,000,000 and of national bank notes,
redeemable in "lawful money," $354,-
000,000. Gold was quoted at 112.

Both Houses of Congress were in
control of the Republican party, and the
Chief Executive was of the same pohti-
cal faith.

There was a general feeling through-
out the country that to avoid further
disaster, a parit}^ of value between the
notes of the Government and gold coin
should be established in some way, and
that it should be maintained as long as
the notes should be kept in circulation,
and naturally to the party in power the
country looked for the legislation nec-
essary to that end. As to the steps to
be taken, individual views were so di-
verse, even within party lines, that evi-
dently only through party discipline
could any effective measures be accom-
plished. A committee was therefore
appointed by a caucus of Republican
Senators, to draft the necessary legis-

lation. The committee consisted of
Senators John Sherman (Chairman),
William B. Allison, George S. Bout-
weU, Roscoe Conkhng, George F. Ed-
munds, Thomas W. Ferry, F. T. Fre-
linghuysen, Timothy O. Howe, John A.
Logan, Oliver P. Morton, and Aaron A.
Sargent. It agreed upon a bill provid-
ing for the redemption of the frac-
tional notes in silver halves, quarters,
and dimes ; for the rej^eal of the limit
to the issues of national banks ; for the
retirement of United States notes to an
amount, each month, equal to eighty per
cent, of any additional issues of national
banks, until the United States notes
outstanding should be reduced to $300,-
000,000, and for the redemption of
these notes in coin upon their present-
ation for that purpose in sums of not
less than fifty dollars at the New York
Sub-treasurv, on and after Januarv 1,
1879.

What disposition should be made of
the notes redeemed after the minimum
limit should have been reached, whether
they should be reissued or cancelled and
retired, was a question on which the
Committee could come to no agreement.
Before that matter could become of
practical importance, however, the na-
tional banks must necessarily increase
their circulation about $100,000,000 to
bring about the retirement of the United
States notes to the limit in question,
and this was not likely to happen for
several years, so no particular evil could
result in leaving the question open for
future legislation.

To carry into effect the provisions of

THE RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENT.

125

the bill, the Secretary of the Treasury
was authorized to use any surplus cash
in the Treasury, not otherwise appro-
priated, and to sell, at not less than par
in coin, either of the classes of bonds
authorized to be issued by the refund-
ing act of July 14, 1870, and to use the
proceeds thereof for such redemption
purposes.

The bill as prepared was accepted by
the Senate Finance Committee as its
own, and reported to the Senate by its
Chairman, Senator Sherman, who ex-
plained its provisions, pressing it to a
passage before the adjournment for the
holidays. In the House the bill was
passed without debate, and as in the
Senate by a strict party vote. It be-
came a law January 14, 1875, and the
redemption of the fractional notes was
begim a few months later.

Upon the incoming of the new ad-
ministration on March 4, 1877, Senator
Sherman, who alone had advocated the
passage of the resumiDtion measure in
Congress, was called to administer the
affairs of the Treasury.

He found that the legal tenders had
been considerably reduced in conse-
quence of the bank issues, and a large
portion of the fractional notes redeemed
in silver, but that no steps had been
taken toward accumulating the required
fund for the redemption of the notes in
coin, on and after January 1, 1879 ; also
that under a contract with certain bank-
ers the Treasury was issuing four and one
half per cent, bonds for refunding pur-
poses. The Secretary promptly secured
the consent of these parties to allow no
outstanding bonds to be called against
$15,000,000 of bonds sold, thus creating
at once a reserve to that extent for the
redemption of the notes. The prompt-
ness of the measure and the success
with which it was attended greatly en-
couraged the friends of the adminis-
tration and brought dismay to the
prophets of evil who could see nothing
in the future but bankruptcy and ruin
should resumption be accomplished.
The action of the Secretary greatly
strengthened public credit, and during
the summer he sold $;25,000,000 of four
per cents, at par, making $40,000,000 of
solid gold accumulated specifically to
meet the redemption of the notes. In

addition thereto there was in the Treas-
ury at least $20,000,000 which also
could be used with safety for like pur-
pose, increasing the available fund to
$60,000,000. As the banks were in-
creasing their issues the outstanding
United States notes by the time fixed
for their redemption would probably be
reduced to $300,000,000, the minimum
limit fixed by law. The Secretary be-
lieved that with the reserve of forty per
cent. ($120,000,000) he could with safe-
ty undertake to redeem all the notes
which would be presented for that pur-
pose. Half of the necessary fund was
already on hand, and the withdrawal
of the gold from the channels of com-
merce had created no disturbance. Five
months had sufficed for accompHshing
this much ; seventeen months remained
in which to accomplish the rest. Gold
was at 103. There was in the outlook
only the promise of a successful resump-
tion. But a war sprung up in the
Orient, threatening to involve all the
great powers of Europe, depressing pub-
lic securities in the London market, and
creating unexpected demand for gold.
Then came the clamor at home for the
remonetization of silver, and the pay-
ment of public obligations in silver dol-
lars then worth about ninety-five cents
in gold. More than seventy-five mil-
lion dollars of our securities returned
from London to New York in one w^eek,
causing gold to be shipped to meet their
payment.

In October Congress met in special
session, and on the first day thirteen
bills were presented for the absolute
repeal of the resumption act, and one
of them passed the House without divi-
sion. The local fall elections Avere ad-
verse and discouraging. No hope or
encouragement came from the utter-
ances of the opponents of the adminis-
tration, and meanwhile a new party had
sprung into existence, having the re-
peal of the resumption act the prime
article in its declaration of principles.
Its supporters, drawn from both great
parties, were numerous and noisy. In
the ranks of the dominant party little
unanimity prevailed. Many stanch
advocates of resumption in and out of
that party did not believe that the end
could be accomplished under existing

126

THE RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENT.

laws and methods. Each had a plan of
his own, and rather than see success
achieved in any other way preferred
that resumption should be a failure.
The four and a half per cent, bonds
were quoted below par, and the Secre-
tary, not to disturb the market, sus-
pended all further sales for resumption.

In December the Secretary, in an in-
terview with the Finance Committee of
the Senate was asked : "Do you think
the resumption act had better be re-
pealed ? " The Secretary unhesitating-
ly replied, " / think not. Half of the
fund has already been accumulated, a
year remains in which to accumulate
the rest. Repeal the act, inflation will
follow and either repudiation will result
or the long weary agony and struggle
toward resumption will be renewed.
Gold can be obtained, if not by sale of
four per cents, then by four and a
halves — if not by these then by fives,
which can be sold to-day, if necessary, in
sufficient amounts for the purpose. It is
useless to take any steps backward. If
resumption is ever to be accomplished,
now is the time."

A long interview followed, but the
Secretary had pitched the tune, and no
effort on the part of the Committee
could get him away from the key. His
utterances showed his purpose. His
courage, determination, and resources
were well known, but they only in-
creased the bitterness of his opponents.

A little later the House Committee
on Banking and Currency had an inter-
view with a delegation of New York
bankers. The Committee was known
to be unfriendly to resumption, and the
interview was to be secret. It leaked
out, however, that these bankers also
were either opposed to resumption or
did not believe it practicable at so early
a date. One of the most prominent of
them declared that he would give
^50,000 for a place at the head of the
line at the Sub-Treasury on the day the
redemption of the legal tenders in coin
should be undertaken, that he might
obtain gold for the depreciated notes.
The attitude and belief of these men
had a dispiriting effect on the country.
The}^ were not alone, however, in their
opinions. Even Hon. Hugh McCul-
loch, whose recommendations as Sec-

retary of the Treasury in 1865 had
brought about the first step toward
specie resumption, declared that he
should be much sui'prised if the resei^ve
could be accumulated in the time speci-
fied, and he represented the convictions
of many eminent financiers.

On April 1, 1878, the same Committee
had an interview with the Secretary' of
the Treasury. The members desired
to know what he intended to do about
resumption. They soon found out.

He proposed, if let alone, to redeem
in coin the legal tender notes, on and
after January 1, 1879, as required by
law. As Secretary' of the Treasury
there could be no other course for him
to pursue. To that end he proposed
to sell $50,000,000 of bonds at once to
increase that redemption fund ; more if
necessary could be sold later. He did
not, however, anticipate any such con-
tingency. Already there was under
control of the Treasury $70,000,000 of
these notes to the credit of public of-
ficers and other depositors. The na-
tional banks must take care of another
$70,000,000, as part of their legal re-
serve, thus tying their hands and mak-
ing $140,000,000 of the notes which
need not be considered. The remainder
was scattered over the country among
forty million people, and could not be
presented in any amounts likely to em-
barrass the Treasury. Besides, in his
opinion, when gold could be obtained
for the notes nobody would want it.
He was not afraid with the reserve of
forty per cent, to undertake the redemp-
tion. Statistics showed that the Bank
of England, when it resumed specie pay-
ments in 1822, had a reserve of but
twenty-three per cent. ; that State banks,
although their circulation was only lo-
cal, under ordinary circumstances main-
tained their paper at par, generally with
a reserve of less than thirty-three per
cent. If an extraordinary emergency
should arise there was still the power
of the Secretary to sell bonds for coin,
and Congress also could make such fur-
ther provisions as the times demanded.
Sufficient unto him were the evils of the
day. These evils he proposed to cure.
He did not care what the " New York
Cashiers " had said. He only wanted to
know what Congress proposed to do. If

THE RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENT.

127

the resumption act was to be repealed,
the sooner it was known the better. To
every question of the Committee he gave
a complete and satisfactory reply, though
evidently the questions had been pre-
pared with a view to his discomfiture.
He accepted tables offered by the Com-
mittee and with the new light turned
upon them brought out facts to sustain
his position to the evident dissatisfaction
of the questioners. From his avowed
purpose to sell bonds and resume spe-
cie payments he could not be turned,
nor would he admit of any doubt of his
ability to do so. The publication of the
interview cleared up the atmosphere at
once and confidence became general that,
if let alone, he could sell the bonds and
that he would undertake resumption.

Ten days later, Congress not repeal-
ing the act, he went to New York and
sold $50,000,000 of four and one-half
per cents at 101 net, the proceeds to be
used for the redemption of the notes.
Any further doubt of the ability of the
Secretary to accumulate the coin re-
quired was set at rest.

The negotiation was generally well
received. The Senate refused to pass
the House bill repealing the resumption
act, but an act was approved. May 31,
1878, suspending the further retirement
of the notes, leaving outstanding $346,-
681,016, and authorizing the reissue of
the notes after redemption, indicating a
purpose to retain the legal tenders as a
part of the permanent circulation of the
country ; thus settling, for the time, at
least, a most vexatious question.

A period of comparative rest followed.
Business began to adjust itself to the
new conditions and to reach out in every
direction. The opponents of resump-
tion, however, admitted only temporary
defeat. The fund might be accu-
mulated, but when the stress was re-
moved, gold would flee the country, the
fund would be depleted, and, as the re-
deemed notes could be reissued, the
Treasur}^ would be at the mercy of the
mob who would throng its doors de-
manding gold when there was no gold
to give.

To these prognostications the Secre-
tary gave no heed, but at once began to
set his house in order for the great event
of resumption. He authorized gold to

be purchased for notes by the several as-
say offices, and ordered interest on the
public debt to be paid in coin only at
New York, leaving other branches of
the Treasury to pay in notes or not at
all, and supplemented this order by an
arrangement with the New York Clear-
ing-house under which that institution
agreed to accept notes in payment of all
Government checks or drafts passing
through its hands for collection after
January 1, 1879, thus doing away almost
entirely with the necessity of gold for
coin interest payments amounting to
$100,000,000 per annum. But the law
required the duties on imports to be
paid in coin, and the Secretary had no
power to waive this provision. Should
resumption be maintained there would
be an absurdity in requiring importers
of New York City, before paying their
duties, to first present their legal tender
notes at the Sub-Treasury for redemp-
tion, then to take the coin therefor
across the street to the Custom House,
only to be returned to the Sub-Treasury
at close of business, and it would work
an injustice to importers at other ports
who did not have the privilege of ob-
taining coin of the Government for their
notes, with which to Hquidate custom
dues. So the Secretary, after due notice
to Congress of his purpose, issued in-
structions to customs officers to re-
ceive the notes in payment of duties,
on and after January 1, 1879, the notes
to be redeemed by the Government
whenever necessary.

Long before the end of the year the
contracting parties had placed the $50,-
000,000 in the Treasury as agreed upon.
Owing to the act of May 31, 1878, the
amount of outstanding notes was $46,-
000,000 more than the Secretary at first
anticipated, but for redemption pur-
poses he would likely have in all about
$135,000,000 in gold, very nearly the
forty per cent, of the outstanding notes
as originally determined upon. The op-
ponents of resumption, baffled in their
efforts, could hardly be made to beHeve
that in the vaults of the Sub-Treasury in
New York lay this enormous accumula-
tion of treasui-e. The Hon. Thomas
Ewing, of the House Committee on
Banking and Currency, who had so per-
sistently questioned the Secretary, vis-

128

THE RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENT.

ited the vaults and, to satisfy himself in
the matter, handled bag after bag of the
actual gold. This doubt was shown in
the market by the continued gold pre-
mium. Not till December 18th did this
premium cease, and even after that date
gold was only nominally at par. No
one would give it for paper, dollar for
dollar, except for convenience and in
small amounts.

Congress adjourned for the Christmas
holidays, and immediately thereafter the
air was full of rumors of a combination in
New York for a run upon the Sub-Treas-
ury on the opening of the new year.
The rumor w^as persistent, but its source
unknown. The alarm in New York was
so great that the president of the Na-
tional Bank of Commerce in that city,
who was also chairman of the Clearing-
house Committee, at three o'clock, p. m.,
on the 30th, with the advice of other
bankers, sent the Secretary, by special
messenger, an urgent request for the
transfer to his bank on the following day
from the Sub-Treasury of $5,000,000 in
gold in exchange for a like amount in
United States notes, to enable the banks,
he said, to meet their coin disburse-
ments at the end of the year. To this
there could be but one reply. The
Treasury had no power to make the
transfer, even if it desired to do so. At
the time no publicity was given to the
request, but coming as it did on the eve
of resumption from one so competent
to judge of the necessities and demands
of the hour, it gave the Treasury officials
cognizant of the matter no Httle uneasi-
ness. Even the Secretary evinced more
apprehensions of possible danger than

he had shown during the most discour-
aging events of the winter previous. He
could not believe that danger existed,
but if it did not why should such men on
the ground and thoroughly conversant
with all current movements, show such
alarm ? The movement was a secret one
and its extent unknown.

The year, however, closed with no un-
expected excitement, but with unpleas-
ant forebodings. The first day of Jan-
uary was Sunday and no business was
transacted. On Monday anxiety reigned
in the office of the Secretary. Hour
after hour passed ; no news came from
New York. Inquiry by wire showed
all was quiet. At the close of business
came this message from the Sub-Treas-
ury : " $135,000 of notes presented for
coin— $400,000 of gold for notes." That
was all. Resumption was accomplished
with no disturbance. By five o'clock
the news was all over the land, and the
New York bankers were sipping their
tea in absolute safety.

Thirteen years have since passed and
the redemption fund still remains intact
in the Sub-Treasury vaults. The predic-
tion of the Secretary has become history.
When gold could with certainty be ob-
tained for the notes, nobody wanted it.
The experiment of maintaining a limited
amount of United States notes in circu-
lation, based upon a reasonable reserve
in the Treasury pledged for that purpose,
and supported also by the credit of the
Government, has proved generally satis-
factor}", and the exclusive use of these
notes for circulation may become, in
time, the fixed financial policy of the
Government.

THE POINT OF VIEW.

History repeating itself fulfils its pro-
verbial function, now that something like a
Copyright bill has been passed, in the ef-
forts of the producing artists to have the
duty on works of art by foreign artists im-
ported to this country repealed. As in the
case of International Copyright, we have
here a class of men, who for the sake of an-
alogy, may be called manufacturers of the
article protected, clamoring to have the
protection removed ; and in like manner we
have the sage legislator virtually informing
this producer that it is his duty to prevent
him from committing suicide. The whole
question seems to any thinking man con-
versant with the interests at stake to verge
on the ridiculous ; but this state of affairs
has continued since, early in 1882, the So-
ciety of American Artists, through Mr. Perry
Belmont, called the attention of our law-
makers to the fact that the duty on works
of art, then ten per cent., was iniquitous and
unnecessary. The effort apparently called
attention to the existence of an opportunity,
for the almost immediate result was an in-
crease of the duty to thirty per cent. To
follow the devious ways of the tax, opposed
by continued effort on the part of the not
easily discouraged artists, would be too
long, and with only passing reference to
the grotesque person who announced in
Congress that as long as his voice could be
raised against it, no repeal of the tax on
whiskey and art could be had, we may leave
the ancient history of the movement against
the tax, which after a promise in the Ways
and Means Committee, of its total abolition
Vol. XII.— 14

at the time of the McKinley bill, has been
reduced to fifteen per cent.

A new era seems, however, to have
dawned with the recent Congress of the
National Art Association at Washington.
This Congress, though not the first con-
certed movement on the part of our ar-
tists, is numerically and strategetically the
most important. The National Art Asso-
ciation, formed chiefly for the propaganda
in behalf of Free Art, together with a num-
ber of delegates from the Free Art League,
a prior organization, met at Washington on
the 16th of May, and after passing resolu-
tions similar to those already submitted,
arranged for a hearing before the Commit-
tees of the Senate and the House of Eepre-
sentatives. During a long and enthusiastic
session the Congress listened to much prac-
tical advice from Senator Wolcott, of Col-
orado, Representative Henry Cabot Lodge,
of Massachusetts, and from various artists
and men of prominence interested in the
movement. The unanimity of sentiment
and the force of argument displayed must,
before long, have some effect even on the
indurated intelligence of those legislators
who now refuse to see the difference be-
tween the production of a flannel shirt and
a work of art, and sooner or later the cause
must triumph. The cause can at any rate
be left on its merits from an economic and
rational standpoint, but it seems fitting in
this place to say a word from a point of
view which will hardly come up in dis-
cussion before the Ways and Means Com-
mittee.

180

THE POINT OF VIEW.

Art has been compared to a chain, every
link of which reaches from a point of de-
parture to one of arrival, and this compari-
son makes the art of one country absolutely
dei^endent on that of another. No refer-
ence to Greece or Rome, to Italy, Holland,
France, or England is necessary to make this
obviously true ; and those who watch the
growth of Art in this country — that which
we are fain to call our Renaissance — need
not be reminded of our debt of gratitude
to Europe, and to France in particular. It
is France which has received and cared for,
has instructed in form, color, and taste the
major part of the men who, in our annually
recurring exhibitions, have drawn and hold
a constantly increasing number of inter-
ested men and women. It is France that
(diiring these long years that we have treat-
ed her art as she has, from a possibly mis-
taken economic standpoint, ti-eated our
pork) is now instructing and helping for-
ward the students who will continue and
improve on the work of their predecessors.
It is France who, for years to come, Avliile
the Louvre shall stand and her ateliers may
perfect, will give to all students, as she has
given in the past, with largesse and gen-
erosity. Of this we may be sure, for in
France sentiment — despised sentiment — is
mighty, and it is only on a lower plane than
that of Art that a French economist would
consider it consistent with his dignity to
think of reprisals. This, then, is the situa-
tion : on the one hand a magnificent hos-
pitality to all those who come in the name
of art ; on the other, numbers availing
themselves of the best system of art educa-
tion yet devised, prizes founded here to en-
able the recipient to enjoy these privileges,
honors competed for and received in schools
and exhibitions there, with, to be just, the fu-
tile gratitude of the benefited as the only
recompense. This is the iDoint of view of
sentiment ; but as the sentiment of patriot-
ism has force among us, should we not re-
flect that our national honor forbids us to
ask for bread, and in return offer a stone ?

Me. Pakdeidge, the Chicago plunger
who recently made a million dollars in a
single day, is quoted as observing that a
man's financial success is not always de-
pendent on his education. What Mr. Par-
dridge calls " education " is more accurately

expressed by the word "culture;" for of
course a man has got to have education of a
very definite quality before he can hoj^e to
find any profit in balancing himself on the
edge of the Chicago wheat pit. Education
is trained development ; and the countiy-
store boy whose mind runs on trading, and
who makes gradual progress from jDcddling
mouse-traps to swapping railroads, gets edu-
cation that is quite as distinct, though prob-
ably not as broad, as if he were in special
training to become a college president.
The thing he usually doesn't get is culture;
and Mr. Pardridge is probably right in
thinking that the sort of education that
gives culture is a factor of no particular im-
portance in most processes of money -mak-
ing.

But his remark in its inverted form is just
as true and just as important, to wit, that
the sort of education that merely results in
money-making is of no particular impor-
tance in the promotion of culture. A man
may get ever so much culture and never get
rich ; and a man may get ever so rich and
never achieve culture enough to si>eak polite
English, or know good poetry from bad.
Now, a money-maker who has no culture is
liable to be hard put to it to get his mon-
ey's v.'orth out of life ; and the upshot of his
embarrassments usually is, that not being
fitted by education to enjoy the things that
give pleasure to cultivated minds, he either
takes up with less innocent amusements,
or else sticks to business because it is the
only thing he likes to do. At best he di-
vides his time between money-making and
the cultivation and enjoyment of that won-
derfully remunerative animal, the horse.
When the money has been made in a busi-
ness of large speculative jDOSsibilities, there
are disadvantages about going on, merely
for amusement, after one has won enough.
Many men could speak eloquently of the
disadvantages of being driven by defective
culture to buy and sell wheat for occupa-
tion.

And yet it is very awkward, too, to be
very long of culture and very short of mon-
ey. Culture does not make grinding pov-
erty easier to bear, but rather the reverse ;
for though it is true that peojole of the
highest culture can be happy on moderate
incomes, it is also true that cultivated tastes
mean cultivated wants, and an income on

THE POINT OF VIEW.

131

which an uncultured person could live hap-
pily might be below the minimum indis-
l^ensable to the comfort of another person
whose carefully cultivated wants had be-
come necessities.

It remains a question, which has had to
be pondered for a large jDroportion of the
youth who have just passed or are just about
to pass the examinations proliminary to en-
tering college, whether it is wiser to try first
to make sure of having money or of having
culture. The usual verdict (of the in medio
tntissimus order) is that one should first
seek culture and get a taste of it, at least
while he is young ; then, if all other things
are subsequently added unto him, his enjoy-
ment of them will be so much the more in-
telligent. So long, however, as the " other
things " are lacking, he should not incur
culture enough to put him at a disadvan-
tage in his efforts to attain them. A per-
fectly ' ' safe " college, in the estimation of
anxious contemporary parents, is one where
one's son will not learn so much that he
cannot make his living when he gets out.
It might not be quite fair to say that it is
the glory of the modern college president
that his college is " safe," but it is true
enough that it has been thought expedient
of late years to take special pains to dispel
the notion that college training impairs the
business faculty. "Mother of College
Presidents" was the title of an American
college that could call herself " Mother of
Railroad Presidents " now with equal truth,
and even greater pride. But in these days
v/hen college presidents are men of affairs
and railroad presidents are men of culture,
it is no unnatural exploit for the same alma
mater to mother them both.

Theee are, I am told, few persons who
receive more gratuitous advice — which, for
the most part, is held to be worth about
what it costs — than editors of newspapers ;
and perhaps I am about to offer another
instance in point. But I cannot resist the
imj)r6ssion that they are making their jour-
nals, especially the " great dailies," almost
impossible to read, partly by the inordinate
amount submitted to their readers, and
still more by the manner in which it is sub-
mitted. I know that the criticism is not
new, and I know the usual answer — that a
newspaper is made up of an "assortment to

suit all tastes," and that each class of read-
ers can and will choose what is really of
interest. But the answer is only partly
true. There is much in the contents of any
considerable newspaper — the greater part
often — that is meant for the general reader,
and it is precisely this portion that is grow-
ing in volume and diffuseness beyond all
reason. If one compares it with the por-
tion meant for sj)ecial classes, the differ-
ence is very marked. The commercial and
financial reports are not padded or diffuse,
nor are the articles commenting on them.
Even sporting events get themselves re-
corded with a directness and compactness,
unless, indeed, they happen to be of such
importance that the general reader is sup-
posed to be interested in them, and then
they are apt to suffer inflation.

In other words, wherever a distinct class,
known to have clear notions of what it
wants, is addressed, it is served rationally.
Why in the name of mental hygiene should
not the wants of the general reader, myself,
for example, so far as they can be known,
be treated with the same intelligent re-
spect ? Of course, there is necessarily a
certain vagueness about some of these
wants. No editor can be expected to know
whether I want my reading served with
sauce piquante or accompanied hj pieces su-
crees. But there can be no doubt that I,
with every other fairly intelligent reader,
do like my news told me in generally sim-
ple English, and with a decent sense of the
relative importance of an earthquake in Cal-
ifornia and an elopement in a village of
Central New York, a day's session of Con-
gress or a duel between two insignificant
Americans on foreign soil. I am persuaded
that the " Great " morning newspaper that
will undertake to address its readers with a
reasonably constant assumption that they
are persons of common sense, with time and
energy and eyesight that they do not care
to waste, will achieve certainly a novel and
possibly a great success.

A CIRCULAR that has been sent out to
Harvard graduates, asking for money to put
some new athletic fields in order, is accom-
panied by a picture of the new grounds as
they are going to be. All of Harvard's
play-grounds in present use do not include
more than fifteen acres available for sports.

132

THE POINT OF VIEW.

The new fields are just about a hundred
acres roomier than the old, and when they
are laid out and i)lanted, and built upon as
the i^icture shows, with ball-fields, race-
tracks, grand stands, boat-houses, and va-
rious supplementary temples to Hercules
and Diana, they will bear exceedingly sig-
nificant testimony to the growing disposi-
tion in this country, at this time, to seek a
sound physical foundation for the intellec-
tual sui^erstructure. Tne Greeks built that
way, and for centuries there has been a col-
lege-bred conviction that the way in which
the Greeks did things was the right way.
All the American colleges recognize now
the educational usefulness of the work that
is done with brain and muscle in the open
air, and provide for it as they can.

It is not to be wondered at if, in the last
two months of the college year, the tendency
toward athletics seems almost too strong,
and the i^rovision for it too ample. Then
it is that respectable middle-aged fogies
come out of their holes and cry aloud that
physical education has entirely got the bet-
ter of the intellectual department. When
sjDring has fairly cleared her throat and
found her voice, her call is all but irresisti-
ble, and nothing less than the prospect of
an indispensable pecuniary settlement on
Saturday night avails to keep rightly con-
stituted individuals indoors. It is particu-
larly iDotent with undergraduates and legis-
lators, and from class-rooms and State-hcuse
halls comes the same moan about the di5i-
culty of getting a quorum. It is so pleasant
at this season to sit on a bench in the sun
and see good men strike at balls and run
bases, or to stand on a moving platform car
and shriek at oarsmen on a river, or even to
wave a bat or toil at an oar-handle one's-
self, that the athletic proceedings supple-
mentary to education really do get an inor-
dinate amount of attention. It is natural
enough that any calamitous-minded i^rophet
who contrives to avoid the spell of the sea-
son, should heap dust on his head and reite-
rate, all through June, that the last has be-

come not merely first, but the whole pro-
cession.

It is a comfort to be able to assure such
protestants that there are figures, veracious
and undeniable, which prove, in spite of all
delusive signs, that the intellectual end of
education was never so highly prized as
now. Price is not an accurate measure of
value, but often it is the most reliable
measure to be had, and, at all events, it is
good enough for purjDoses of comparison.
When the jDrice of the highest grade of in-
tellectual education goes up because the
demand has exceeded the su^Dply, it is a
pretty sure symptom that intellectual edu-
cation is not being neglected. That, in a
way, is what has hap^Dened in the American
colleges. Term bills have not increased,
but college presidents wish they had, and
that the resulting aggravation of income
was available to meet the increasing cost of
professors. New universities in the West,
strong in position and in the amj^litude of
their endowments, have sent successive
emissaries eastward, charged to spare no ex-
pense in procuring the most distinguished
pedagogical talent that is open to consider-
ations of pecuniary enlargement and in-
creased opiDortunities of usefulness. The
result is that, this year, a high-grade base-
ball player can be hired for less money than
a high-grade i^rofessor, and that some pro-
fessors are in honorable possession of in-
comes that actually take away one of the
immemorial rej)roaches of the jDedagogical
profession, since they would be considered
amply remunerative of the services of an
accomplished French cook.

So, whatever may be the feelings of the
fogies as they read of crowded ball-games
and boat-races on rivers swarming with
yachts, for this year at least they may
as well hold their peace. So long as pro-
fessors are notoriously in demand at the
highest prices ever off'ered, the fogies can-
not hope to get anybody to believe that
the intellectual end of education is neg-
lected.

DeLow^i

DRAWN BY C. DELORT.

ENGRAVED BY F. A. PETTIT.

HAVE FOLLOWED THE CURRENTS UNDER THE BRANCHES."

— The Centaur, page 230.

SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XII.

AUGUST, 1892.

No. 2,

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

By Octave Tbauet.

I.— THE BESETMENT OF KURT LIEDERS.

A SILVER rime glistened all down
the street. There was a drabble
of dead leaves on the sidewalk
which was of wood, and on the roadway
which was of macadam and stiff mud.
The wind blew sharply, for it was a De-
cember day and only six in the morning.
Nor were the houses high enough to
furnish any independent bulwark ; they
were low, wooden dw^e^lings, the tallest
a bare two stories in height, the major-
ity only one story. But the}" were in
good painting and repair, and most of
them had a homel}" gaj^ety of geraniums
or bouvardias in the windows. The
house on the corner was the tall house.
It occupied a larger yard than its neigh-
bors ; and there were lace curtains tied
with blue ribbons for the window^s in
the right hand front room. The door
of this house swung back with a crash
and a woman darted out. She ran at
the top of her speed to the little yel-
low house farther down the street. Her
blue calico gown clung about her stout
figure and fluttered behind her, reveal-
ing her blue, woollen stockings and felt
slippers. Her gray head was bare. As
she ran tears rolled down her cheeks
and she wrung her hands.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh, lieber Herr Je ! "
One near would have heard her sob, in
too distracted agitation to heed the
motorneer of the passing street-car who
stared after her at the risk of his car, or
the tousled heads behind a few curtains.
She did not stop until she almost fell

Copyright, 1S92, by Charles Scr

■' He wiped dishes as he did everything, neatly, slowly."

—Page 144.

against the door of the yellow house.
Her frantic knocking was answered by
a 3'ouiig woman in a light aiid artless
costume of a quilted petticoat and a red
flannel sack.

"Oh, gracious goodness! Mrs. Lie-
ders ! " cried she.

Tliekla Lieders rather staggered than
walked into the room and fell back on
the black haircloth sofa.

" There, there, there," said the young

ibner's Sons. All rights reserved.

136

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN,

woman while she patted the broad
slioulders heavin<>" between sobs and
short breath, " what is it ? The house
aint afire ? "

" Oh, no, oh, Mrs. Olsen, he has done
it again ! " She wailed in sobs, like a
child.

"Done it? Done what?" exclaimed
Mrs. Olsen, then her face paled. " Oh,
my gracious, you don't mean he's killed
himself "

"Yes, he's killed himself, again."

" And he's dead ? " asked the other in
an awed tone.

Mrs. Lieders gulped down her tears,
" Oh, not so bad as that, I cut him down,
he was up in the garret and I sus —
suspected him and I run up and — oh,
he was there, a choking, and he was so

" He swore at me."

mad ! He swore at me and — he kicked
me when I — I says : ' Kurt, what are
you doing of ? Hold on till I git a
knife,' I says — for his hands was just
dangling at his side ; and he says not-
tings cause he couldn't, he was most
gone and I knowed I wouldn't have time
to git no knife but I saw it was a rope

was ])retty bad worn and so — so I just
run and jumped and ketched it in my
hands, and ])eiiig I'm so Heshy it couldn't
stand no more and it l:)roke ! And, oh !
he — he kicked me when I was try to
come near to git the rope off his neck ;
and so soon like he could git his breath

he swore at me "

" And you a helping of him ! Just
listen to that ! " cried the hearer in-
dignantly.

" So I come here for to git you and
Mr. Olsen to help me git him down
stairs, 'cause he is too heavA^ for me to
lift, and he is so mad he won't walk
down himself."

"Yes, yes, of course. I'll call Carl.
Carl ! dost thou hear ? come ! But did
you dare to leave him, Mrs. Lieders ? "
Part of the time she
spoke in English, part
of the time in her own
tongue, gliding from
one to another, and
neither party observing
the transition.

Mrs. Lieders wiped
her eyes saying : " Oh,
yes, Danke schon, I
aint afraid 'cause I tied
him with the rope,
righd good, so he don't
got no chance to move.
He was make faces at
me all the time I tied
him." At the remem-
brance, the tears welled
anew.

Mrs. Olsen, a little,
bright tinted woman
with a nose too small
for her big blue eyes
and chubby cheeks,
quivered with indig-
nant sympathv.

"Well, I did nefer
hear of sooch a mean
acting man ! " seemed
to her the most nat-
ural expression ; but the wife fired, at
once.

"No, he is not a mean man," she
cried, " no, Freda Olsen, he is not a
mean man at all ! There aint nowhere
a better man than my man ; and Carl
Olsen, he knows that. Kurt, he always
buys a whole ham and a w'hole barrel

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

137

of flour, {111(1 never less than a dollar of taiine, esj^ecially on the garret windows,
sugar at a time! And he never gits "Three times," she answered, not reniov-
drunk nor he never gives me any bad ing her eyes, "onct he tooked liough on

" If they could not get along decently they would better part." — Page 141,

talk. It was only he got this wanting
to kill himself on him, sometimes."

" Well, I guess I'll go put on my
things," said Mrs. Olsen, wisely declin-
ing to defend her position. " You set
right still and warm j^ourself, and we'll
be back in a minute."

Indeed, it w^as hardly more than that
time before both Carl Olsen, who worked
in the same furniture factory as Kurt
Lieders, and w^as a comely and after-
witted giant, appeared with Mrs. Olsen
ready for the street.

He nodded at Mrs. Lieders and made
a gurgling noise in his throat, expected
to convey sympath3\ Then, he coughed
and said that he was ready, and they
started.

Feeling further expression demanded,
Mrs. Olsen asked : " How many times
has he done it, Mrs. Lieders ? "

Mrs. Lieders was trotting along, her
anxious eyes on the house in the dis-

Kats and I found it out and I put some
apple butter in the place of it, and he
kej^t wondering and wondering how he
didn't feel notings, and after a while I
got him off the notion, that time. He
wasn't mad at me ; he just said : ' Well,
I do it some other time. You see ! '
but he promised to wait till I got the
spring house cleaning over, so he could
shake the carpets for me ; and by and
by he got feeling better. He was mad
at the boss and that made him feel bad.
The next time it was the same, that
time he jumped into the cistern "

" Yes, I know," said Olsen, with a
half grin, "I pulled him out."

" It was the razor he wanted," the
wife continued, " and w^hen he come
home and says he was going to leave
the shop and he aint never going back
there, and gets out his razor and sharps
it, I knowed what that meant and I told
him I got to have some bluing and

1158

STORIHS OF A IVESTEKN TOIVN.

wouldn't lie <xo and *;et it ? and ho says, Mi-s. Lieders, " l)ut he said it was for to
' You won't ^it another husband run so shave him, and I <^^ot him to promise to
free on your errands, Thekla,' and I let the barher shave him sometime, in-

" None of the 'boys' came to see him, except Carl Olsen." — Page 142.

says I don't w^ant none ; and when he
was gone I hid the razor and he couldn't
find it, but that didn't mad him, he
didn't say notings ; and when I went to
git the sup23er he walked out in the yard
and jumped into the cistern, and I heard
the splash and looked in and there he
was trying to git his head under, and I
called, ' For the Lord's sake, papa !
For the Lord's sake ! ' just like that.
x4.nd I fished for him with the pole that
stood there and he was sorry and caught
hold of it and give in, and I rested the
pole agin the side cause I wasn't strong
enough to h'ist him out ; and he held
on whilest I run for help "

" And I got the ladder and he clum
out," said the giant with another grin of
recollection, " he was awful wet ! "

" That was a month ago," said the
wife, solemnly.

"He sharped the razor onct," said

stead. Here, Mrs. Olsen, you go righd
in, the door aint locked."

By this time they Avere at the house
door. They passed in and ascended the
stairs to the second story, then climbed
a narrow, ladderdike fiight to the gar-
ret. Involuntarily they had paused to
listen at the foot of the stairs, but it
was very quiet, not a sound of move-
ment, not so much as the sigh of a man
breathing. The wife turned pale and
put both her shaking hands on her
heart.

" Guess he's trying to scare us by
keeping quiet ! " said Olsen, cheerfully,
and he stumbled up the stairs, in ad-
vance. "Thunder!" he exclaimed, on
the last stair, "well, we aint any too
quick."

In fact Carl had nearly fallen over
the master of the house, that enterpris-
ing self - destroyer having contrived,

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

139

" Well, I think yon had ought to be
ashamed of yourself, Mr. Lieders ! "
Mrs. Olsen burst out, in a tremble be-
t\yeen wrath and exertion, shaking her
little, plump list at him.

But the placid Carl only nodded, as
in sympathy, saying, " Well, I am sorry

I o'uess

pinioned as he was, to roll over to the
very brink of the stair well, with the
2)lain intent to break his neck b}' plung-
ing headlong.

In the dim light all that they could
see was a small, old man whose white
hair w^as strung in wisps over his pur-
ple face, whose deep set eyes glared like you feel so bad, Mr. Lieders.
the eyes of a rat in a trap, and wdiose we cot to go now
very elbows and knees expressed in their
cramps the fury of an outraged soul.
When he saw^ the new-comers he shut
his eyes and his jaws.

"Well, Mr. Lieders," said Olsen,
mildly, "I guess you better git down-
stairs. Kin I help you up ? "

" No," said Lieders.

Mrs.

o£en

" Will I give you an arm to lean on ? "

" No."

"Won't you go at all, Mr. Lieders ? "

"No."

Olsen shook his head. "I hate to
trouble you Mr. Lieders," said he in his
slow, undecided tones, " please excuse
me," with which he gathered up the little
man into his strong arms and slung him
over his shoulders, as
easily as he would sling
a sack of meal. It was
a vent for Mrs. Olsen's
bubbling indignation
to make a dive for Lie-
ders's heels and hold
them, while Carl backed
down-stairs. But Lie-
ders did not make the
least resistance. He
allowed them to carry
him into the room in-
dicated by his wife, and
to la}" him bound on the
plump feather bed. It
was not his bedroom,
but the sacred " spare
room," and the bed was
part of its luxury.
Thekla ran in, first, to
remove the embroid-
ered pillow shams and
the dazzling, silken
"crazy quilt " that w^as
her choicest possession.

Safely in the bed,
Lieders opened his eyes and looked from
one face to the other, his lip curling.
"You can't keep me this way all the time.
I can do it in spite of you," said he.

looked as if she would
have liked to exhort Lieders further ;
but she shrugged her shoulders and
follow^ed her husband in silence.

" I wished you'd stay to l^reakfast.
now you're here," Thekla urged out of
her imperious hospitality ; had Kurt
been lying there dead, the next meal
must have been offered, just the same.
" I know, you aint got time to git Mr.
Olsen his breakfast, Freda, before he
has got to go to the shops, and my
tea-kettle is boiling now, and the cof-
fee'll be ready — I gues^ you had better
stay."

But Mrs. Olsen seconded her hus-
band's denial and there was nothing left

Hang himself?" stammered Lossing. — Page 146.

Thekla but to see them to the door.
No sooner did she return than Lieders
spoke. " Aint you going to take off
them ropes ? " said he.

140

STOKIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

" No, it was not fair to thee — I know that now." — Page 147.

"Not till
it."

Silence,
tears from

you promise you won't do

Tliekla, brushing a few
her eyes, scrutinized the
before she walked heavily
out of the room. She turned the key
in the door.

Directly a savory steam floated
through the hall and pierced the cracks
about the door ; then Thekla's foot-
steps returned ; they echoed over the
uncarpeted boards.

She had brought his breakfast, cooked
with the best of her -homely skill. The
pork chops that he liked had been fried,
there was a napkin on the tray, and the
coffee was in the best gilt cup and sau-
cer.

" Here's your breakfast, papa," said
she, trying to smile.

"I don't want no breakfast," said he.

She waited, holding the tray, and
wistfully eying him.

"Take it 'way," said he, "I won't
touch it if you stand till doomsday, les-
sen you untie me ! "

" I'll untie your arm, papa, one arm ;
you kin eat that way."

" Not lessen you untie all of me, I
won't touch a bite."

"You know why I won't untie you,
papa."

"Starving will kill as dead as hang-
ing," was Lieders's orphic response to
this.

Thekla sighed and went away leaving
the tray on the table. It may be that
she hoped the sight of food might stir
his stomach to rebel against his dogged
will ; if so she was disapjjointed, half an
hour went by during which the statue
under the bedclothes remained without
so much as a quiver.

Then the old woman returned. " Aint
you awful cramped and stiff, papa ? "

" Yes," said the statue.

" Will you promise not to do yourself
a mischief, if I untie vou ? "

" No."

Thekla groaned, while the tears
started to her red eyelids. " But you'll
git awful tired and it will hurt you if

STORIES Of A WESTERN TOWN.

141

you don't get the ropes off, soon,
papa ! "

" I know that ! "

He closed his eyes again, to be the
less hindered from dropping back into
his distempered musings. Thekla took
a seat by his side and sat silent as he.
Slowly the natural pallor returned to
the high forehead and sharp features.
They were delicate features and there
was an air of refinement, of thought,
about Lieders's whole person, as differ-
ent as possible from the robust comeli-
ness of his wife. With its keen sensi-
tiveness and its undefined melancholy it
was a dreamer's face. One meets such
faces, sometimes, in incongruous places
and wonders what they mean. In fact,
Kurt Lieders, head cabinet maker in
the furniture factory of Lossing & Co.,
was an artist. He was, also, an incom-
parable artisan and the most exacting
foreman in the shops. Thirty years
ago he had first taken wages from the
senior Lossing. He had watched a
modest industry climb up to a great
business, nor was he all at sea in his
own estimate of his share in the firm's
success. Lieders's workmanship had an
honesty, an infinite patience of detail, a
daring skill of design that came to be
sought and commanded its own price.
The Lossing " art furniture " did not
slander the name. No sculptor ever
wrought his soul into marble with a
more unflinching conscience or a purer
joy in his work than this wood-carver
dreaming over sideboards and bed-
steads. Unluckily, Lieders had the
wrong side of the gift as well as the
right ; was full of whims and crochets,
and as unpractical as the Christian mar-
tyrs. He openly defied expense, and he
would have no trifling with the laws of
art. To make after orders was an insult
to Kurt. He made what was best for
the customer ; if the latter had not the
sense to see it he was a fool and a pig
and some one else should work for him,
not Kurt Lieders, begehr /

Young Lossing had learned the busi-
ness practically. He was taught the
details by his father's best workman ;
and a mighty hard and strict master the
best workman proved ! Lossing did
not dream that the crabbed old tyrant
who rarely praised him, who made him
Vol. XII.— 16

go over, for the twentieth time, any im-
perfect piece of work, who exacted all
the artisan virtues to the last inch, was.
secretly proud of him. Yet, in fact,
the thread of romance in Lieders's pro-
saic life was his idolatry of the Lossing
Manufacturing Co. It is hard to tell
whether it was the Lossings or that
intangible quantity, the firm, the busi-
ness, that he worshipped. Worship he
did, however, the one or the other, per-
haps the both of them, though in the
peevish and erratic manner of the sav-
age who sometimes grovels to his idols
and sometimes kicks them.

Nobody guessed what a blow it was
to Kurt when, a year ago, the elder Los-
sing had died. Even his wife did not
connect his sullen melancholy and his
gibes at the younger generation, with
the crape on Harry Lossing's hat. He
would not go to the funeral, but worked
savagely, all alone by himself, in the
shop, the whole afternoon — breaking-
down at last at the sight of a carved
panel over which Lossing and he had
once disputed. The desolate loneliness
of the old came to him when his old-
master was gone. He loved the young-
man, but the old man was of his owik
generation ; he had "known how things;
ought to be and he could understand
without talking." Lieders began to be^
on the lookout for signs of waning^
consideration, to w^atch his own ejes\
and hands, drearily wondering when
they would begin to play him false ; at,
the same time because he was unhappj-
he was ten times as exacting and per-
emptory and critical with thie younger
workmen, and ten times ss- insolently-
independent with the young master^
Often enough, Lossing was exasperat-
ed to the point of taking the old man
at his word and telling him to go if
he would, but every time the chain of
long habit, a real respect for such faith-
ful service, and a keen admiration for
Kurt's matchless skill in his craft, hadl
held him back. He prided himself oir
keeping his word ; for that reason he
was warier of using it. So he would
compromise by giving the domineering-
old fellow a " good, stiff,, rowing."
Once, he coupled this with a threat, if
they could not get along decently they
would better part ! Lieders had an^

142

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

swered not a word ; he had given Los-
sing a queer glance and turned on his
heel. He went home and bought some
poison on the way. "The old man is
gone and the young feller don't want
the old crank round, no more," he said
to himself, " Thekla, I guess I make her
troubles, too ; I'll git out ! "

That was the beginning of his tam-
pering with suicide. Thekla, who did
not have the same opinion of the "trou-
ble," had interfered. He had married
Thekla to have someone to keep a warm
fireside for him, but she was an ignor-
ant creature who never could be made
to understand about carving ; he felt
sorry for her when the baby died, the
only child they ever had ; he was sorrier
than he expected to be on his own ac-
count, too, for it was an ugl^^ little creat-
ure, only four days old, and very red
and wrinkled ; but he never thought of
confiding his own griefs or trials to
her. Now, it made him angry to have
that stupid Thekla keep him in a world
where he did not wish to stay. If the
next day Lossing had not remembered
how his father valued Lieders, and made
an excuse to half apologize to him, 1
fear Thekla's stratagems would have
done little good.

The next experience was cut out of
the same piece of cloth. He had re-
lented, he had allowed his wife to save
him ; but he was angry in secret. Then
came the day when open disobedience
of Lossing's orders had snapped the
last thread of his patience. To Lieders's
aggrieved " If you ain't satisfied with
my work, Mr, Lossing, I kin quit," the
answer had come instantly, "Very weU,
Lieders, I'm sorry to lose you, but we
can't have two bosses here ; you can go
to the desk." And when Lieders in a
blind stab of temper had growled a
prophesy that Lossing would regret it,
Lossing had stabbed in turn : " Maybe,
but it will be a cold day when I ask
you to come back." And he had gone
off without so much as a word of re-
gret. The old workman had packed up
his tools, the pet tools that no one was
ever permitted to touch, and crammed
his arms into his coat and walked out
of the place where he had worked so
long, not a man saying a word, Lie-
ders didn't reflect that they knew noth-

ing of the quarrel. He glowered at
them and went away sore at heart. We
make a great mistake when we suppose
that it is only the affectionate that de-
sire affection, sulky and ill-conditioned
souls often have a passionate longing
for the very feelings that they repel.
Lieders was a womanish, sensitive creat-
ure under the surly mask, and he was
cut to the quick by his comrades' apa-
thy. " There ain't no place for old men
in this world," he thought, "there's
them boys I done my best to make do a
good job, and some of 'em I've worked
overtime to help ; and not one of 'em
has got as much as a good-by in him
for me ! "

But he did not think of going to poor
Thekla for comfort, he went to his grim
dreams. "I git my propei'ty all straight
for Thekla, and then I quit," said he.
Perhaps he gave himself a reprieve un-
consciously, thinking that something
might happen to save him from himself.
Nothing happened. None of the " boys "
came to see him, except Carl Olsen, the
very stupidest man in the shop who put
Lieders beside himself, fifty times a
day. The other men were sorr}- that
Lieders had gone, having a genuine
workman's admiration for his skill, and
a sort of underground liking for the un-
reasonable old man because he was so
absolutely honest and " a fellow could
always tell where to find him." But
they were shy, they were afraid he would
take their pity in bad part, they "wait-
ed a while."

Carl, honest soul, stood about in Lie-
ders's workshop, kicking the shavings
with his heels for half an hour, and
grinned sheepishly, and was told what
a worthless, scamping, bragging lot the
"boys" at Lossing's were, and said he
guessed he had got to go home now ;
and so departed, unwitting that his
presence had been a consolation. Mrs.
Olsen asked Carl w^hat Lieders said ;
Carl answered simply, " Say, Freda, that
man feels terrible bad."

Meanwhile Thekla seemed easily sat-
isfied. She made no outciy as Lie-
ders had dreaded, over his leaving the
shop.

" Well, then, papa, you don't need git
up so early in the morning no more, if
you aint going to the shop," was her

STORIES OF A IVHSTERN TOWN,

143

only comment ; and Lieders despised
the mind of woman more than ever.

But that evening, while Lieders was
down town (oecuj)ied, had she known
it, with a codicil to his will), she went
over to the Olsens and found out all
Carl could tell her about the trouble in
the shop. And it was she that made
the excuse of marketing to go out the
next day that she might see the rich
widow on the hill who was talking about
a china closet, and Judge Trevor, who
had asked the price of a mantel, and
Mr. Martin, who had looked at side-
boards (all this information came from
honest Carl) ; and who proposed to them
that they order such furniture of the
best cabinet-maker in the country, now
setting up on his own account. He,
simple as a baby for all his doggeduess,
thought that they came because of his
fame as a workman, and felt a glow of
pride, particularly as (having been pre-
pared by the wife, who said, " You see
it don't make so much difference with
my Kurt 'bout de prize, if so he can get
the furniture like he w^ants it, and he
always know of the best in the old
country ") they all were duly humble.
He accepted a few orders and went to
work with a will ; he would show them
what the old man could do ! But it was
only a temporary gleam ; in a little
while he grew homesick for the shop,
for the sawdust floor and the familiar
smell of oil, and the picture of Lossing
flitting in and out. He missed the care-
less young workmen at whom he had
grumbled, he missed the whir of ma-
chinery, and the consciousness of rush
and hurry accented by the cars on the
track outside. In short, he missed the
feeling of being part of a great whole.
At home, in his cosey little improvised
shop, there was none to dispute him,
but there was none to obey him either.
He grew deathly tired of it all. He got
into the habit of walking around the
shops at night prowling about his old
haunts like a cat. Once the night
watchman saw him. The next day
there was a second watchman engaged.
And Olsen told him very kindly, mean-
ing only to warn him, that he was sus-
pected to be there for no good purpose.
Lieders confirmed a lurking suspicion
of the good Carl's own, by the clouding

of his face. Yet he would have chopped
his hand off rather than have lifted it
against the shop.

That was Tuesday night, this was
Wednesday morning.

The memory of it all, the cruel sense
of injustice, returned with such poig-
nant force that Lieders groaned aloud.

Listantly, Thekla was bending over
him. He did not know whether to
laugh at her or to swear, for she began
fumbling at the ro^^es, half sobbing.
" Yes, I knowed they was hurting you,
papa ; I'm going to loose one arm.
Then I put it back again and loose the
other. Please don't be bad ! "

He made no resistance and she was
as good as her word. She unbound
and bound him in sections, as it were ;
he watching her with a morose smile.

Then she left the room, but only to
return with some hot coffee. Lieders
twisted his head away. " No," said he,
" I don't eat none of that breakfast, not
if you make fresh coffee all the morning ;
I feel like I don't eat never no more on
earth."

Thekla knew that the obstinate nat-
ure that she tempted was proof against
temptation ; if Kurt chose to starve,
starve he would with food at his elbow.

*'0h, papa," she cried, helplessly,
" what is the matter with you ? "

"Just dying is the matter with me,
Thekla. If I can't die one way I kin an-
other. Now Thekla, I want you to quit
crying and listen. After I'm gone you
go to the boss, young Mr. Lossing — but I
always called him Harry because he
learned his trade of me, Thekla, but he
don't think of that now — and you tell
him old Lieders that worked for him
thirty years is dead, but he didn't hold
no hard feelings, he knowed he done
wrong 'bout that mantel. Mind you
tell him."

"Yes, papa," said Thekla, which was
a surprise to Kurt ; he had dreaded a
weak flood of tears and protestations.
But there were no tears, no protesta-
tions, only a long look at him and a
contraction of the eyebrows as if Thek-
la were trying to think of something
that eluded her. She placed the coffee
on the tray beside the other breakfast.
For a while the room was very still.
Lieders could not see the look of re-

144

STORIES OF A IVESTERN TOWN,

solve that finally smoothed the per-
plexed lines out of his wife's kind, sim-
ple old face. She rose. " Kurt," she
said, " I don't guess you remember this
is our wedding-day ; it was this day,
eighteen year we was married."

"So!" said Lieders, "well, I was a
bad bargain to you, Thekla ; after you
nursed your father that was a cripple
for twenty years, I thought it would be
easy with me ; but I was a bad bar-
gain."

" The Lord knows best about that,"
said Thekla, simply, " be it how it be,
you are the only man I ever had or will
have, and I don't like you starve your-
self. Papa, sa}" you don't kill yourself,
to-day, and you will eat 3^our break-
fast ! "

" Yes," Lieders repeated in German,
" a bad bargain for thee, that is sure.
But thou hast been a good bargain for
me. Here ! I promise. Not this day.
Give me the coffee."

He had seasons, all the morning, of
wondering over his meekness, and his
agreement to be tied up again, at night.
But still, what did a day matter ? a man
humors women's notions ; and starv-
ing was so tedious. Between whiles he
elaborated a scheme to attain his end.
How easy to outwit the silly Thekla.
His eyes shone, as he hid the little,
sharp knife up his cuff. " Let her tie
me ! " says Lieders, " I keep my word.
To-morrow I be out of this. He won't
git a man like me, pretty soon ! "

Thekla went about her daily tasks,
with her every-day air ; but, now and
again, that same pucker of thought re-
turned to her forehead ; and, more than
once, Lieders saw her stand over some
dish, poising her spoon in air, too ab-
stracted to notice his cynical observa-
tion.

The dinner was more elaborate than
common, and Thekla had broached a
bottle of her currant wine. She grave-
ly drank Lieders's health. "And man 3^
good days, papa," she said.

Lieders felt a queer movement of pity.
A-fter the table was cleared, he helped
his wife to wash and wipe the dishes as
his custom was of a Sunday or holiday.
He wiped dishes as he did everything,
neatly, slowl}^ with a careful delibera-
tion. Not until the dishes were put

away and the couple were seated, did
Thekla speak.

" Kurt," she said, " I got to talk to
you."

An inarticulate groan and a glance at
the door from Lieders. " I just got to,
papa. It aint righd for you to do the
way you been doing for so long time ;
efery little whiles you try to kill your-
self ; no, papa, that aint righd ! "

Kurt, who had gotten out his pencils
and compasses and other drawing tools,
grunted : " I got to look at my work,
Thekla, now, I am too busy to talk."

" No, Kurt, no, papa " — the hands
holding the blue apron that she was em-
broidering with white linen began to
tremble ; Lieders had not the least
idea what a strain it was on this reti-
cent, slow of speech woman who had
stood in awe of him for eighteen years,
to discuss the horror of her life ; but he
could not help marking her agitation.
She w^ent on, desperately : " Yes, papa^
I got to talk it oud with jovl. You had
ought to listen, 'cause I always been a
good wife to you and nefer refused yoii
notings. No."

"Well, I aint saying I done it 'cause
you been bad to me, everybody knows
we aint had no trouble."

" But everbody what don't know us,
when they read how you tried to kill
yourself in the papers, they think it
was me. That always is so. And now
I never can any more sleep nights, for
you is always maybe git up and do
something to yourself. So now, I got
to talk to you, papa. Papa, how could
you done so ? "

Lieders twisted his feet under the
rungs of his chair ; he opened his
mouth, but only to shut it again with a
click of his teeth.

" I got my mind made up, papa. I
thought and I thought. I know why
you done it ; you done it 'cause you and
the boss was mad at each other. The
boss hadn't no righd to let you go "

" Yes, he had, I madded him first ; I
was a fool. Of course I knowed more
than him 'bout the work, but I hadn't no
right to go again him. The boss is all
right."

" Yes, papa, I got my mind made up "
— like most sluggish spirits there was
an immense momentum about Thekla's

STORIES OF A IVESTHRN TOIVN.

W

mind, once get it fairly started it was
not to be diverted — "you never killed
yourself before you used to git mad at
the boss. You was afraid he would
send you away ; and now you have sent
yourself away you don't want to live,
'cause you do not know how j^ou can
git along without the shop. But you
want to get back, you want to get back
more as you want to kill yourself. Yes,
papa, I know, I know where you did use
to go, nights. Nov/ " — she changed her
speech unconsciously to the tongue of
her youth — " it is not fair, it is not fair
to me that thou should treat me like
that, thou dost belong to me, also ; so
I say, mj Kurt, wdlt thou make a bar-
gain with me ? If I shall get thee back
thy place wilt thou promise me never to
kill thyself any more ? "

Lieders had not once looked up at her
during the slow, difficult sentences with
their half choked articulation ; but he
was experiencing some strange emotions,
and one of them was a novel respect for
his wife. All he said was : " 'Taint no
use talking. I won't never ask him to
take me back."

" Well, you aint asking of him. /
ask him ; I try to git you back."

" I tell you, it aint no use, I know
the boss, he aint going to be letting
womans talk him over ; no, he's a good
man, he knows how to work his busi-
ness himseK ! "

"But would you promise me, Kurt ?"

Lieders 's eyes blurred with a mild and
dreamy mist ; he sighed softly. " Thek-
la, you can't see how it is. It is like
you are tied up, if I don't can do that ;
if I can then it is always that I am free,
free, to go free, to stay. And for you,
Thekla, it is the same."

Thekla's mild eyes flashed. " I don't
believe you would like it so you wake up
in the morning and find me hanging up
in the kitchen by the clothes-line ! "

Lieders had the air of one consider-
ing deeply. Then he gave Thekla one
of the surprises of her life ; he rose
from his chair, he walked in his shuffl-
ing, unheeled slippers across the room
to where the old woman sat ; he put
one arm on the back of the chair and
stiffly bent over her and kissed her.

"Lieber Herr Je ! " gasped Thelka.

"Then I shall go, too, pretty quick,

that is all, mamma," said he, Thekla
wiped her eyes. A little pause fell be-
tween them and in it they may have
both remembered vanished, half-forgot-
ten days when life had looked differ-
ently to them, when they had never
thought to sit by their own fireside and
discuss suicide. The husband spoke
first ; with a reluctant, half - shamed
smile, " Thekla, I tell you what, I make
the bargain with you ; you get me back
that place I don't do it again, less you
let me ; you don't git me back that
place you don't say no tings to me."

The apron dropped from the withered,
brown hands to the floor. Again there
was silence ; but not for long ; ghastly
as was the alternative, the proposal of-
fered a chance to escape from the terror
that was sapping her heart.

" How long will you give me, papa ? "
said she.

" I give you a week," said he.

Thekla rose and w^ent to the door ; as
she opened it a fierce gust of wind
slashed her like a knife, and Lieders ex-
claimed, fretfully, "what you opening
that door for, Thekla, letting in the
wind ? I'm so cold, now, right by the
fire, I most can't draw. We got to keep
a fire in the base-burner good, all night
or the plants will freeze."

Thekla said confusedly that some-
thing sounded like a cat crying. "And
you talking like that it frightened me ;
maybe I was wrong to make such bar-

gams

" Then don't make it," said Lieders,
curtly, "I aint asking you."

But Thekla drew a long breath and
straightened herself, saying, " Yes, I
make it, papa, I make it."

" Well, put another stick of wood in
the stove, will you, now you are up?"
said Lieders, shrugging his shoulders,
" or I'll freeze in spite of you ! It seems
to me it grows colder every minute."

But all that day he was unusually
gentle with Thekla. He talked of his
youth and the struggles of the early
days of the firm ; he related a dozen
tales of young Lossing, all illustrating
some admirable trait that he certainly
had not praised at the time. Never
had he so opened his heart in regard to
his own ideals of art, his own ambitions.
And Thekla listened, not always compre-

146

STORIES OF A WESTEKhl TOWN.

bending but always sympathizing ; she
was almost like a comrade, Kurt thought
afterward.

In the morning, he was surprised to
have her appear equipped for the street,
though it was bitterly cold. She wore
her garb of ceremony, a black, alpaca
gown, with a white crocheted collar
neatly turned over the long black, broad-
cloth cloak in which she had taken pride
for the last live years ; and her quilted
black silk bonnet was on her gray head.
When slie put up her foot to don her
warm overshoes Kurt saw that the stout
ankles were encased in white stockings.
This was the last touch. " Gracious,
Thekla," cried Kurt, "are you going to
market this day ? It is the coldest day
this winter ! "

'' Oh, I don't mind," replied Thekla,
nervously. She had wrapped a scarf
about her and gone out while he was
getting into his own coat, and conning
a proffer to go in her stead.

" Oh, well, Thekla she aint such a fool
like she looks ! " he observed to the cat,
" say, pussy, was it you out last night ? "

The cat only blinked her yellow eyes
and purred. She knew that she had
not been out last night. Not any better
than her mistress, however, who at this
moment was hailing a street-car.

The street-car did not land her any-
where near a market ; it whirled her
past the lines of low w^ooden houses
into the big brick buildings with their
arched windows and terra cotta orna-
ments that showed the business streets
of the growing Western town, past
these into mills and factories and
smoke-stained chimneys. Here, she
stopped. An acquaintance would hard-
ly have recognized her, her ruddy
cheeks had grown «o pale. But she
trotted on to the great building on the
corner from whence came a low, inces-
sant buzz. She went into the first door
and ran against Carl Olsen. " Carl, I
got to see Mr. Lossing,"said she breath-
lessly.

" There ain't nothing "

"No, Gott sei dank', but I got to see
him."

It was not in Carl's way to ask ques-
tions ; he promptly showed her the
office and she entered. She had not
seen young Harry Lossing half a dozen

times ; and, now, her anxious eyes wan-
dered from one dapper figure at the
high desks, to another, until Lossing
advanced to her.

He was a handsome man, she thought,
and he had kind eyes, but they hardened
at her first timid sentence : "I am Mrs.
Lieders, I come about my man "

" Will you walk in here Mrs. Lieders ?"
said Lossing. His voice was like the
ice on the window-panes.

She followed him into a little room.
He shut the door.

Declining the chair that he i3ushed to-
ward her she stood in the centre of the
room, looking at him with the plead-
ing eyes of a child.

" Mr. Lossings, will you please save
my Kurt from killing himself ? "

" What do you mean ? " Lossing's
voice had not thawed.

"It is for you that he will kill him-
self, Mr. Lossing. This is the third
time that he has done it. It is because
he is so lonesome now, your father is
died and he thinks that you forget, and
he has worked so hard for you, but he
thinks that you forget. He w^as never
tell me till yesterday ; and then — it was
— it w^as because I would not let him
hang himself "

"Hang himself?" stammered Los-
sing, "you don't mean "

" Yes, he was hang himseK, but I cut
him, no I broke him down," said Thekla,
accurate in all the disorder of her
spirits ; and forthwith, with many
tremors, but clearly, she told the story
of Kurt's despair. She told, as Lieders
never would have known how to tell,
even had his pride let him, all the man's
devotion for the business, all his per-
sonal attachment to the firm ; she told
of his gloom after the elder Lossing
died, " for he was think there was no
one in this town such good man and so
smart like your fader, Mr. Lossing, no,
and he would set all the evening and
try to draw and make the lines all
wrong, and, then, he would throw the
papers in the fire and go and walk out-
side and he say, *I can't do nothing
righd no more now^ the old man's died ;
they don't have no use for me at the
shop, prett}' quick ! ' and that make him
feel awful bad ! " She told of his home-
sick wanderings about the shops by

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

147

night ; " but be was better as a watch-
man, he wouldn't hurt it for the world !
He telled me how you was hide his
dinner-pail, onct for a joke and put in a
piece of your pie, and how you climbed
on the roof with the hose when it was
afire. And he telled me if he shall die
I shall tell you that he ain't got no hard
feelings, but you didn't know how that
mantel had ought to be, so he done it
righd the other way, but he hadn't no
righd to talk to you like he done, no-
how, and you was all righd to send him
away, but you might a shaked hands,
and none of the boys never said nothing
nor none of them never come to see him,
'cept Carl Olsen, and that make him feel
awful bad, too ! And when he feels so
bad he don't no more want to live, so I
make him promise if I git him back he
never try to kill himself again. Oh, Mr.
Lossing, please don't let my man die ! "

Bewildered and more touched than
he cared to feel, himself, Lossing still
made a feeble stand for discipline. " I
don't see how Lieders can expect me to
take him back again," he began.

" He aint expecting you, Mr. Lossing,
it's me ! "

" But didn't Lieders tell you I told
him I would never take him back ? "

" No, sir, no, Mr. Lossing, it was not
that, it was you said it would be a cold
day that you would take him back ; and
it was git so cold yesterday, so I think,

' Now it vv^ould be a cold day to-morrow
and Mr. Lossing he can take Kurt
back.' And it is the most coldest day
this year ! "

Lossing burst into a laugh, perhaps
lie was glad to have the Western sense
of humor come to the rescue of his
compassion. "Well, it was a cold day
for you to come all this way for noth-
ing," said he. "You go home and tell
Lieders to report to-morrow."

Kurt's manner of receiving the news
was characteristic. He snorted in dis-
gust: "Well, I did think he had more
sand than to give in to a woman ! " But
after he heard the whole story he
chuckled : " Yes, it was that way he
said, and he must do like he said ; but
that was a funny way you done, Thekla.
Say, mamma, yesterday, was you look
out for the cat or to find how cold it
been ? "

"Never you mind, papa," said Thekla,
" you remember Vv^hat you promised if I
git you back ? "

Lieders's eyes grew dull ; he flung his
arms out, with a long sigh. " No, I
don't forget, I will keep my promise,
but — it is like the handcuffs, Thekla, it
is like the handcuffs ! " In a second,
however, he added, in a changed tone,
" But thou art a kind jailer, mamma,
more like a comrade. And no, it was
not fair to thee — I know that now,
Thekla."

FADED PICTURES.

By William Vaughn Moody.

Only two patient eyes to stare

Out of the canvas : all the rest,

The warm green gown, the small hands pressed
Light in the lap, the heapy hair,

That must have made the sweet, low brow

So earnest, centuries ago.

When some one saw it change and glow — ■
All faded. Just the eyes burn now.

I dare say people pass and pass
Before the blistered little frame,
And dingy work, without a name,

Shut in behind its bit of glass :

But I — well, I left Kaphael

Just to come drink these eyes of hers,
To think away the stains and blurs.

And make all whole again and well.

Only for tears the head will bow.

Because there on my heart's last wall.
Not one tint left to tell it aU,

A picture keeps its eyes, somehow.

^/y/ity—i"^

Iversidc mris'ii

J3x/ n'Vad'er Jderani'.

YlC KcvcrjulL' Siry'a'njiSs Jiitciijf-

THERE are several riverside par-
ishes east of London Bridge, not
counting the ancient towns of Dept-
ford and Greenwich, which formerly lay
beyond London, and could not be reck-
oned as suburbs. The history of all these
parishes, till the present century, is the
same. Once, southeast and west of Lon-
don, there stretched a broad marsh cov-
ered with Avater at every spring- tide ;
here and there rose islets overgrown
with brambles, the haunt of wild fowl
innumerable. In course of time, the
city having grown and stretching out
long arms along the bank, people be-
gan to build a broad and strong river-
wall to keep out the floods. This river-
wall, which still remains, was gradually
extended until it reached the mouth
of the river and ran quite round the
low coast of Essex. To the marshes suc-
ceeded a vast level, low-lying, fertile
region affording good pasture, excellent
dairy farms, and gardens of fruit and
vegetables. The only inhabitants of
this district were the farmers and the
farm-hands. So things continued for a
thousand years, while the ships went up
the river with wind and tide, and down
the river with wind and tide, and were
moored below the Bridge, and dis-
charged their cargoes into lighters,
which landed them on the quays of
London Port, between the Tower and
the Bridge. As for the people who did
the work of the Port — the loading and
Vol. XII. —17

the unloading — those whom now we
call the stevedores, coalers, dockers,
lightermen, and watermen, the}' lived in
the narrow lanes and croAvded courts
above and about Thames Street.

When the trade of London Port in-
creased, these courts became more
crowded ; some of them overflowed, and
a colony outside the walls was estab-
lished in St. Katherine's Precinct be-
yond the Tower. Next to St. Katherine's
lay the fields called by Stow " Wappin
in the Wose," or Wash, where there
were broken places in the wall, and the
water poured in so that it was as much
a marsh as when there was no dyke at
all. Then the Commissioners of Sew-
ers thought it would be a good plan to
encourage people to build along the
wall, so that they would be personally
interested in its preservation. Thus
arose the Hamlet of Wapping, which,
till far into the eighteenth century,
consisted of little more than a single
long street, with a few cross lanes,
inhabited by sailor-folk. At this time
— it was toward the end of the six-
teenth century — began that great and
wonderful development of London trade
which has continued without any ces-
sation of growth. Gresham began it.
He taught the citizens how to unite for
the common weal ; he gave them a
Bourse ; he transferred the foreign
trade of Antwerp to the Thames. Then
the service of the river grew a]3ace ;

150

A RIVERSIDE PARISH.

where one lighter had sufficed there
were now wanted ten ; " Wa2)2^in in the
Wose " became crowded Wa2)i)ing ; the
long street stretched farther and far-
ther along the river beyond Shad's Well ;
beyond liatcliff Cross, where the "red
cliff" came down nearly to the river
bank; beyond the "Lime-house;" be-
yond the "Poplar" Grove. The whole
of that great city of a million souls, now

roadside taverns and gardens for the
thirsty Londoner on a summer even-
ing ; here were placed many almshouses,
dotted about among the gardens, where
the poor old folks lengthened their days
in i^eace and fresh air.

But Kiverside London was a far dif-
ferent place ; here lived none but sail-
ors, watermen, lightermen, and all those
who had to do with ships and ship2:)ing.

called East London, consisted, until the
end of the last century, of Whitechap-
el and Bethnal Green, still preserving
something of the old rusticity ; of Mile
End, Stepney and Bow, and West Ham,
hamlets set among fields, and market-
gardens, and of that long fringe of
riverside streets and houses. In these
rural hamlets great merchants had their
country-houses ; the place was fertile ;
the air was wholesome ; nowhere could
one see finer flowers or finer plants ;
the merchant-captains — both those at
sea and those retired — had houses with
garden-bowers and masts at Mile End
Old Town. Captain Cook left his wife
and children there when he went sailing
round the world ; here, because ground
was cheap and plentiful, were long rope-
walks and tenter-grounds ; here were

with the wants and the pleasures of the
sailors. Boat-builders had their yards
along the bank ; mast-makers ; sail-
makers ; rope-makers ; block-makers ;
there were repairing docks dotted about
all down the river, each able to hold one
ship at a time, like one or two still re-
maining at Botherhithe ; there were
shijo-building yards of considerable im-
portance ; all these places employed a
vast number of workmen — carpenters,
caulkers, painters, riggers, carvers of
figure-heads, blockmakers, stevedores,
lightermen, watermen, victuallers, tav-
ern-keepers, and all the roguery and
ribauderie that always gather round
mercantile Jack ashore. A crowded
suburb indeed it was, and for the most
part with no gentle-folk to give the jdco-
ple an example of conduct, temperance.

4

V.;i

-1?^

3

152

A RIVERSIDE PARISH.

and religion. At best the master-mari-
ners, a decorous people, and the better
class of tradesmen, to lead the way to
church. And as time went on the bet-
ter class vanished, until the riverside
parishes became abandoned entirely to
mercantile Jack, and to those who live
by loading and unloading, re2:)airing and
building the ships, and by showing Jack
ashore how fastest and best to spend
his money. There were churches —
Wapping, St. George in the East, Shad-
well, and Limehouse — they are there to

of attendance could not be enforced, so
much the worse for them. Though
Jack kept out of church, there was some
religious life in the place, as is shown
not onty by the presence of the church,
but also by that of the chapel. Now,
wherever there is a chapel it indicates
thought, independence, and a sensible
elevation above the reckless, senseless
rabble. Some kinds of Nonconformity
also indicate a first step toward educa-
tion and culture.

He who now stands on London Bridge

yjp

Their first yearning is for finery." — Page 166.

this day ; but Jack and his friends enter
not their portals. Moreover, when they
were built the function of the clergy-
man was to perform with dignity and
reverence the services of the church ; if
people chose not to come, and the law

and looks down the river, will see a large
number of steamers lying off the quays ;
there are barges, river steamers, and
boats ; there are great ocean steamers
working up or down the river ; but
there is Httle to give the stranger even

A RIVERSIDE PARISH.

153

a suspicion of the enormous trade that
is carried on at the Port of London.
That Port is now hidden behind the
dock gates ; the trade is invisible unless
one enters the docks and reckons up the
ships and their tonnage, the warehouses
and their contents. But a hundred
years ago this trade was visible to any
who chose to look at it, and the ships
in which the trade was carried on were
visible as well.

Below the Bridge, the river for more
than a mile, pursues a straight course
with a uniform breadth. It then bends
in a northeasterly direction for a mile
or so, when it turns southward, passing
Deptford and Greenwich. Now, a hun-
dred years ago, for two miles and more
below the bridge, the ships lay moored
side by side in double lines, with a nar-
row channel between. There were no
docks ; all the loading and the unload-
ing had to be done by means of barges
and lighters in the stream. One can
hardly realize this vast concourse of

boats and barges and ships ; the thou-
sands of men at work ; the passage to
and fro of the barges laden to the water's
edge, or returning empty to the ship's
side ; the yeo-heave-oh ! of the sailors
hoisting up the casks and bales and
cases ; the shouting, the turmoil, the
quarrelling, the fighting, the tumult
upon the river, now so peaceful. But
when we talk of a riverside parish we
must remember this great concourse, be-
cause it was the cause of practices from
which we suffer to the present day.

Of these things we may be perfectly
certain. First, that without the pres-
ence among a people of some higher
life, some nobler standard, than that of
the senses, this peoj)le will sink rapidly
and surely. Next, that no class of per-
sons, whether in the better or the wors-
er rank, can ever be trusted to be a law
unto themselves. For which reason we
may continue to be grateful to our an-
cestors who caused to be written in large
letters of gold, for all the world to see

154

A RIVERSIDE PARISH.

once a week, " Thus saith thp: Lord,
*' Thou shalt uot steal," and the rest : the
lack of which reminder sometimes caus-
eth, in Nonconformist circles, it is wliis-
j)ered, a de2:)loral)le separation of faith
and works. The third maxim, axiom,

sailor ashore had no master ; the men
who worked on the lighters and on the
ships had no master except for the day ;
the ignoble horde of those who supplied
the coarse pleasures of the sailors had
no masters ; they were not made to do

or self-evident j^roposition is, that when anything but wliat they pleased ; the

people can steal without fear of conse- church was not for them ; their children

quences they will steal. All through were not sent to school; their only mas-

the last century, and indeed far into this, ters were the fear of the gallows, con-

the only influence brought to bear upon stantly dangled before their eyes at Ex-

the common people was that of author- ecution Dock and on the shores of the

ity. The master ruled his servants ; he Isle of Dogs, and their profound respect

watched over them ; when they were for the cat o' nine tails. They knew no

young he had them catechised and morality ; they had no other restraint ;

taught the sentiments proper to their they all together slid, ran, fell, leaped,

station ; he also flogged them soundly ; danced, and rolled swiftly and easily

when they grew up he gave them wages
and work ; he made them go to church
regularly ; he rewarded them for indus-
try by fraternal care ; he sent them to
the almshouse when they were old. At
church the sermons were not for the
servants but for the masters ; yet the

adown the Primrose Path ; they fell into
a savagery the like of which has never
been known among English-folk since
the days of their conversion to the Chris-
tian faith. It is only by searching and
poking among unknown pamphlets and
forgotten books that one finds out the

former were reminded every week of the actual depths of the English savagery
Ten Commandments, which were not of the last century. And it is not too

much to say that for drunk-

only written out large for all to see, but
were read out for their instruction ev-
ery Sunday morning. The decay of
authority is one of the distinguishing
features of the present century.

But in Riverside London there were
no masters, and there was no authority lighters w^hen they were loaded, and
for the great mass of the people. The when they had floated down the river

enness, brutality, and igno-
rance, the Englishman of the
baser kind touched about the
lowest depth ever reached by
civilized man during the last
century. What he was in
Eiverside London has been
disclosed by Colquhoun, the
Police Magistrate. Here he
was not only a drimkard, a
brawler, a torturer of dumb
beasts, a wife-beater, a profli-
gate— he w^as also, with his
fellows, engaged every day,
and all day long, in a vast
systematic organized depre-
dation. The people of the
riverside w^ere all, to a man,
river pirates ; by daj^ and by
night they stole from the
ships. There were often as
many as a thousand vessels
lying in the river ; there were many
hundreds of boats, barges, and light-
ers engaged upon their cargoes. They
practised their robberies in a thousand
ingenious ways ; they weighed the an-
chors and stole them ; they cut adrift

x^>t;^>;i^ -

-^-^-l^.

A RIVERSIDE PARISH.

155

" Her bowsprit and figurehead stick out over the street." — Page 158.

they pillaged what they could carry and
left the rest to sink or swim ; they
waited till night and then rowed off
to half-laden lighters and helped them-
selves.- Sometimes they went on board
the ships as stevedores and tossed bales
overboard to a confederate in a boat be-
low ; or they were coopers who carried
under their aprons bags which they filled
with sugar from the casks ; or they
took with them bladders for stealing the
rum. Some waded about in the mud at
low tide to catch anything that was

thrown to them from the ships. Some
obtained admission to the ship as rat-
catchers, and in that capacity were able
to carry away plunder previously con-
cealed by their friends ; some, called
acuffle-hunters, stood on the quays as
porters, carrying bags under their long
aprons in which to hide wdiatever they
could pilfer. It w^as estimated that, tak-
ing one year with another, the depre-
dations from the shipping in the Port of
London amounted to nearly a quarter
of a million sterling every year. All this

156

A RIJ/ERSIDE PARISH.

was carried on by the riverside people.
But, to make robbery successful, there
must be accomplices, receiving-houses,
fences, a way to dispose of the goods. In
this case the thieves had as their accom-
plices the whole of the population of the
quarter where they lived. All the pub-
lic-houses were secret markets attended
by grocers and other tradesmen where

the booty was sold by auction, and, to
escape detection fictitious bills and ac-
counts were given and received. The
thieves were known- among themselves
by fancy names, which at once indicated
the special line of each and showed the
popularit}^ of the calling ; they were bold
pirates, night plunderers, light horse-
men, heavy horsemen, mud-larks, game
lightermen, scuffle-hunters and gangs-
men. Their thefts enabled them to live
in the coarse profusion of meat and
drink, which was all they wanted ; yet
they were always poor because their
plunder was knocked down for so little ;
they saved nothing ; and they were al-
ways egged on to new robberies by the

men who sold them drinks, the women
who took their money from them, and
the honest merchants who attended the
secret markets.

I dwell upon the past because the
present is its natural legacy. When
you read of the efforts now being made
to raise the living, or at least to prevent
them from sinking an}' lower, remem-
ber that they are what the
dead made them. We in-
herit more than the wealth
of our ancestors ; we inherit
the consequences of their
misdeeds. It is a most ex-
pensive thing to suffer the
people to drop and sink ; it
is a burden which we lay
upon posterity if we do not
continually spend and be
spent in lifting them up.
Why, we have been the best
part of two thousand years
in recovering the civiliza-
tion which fell to pieces
when the Roman Empire
decayed. We have not been
fifty years in dragging up
the very poor whom we
neglected and left to them-
selves, the gallows, the cat,
and the press-gang only a
hundred years ago. And
how slow, how slow and
sometimes hopeless, is the
work !

The establishment of
river police and the con-
struction of docks have
cleared the river of all this
gentry. Ships now enter the docks ;
there discharge and receive ; the labor-
ers can carry away nothing through the
dock-gates. No apron allows a bag to
be hidden ; policemen stand at the gates
to search the men ; the old game is gone
— what is left :^s a surviving spirit of
lawlessness ; the herding together ; the
hand-to-mouth life ; the love of drink is
the chief attainable pleasure ; the ab-
sence of conscience and responsibility ;
and the old brutality.

What the riverside then was may be
learned by a small piece of Rotherhithe
in which the old things still linger.
Small repairing-docks, each capable of
holding one vessel, are dotted along the

JCuD-Ju^

Scatc/uy-u^ th*^ irwK at ^ul ^ck ^a^

DRAWN BY HUGH THOMSON.

158

A KiyERSIDE PARISH.

street ; to each are its great dock-gates
keeping out the high tide, and the
quays and the shops and the care-taker's
lodge ; the ship lies in the dock shored
up by timbers on either side, and the
workmen are hammering, caulking,
painting, and scraping the wooden hull ;
her bowsprit and her figurehead stick
out over the street. Between the docks
are small two-storied houses, half of
them little shops trying to sell some-
thing ; the public-house is frequent,
but the "Humors" of Ratcliff High-

way are absent ; mercantile Jack at
Rotherhithe is mostly Norwegian and
has morals of his own. Such, however,
as this little village of Rotherhithe is,
so were " Wappin in the Wose," Shad-
well, Eatcliff, and the "Lime-house" a
hundred years ago, with the addition of
street fighting and brawling all day
long ; the perpetual adoration of rum ;
quarrels over stolen goods ; quarrels
over drunken drabs ; quarrels over all
fours ; the scraping of fiddles from
every public-house, the noise of singing,

A RIVERSIDE PARISH.

159

feasting, and dancing, and a never-end-
ing, still-beginning debauch, all hushed
and quiet — as birds cower in the hedge
at sight of the kestrel — when the press-
gang swept down the narrow streets and
carried off the lads, unwilling to leave
the girls and the grog, and put them
aboard His Majesty's tender to meet
what fate might bring.

carried on. That branch of industry
was abandoned after 1808, when the shij:)-
wrights struck for lower wages. Their
action transferred the ship-building of
the country to the Clyde, and threw out
of work thousands of men who had
been earning large wages in the yards.
Before this unlucky event lliverside
London had been rough and squalid,

The construction of the great docks
has completely changed this quarter.
The Precinct of St. Katherine's by the
Tower has almost entirely disappeared,
being covered by St. Katherine's Dock ;
the London Dock has reduced Wapping
to a strip covered with warehouses.
But the church remains, so frankly pro-
claiming itself of the eighteenth cen-
tur}', with its great churchyard. The
new Dock Basin, Limehouse Basin,
and the West India Docks, have sliced
huge .cantles out of Shadwell, Lime-
house, and Poplar ; the little private
docks and boat-building yards have dis-
appeared ; here and there the dock re-
mains, with its river gates gone, an
ancient barge reposing in its black
mud ; here and there may be found a
great building which was formerly a
warehouse when ship-building was still

but there were in it plenty of people
earning good wages — skilled artisans,
good craftsmen. Since then it has
been next door to starving. The effect
of the shipwrights' strike may be illus-
trated in the history of one couple.

The man, of Irish parentage, though
born in Stepney, was a j)ainter or dec-
orator of the saloons and cabins of
shij^s : he was a highly skilled workman
of taste and dexterit}' : he could not
only paint but he could carve : he made
about three pounds a week and lived in
comfort. The wife, a decent Yorkshire
woman whose manners were very much
above those of the Riverside folk, was
a few years older than her husband :
they had no children. During the years
of fatness they saved nothing ; the hus-
band was not a drunkard, but, like most
workmen, he liked to cut a figure and

160

A RIVERSIDE PARISH,

to make a show. So he saved little or
nothing. When the yard was finally
closed he had to cadge about for work.
Fifteen years later he was found in a
single room of the meanest tenement-

place where odd jobs were found for the
man, and where the woman made friends
in private families for whom she did a
little sewing. But it was too late for the
man ; his privations had destroyed his

.. i-.

?>

house : his furniture was reduced to a
bed, a table, and a ^chair : all that they
had was a little tea and no money — no
money at all. He was weak and ill
with trudging about in search of work :
he was lying exhausted on the bed while
his wife sat crouched over the little bit
of fire. This was how they had lived for
fifteen years — the whole time on the
verge of starvation. AVell, they were
taken away ; they were persuaded to
leave their quarters and to try another

sleight of hand, though he knew it not ;
the fine workman was gone ; he took
painters' paralysis and very often when
work was offered his hand would drop
before he could begin it ; then the long
years of tramping about had made him
restless ; from time to time he was fain to
borrow a few shillings and to go on the
tramp again, pretending that he was in
search of work ; he would stay away for
a fortnight, marching about from place
to place, heartily enjoying the change

A RIVERSIDE PARISH

IGl

and the social evening at the public-
houses where he put up. For, though
no drunkard, he loved to sit in a warm
bar and to talk over the splendors of
the past. Then he died. No one, now
looking at the neat old lady in the clean
white cap and apron who sits all day in
the nursery crooning over her work,
would believe that she has gone through
this ordeal by famine, and served her
fifteen years' term of starvation for the
sins of otliers.

The Parish of St. James's, Ratcliff, is
the least known of Riverside London.
There is nothing about this parish in
the Guide-books ; nobody goes to see
it. Why should they ? There is noth-
ing to see. Yet it is not without its
romantic touches. Once there was here
a cross — the Eatcliff Cross — but no-
body knows what it was, when it was
erected, why it was erected, or when
it was pulled down. The oldest inhabi-
tant now at Ratcliff remembers that

there was a cross here — the name sur-
vived until the other day, attached to a
little street, but that is now gone. It
is mentioned in Dryden. And on the
Queen's accession, in 1837, she was pro-
claimed, among other places, at Ratcliff
Cross — but why, no one knows. Once
the Shipwrights' Company had their hall
here ; it stood among gardens where
the scent of the gillyflower and the
stock mingled with the scent of the tar
from the neighboring rope-yard and
boat-building j^ard ; in the old days,
many were the feasts which the jolly
shipwrights held in their hall after ser-
vice at St. Dunstan's, Stepney. The
hall is now pulled down, and the Com-
pany, which is one of the smallest, worth
an income of less than a thousand, has
never built another. Then there are the
Ratcliff Stairs — rather dirty and dilapi-
dated to look at, but, at half-tide, afford-
ing the best view one can get any where
of the Pool and the shipping. In the

162

A RIVERSIDE PARISH.

good old days of the scuffle-hunters and
the heavy horsemen, the view of the
thousand ships moored in their long
lines with the narrow passage between

the new church ; it is a large, solid, and
substantial house, built early in the last
century, when as yet the light horsemen
and lumpers were no nearer than AVap-

Smoking Concert at the Tee-to-tum, St. James's, Ratcliff. — Page 167.

was splendid. History has deigned to
speak of Ratcliff Stairs. 'Twas by these
steps that the gallant Willoughby em-
barked for his fatal voyage ; with flags
flying and the discharge of guns he
sailed past Greenwich, hoping that the
king would come forth to see him pass.
Alas ! the young king lay a dying, and
AVilloughby himself was sailing off to
meet his death.

The parish contains four good houses,
all of which, I believe, are marked in
Roque's map of 1745.

One of these is now the vicarage of

ping. The walls of the dining-room
are painted with Italian landscapes to
which belongs a romance. The paint-
ings were executed by a young Italian
artist. For the sake of convenience he
was allowed by the merchant who then
lived here, and employed him, to stay in
the house. Now the merchant had a
daughter, and she was fair ; the artist
was a goodly youth, and inflammable ;
as the poet says, their eyes met ; pres-
ently, as the poet goes on, their lips
met ; then the merchant found out what
was going on, and ordered the young

A RIVERSIDE PARISH.

163

man, with good old British determina-
tion, out of the house ; the young- man
retired to his room, presumably to j^ack
up his things. But he did not go out

The third great house is one of the
few surviving specimens of the mer-
cliant's warehouse and residence in one.
It is now an old and tumble - down

of the house ; instead of that, he hanged
himself in his room. His ghost, natural-
ly, continued to remain in the house,
and has been seen by many. Why he
has not long ago joined the ghost of the
young lady is not clear, unless that, like
many ghosts, his chief pleasure is in
keeping as miserable as he possibly can.
The second large house of the parish
is apparently of the same date, but the
broad garden in which it formerly stood
has been built over by mean tenement-
houses ; nothing is known about it ; at
present certain Bo man Catholic sisters
live in it and carry on some kind of work.

place. Its ancient history I know not.
What rich and costly bales were hoisted
into this warehouse ; what goods lay
here waiting to be carried down the
Stairs, and so on board ship in the
Pool ; what fortunes were made and
lost here one knows not. Its ancient
history is gone and lost, but it has a
modern history. Here a certain man
began, in a small way, a work which has
grown to be great ; here he spent and
was spent ; here he gave his life for the
work, which was for the children of the
poor. He was a young physician ; he
saw in this squalid and crowded neigh-

DRAWN BY HUGH THOMSON.

Lightermen after Dinner Putting off to Work from Ratcliff Stairs.

A RIVERSIDE PARISH.

165

borhood the lives of the children need-
lessly sacrificed by the thousand for the
want of a hospital ; to be taken ill in the
wretched room where the whole fam-
ily lived was to die ; the nearest hos-
pital was two miles away. The young
physician had but slender means, but
he had a stout heart. He found this
house empty, its rent a song. He took
it, put in half a dozen beds, constituted
himself the physician and his wife the
nurse, and opened the Children's Hos-
pital. Very soon the rooms became
wards ; the wards became crowded with
children ; the one nurse was multiplied
by twenty ; the one physician by six.
Very soon, too, the physician lay upon
his death-bed, killed by the work. But
the Children's Hospital was founded,
and now it stands, not far off, a stately
building with one of its wards — the
Heckford Ward — named after the phy-
sician who gave his own life to save the
children. When the house ceased to be
a hospital it was taken by a Mr. Dawson,
who was the first to start here a club
for the very rough lads. He, too, gave
his life for the cause, for the illness
which killed him was due to overwork
and neglect. Devotion and death are
therefore associated with this old house.

The fourth large house is now de-
graded to a common lodging-house. But
it has still its fine old staircase.

The Parish of St. James's, Eatcliff,
consists of an irregular patch of ground
having the river on the south, and the
Commercial Road, one of the great arte-
ries of London, on the north. It contains
about seven thousand people, of whom
some three thousand are Irish Catho-
lics. It includes a number of small,
mean, and squalid streets ; there is not
anywhere in the great city a collection
of streets smaller or meaner. The peo-
ple live in tenement-houses, very often
one family for every room — in one street,
for instance, of fifty houses, there are
one hundred and thirty families. The
men are nearly all dock-laborers — the
descendants of the scuffle-hunters, whose
traditions still survive, perhaps, in an
unconquerable hatred of government.
The women and girls are shirt-makers,
tailoresses, jam-makers, biscuit-makers,
match-makers, and rope-makers.

In this parish the only gentle-folk are
Vol. XII —18

the clergy and the ladies working in
the parish for the Church ; there are
no substantial shopkeepers, no private
residents, no lawyer, no doctor, no pro-
fessional people of any kind ; there are
thirty- six public-houses, or one to every
hundred adults, so that if each spends
on an average only two shillings a week,
the weekly takings of each are ten
pounds. Till lately there were forty-
six, but ten have been suppressed ; there
are no places of public entertainment,
there are no books, there are hardlj' any
papers except some of those Irish papers
whose continued sufferance gives the lie
to their own everlasting charges of Eng-
lish tyranny. Most significant of all,
there are no Dissenting chapels, with one
remarkable exception. Fifteen chapels
in the three parishes of Eatcliff, Shad-
well, and St. George's have been closed
during the last twenty years. Does
this mean conversion to the Anglican
Church ? Not exactly ; it means, first,
that the people have become too poor
to maintain a chapel, and next, that they
have become too poor to think of relig-
ion. So long as an Englishman's head
is above the grinding misery, he ex-
ercises, as he should, a free and inde-
pendent choice of creeds, thereby vin-
dicating and asserting his liberties.
Here there is no chapel, therefore no
one thinks ; they lie like sheep ; of death
and its possibilities no one heeds ; they
live from day to day ; when they are
young they believe they will be always
young ; when they are old, so far as
they know, they have been always old.

The people being such as they are —
so poor, so helpless, so ignorant — what
is done for them ? How are they helped
upward ? How are they driven, pushed,
shoved, pulled, to prevent them from
sinking still lower? For they are not
at the lowest depths ; they are not
criminals ; up to their lights they are
honest ; that poor fellow who stands
with his hands readj^ — all he has got in
the wide world — only his hands — no
trade, no craft, no skill — will give you a
good day's work if you engage him ; he
will not steal things ; he will drink
more than he should with the money
you give him ; he will knock his wife
down if she angers him ; but he is not
a criminal That stej) has yet to be

166

A RIVERSIDE PARISH,

taken ; he will not take it ; but his chil-
dren may, and unless they are prevent-
ed they certainly will. For the London-
born child very soon learns the meaning
of the Easy Way and the Primrose Path.
We have to do with the people ignorant,
drunken, helpless, always at the point
of destitution, their whole thoughts as
much concentrated upon the difficulty
of the daily bread as ever were those of
their ancestor who roamed about the
Middlesex Forest and hunted the bear
with a club, and shot the wild-goose
with a flint-headed arrow.

First there is the Church work ; that
is to sa}', the various agencies and
machinery directed by the vicar. Per-
haps it may be a new thing to some
American readers to learn how much
of the time and thoughts of our An-
glican beneficed clergymen are wanted
for things not directly religious. The
church, a plain and unpretending edi-
fice, built in the year 1838, is served by
the vicar and two curates. There are
daily services, and on Sundays an early
celebration. The average attendance
at the Sunday morning mid day service
is about one hundred; in the evening it
is generally double that number. They
are all adults. For the children another
service is held in the Mission Room.
The average attendance at the Sunday
schools and Bible classes is about three
hundred and fifty, and would be more
if the vicar had a larger staff of teachers,
of whom, however, there are forty-two.
The whole number of men and women
engaged in organized work connected
with the Church is about one hundred
and twenty-six. Some of them are
ladies from the other end of London,
but most belong to the parish itself ;
in the choir, for instance, are found
a barber, a postman, a care taker, and
one or two small shopkeepers, all liv-
ing in the parish. When we remember
that Ratcliff is not what is called a
" show " parish, that the newspapers
never talk about it, and that rich peo-
ple never hear of it, this indicates a
very considerable support to Church
w^ork.

In addition to the church proper
there is the " Mission Chapel," where
other services are held. One day in
the week there is a sale of clothes at

very small prices. The}' are sold rather
than given, because if the wojnen have
paid a few pence for them they are less
willing to pawn them than if they had
received them for nothing. In the Mis-
sion Chapel are held classes for young
girls and services for children.

The churchyard, hke so many of the
London churchyards, has been convert-
ed into a recreation ground, where there
are trees and flower-beds, and benches
for old and young.

Outside the Church, but yet connect-
ed with it, there is, first, the Girls' Club.
The girls of Ratclifi" are all working-
girls ; as might be expected, a rough
and wild company, as untrained as colts,
yet open to kindly and considerate treat-
ment. Their first yearning is for fin-
ery ; give them a high hat with a flaring
ostrich feather, a plush jacket, and a
" fringe," and they are happy. There
are seventy-five of these girls ; they use
their club every evening, and they have
various classes, though it cannot be said
that they are desirous of learning any-
thing. Needlew^ork, especially, they dis-
like ; they dance, sing, have musical
drill, and read a little. Five ladies who
work for the church and for the club,
live in the club-house, and other ladies
come to lend assistance. When we con-
sider what the homes and the com-
panions of these girls are, what kind of
men will be their husbands, and that
they are to become mothers of the next
generation, it seems as if one could not
possibly attempt a more useful achieve-
ment than their civilization. Above all,
this club stands in the w-ay of the great-
est curse of East London — the boy and
girl marriage. For the elder women
there are Mothers' Meetings, at which
two hundred attend every week ; and
there are branches of the Societies for
Nursing and Helping Married Women.
For general purposes there is a Parish
Sick and Distress Fund ; a fund for giv-
ing dinners to poor children ; there is
a frequent distribution of fruit, vege-
tables, and flow^ers, sent up by people
from the country. And for the children
there is a large room which they can
use as a pla^'-room from four o'clock till
half-past seven. Here they are at least
warm ; were it not for this room they
would have to run about the cold streets ;

A RIVERSIDE PARISH.

167

here they have games and pictures and
toys. In connection with the work for
the girls, help is given by the Met-
ropolitan Association for Befriending
Young Servants, which takes charge of
a good many of the girls.

For the men there is one of the insti-
tutions called a Tee-To-Tum Club, which
has a grand cafe open to everybody all
day long ; the members manage the
club themselves ; they have a concert
once a week, a dramatic performance
once a week, a gj^mnastic display once
a week ; on Sunday they have a lecture
or an address, with a discussion after
it ; and they have smaller clubs attached
for foot-ball, cricket, rowing, and swim-
ming.

For the younger lads there is another
club, of one hundred and sixty mem-
bers ; they also have their gymnasium,
their foot-ball, cricket, and swimming
clubs ; their classes for carpentry, wood-
carving, singing, and shorthand ; their
savings' bank, their sick club, and their
library.

Only the better class of lads belong
to this club. But there is a lower set,
those who lounge about the streets at
night, and take to gambling and bet-
ting. For these boys the children's *
play-room is opened in the evening ;
here they read, talk, box, and play baga-
telle, draughts, and dominos. These
lads are as rough as can be found, yet on
the whole they give very little trouble.

Another important institution is the
Country Holiday ; this is accomplished
by saving. It means, while it lasts, an
expenditure of five shillings a week ;
sometimes the lads are taken to the sea-
side and live in a barn ; sometimes the
girls are sent to a village and placed
about in cottages. A great number of
the girls and lads go off every year a
hopping in Kent.

Add to these the temperance societies,
and we seem to complete the organized
work of the Church. It must, however,
be remembered that this work is not
confined to those who attend the ser-
vices or are Anglican in name. The
clergy and the ladies who help them go
about the whole parish from house to
house ; they know all the people in
every house, to whatever creed they be-
long ; their visits are looked for as a

kind of right; they are not insulted
even by the roughest ; they are trusted
by all ; as they go along the streets the
children run after them and hang upon
their dress ; if a strange man is walk-
ing with one of these ladies they catch
at his hands and puU at his coat-tails
— we judge of a man, you see, by his
companions. All this machinery seems
costly. It is, of course, far beyond the
slender resources of the parish. It de-
mands, however, no more than £850 a
year, of which £310 is found by different
societies and the sum of £500 has to be
raised somehow.

There are, it has been stated, no more
than seven thousand people in this par-
ish, of whom nearly half belong to the
Church of Home. It would therefore
almost seem as if every man, woman,
and child in the place must be brought
under the influence of all this work.
In a sense all the people do feel the
influence of the Church, whether they
are Anglicans or not. The parish sys-
tem, as you have seen, provides every-
thing ; for the men, clubs ; for the wom-
en, nursing in sickness, friendly coun-
sel always, help in trouble ; the girls
are brought together and kept out of
mischief and encouraged in self-re-
spect by ladies who understand what
they want and how they look at things ;
the grown lads are taken from the streets,
and, with the younger boys, are taught
arts and crafts, and are trained in man-
ly exercises just as if they were boys
of Eton and Harrow. The Church ser-
vices, which used to be everything, are
now only a part of the parish work.
The clergy are at once servants of the
altar, preachers, teachers, almoners,
leaders in all kinds of societies and
clubs, and providers of amusements and
recreation. The people look on, hold
out their hands, receive, at first indif-
ferently— but presently, one by one,
awaken to a new sense. As they receive
they cannot choose but to discover that
these ladies have given up their luxuri-
ous homes and the life of ease in order
to work among them. They also discover
that these young gentlemen who " run "
the clubs, teach the boys gymnastics,
boxing, drawing, carving, and the rest,
give up for this all their evenings — the
flower of the day in the flower of life.

168 A RIVERSIDE PARISH.

What for ? What do they get for it ? ish. There are at present neither Baptist,

Not in this parish only, but in every nor Wesl3'an, nor Independent chapels

parish the same kind of thing goes on in the place. A few years ago, on the ap-

and spreads daily. This — observe — is pearance of the book called the "Bit-

the last step hut one of charity. For ter Cry of Outcast London," an attempt

the progress of charity is as follows : was made by the last-named body ;

First, there is the pitiful dole to the they found an old chapel belonging to

beggar ; then the bequest to monk and the Congregationalists, with an endow-

monastery ; then the founding of the ment of £80 a year, which they turned

almshouse and the parish charity ; then into a mission hall, and carried on with

the Easter and the Christmas offerings ; spirit, for two years mission work in the

then the gift to the almoner ; then the place ; they soon obtained large funds,

cheque to a society ; next — latest and which they seem to have lavished with

best — personal service among the poor, more zeal than discretion. Presently

This is both flower and fruit of charit3^ their mone^^ was all gone and they

One thing only remains. And before could get no more ; then the chapel was

long this thing also shall come to pass turned into a night-shelter. Next it

as well. was burned to the ground. It is now

Those who live in the dens and witness rebuilt and is again a night-shelter,

these things done daily must be stocks There is, however, an historic monu-

and stones if they were not moved by ment in the parish with which remains

them. They are not stocks and stones ; a survival of former activity. It is a

they are actually, though slowly, moved Quaker meeting-house which dates back

by them ; the old hatred of the Church to 1667. It stands within its walls, quiet

— you may find it expressed in the and decorous ; there are the chapel, the

workingman's papers of fifty years ago ante-room, and the burial-ground. The

— is dying out rapidly in our great congregation still meet, reduced to fifty ;

towns ; the brawling is better ; even they still hold their Sunday-school ; and

the drinking is diminishing. And there not far off one of the fraternity carries

is another — perhaps an unexpected — ; on a Creche which takes care of seventy

result. Not only are the poor turning or eighty babies, and is blessed every

to the Church which befriends them, day by as many mothers,
the Church which they used to deride, Considering all these agencies — how

but the clergy are turning to the poor ; they are at work day after day, never

there are many for whom the condition resting, never ceasing, never relaxing

of the people is above all other earthly their hold, always compelling the peo-

considerations. If that great conflict — pie more and more A\ithin the circle of

long predicted — of capital and labor their influence ; how they incline the

ever takes place, it is safe to prophecy hearts of the children to better things

that the Church will not desert the and show them how to win these better

poor. things — one wonders that the whole par-

Apart from the Church what machin- ish is not already clad in white robes

ery is at work ? First, because there and sitting with harp and crown. On

are so many Catholics in the place, one the other hand, walking down London

must think of them. It is, however, Street, Ratcliff, looking at the foul

difficult to ascertain the Catholic agen- houses, hearing the foul language, see-

cies at work among these people. The ing the poor women with black eyes,

people are told that they must go to watching the multitudinous children in

mass ; Roman Catholic sisters give din- the mud ; one wonders whether even

ners to children ; there is the Roman these agencies are enough to stem the

League of the Cross — a temperance as- tide and to prevent this mass of people

sociation ; I think that the Catholics from falling lower and lower still into

are in great measure left to the chari- the hell of savagery. This parish is one

ties of the Anglicans, so long as these of the poorest in London ; it is one of

do not try to convert the Romans. the least known ; it is one of the least

The Salvation Army people attempt visited. Explorers of slums seldom

nothing — absolutely nothing in this par- come here ; it is not fashionably mis-

SUN IN THE WILLOiVS.

169

erable. Yet all these fine things are
done here, and as in this j^arish so in
every other. It is continually stated as
a mere commonplace — one may see the
thing advanced everywhere, in " thought-
ful " papers, in leading articles — that
the Church of Rome alone can produce
its self-sacrificing martyrs, its lives of
pure devotion. Then what of these
parish-workers of the Church of Eng-
land? What of that young physician
who worked himself to death for the
children ? What of the young men —
not one here and there but in dozens —
who give up all that young men mostly
love for the sake of laborious nights
among rough and rude lads ? What of

the gentlewomen who pass long years —
give up their youth, their beauty, and
their strength — among girls and women
whose language is at first like a blow to
them? What of the clergy themselves,
always, all day long, living in the midst
of the very poor — hardly paid, always
giving out of their poverty, forgotten in
their obscurity, far from any chance
of promotion, too hard-worked to read
or study, dropped out of all the old
scholarly circles? Nay, my brothers, we
cannot allow to the Church of Rome all
the unselfish men and women. Father
Damien is one of us as well. I have met
him — I know him by sight — he lives, and
has long lived, in Riverside London.

SUN IN THE WILLOWS,

By Harrison S. Morris.

The waning sun, through willow lattices,
Looked down a dewy dingle of the hills ;
Crossed here a quiet pool with little thrills
Of radiance 'gainst the eddies when the breeze
Tranquilly touched them ; sloped away through trees
And sheaved uplands ; touched the windowed mills
To sudden glory ; leapt two swampy rills ;
And last lay in the green wheat at his ease :

A lazy, winking journey full of whims.
With dew to cool his feet, and pictures set
Each way about him : Ah, the sweetest yet.
Seen from an orchard when the twilight mellows,
Was nigh a shadowy water where the willows
Webbed all his golden face with tiny limbs !

WHEN THE CENTURY CAME IN.

By Mrs. Burton Harrison.

I.

From Mrs. Ferdinando Berkeley, of
Princess Koyal Street, Belhaven, Vir-
ginia, to her married daughter, Mrs.
F. Faulkland, of Mount Eagle, near
Charlestown, Virginia.

3rd February, 1803.

My dearest girl will, I know, acquit
me of intentional neglect in missing the
last post. At length I have an opportu-
nity to sit down and devote an evening
to telling you our news ; and, by good
luck, the waggoner who is to take the
bundle of linen and fustian I chose for
you, will leave Clagett's Tavern to-mor-
row morning. Indeed, I could hardly
rest, last night, for thinking my dearest
Peggy might worry a little at not hear-
ing from home, which would be bad for
her and for my sweet precious new
grandson — little rogue, that keeps his
mamma away from us, when her broth-
er Billy is about to present his family
with a bride. To think, my dear, that
your Brother's day is set, the seventh,
next Tuesday ! Oh ! may the Almighty
shower his blessings on the Pair. We
— our entire household, except the little
ones — are (if we are spared) to go over

to Maryland to the wedding, which is
all very well ; but after a week's frolick-
ing, the bridal party comes here, and
then, Peggy, pity me. Such nice man-
agers the Stuarts are, and old Mrs.

S , who will of course accompany

her daughter, famed far and wide for
her housekeeping ; I shall be in a ter-
rible pucker with them, and no Peggy
to help me with the whipt creams and
drest dishes ! Ah ! my dear, I owe
your good man a grudge for taking
you — the flower of my flock — away ;
but there, I am not in earnest. I never
think of your match but with gratitude
to God, and love to your Partner. One
thing only is wanting — were you but
near me — but the thought then strikes
me, that you might have been as far re-
moved and with an Indifferent Hus-
band— this reflection hushes all my re-
gret. I am content — more than con-
tent— I am happy, thankfuU. Old Mrs.
Stuart is vaunted all over her State for
her turtle-soup ; and I need not tell
you, child — you have seen your good
father pish and pshaw over ours and
push away his plate, often enough —
poor Penny is not at her best in turtle-
soup. However, If I have to sit up all
the night before, and make some pre-
text to run out of the room just before

IV HEN THE CENTURY CAME IN.

171

the dinner is announced, I will (if Hive)
see ours rightly flavoured, when old
Mrs. Stuart comes. Your sister Finetta,
for a wonder, has come down off of her
high horse, and offered to make the cus-
tards and jelly-cake. Little Jack says :
"I wish it were sister Peggy's jelly-
cake," and I hid the child run and play,
for if Finetta heard that, away would
fly all our chances of a helping hand
from he 7^ I

I almost wish I could stay away
from the wedding and have my mind at
Ease for preparations. But Billy makes
a point of my going ; and, with Lucilla
and Finetta on the front seat of the
chariot, and Tom a-horseback, we are
(if we are spared) to set out on Mon-
day next. But here I am, forgetting to
tell you why the affair is at the last so
hurried up. You have not forgotten
that your future sister Juliana has en-
joyed a fine name as a flirt, and has
been blowing hot and cold on Billy's
flame for many months, & even after
she wore his ring, wou'd never Name
the Day. Poor Bill}^ was too proud to
let me know his suffering ; but who can
deceive a mother's fond eyes? I saw
him mope at home, and then ride away
to Maryland, return from thence more
cheerful, & again fall into the Blues.
This was repeated, till I must needs
take a tuck in the back of his waistcoats,
every one, and his coats hung as if upon
a rack. His beautiful hair went rough,
and his cheeks lost their roseate bloom.
Finetta gibed her brother, you may be
sure, and advised him to give up Prince
George's County, and look about him
in Belhaven for a Fair. Next came the
rumour, just before Christmas, that
Miss Juliana Stuart was to wed with
her neighbour. Colonel Crespigny, whom
you have heard of as a great fortune,
the match of the county.

'Twill be never known what a time I
had with Billy then ! Shut up in his
room staring at the wall, or on horse-
back riding so hard that he lamed the
gray filly which is not yet cured (and a
pretty scolding he got from your papa,
who, Finetta says, in his heart thinks
the filly worth two Miss Juliana Stuarts !).
At last Master Billy got the invitation
to spend Christmas week with Cousin
John Thornton at Buck Ridge, near An-

napolis, & fine doings they had. (I'd
warrant Jack Thornton, for all his fifty
years, to foot it with the youngest beau
in the party !) Pretty Miss Juliana being
one of the belles present, she and Billy
made it up ; and Billy now vows Col-
onel Crespigny was never more than a
well-wisher to his sweetheart, & that it
was ridiculous for any one to say other-
wise. (He forgets his own jealousy,
my dear !) I must remark to you, Peg-
gy, that I did not think the Stuarts
would consent to the speedy marriage
that Billy — methinks wisely — insisted
on. My son, although as everybody
knows the handsomest, sweetest, dearest
young fellow, the best rider and dancer
in the town, has little beyond a genteel
competency and his prospects from your
father's sister Ariana, now residing in
the city of Bath, England ; & Miss Ari-
ana Berkeley, it is equally well known,
is of a captious temper and apt to take
fits of changing her mind when least
expected. Col : Crespigny, on the other
hand, has a fine old place and manor-
house, and his crops and negroes are
prodigiously valuable, they say. Little
Juliana, who is so soon to be gathered
to my Maternal arms, has, however, led
her parents quite a dance ; and perhaps
they are pleased to see her safely set-
tled. Little puss ! She has written to
me a vastly pretty note, that makes me
forgive her coquetting with my Billy.
And after all, do we not every day see
the greatest toasts and flirts around us
marry and make the best of wives to
those whom they have kept in suspense
until the very Nuptial Hour ! You, Peg-
gy, were not of that sort. Never shall
I forget your coming to me after Mr.
Faulkland carried off the ring for you at
the Culpepper Tournament and courted
you the same evening, saying, " He is
the only man I ever could have chosen
to be my lord ! " Finetta is so sharp
with her would-be suitors, that I doubt
me she will ever make any selection ;
and little Lucilla is too young to talk
about beaux and weddings yet a while,
thank goodness ! I must tell you, child,
that Lucilla, at fifteen turned, is begin-
ning to improve mightily in shape and
complexion. Billy and Tom declare she
will beat Sister Finetta hollow, but that
none can come up to Sister Peggy. If

172

WHEN THE CENTURY CAME IN.

it were not for licr unfortunate red hair,
which alas ! noUiimj can remedy ! I
have kept Susan's Sally combing' it for
hours with the lead comb ; it has been
washed in medicated waters; and yet it
remains the same — brown in the shade,
but, when the sun strikes it, as red as
the sorrel's mane. Cousin Priscilla
Randolph, who has just returned from
Baltimore, brought us word that the
latest style there is to wear the hair
close and glossy like a Sattin cap.
Those ladies whose locks will not yield
to smoothing with the brush, oil and po-
made them freely. Finetta, who always
seeks the latest mode, wore hers so to
a party, last week ; and I have tried to
persuade Lucilla that this is her chance
to hide the defects of nature at the wed-
ding. I coaxed her into the Chamber,
yester-day, and made her stand still, while
I put onguents on her hair, and forced it
to lie smooth. At last 'twas of a rich,
dark colour that nobody would dream
of calling by that odious word red ; and,
for once, I lareathed free about my poor
dear's appearance — when in came Tom
from riding, and laugh't at her, and
cried out, "Little Lu's head looks like
the mahogany knob on your chest of
drawers, mother ! " Out ran Lucilla in
a passion, wash't her hair in hartshorn,
and when she came down tossing her
locks like a Shetland poney, I'll own to
you, child, I gave her a smart scolding
and bid her take her own stubborn way.
When my precious grandsons (bless their
hearts — I keep little Urban's curl, till I
can get a locket fit to put it in — you will
find a nice batch of horse-cakes and
sugar-candy in the bundle for him, with
grandma's love) get big enough to have
their own way, you will understand some
of the trials of a mother's lot !

Here I am wand'ring away from the
wedding, which is to be a grand affair,
the Stuart house full, and every house
in the neighbourhood crowded with
guests. My Billy is in such a state I
hardly think he knows whether he walks
or flies, & Mother must always be ready
to hear his raptures. He has given
Juliana a set of pearls, necklace, brooch,
and spray, and has bought the tiniest
little ring, I protest 'twould fit a fairy.

Oh ! Peggy, what with ordering dain-
ties, and drilling the servants, and keep-

ing your dear father in a good humour
al)out our large expenses, my hands
have been full ! Of course you will want
to hear first about our dresses. I have
got me a grave-coloured Sattin, nearly
puce, I will enclose a scrap to let you
see the colour — and with the old Mech-
lin lace, it will have to be first day's and
second day's best, too, I reckon ; for
there are Finetta & Little Lu. to fit out.
Finetta has bought herself a new White
Lutestring, a lavender gauze, a cross-
barr'd Blue Lutestring, and two new
dimity frocks for morning. She has a
beautiful Rideding-dress near the colour
of your Great Coat, but a Casimer. She
has some notion of getting a plain mus-
lin ; she has made up her worked one
fashionably, & it is very pretty. The
Ladies now wear a Lace Veil and two
Long White feathers in the hair, the veil
pinned up — a handsome head dress, and
the newest ; so of course Finetta has
one, besides a wreath and bunch of
flowers ; & you see she is smartly fixt.
Tom vext her by saving she was going
to set her cap for Col. Crespigny, and
Finetta bridled and coloured furiously.

Then saucy Tom said if Col. C knows

what is good for him he will chuse
little Lu., who is so good natured she
will let you pull her hair ; and I said "No
more nonsence like that, Tom. I'll not
have Lu. snatched up and carried off by
a husband like Peggy was at sixteen ! '*
Which I tell you, my dear, repenting it
— for if ever girl was blessed in a kind
generous spouse 'tis you ; and well may
old Penny say : " Husbands like Marse
Frank Faulkland don't grow on bushes
by de way." Lu. is vastly set up with
two new white muslins over blue and
pink silk slips, and a white dimity with
bird's eye dots of cherry. I wanted a
new pelisse for her, but the bills this
year will be so large, I daren't propose
it, even to your dear generous papa.
You know he has taken a lease of Claire-
mont for Billy and his wife. Since old
Mr. Mason died the place has been in
the market to rent. Mr. George Will-
iam Caiter, who married Mary Turber-
ville, writ up from W^estmoreland to
have it purchased for him, but the ex-
ecutors would not consent, and Mr.
Carter, 'tis said, is too Aristocratic to
live on rented land. My poor Billy,

WHEN THE CENTURY CAME IN.

173

unless his aunt Ariana helps him, can-
not be so choice. There is a good
house, good water, gardens, ice-house,
stable, poultry -yard — I doubt if Miss
Juliana, although she did not, like you,
have the bar of a town education, will
raise many fowls. Your papa kindly
promises to do their marketing for
them, and you know what a fine hand
he is. They need only send a servant
twice a week to town, and Billy will
keep up the farm, which is small, but in
fair condition. I am gossiping on, my
Peggy, as if you were in the Chamber
with your little mother chattering in
your ear. I must thank you, love, for
the pickles, the best I ever ate, and I am
proud of your getting over that trick of
over-spicing. I could always trust my
Peggy to conquer her worst faults. Oh !
my dear, I drop into bed this night,
weary, but thanking the Almighty for
my two children's blest lots. If I were
to chuse through the world I'd have se-
lected dear Mr. Faulkland, and Billy's
happiness is mine. If Finetta could
only curb her tongue and temper a lit-
tle bit (I know her heart is right) I
should have nothing else to ask. Tom
and Lu. and the little ones are so well-
grown and good, and no woman, not
even you, Peggy, had ever such a Part-
ner as mine is. Kiss my babys for me ;
Finetta will write directly after The
Event. God bless all my dear ones,
prays their affect'".

S. Berkeley.

P.S. — Pray tell Harriet from me that
her children are well, and in good places,
and that she may trust me to take care
of them. My servants have been un-
commonly well this winter, except old
Dilsey ; and a Doctor the old woman
called on, in my absence at your house,
bled, blistered and salivated her so that
when I returned she had hardly any
pulse. I was obliged to give her a quan-
tity of Madeira wine, and take great
care of her & she is now hearty. Cous-
in Potts is about to try Electricity for
her rheumatism, having exhausted all
other remedies. It frights me to think
of such a daring thing. Do, my dear,
keep using the bark powder for your
teeth — they were always extreamely del-
icate. Pray do not omit my affect^''

Compts to your husband's Aunt Griffin,
should she come to visit you ; although,
fortunately, the roads between you are
so bad. I must not Cloase without tell-
ing you that poor old Mrs. Giddy died
of a Consumption, and we have Lost
our neighbour Mrs. Jones, who hanged
herself, while deranged, by tyeing a
handkerchief to a Tester of the Bed-
stead. Mrs. Rose has a Beautifull Boy,
and would like the pattern of your dar-
ling nurseling's caps.

n.

From Miss Berkeley, of Princess Roy-
al Street, Belhaven, to her Sister, Mrs.
F. Faulkland, of Mount Eagle.

23rd February, 1803.

Well, my dear Peggy, as we wrote
you, the great Affair is over, and I take
pen in hand to give you fuller particu-
lars of an Occasion where you were sen-
sibly mist, and often reverted to, by En-
quiring Friends. The Stuarts gave a
splendid entertainment, all the rooms
open and drest with laurel and crow's
foot garlands, wax-candles by hundreds,
on the supper-tables a profusion of pine-
apples, oranges, Cocoa-Nuts and other
rare West Indian fruits, besides sweets,
& oysters, crabs, salads, turkeys, wines
and punches. The greatest display of
Glass and Plate I ever beheld. (I won-
der if any of it was borrow'd or hired
for the occasion !) The bride came
down the stairs and joined with Brother
Billy at the foot, and the bridesmaids
followed, among them Lu. and I, and
walked in to the big saloon and stood
before the parson in a semi-circle. They
call our new sister a beauty, and beauty
she may be in Prince George's, but she
is not up to Belhaven standard, in my
opinion ! She has a little pale face, and
big dark eyes, and so much browTi hair
it is too heavy for her head. Billy's
pearl spray was its only ornament, ex-
cept a camellia behind one ear ; and she
wore a plain square of Blond for a veil.
Her dress was white Sattin, of course —
not as good a quality as youi's, my dear,
if that will comfort you — and her figure
is like a thread-paper. We danced till

174

IV HEN THE CENTURY CAME IN.

morning, Brother Billy leadin':*' in the
reel with the bride — my partner Colonel
Crespigny, whom you may have heard of,
a neighbour of the Stuarts, and a mon-
strous fine young man. He asked Lit-
tle Lu. to dance a minuet with him, to
the child's great discomfiture, and I fan-
cied her head would be quite turned.
Next day, there was a dinner for all the
gentry of the neighbourhood. We sat
down at three o'clock & did not rise till
six ; the same profusion ; & I thought
our little mother would feel put out
of countenance by Mrs. Stuart's table.
But Lord ! when you came to taste the
calf's foot jelly, it was poor stuff, I'll
warrant you ! And the Blanc Mange
eggs in the hen's nest hardly seasoned,
& half melted ! The bride's-cake was
fine to look at, iced by the Confectioner
in Washington with a sugar Cupid in a
Cage on top, and a sugar couple stand-
ing before Hymen's altar under it. I
took a bit to sleep on (they teased me
next day to know if I dreamed of any
Colonel, but of course that's nonsense,
child) ; and I broke off a crumb or two
to see what Prince George's could do in
the way of black cake. Bless me, Peg-
gy, it was not a patch on yours ! The
icing had no orange-flower water in it —
no blanched almonds — conceive of such
a thing ! And this they call the model
housekeeping of Maryland !

Juliana's second day's dress was pink-
ish lavender brocade with pigeon bertha
and ruffles of white silk muslin. I wore
my cross-barred lustring, and Lu. wore
her other muslin. Papa, who, all the
way driving over in the chariot, had
fretted, voAving and protesting he would
leave for home the next morning after
the wedding early, as he could not abide
junketing among a lot of idle people,
joked and told stories, touch'd glasses
with all the gentlemen, & was the life
of the party. Between ourselves and the
Church clock, he was in no hurry to get
home ! You won't believe it, Peggy,
our papa danced the reel with fat Mrs.
Stuart, and cut the pigeon wing — yes !
and a lively one. He skipped into the
air !

Thursday, our Papa & Mama returned
to Belhaven, but I was prevailed on to
stay, and they kept little Lu. because,
forsooth, I suppose they feared me be-

ing homesick. Col. Crespigny brought
his horses for me to ride ; k, on Friday,
gave us a dining at his Mansion which
is truly elegant. He is a tall dark man,
a little reserved in manner, a bachelor
of two - and - thirty. Any one can see
'twas the merest folly to talk of his car-
ing for Billy's Juliana. Well, my dear, to
make a long story short, we stayed out
the week, and then the bride and groom
and wedding pai-ty came over to Bel-
haven, our chariot sent again for us,
the rest riding or driving as they fan-
cied. Col. Crespigny would have little
Lu. and me mounted on his horses,
while some of the elders took our places
in the chariot. It was clear, mild
weather, a touch of Spring in the air,
and our ride delightful. (You must
know the Colonel, Peggy. He is about
Mr. Faulkland's hight and build, but
less gay and off-hand than your spouse.)
Now, for the celebrations of the week.
The town is very gay, and I tell you
we have no cause to blush for Bel-
haven entertainments. A party every
night, abundance of costly viands, Mrs.
Swann's supper being set forth on a
new service of glass that cost her three
hundred dollars in Philadelphia ; and
Mrs. Tyler's old English plate all on
her table at once. Oh ! my dear, such
an odd affair. Miss Kitty Dickson's
'ivedding, of which so much has been
said — the town is in a Hubbub over it.
Last Thursday was the day set, hut the
bridegroom did not come ! The cakes
were made, the supper drest ; every-
thing ready but the Gent'n, a very im-
portant part of it, at Miss Kitty's age,
especially. You may guess the gossip
this occasioned. Such ridicule — such
triumph in the Malicious ! Though
that family are not my first favourites,
it put me out of conceit with Human
Nature. The bridegroom, Mr. Pearse,
neither came nor sent w^ord ; and for
days the Dicksons were in the utter-
most perplexity. At last, on the follow-
ing Thursday, he came, and with him
his Sisters. It seems they mistook the
day ! And now, everybody flocks again
to the house and the nuptials take place
duly. Miss Kitty in — 1st day — White
Sattin and crape; 2nd day — White
Lutestring and muslin. At the 1st
day's entertainment a prodigious com-

IV HEN THE CENTURY CAME IN.

175

pany of married gents & Ladies. 2nd
day, all the young genteel people in the
town. Both suppers were superb —
pyramids three hands high, and every-
thing renewed for the second supper.
Mr. Pearse, about whom the Dicksons
had so much pother, is, now they have
got him, homely enough to scare the
crows in his own cornfields. Rumour
hath it that your old friend Louisa
Beckwith is to marry Johnny Boyd, the
little broken-backed man ; there is no
doubt husbands are scarce when little
Johnny gets picked up. Almost every
family of our acquaintance has called
upon Mrs. Billy, and we have had four
large dinner companies for them, and
evening entertainments too, & they have
been much invited out. Mama is on
her feet greatly, but keeps in good
health, and old Penny has done won-
ders in the cooking. Brother Tom was
a subscriber to this year's Birth night
Ball, and he came off with great ap-
plause, every one seem'd pleased with
his Gaiety and Candour, though he
speaks his mind so freely. Little Lu.
has contrived to see a good deal of the
goings-on, spite of our intentions to
keep her in. I confess the girl is much
improved in looks. Peggy, don't you —
Honour bright — child, ever feel that
you'd give your ears to be back in all
our gayeties, instead of away off there,
mewed up with your husband and
Babys in the country ? You that was
lately so full of life and animation ?
Ah ! well, child, perhaps you're right
(for I can hear you answer " No "). Me-
thinks I can sometimes understand it.
But enough of this — I have promised
Col. Crespigny to ride with him to-
morrow to Washington to call on Mrs.
Law. She is in the midst of the fash-
ionable whirl, and I have seen her little.
That city was never so gay since the
Government was fixt there, but for rea-
sons you know of, we prefer Belhaven
society. Our Papa, spite of his kinship
with the President, hath so strong a
dislike to what he calls Mr. Jefferson's
scandalous low notions about putting
us all on a par with the lower classes,
he will not hear of our waiting on the
Ladies at The Palace. He, and the
other Federalists in town, still feel
deeply the slight put upon the British

Ambassador's lady at the banquet in
December, when the President gave
his right and left to Mrs. Madison
and Mme. Yrujo, and forsook Mistress
Merry to shift for herself ! Nothing is
heard discust in Washington, but the
question of this or that official lady's
precedence, and the turmoil is fatiguing
to us who know our places, and fret not
at Imaginary Slights.

Oh, my dear ! Col. Crespigny is a
Republican, the friend and Crony of Mr.
Madison, the Secretary of State, & also
of Genl. Smith and M. Jerome Bona-
parte, whose young wife, late the beau-
tiful Miss Patterson of Baltimore, is
producing such a sensation, politically
and otherwise, in Court circles this
season. Imagine my fear lest the sub-
ject of Politicks should come up at our
Board when Papa might not be in a
mood to keep the Peace. Tho' the
Col. is most kind and considerate, he
cannot know, nor can we always warn
him, that certain questions of States-
manship are to our Parent like a red
Rag to the Bull. I gave him a hint of
this in telling him that our papa's Sis-
ter Ariana had removed to take up her
abode in England because of her ob-
jection to the " filthy Democrats," as
she is pleased to style certain of our
President's supporters ; and he laugh t,
saying the Ladies w^ere ever virulent in
Party warfare, though not always cer-
tain as to their Premises.

And now, my child. Adieu. If I have
succeeded in amusing you by my talk, I
shall not regret the time thus spent.
We have twenty people to sup here to-
night, and the card-tables out after-
wards. Our papa's friend, the good
Chief -Justice Marshall, hath promised to
ride down from Washington, and lie in
Princess Royal Street. I must hasten
to assist mama, who with the family,
including our new sister, desires to be
warmly remembered to Mr. Faulkland
and yourself. I remain your Ever At-
tach'd

FiNETTA Berkeley.

P.S. — Do not think I mean anything
by my talk about the Colonel. And
pray, for Mercy's sake, don't let Mr.
Faulkland see this scrawl. Mama de-
sires me to add that, should Httle Urban

17G

IVHEN THE CENTURY CAME IN.

catch the Mu.mj)H (which, she says, may
Heaven forefend), she hath a wonderful
new remedy of Dr. Dick's. Do not cut
your short gown by the pattern you
took away. I have a newer fash'n'd one
for you. Little Lu. hath just run in to
show me a nosegay of Cape jasmines
and geranium leaves that Col. Cresj^igny
hath fetched her from his glass-houses.
You will say perchance that he is moat
anxious to please even this little one,
but indeed, it is all in the fancy of the
Gossips from whom our Society is not
altogether Free.

m.

From Miss Lucilla Berkeley, of Prin-
cess Royal Street, to Mi^s. F. Faulkland,
at Mount Eagle :

6tli March, 1803.

Dear Sister Peggy : I have been cry-
ing my eyes out, so that I can scarce
see to dip my quill into the ink-pot ;
and yet I must write you, this post, be-
cause even our dearest little mama is
not let into my room till I give up,
and Susan's Sally has promised to get
this letter to you someway, and oh !
my Hart aches for you, Sister Peggy.
Cou'd you but sit beside me on the
sopha, and let me rest my head upon
your breast, and tell you all, it would
Ease my Pain, I think. But, you will
be wond'ring what has happen'd, unless
(which is not likely) Mama has writ to
you, ere this. How shall I tell you, sis-
ter, that I, your little Lu. the tomboy,
the Bed Headed Woodpecker as Bro.
Tom calls me, have got a Suitor — a
grand gentleman who has the ill-luck to
displease our Papa in Pollyticks. (Mama
says I am not careful in my Spelling, &
I tried that word two ways, but it does
not yet seem right.) Ever since Bro.
Billy's and Sis. Juliana's Wedding, I have
known that the great Colonel Crespigny,
who I danced with in the minuet, has
been coming over here to Belhaven to
see poor little Me, for he told me so, &
I dar'd not tell Sister Finetta nor yet
Mama, for I fear'd their laughter. He
is so big and kind, Sister, and his dark
eyes made my Hart go pit-a-pat, and it
seem'd so great a thing to have a Suitor

— and such an one — before I was six-
teen, that 1 kejjt the secret close. One
day, when I met him on the Stairs, and
he whisper'd something in my ear, I
went straightway to the old nursery, and
put away my London doll Aunt Anana
sent me (and which I nurst and drest
only a sennight since) till Baby Pen
can be trusted to handle it. A week
later, he came again, and when we went
from the Blue Parlour in to tea, he
slipped (in passing) a bit of paper in my
hand. That paper burnt a hole in my
pocket. Sister, till I got a chance to
light my bed-room candle, and read it
when I went up-stairs. I will write out
what it said, for I learned it by Hart,
although Papa has sent it back to him.

Sonnet to Almira.

The wand'ring exile on a foreign shore

By adverse fortune destin'd to remain,
Each long lost pleasure fondly traces o'er,

And sighs to tread his native soil again.
So I, when banish'd from Almira's smiles,

Nor crowded scenes nor silent shades can
please ;
Fond Hope alone the tedious day beguiles,

Fond Hope alone, my drooping heart can ease.
Oft when I seek the solitary grove

Imagination holds her to my sight ;
Or thro' the meadows pensive as I rove

When dark'ning shades proclaim the ap-
proach of night ;
In fancy still, I gaze upon her charms,
And long with soft desire to clasp her in my
Arms.

There, Sister, wou'd you ever believe
that /am "Almira?" 'Tis so beauti-
fully writ, no copper plate cou'd be
finer ; and where he tells how he seeks
" the solitary grove," it makes me want
to weep for sympathy. But oh ! I am
not telling you the worst & at any mo-
ment I may be told to snuff my candle
out. The last time the Col. drank tea
with our parents, it appears he had the
ill-fortune to engage in an argument,
Playful on his side. Heated on our
Papa's, about the Position (Sister Fin-
etta said) of the President towards Eng-
land. He took the President's part;
Papa wp.xed more and more scornful,
shooting his usual arrows of disdain
at our Cousin Jeffn's habit of dress, his
slippers without heels, his ill fit Cloathes,
his homely wa^^s — Col. C. defending the
Pdt. ; this went on, till our Papa flew

is

WHEN THE CENTURY CAME IN,

177

into one of his rages Wee all know and
do not mind, because they so soon Blow
By. Mama and Sister Finetta inter-
posed, and led Col. C. into another
room, to hear Sister play upon the
harpsichord, but Papa has never for-
got, nor forgiv'n the Incident and Its
Cause. Yesterday — ah ! Sister as I
come to this, my tears brake out afresh
— My suitor came, arrived at the house
& (so Mama says) made a formal offer
for my hand ! Papa, most polite and
cold (you know how he can be, his wig
pushed a little crooked, his lips curling,
his eyes like blue steel), refused, with-
out a moment's delay, and in language
so couched that Col. C, as a gentleman,
could but bow (though very pale, poor
dear) & get again upon his horse the
groom was holding in the street, & ride
clattering away. I saw him from the
upstairs hall- window seat (where I sat
darning Papa's silk hose), and tho' I did
not know the reason, my Hart misgave
me all was over. Then Papa sent for
all the family — the Elders I mean — in
the chocolate-panelled study where his
books stay, & told me I must never
think or speak of Col. Cresj)igiiy again.
Then I burst into loud crying and flung
myself in Mama's arms, who was trem-
bling there, looking with her pitiful
kind eyes at Pajoa, and I vowed I would
love the Col. and none other, till I die.
At which, our father rose, and ordered
me to keep my bed-room till I knew my-
self for a head-strong impertinent little
Baggage, & was ready to ask his pardon
and promise what he required. Next,
a strange thing hapj)ened. Sister, that
I cannot understand. Sister Finetta,
whose face I chanc'd to see grow red,
then pale and stern, stept out from the
rest, and put her arm around my waist.
She that never caresses anyone ! She
led me away up to my room, and kissed
me in silence ere she shut the door.
Next, Mama came in and, crying, told
me it was all a sad business, sadder than
I knew. That she too (altho' not for
my father's reasons), counsel'd me to
give Col. Crespigny up. That, until I
promised, she must leave me to myself ;
and then she kissed me like the An-
gle that she is, and went out and lock't
the door. Without supper (wh. I could
not eat), I cried myself to sleep. To-

day I ate a mouthful of the break-
fast brought me by Susan's Sally ; and
since I am writing this to you, that I
began last night and writ till cautioned
by Papa's voice outside my door, to go
to bed. Sister Peggy, you will (I know
you, I can hear your gentle questions
that always made us confess everything)
inquire if I am sure of m}^ own feelings
for Col. Crespigny, I that was a child
when you saw me last. In answer, I
say, " ask Yourself what if they had
wanted you to give up your Francis af-
ter that night he Courted you ? " Yes,
I do love him, I shall always love him
and honour him before all men. I
would follow him to the Land's End, I
think. And — there's some one coming
up the stairs — oh ! write to them, Sis-
ter, you that can move Papa if any one.
The person — 'twas a servant asking if I
would have refreshments (I know the
little mother sent up those iced maids-
of-honour of which I usually ask for
three, but I cannot swallow now) — has
gone, and I resume. A little while ago,
I took down from the shelf the sweet
annual, bound in pink and gold, "Affec-
tion's Offering," that you used to read
in Company with Mr. Fauikland dur-
ing your betrothal. Strange, passing
strange, that it should have opened at
these lines :

With plaintive courage, lo ! the turtle dove
Laments the fate of his departed love.
His mate, once lost, no comfort now he knows,
His little hreast with inward anguish glows,
Nor lawns nor groves his throbbing heart can

charm,
Nor other love his languid bosom warm ;
Oppressed with grief, he yields his latest

breath
And proves at last his constancy in death ;
A proper lesson to the fickle mind,
An emblem apt of tenderness refined,
Affection pure and undissembled love,
Which absence, time, nor death can e'er re-
move.
Then like the dove let constancy and truth
And spotless innocence adorn your youth ;
In every state the same blest temper prove,
Be fixt in friendship and be true to love.

Sister, as I write these words, so ap-
plicable to my condition, my tears re-
fuse to be staunched — Oh ! Sister, what
shall I do — pity me, help me. Could
you but come — but what do I ask, con-
sidering the Distance, the State of the

178

IV HEN THE CENTURY CAME IN.

Roads, your Young Infants, etc. No, I
must be Brave. Write then, and I await
your Counsel — but remember, I cannot
resign my noble — my manly C. Do you
think, perchance, he could be induced
to become a Federalist — In truth I can-
not see the difference between them and
the Others Papa chuses to despise.
Yr. ever loving and afflict'd,

L. Bekkeley.

P.S. — I believe I could promise that
he would make no further allusion to
the President, or to England.

P. S. N" 2. — I broke off here, to receive a
visit from my dear and honoured Mama,
who came at the wish of my Papa — he
having slept well and re-considered his
Action of last night. Oh ! dear Sister,
you would never believe what our parent
has convey'd to me. I dare not com-
mit it to paper lest the Curious shou'd
chance to read it — let Peggy, who knows
us all, divine — but I am now convinc'd
that in fixing my affectns on Col. C,
I am wronging Another — one innocent
of Intention, a Victim of Circumstance.
As by a Lightning-Flash, I saw what
my self-willed determination to have
my own way in this matter would en-
tail. Immediately, I sought out my
Papa, who was sitting, as Before, in the
little chocolate room, reading a Journal
which I observed to be Upside Down,
while his hand shook, & his eye when
he turn'd it upon me was velvet-soft
and loving. Our blessed mother went
up to him, and with an arm around his
neck, placed my hand in his. " Our
child is worthy of herself, husband," she
said in the sweet voice that sounds ever
like a flute. "She. hath promised to re-
nounce what will cause more unhappi-
ness to others than it can, now, bring
happiness to her." Oh ! Sister, when
our parents gathered me into their Em-
brace, I felt like the Lamb that has
been Lost and Found again — I can not
now write more ! Forget what I have
said that was foolish or headstrong.
Love me always, and believe that I will
be true to my promise to papa, and
only you shall know what it Costs me
to submit.

Your L.

IV.

From Ferdinando Berkeley, Esquire,
of Princess Royal Street, Belhaven, to
his daughter, Mrs. Faulkland, at Mount
Eagle.

11th October, 1803.

My Deak: I shaU send this under
cover to your good husband that he may
consult his Judgment about delivering
it you or No. I conceive that the ten-
derness of the female nature, nay, my
Peggy's nature in especial, will make as
severe to endure what I have to com-
municate, as 'tis cruel to me to write it.
My child, the Almighty hath laid a
heavy hand upon our once happy house-
hold. The newspapers will have in-
formed you of the pestilential fever that
has mysteriously appeared in Belhaven.
As I was in the act of preparing to send
my Family to the country, I meant to
forbear writing to you until they were
safely away. But God's will be done —
your dear mother is laid low with the
pestilence, and 2 of the servants, as
well as your brother Tom. The chil-
dren, I have sent out to my son Will-
iam's seat, Clairemont, where Juliana
will take faithful care of them. Finetta
alone remains in town, for Luc ilia, al-
though most unwilling to be parted
from her mother, has also gone, by my
express command. Finetta, at ordinary
times, so difficult to controul, has now,
I am pleased to say, developed a spirit
of helpfulness and courage that makes
her invaluable to her poor mother.
There is so much misery attending this
dreadful Calamity in the town, that while
my dear ones continue to hold their own,
I will not repine against the decree that
has smitten us. My Dr. Girl may Join
her prayers with ours for the preserva-
tion of our sufferers. I can write no
more at present. My Complmts to your
Spouse. Lucilla will keep you inform'd,
or William or Juliana, as the malady
progresses.

From, my dr. Margaret, your loving
and anxious Father,

F. Berkeley.

Pray inform your faithful Harriet
that her children are weD.

IV HEN THE CENTURY CAME IN.

179

V.

From Miss Lucilla Berkeley, at Claire-
mont, to Mrs. Faiilkland, at Mount
Eagle.

18th October, 1803.

God be praised, Peggy dearest, that
our little Mother is said to be on the
mend. Tom has been very Low, but he
and our Mama owe their lives under
God to Sister Fiuetta's care. Oh, that
I were suffered to be with them, to be
of service. I, whose poor life, clouded
by disappointment, is of so little use to
anyone ! While our Family is passing
from under the pillar of cloud, people
have dyed all around our house. The
burials are frequent, the streets desert-
ed. Marks of distress and depopulation
on every side. If 'twou'd please God
to send a heavy rain and severe frost
after it, perhaps it might be checkt.
What a mellancholy situation is our
poor friend Mrs. Cracroft's ; she has
lost, poor Lady, both her Husband and
her Daughter, Miss Betsey. What will
be the end ! Our hopes give way to
Apprehensions, and yet Mama is bet-
ter, and Tom is out of danger, and the
two maids are improving. Thank you,
Sweet Sister, for the last letter about
my own affairs, that seem little now,
beside this great Publick calamity. I
have bowed to my Earthly Father's,
as to my Heavenly Father's will, but he
whom you know of (so Juliana has heard
from Maryland) has not ceased to hope
that affairs may change in his Favour.
Ah ! what a selfish girl am I, to write
of this now. Forgive me. Sister dear.
Write to me again. Brother Billy and
Juliana and our children are well as well
can be. Tell Harriet hers are well, and
I am your affectnte.

Lucilla.

I open this to say a messenger has
come from town. Bad news, alas ! Sister
Finetta, the Brave & Strong, has been
stricken down. I will keep the letter
open till to-morrow to tell you what be-
tides.

Tuesday Monig.

Sister Finetta very ill, our mother
still mending. Tom, poor brother, has
a relapse.

I must Close to catch the post. The
Doctor says Sister F. has it in a worse
form than any of the rest. God pity us
all!

L.

VI.

From Mrs. William Berkeley, of
Clairemont, near Belhaven, to Mrs.
Faulkland, Mt. Eagle.

25tli October, 1803.

My dear Sister Margaret will compre-
hend when I tell her that I feel my in-
adequacy to fitly represent the cherished
members of her family whose place I as-
sume to take in Writing this. My own
Mr. Berkeley hath gone for a ride upon
his bay mare to get rid (so he says) of
the blue devils in his brain. He began
a letter to you. But his fingers were
all thumbs, and he gave up the task.
Never have I seen his chearful Coun-
tenance so overspread with gloom, as
since rendering the last sad offices to
his departed brother Tom. That ami-
able and estimable youth will indeed
deeply mourned. We can but trust be
that he is now happy in the Enjoyment
of the Everlasting Felicity of Heaven.
Your Beloved Mother, spite of her
trials, continues to improve. And God
be praised. Sister Finetta yesterday (it
is hoped) passed the turning-point of
her malady, and will now recover. Be-
neath these encircling Clouds of Gloom
it is my pleasing duty to inform you of
the unexpected happiness of our little
Pet, Lucilla, whose rare sweetness and
beauty hath endear'd her to me as to all
that know her. When your Sister Fin-
etta lay (as it was believed) upon her
death bed, she called your Father to
her side & in feeble accents pray'd him
to grant her the boon of withdrawing
his Opposition to Lucilla's Alliance with
Col. Crespigny. This, upon the assur-
ance from me (who was fortunate to be
so far in the Col's confidence as to bear
proper witness) of his unaltered fidelity
to the lady of his Love, was freely and
tenderly granted by your Papa, which
promise 'twou'd seem, afforded at once
to the sufferer, a Calm, proving to be
the precursor of Healthy Sleep. I have
myself writ the summons to the Anx-

180

AFTER THE BATTLE.

ious Lover to meet Lucilla under her
brother's and my Koof. And if you
will pardon the selfish thoughts of per-
sonal joy at such a Time, I would fain
be first to convey the news that our
Aunt Ariana at Bath, England, has
presented your brother with her hand-
some dwelling and estate, Shannon Hill,
twenty miles hence in Fauquier County,
whither we shall in due time remove,
and your brother be releas'd from the
discomfort of rented land, which he has
borne in silence, as befits his noble self.
Trusting that the white-winged Dove of
Peace and Happiness will henceforth
unfurl her wings upon our Family, &
with mine and my Mr. Berkeley's most
affect, respectful CompLmts to your

husband, and kisses to your Pets, be-
lieve me,

Your attach'd, faithful friend
and Sister,

Juliana Berkeley.

vn.

A Fragment.

From Miss Lucilla Berkeley, to Mrs.
Faulkland, Mount Eagle.

Clairemont, 28th October, 1803.
Sister mine, my heart overflows in
these few lines to tell you that He has
come. Am I wrong, amid all the sor-
row stiU ling'ring o'er my home and
dear ones, to be so hap. . . .

AFTER THE BATTLE.

By Edgar Mayhew Bacon.

Where the tawny tiger-lilies in the marshy meadow bloom
And the tangled rushes wither by the red and sluggish rill,

There is silence all unbroken ; there are secrets all unspoken
That the trembling grass is hiding from the hill.

Where the mystic firs in cluster on the rocky hillside stand.

Where the vine's empurpled masses in the sunset's passion glow,

Lo ! the bird -notes are a- dying and the troubled wind is sighing
For the secret that the meadow must not know.

Over meadow, over mountain, in a city by the sea.

There are wives and mothers waiting ; there are sweet hopes growing cold •,
There are eyes that watch in anguish, there are loving hearts that languish

For the secret that shall nevermore be told.

M

IfM'^

View of the End of a Glacier at the Head of a Greenland Fiord.

During the recent greater extension of the ice the stream filled all the valley enclosed in the field of view and

overtopped the neighboring mountains.

ICEBERGS.

By N. S. Staler.

MUCH has been said by optimists
concerning the many advantages
which arise from the simple but
most exceptional fact that, Avhile all oth-
er substances contract, water expands
in passing from the fluid to the solid
state. The consequences of this pecu-
liarity are indeed not overstated by those
Vol. XII.— 19

who take an excessively pleasant view
of man's relations to the world about
him, for the simple reason that it is not
easy to exaggerate the beneficial effects
which arise from them. If water did not
depart from the general law that sub-
stances occupy less S23ace in their sol-
id than in their liquid form, the ice on

182

ICEBERGS.

our seas and lakes would, as fast as it
formed, sink to the bottom, so that all
the oceans and other water-basins in
hioh latitudes would normally be frozen
to their floors, excejjt when the sum-
mer's heat had melted a thin layer next
the surface. If it were really worth
the while to theorize concerning things
which are out of the present order of
nature, we might easily show that such
a condition of affairs would make the
earth essentially unfit for the uses of
civilization. It will, however, be more
2)rolitable to consider the points which
the pessimist might take, if his ever-
smiling adversary pressed the profit
arising from the fact that Avater ex-
pands in freezing too far for patience
to endure, to show, in a word, the list of
considerable disadvantages which arise
from this law, which serve indeed, in
some part, to countervail the ble&sings
it brings to us. In his argument he
would have to depend in the main upon

ing islands almost invisible, adds much
to the risks of navigation. These ice-
masses not only endanger vessels, but
they chill the waters of the sea in such
a measure that, by the cold and misty
air which sweeps thence upon the land,
extensive regions, like the island of New-
foundland, are made unfit for agricult-
ure. These migrations of icebergs are
manifestly due, in the main, to the fact
that ice floats ; if it sunk, whatever
other costs this condition entailed, there
would be no wandering ice-fields in the
seas.

To understand the conditions which
lead to the existence, even in midsum-
mer, of floating islands of ice within
the warm northward-setting waters of
the Gulf Stream, it is necessary for us
to consider many facts concerning the
natural history of ice, and the physical
condition of the regions from which
these bergs are derived, as well as that
of the districts through which they

View ot a Part of the Coast of Greenland.
Showing small glaciers and floating icebergs. In the foreground are masses of rock dropped from floating bergs.

the dangers which arise from the ice journey to the central portions of the
which drifts from either pole into the North Atlantic ; fortunately for our
parts of the sea which ships need to purpose all these facts are very inter-
traverse, bringing with them an atmos- esting, and some of them are of the
phere of fog, which, rendering the float- most picturesque features which the

DRAWN BY W. L. TAYLOR

ENGRAVED BY H. C. MERRILL.

View of the Extremity of a Greenland Glacier

184

ICEBERGS.

aspects of this world afford. Tlio l)i()n^-
raphy of an iceberg brings us in con-
tact with the frozen re^-ions about the
poles, and with the marvellous ocean
currents which transport the tropical
waters to those regions, and with those
other streams which send, in return,
waters of nearl}^ freezing- teni2)erature

have a great horizontal extension. Near
the southern extremity of Greenland
they often have an area which is to be
measured by square miles. Though
interesting, these floes have less econo-
mic or geographic importance than the
group of true icebergs, for the reason
that they do not journey so far from.

View at the Mouth of a Greenland Fiord.
Showing the steep precipitous character of the coast, with a number of small bergs floating from the inlet.

down toward the equator. The simpler
phenomena of freezing and frozen water,
which we shall incidentally have to con-
sider, are attractive ]3arts of the science
of physics, for the reason that they are
easily comprehended and are well illus-
trated by familiar and personal experi-
ences.

The ice which travels from the Arctic
regions toward the equator consists of
two very different kinds of masses ; the
difference being so jDlain that they are
invariably recognized by all observers ;
in part they are made up of flat or tab-
ular masses, which seldom if ever have
a thickness of more than one hundred
feet even before they have begun their
journey to lower latitudes. Though
limited in depth these fields of floe-ice,
as they are commonly termed, often

their point of origin, and rarely come
into the ordinary paths of commerce.
The true icebergs differ from the ice-
floes in that they are vastly thicker and
do not have the same table-like tops,
but are serrate at their summits. It is
impossible to determine by actual meas-
urement the depth of the ice in the
true berg, but we know" from the spe-
cific gra\dty of frozen water that only
about one- seventh to one -ninth of their
mass rises above the level of the sea,
and w^e can safely infer from the extent
of the emerged portion that their bases
are often two or three thousand feet
below the surface of the ocean. This
estimate, though it does not need con-
firmation, is fairly proved by the fact
that many bergs have been observed
to run aground in w^ater of this depth.

DRAWN BY W. L. TAYLOR. ENGRAVED BY E. H. DEL'ORME.

View at the End of a Glacier, showing an Iceberg just ready to Separate.

186

ICEBERGS.

These p^rcat varijitions in the propor-
tions of berjLi^s and floes afford a fair
presumption that there is some essen-
tial difference in the orij^-in of these two
classes of ice-islands. A g-lance at the
processes by which ice is made in high

that it has never been found sufficiently
fissured to afford room for the passage
of the smallest boats. Thence on to
the long -sought, but api:)arently inac-
cessible Pole, the sea is covered wdth a
connected sheet of ice, the upj^er surface

^^

View on the Coast of Greenland.
Showing small bergs intermingled with floe-ice, with polar bears in foreground.

latitudes Avill show us that this hypoth-
esis is amply justified.

When the Arctic explorers or the
whalers make their way to the fringe of
small settlements which lie upon the
western margin of Greenland — the only
part of that vast area which is ever in-
deed green — they usually begin to en-
counter the floe - ice, and as they go
northward it increases in thickness and
in the extent to which it obstructs the
surface of the sea, so that the ships are
compelled to creep through the rifts
between the ice-fields, the narrow lanes
of water which, now opening, now clos-
ing, afford most perilous and difficult
ways to the higher north. Finally,
where the western shoulder of Green-
land and Grinnell Island narrow the
passage which leads into the Arctic
Sea, the ice is so firmly held together

of which is exceedingly rough and hum-
mocky, so that it is impassable for
sledges. The vast region covered by
this sheet of floe-ice, which probably
has a depth of one hundred feet or
more, has been termed the Palseocrystic
Sea, or the Sea of Ancient Ice. It is
clear that its envelope of frozen water is
but a more consolidated area of sheet
or floe accumulations — in other regards
exactly like the fields which float out of
Davis Strait and move do\^Ti the coast of
Labrador until they invade the Straits
of Belle Isle, and through this channel
penetrate into the Gulf of St. Lawrence
or crowd into the inlets of northern
Ne^\^oundland.

It is evident that the origin of this
floe-ice is as follows, viz. : In the long
winter of high latitudes the surface of
the sea, wherever it is not affected by

ICEBERGS.

187

the warm waters of the south, freezes
so that a considerable depth of ice is
made. A single winter will often ac-
cumulate it to a thickness of ten feet
or more. In the short summer this ice
only in part melts away and the next
season adds still more to it. When the
sheet breaks up into separate fields,
these masses, often square miles in
area, are set in motion by the tidal cur-
rents or the strong Ayinds ; they collide
with each other and Ayitli the shore, and
by these accidents the cakes of ice are
shoved over and under each other, thus
thickening the floes in a very rapid
manner, for as soon as these cakes of
ice come to rest in their new position
they are soldered together so that the
floe is a solid mass which may drift
away for great distances in the control
of the winds or the shallow currents of
the sea. So massive are they, indeed,
and so vast in number and area, that
but for the nature of the current s^^s-
tems of the North Atlantic, they might

as we shall now note, greatly affected
by the ocean currents.

All the suj^erficial 2)arts of the west-
ern Atlantic, except the portion of its
area next the coast of America, are
pervaded by a slow movement which
sets the water toward the Poles. This
current is due to the Gulf Stream,
Avhicli, emerging from the tropics as a
deep, narrow, swift-moving tide skirts
the southern coast of the United
States, gradually widens like an opened
fan, diminishing in depth and losing
its velocity as it comes toward the
Arctic Circle. Although the speed of
its northward going is here slight, it
has sufficient energy to push back the
floe-ice which may be driven south-
wardly by the winds, and thus limit its
excursions to the American shore. Set-
ting out into the Atlantic from Davis
Strait, there is, however, a strong stream
of Arctic water, which in part slips
under the Gulf Stream tide, and in part
flows on the surface of the sea next the

jlilJlj!i«J:- "

•J' ••'/■ '-^

View showing Large Berg with Ice Arch.

The overhanging ledge to the right of the arch shows a former sea-level on the face of the berg, and indicates
that the mass has recently slightly changed its position in the water.

greatly embarrass the main line of ship
travel between the northern parts of Eu-
rope and those of the northern Unit-
ed States and Canada ; but the direc-
tion of their southward migration is.

Labrador coast. In this southward-
setting current the floe-ice drifts with a
speed of about a mile an hour down
the American shore until it attains the
mouth of the St. Lawrence. The Lab-

■ - -i.!'.!. ' :..-DliiJ.ll.llillliiliill.i!kllMllM[lttll^^

ICEBERGS.

189

rador current, as this southward-mov-
ing water is called, would, but for cer-
tain accidents of geography, send this
floe-ice much farther to the southward
than it now does. If Newfoundland
and Nova Scotia should disappear, so
that there could be a nearly straight
shore from Greenland to Massachusetts
Bay, it is likely that these floes would
in large quantities attain to the coast
of New England, and give to the shore
lands of that part of the continent the
sub- Arctic and inhospitable climate of
the islands of the eastern St. Lawrence.
This shore- current bears few true ice-
bergs with the floe-ice, for the reason,
as we shall see more clearly hereafter,
that these greater ice-islands are formed
altogether on the Greenland shores, and,
pressed to the eastward by the prevail-
ing winds, do not come into that super-
ficial, shore-skirting, Labrador current.
Moreover, any stray bergs that may find
their way against this margin of the
mainland are almost certain to take the
ground in the shallows over which the
current passes and so be arrested in
their journey.

The character of the ice-floes, as well
as the steadfastness of their southward
journeys, are well shown by the singular
experiences of a part of the crew of the
exploring ship Polaris, who, in 1872,
were forced to abide for several months
on these ice-rafts. The ship was in close
quarters in the ice-pack of Baflin's Bay,
and was pinched between the floes with
every prospect of being crushed like an
egg-shell between the moving masses ;
the crew, with supplies of provisions and
boats, were encamped, in two separate
parties, on the ice near the distressed
vessel. A sudden change in the move-
ments of the ice caused the floes to sepa-
rate, and one of the parties was swiftly
borne away from the ship, which, in-
deed, they thought had sunk from the
strains she had received in the squeez-
ing between the packs of ice. The for-
lorn party, consisting of a score of sail-
ors, several Esquimaux men, two wom-
en, and several children of that people,
drifted away to the southward, and for
the time between October 15th and April
29th found refuge in the floe -ice, and
were carried onward toward the open
Atlantic. As they came into the wider
Vol. XII.— 20

waters the waves swept over the flat
surface of the ice and broke the original
wide field into small patches, each a few
acres in extent, so that they had from
time to time to select a new refuge.
Their sufferings were considerable, but
with the courage and hojjefulness char-
acteristic of our sailors, they undaunt-
edly met their difficulties, each dutifully
caring for the other, so that when res-
cued by a passing ship every member
of the party was alive. The chronicle
of this wonderful adventure is one of
the most picturesque stories of bitter
experience and fortitude which the lit-
erature of Arctic adventure affords.

In the regions about the Southern
Pole, because of the vast area of ice
which is gathered there, the climate in
summer is much less calculated to melt
ice than in the region about Greenland.
The extension of this ice-cap is caused
by the failure of the warm currents
from the tropics to attain the Antarctic
Circle ; this is brought about by the
absence of any distinct land-bounded
pathway of the waters, as exists in the
North Atlantic lands, which, in a way,
serves to confine the Gulf Stream and
lead it to the Arctic regions. Moreover,
the southern currents, which are divert-
ed toward the Antarctic Sea, are less
strong than those which flow north-
wardly from the equatorial parts of the
oceans. Owing to the frigid condition
of the summer climate of the southern
ice-district, and the absence of warm
water to melt the ice, the floes of that
region are thicker and form more ex-
tended fields than those with which
explorations of the Greenland district
have made us acquainted. Fortunate-
ly there are in the Antarctic district
no such strong currents as those which
sweep down the shores of Labrador to
convey these packs of ice to the parts
of the sea which are most traversed by
shipping ; they are only encountered by
the whalers or the rare explorers who
have attained to these lonely waters
of the far southern seas. We have
now completed our general account of
the simpler and least important of the
groups of floating ice-fields. We have
next to examine into the processes
which lead to the formation of the far
grander masses, the true icebergs.

190

ICEBERGS.

Wc have alread}^ noted the fact that
icebergs differ from floes in that they
are far greater in depth ; it is also char-
acteristic of them that they are com-
posed of a dark blue variety of ice,
which is generally much more solid
than that of the floes. The berg-ice has
also the peculiar feature that it tends
to rift in a vertical direction, which
gives their crests the striking and
beautiful outlines so characteristic of
them where they have been much de-
cayed by long exposure to the warm air
of the region of the sea to which they
attain near the end of their journeys.
To understand these peculiar features
it is again necessary for us to consider
the regions where these ice-masses are
formed. It is now well known that all
true bergs — and in this class are in-
cluded all the floating masses which
find their way down to the line now fol-
lowed by the transatlantic steamers —
have their origin in the glaciers of high
latitudes. Those which beset the path-
way of ships moving from Europe to
America are all cradled in Greenland.
All the lands north and west of Spitz-
bergen are more or less occupied by
fields of perpetual snow, which, slowly
descending the valleys, is by pressure
and by its forward movement crowded
into pure translucent ice ; all the little
cavities containing vesicles of air, which
gives to snow or powdered ice its
white color, become closed as the air
escapes in the onward journey of the
stream. In more southern climes, as in
Norway and Switzerland, these glaciers
in their descent meet a climate suffi-
ciently warm to melt them away before
they attain the level of the sea ; but in
the greater part of the lands within the
Arctic Circle there is an annual average
temperature below the freezing-point,
so that any glacier which is formed
moves on until it thrusts its extremity
into the sea.

For a time after the slow- moving
stream of ice enters the ocean waters,
its height causes it to continue to rest
on the bottom ; but when it penetrates
to a certain depth of the sea, a depth
depending on the thickness of the ice-
sheet, the buoying action brought
about by the relative lightness of the
ice tends to lift it from the bed over

which it has 2:)loughed. As ice, though
easily mobile under pressure, as the
movements of the glaciers themselves
clearly show, is very brittle to any cross
strain, such as this tendency to float im-
poses, the extremity of the ice-stream is
continually broken away, forming de-
tachable masses. The resistance of the
ice to fracture causes the projecting ex-
tremity of the glacier to hold together
for a little distance beyond the point
where the weight of the mass alone
would hold it upon the bottom. When
the berg separates from the parent mass
the ruj)ture is attended by a violent
movement, often causing a loud thun-
dering noise which ma}^ be heard for
many miles. The rebound of the newly
freed mass from the bottom and the
firm-set glacier wheiice it came, causes
it to swing violently, so that it sends
great waves sweeping from its base out
into the sea, which, though on a larger
scale, are like those produced when a
ship is launched. The Esquimaux are
so familiar with this process of separ-
ating bergs from the land-ice that when
they hear the roar which it causes they
say the glacier is "calving," or giving
birth to its young. By this savage de-
scription they seem to indicate, in the
manner common to primitive peoples,
their sense of the activity which exists
in the glacial streams as well as that
perception of life in nature which,
though a common feature with unciv-
ilized people, disappears with the ad-
vance in culture.

Greenland is the great source
whence the icebergs of the North At-
lantic are "calved," and the physical
conditions of the country make it ad-
mirably fitted to be the breeding-place
for those monsters of the deep. IJntil
very recently our knowledge of this
country was limited to the southern ex-
tremity of the island and the narrow
strip along the western shore, where
there are a few villages which are visi-
ble from a ship's deck. The eastern
shore is so blocked by floe-ice that few
mariners have seen the mainland for
more than a hundred miles beyond its
southernmost part. It has long been
known, however, that along the whole
coast-line the glaciers descend to the
heads of the inlets or fiords which plen-

ICEBERGS,

191

tifully intersect the shore. Both on
the east and the west the ice- streams
are so deep and massive that they over-
ride the whole marginal portion of the
country, hiding its irregularities in the
vast sheet of the glacier, which sweeps
into the sea until it attains a depth
where the ice breaks off and floats away
in the form of icebergs. The greatest
of these ice -fronts, that of the Hum-
boldt Glacier, faces the water in the up-
per part of Baffin's Bay with a contin-
uous precipice of ice, having a length
of about fifty miles. So far as is yet
known, this is the greatest of the Green-
land berg factories, but it is possible
that even greater protrusions of the cen-
tral glacial field may occur on the east-
ern coast.

There has long been much natural
curiosity concerning the aspect of the
interior district of Greenland, for nat-
uralists have felt that we should there
secure much valuable information con-
cerning the conditions which existed
during the glacial period over a larger
part of northern Europe and North
America. Many travellers have as-
cended the ice-streams for a little dis-
tance, and have looked inland apparent-
ly upon fields of snow. Becently some
bold travellers, properly equipped for
travelling over the ice, made their way
to the eastern shore of Greenland, and
started on a hazardous journey with
the western shore for their destination.
After passing for some miles over a
portion of the glacier, which was much
broken by crevasses — due probably to
the existence of irregularities in the
floor of rock over which it was moving —
they gradually ascended until they
came upon a vast, unbroken surface of
ice, which was apparently as level as a
frozen sea, and which stretched away
beyond the field of vision. This por-
tion of the continental glacier, the first
ever seen by civilized man, rose gently
until, by the barometers, it apparently
attained a height of about a mile above
the sea. Thence it declined with a
grade so slight as to be invisible to the
eye until near the western shore, when
it descended more steeply, and -was
broken by rifts, as the travellers found
it at the outset of their journey.

This vast arch of ice doubtless occupies

all the surface of Greenland except the
narrow belt next the shore, mainly on the
southern and western coasts, where the
higher land is now left bare. It would
be most interesting to consider the gen-
eral conditions of this wonderful gla-
cier, with reference to the state of af-
fairs during the last frozen period, for
there can be little doubt that we have
in the region beheld by these hardy ex-
plorers a very true picture of a con-
tinental ice-sheet ; but for our imme-
diate purpose we need only to note the
immense extent of this ice-field, its
great depth, and the speed with which
it moves from the interior toward the
sea. So far we have but imperfect data
concerning the rate at which the high
northern glacier passes from the land
into the sea ; but it is clear that the
movement is much more rapid than
in the case of the relatively small ice-
streams of the Alj^s. In the valley
glaciers of Switzerland, Norway, or the
Himalayas, the speed of the flow does
not exceed on the average more than
three feet per diem. At the berg-mak-
ing fronts of Switzerland it probably
amounts on the average to more than
thirty feet per day ; that is a strip about
half a mile wide would be fed into the
sea in the short summer season, and if
the flow was maintained during the
whole year, there would be a field nearly
two miles wide discharged as floating
ice along the whole front of the streams
which attain the sea. There is no sat-
isfactory basis on which to estimate
the linear extent of the glacial front on
the Greenland shore, but it is probably
not less than two hundred and fifty
miles. If this be the size, we may reck-
on that somewhere near five hundred
square miles of icebergs is each year
set afloat along the shores of the isl-
and. Supposing that the original area
of these masses was one -fourth of a
square mile, this supply would provide
for a yearly fleet of two thousand bergs,
from which throng the ice which our
Atlantic ships encounter is derived.

The history of these bergs, after they
have become separated from their par-
ent glaciers, has not yet been carefully
traced. It is evident that a large part of
them never attain to any considerable
distance from the shores from which

192

ICEBERGS,

they were discharged. Those which
are launched in the inlets are apt to be
retained by the shores and melt before
they escape to the sea ; of those which
start on their journey many become
stranded on the shallows, and break
into small pieces, so that they are rap-
idly melted ; yet others, including
probably nearly all which are formed on
the eastern shore of Greenland, are re-
tained near their place of origin by the
action of the wind and the marine cur-
rents. It does not seem likely that more
than one or two hundred large icebergs
make their way each year in the only
practicable path that can take them be-
yond the Arctic Circle — that which is
afforded by the current which sets out
of Davis Strait, and down the Labrador
shore, and then eastward into the At-
lantic. Although Ave have as yet but
little decided information concerning
this ocean- stream, save that afforded by
the movements of the berg and floe, we
can readily see how it affects the jour-
ney of these wandering fragments from
the vast Greenland glaciers. Though
somewhat inconstant, this current is a
tolerably steady stream, setting south
through the wide channel which separ-
ates the shores of Greenland from those
of the many islands which beset the
northeast coast of the American conti-
nent. By this southward-moving water
the ice is propelled out into the open
sea. The stream continues to the south,
but widens and diminishes in the en-
ergy of its flow. It shortly comes in
contact with the Gulf Stream, which it
somewhat affects, and by which it is
much affected. As we have already
noticed, a part of the southward- setting
current passes down along the shore of
Labrador as a superficial stream of no
great width or speed. Another, and
perhaps the larger part, flows beneath
the Gulf Stream, and in time joins the
great, slow-moving procession of Arc-
tic waters which, following the bottom
of the deeper sea, in the end attain the
equatorial district. For a considerable
distance southeast of Greenland there
are thus two distinct currents in the
ocean waters — a lower, moving south-
wardly, and an upper, or superficial
stratum, creeping toward the north.
The thin floe - ice, floating altogether

within a hundred feet of the surface, is
beaten back against the Labrador shore
by the surface stream ; but the ice-
bergs, because of their greater depth,
are driven forward by the under-cur-
rent in a southwardly direction. Owing
to this peculiarity we sometimes may
observe the bergs ploughing their way
through vast fields of floe-ice as stead-
fastly as a steamship when it breaks
its way in the new-formed ice of a har-
bor. This southward journey of the
bergs is facilitated by the action of
the prevailing winds, which, in this re-
gion, in the sj)ring and summer, often
blow with great energy from the north-
west. A berg one hundred feet high
and a mile long spreads a vast surface to
these winds, and is slowly but efiectually
impelled by them in the manner of a
sailing ship.

From the time the t3erg is launched
into the sea it is constantly wasting ;
unlike the floe-ice, which receives im-
portant accessions in freezing weather,
the berg, on account of its depth, which
brings the greater part of the mass into
water above the freezing-point, stead-
fastly diminishes in volume ; the little
ice- sheet which may form around the
water-line does not affect the size of the
mass, yet this process of melting goes
on but slowly. In the first part of its
journey it is always in water which is
at about the freezing-point. Most per-
sons are familiar with the fact that
cakes of ice will float for a long time in
very cold water, and can thus imagine
that icebergs may journey a long way
in the Arctic seas with but little loss in
bulk. It is when they come in contact
with the waters of the Gulf Stream that
the dissolving process begins to go on
in a rapid manner. The under-running
cold current, which moves southward
toward the central parts of the Atlantic,
seizing on the great surface of the bergs
which extends downward — it may be
to one or two thousand feet below the
surface of the sea— urges these masses
of ice against the relatively shallow and
slow - running warmer tide. As they
go to the south the energy of the im-
pelliilg stream constantly diminishes,
for the reason that the flow from the
Arctic, no longer confined Avithin the
channel between Greenland and the

ICEBERGS.

193

mainland of North America, slackens,
while with each stage of the movement
of the bergs toward the equator the
strength of the Gulf Stream flow be-
comes augmented. In this way it comes
about that, in the latitude of the New-
foundland banks, or shoals, the floating
masses attain a position where there
is a balance between the effects of the
diverse currents, and, as a result of this,
the icebergs lie idly in the sea or drift
about in the varying winds until they
melt away.

The bergs from the North Atlantic
nursery of ice, from the glaciers of
southern and western Greenland, have
their limit of migration set by this cu-
rious equation of the currents which
prevail in these waters. If the south-
ward-setting current were as strong in
that D;egion as it is on the west coast
of North America, there is no reason
why these vast and slow-moving ice-isl-
ands should not attain too near the
tropics ; as it is, they are rarely if ever
found much south of the Newfoundland
banks or much east of the meridian.
There are reports that in certain rare
instances considerable bergs have been
seen nearly as far west as the mouth of
the Bay of Fundy and as far south and
east as the Azores, but these stories lack
verification and may be only sailors'
yarns ; if true, it is probably to be ex-
plained by the fact that in a period of
loijg-continued and strong northwest-
erly winds any deep bergs, which on
account of their depth projected high
above the water, were urged far to the
southward and eastward of their nor-
mal course. Allowing for such rare ac-
cidents, the fact remains that the ice-
bergs of the North Atlantic have their
southward and eastward extension de-
termined with admirable accuracy, and
in a way to show the observer how beau-
tifully the physical conditions are ad-
justed in the waters of that tumultu-
ous sea.

The fact that icebergs can maintain
themselves so long when they are float-
ing with their upper parts bathed in
the warm water of the superficial por-
tions of the sea, and the deeper portions
of their masses in a fluid which is a lit-
tle above the point where ice melts, is
due to certain circumstances which we

shall now have to note with some care.
The icebergs, as they slowly melt, chill
the water about them to very near the
freezing-point. This very cold state
extends, in the case of large masses, to
the distance of some miles from the
face of the ice - cliffs. Next the berg
the temperature is always but a shade
above that of a vessel in which there is
just enough water to float fragments
of ice. Only a very small part of this
cooled portion of the sea is derived from
the melting berg ; in the main it con-
sists of that portion of the ocean which
has been deprived of its heat by the
contact with the glacial mass. Here
we must consider the fact that the pro-
cess of melting ice calls for a great deal
of heat. If we take a cubic foot of the
frozen water and put it over a regulated
fire, as, for instance, that of a gas-flame,
we observe that it requires a much
longer time to melt the mass than it
would to bring an equal amount of ice-
cold water to near the boiling-point.
If we conduct the experiment in a more
careful way, we may easily determine
that, starting with a block of ice at a
temperature just a fraction of a degree
below the freezing-point, it takes more
units of heat to bring it to a point
where it becomes molten than is neces-
sary to raise its temperature after it is
molten to 74° F. This heat, which the
water hides away in the process of melt-
ing, is so great that it much affects not
only the history of icebergs, but all the
phenomena of the seasons in countries
where a thick envelope of snow gathers
during the winter season. It is this
peculiar absorption of heat which makes
it so difiicult for the warm sun of spring
to clear away the frostwork of winter
and to fit the earth for the uses of veg-
etation. In the case of the icebergs the
process of their melting requires that
some cubic miles of the relatively warm
ocean waters, having a temperature of,
say 50° F., shall come in contact with
the ice before an ordinary berg mil be
dissolved.

As long as the icebergs are rapidly
pushed forward by the action of the un-
dercurrent Avhich urges them through
the superficial layer of warm water, the
portions of their masses which are ex-
posed to the northward-setting stream

lU

ICEBERGS,

rapidl}^ melt, because they are by their
motion ever brought into contact with
fresh fields of warm water, the cold por-
tion of the ocean which they have chilled
being left behind. But, as we have al-
ready noticed, the rate of this motion
steadfastly decreases until they finally
cease to travel over the surface, and
meet only such water as the winds or
the gentle northward - setting current
sends against them. In a certain meas-
ure they provide by their own action
for a slight current movement which
promotes their melting. The water
next their sides, being chilled by con-
tact with the ice, becomes a little heav-
ier than that of the surrounding sea,
and so tends to sink into the depths,
its place being taken by the warmer
fluid which flows in over the surface.
If water became continuously heavier
as it cooled, all the way down to the
freezing-point, this action would be
much more effective than it is ; but
among the many extraordinary features
of this substance we have to note that
it is the densest at about 39° F., ex-
panding a little if the heat is decreased
below that temperature. Consequent-
ly this circulatory movement just de-
scribed is not strong.

The protection of the bergs from
melting is also promoted by the fleet-
like manner in which they occupy large
areas of the sea. They are generally
found in troops, which may number
scores, or even hundreds, of separate
masses ; the result is that vast areas of
the ocean have their superficial waters
so cooled down by the southernmost in-
dividual bergs that the greater part of
the group have little chance to come
in contact with warm water ; it is only
slowly, as the advanced bergs are melted,
that the more northern masses are ex-
posed to a temperature high enough to
affect them in any considerable meas-
ure. In much the same way the aggre-
gation of the icebergs hinders the air
from affecting them by its warmth ; the
atmosphere is chilled by the cold sea
and the ice with which it comes in con-
tact, and the result is that thick fogs
are formed, which send off the rays of
the sun and convert the regions about
the bergs into a natural ice-house well
fitted to preserve them from the effects

of the more southern realm into which
they have journeyed. In fact, a fleet of
icebergs takes its native climate with it
as it goes ; it is enveloped by conditions
of its own making as perfectly as if
they were designed for the end which
they attain.

The effect of the close order, which is
such a common feature of the berg fleet,
is so important in their history that
we must consider the way in which it
is brought about. As is easily seen, the
cause is found in the landlocked nature
of the waters whence they are derived.
In the winter the region about the West
Greenland glaciers is occupied by a
sheet of floe-ice strong enough to retain
the icebergs against their native shores.
Only for a brief period in summer, in
all perhaps, on the average, less than
four months, is the water open enough
to prevent their escape into the wide
part of the Atlantic Ocean. When the
summer unlocks these Arctic gates the
vast assemblage of ice-floes and the im-
prisoned squadrons of bergs from the
several glaciers which have accumu-
lated in the sea during the enduring
frost, pour forth into the more south-
ern part of the ocean. Then they be-
come separated — the bergs impelled by
the deeper current set forth upon their
long cruise toward the mid-Atlantic,
while the floes follow the surface stream
adown the coast of Labrador ; the for-
mer to wander, it may be, for years ;
the latter to vanish in the heat of a sin-
gle summer.

In the process of destruction which
a berg goes through, its decay is aided
by the frequent overturns to which it
is subjected. Ail the ice of the glacial
streams, unlike that made in the ordi-
nary way, is moulded into shape under
the great strains to which it is sub-
jected in its journey over the surface
of the earth. These strains are not all
productive of movement, but remain
as tensions, much like those which we
find in unannealed glass, giving the
mass a tendency to fly into pieces.
Moreover, glacial ice is peculiar in that
it is always penetrated by numerous
rifts or imperfectly closed fissures,
which accelerate its breaking whenever
it is violently disturbed. Owing to
the more or less irregular melting

ICEBERGS. 195

which goes on upon the outside of a not much indented, for the reason that
berg, its centre of gravity gradually the frequent changes of position have
changes, so that from time to time it not given the ice time to be affected by
rolls over in the sea. Such accidents exposure to the air.
are not infrequently observed by Arc- In the southern hemisphere icebergs
tic explorers and whalers who haunt are limited to the western Atlantic and
the waters where these ice-fields most eastern Pacific, and to the waters of
abound. As may be imagined, when very high latitudes within the Arctic
one of these vast masses somersaults, Circle. They are practically unknown
every part of it is subjected to violent in the North Pacific, for the reason that
stresses which would rack much more the only glaciers which attain the sea
solid structures, and also that, when in that region, those of the Alaskan
they strand in some shallower part of shore, are of relatively small size and
the sea a like trial of their strength only send afloat small masses of ice,
occurs. In fact, when either of these and these being imprisoned in deep
accidents happen, the berg often flies bays do not attain the open sea. In
into pieces almost as does a Prince the Antarctic region the little known
Rupert drop of quickly cooled glass islands about the South Pole are the
when it is treated with any violence, nursery of more numerous bergs than
Even when sailing in a quiet sea the are formed within the Arctic Circle,
innate tensions of the ice, increased it The currents setting from these south-
may be by the changes of temperature ern circumpolar lands toward the equa-
to which it has been subjected since it tor are much less energetic than those
parted from the parent glacier, now which bear the Greenland floods to the
and then cause large fragments to fly open sea, consequently the parts of
from the steep clifl's, to float as satellites these waters frequented by ships are
of the mass until they melt away. not so affected by the ice invasions as
The processes of decay acting on the are the invasions lying between North
summit of the icebergs reveal in the America and Europe. The only point
melting forms the existence of incipient where the south polar bergs come upon
rifts in their masses. Unlike the sur- a travelled ship-route is on the western
face of ordinary ice-sheets, which com- side of Cape Horn. In this field these
monly melt down evenly, the berg top wanderers infest a portion of the way of
is made up of irregular pinnacles and vessels which have rounded the South
chasms, which in the later stage of its American cape, but they are on the
existence may take on forms of the ut- whole much less numerous and less
most variety. The picturesqueness of dangerous to navigation than those of
these floating islands of the north is the North Atlantic. It is a peculiarity
in large measure due to the exceed- of these southern ice-masses that they
ingly varied forms of their sky lines, are much larger than those observed in
The architects of our day, who rec- the North Atlantic field. This is prob-
ognize the striking effects which may ably due to the greater extent of the
be produced in edifices by means of glaciers in the region about the South
pediments and pinnacles, might win Pole, and to the correlative fact that
suggestions from a study of these the process of melting goes on more
fantastic structures. These indenta- slowdy in that region than in the Arc-
tions of the iceberg top are produced tic district.

by the same abundant planes of weak- We turn now to consider those parts
ness which cause the mass so readily of the general effects of floating ice
to rend asunder whenever subjected which may be supposed to have an in-
to strains such as may arise from tcrest for the reader. First among
the causes we have considered. The these we must reckon the influence
warmth and rain penetrating into they exercise on the climatal conditions
these crevices eat the ice away while of the countries bordering on their
the less weakened parts remain intact, paths. In the case of the floes and
In the case of many bergs, even when icebergs which are borne southward
they have been long afloat, the top is by the Labrador currents the effect

19G

ICEBERGS.

must be considerable ; they percepti-
bly cool the sea over a large area, de-
priving a considerable part of its wa-
ters of the warmth which their cur-
rent would otherwise carry to north-
ern Europe. If we could confine these
wanderers from the icy realm within
the regions where they are formed, the
effect on the temperature of northern
Europe would be noteworthy and even
of economic importance. Their general
influence is to disseminate Arctic con-
ditions over a wide area of the more
southern regions, where the climate
tends through the action of the ocean
movements to partake of the tropical
warmth. The climate of the north-
eastern part of North America would
probably be distinctly warmer but for
the chilling of the neighboring sea
which the abundant ice induces. So,
too, with the southern part of South
America ; the climate which now ren-
ders the country in good part unfit for
agriculture would be much more toler-
able but for the influence of the vast
amount of ice from the Antarctic Sea
which floats near to its shores. Though
not of great importance in terrestrial
conditions, icebergs must be reckoned
as a factor with which the meteorolo-
gists of the future will have to deal. In
forecasting of the weather conditions
not only of the seas where they occur,
but also of the neighboring lands, it
will be necessary to take account of
the migrations of these wanderers from
the polar region, and to estimate their
effects upon the heat and moisture of
those districts.

To the student of the geological pro-
cesses which are now going on upon
the earth, icebergs, and ice-floes as well,
will afford most interesting subjects of
inquiry. Not only do they affect the
temperatures of the sea and land, and
thus indirectly influence the conditions
of the life they bear, but they exert
certain curious direct effects upon the
distribution of organic species and in
the carriage of sediments. "We will
first note the action of these floating
ice-fields in carrying animals from one
region to another. It is the habit of
the animals of high latitudes, particu-
larly the polar bears, to seek the mar-
gin of the sea for the food they may

obtain from its waters. The bears in-
deed win in winter their entire subsist-
ence from this source of supply ; even
in summer they obtain little else than
what the ocean affords them. Prowling
along the shore and swimming far in
its waters, with occasional rests on the
floating ice-islands, it frequently hap-
pens that they are borne away to sea
on these rafts. In most cases these
creatures starve to death or are drowned
when their supports melt away ; but it
sometimes happens that the wandering
ice conveys them to some other land.
Grounding in the shallow water next
the shore, the animals, if not too much
exhausted, may win the shore and pro-
ceed to multiply in their new - found
home. From time to time the polar
bear is thus conveyed from Greenland
to Iceland, on which island it is not
indigenous. The people of this Arctic
realm are compelled to exterminate the
invaders lest they should destroy their
cattle and ravage their fields.

As the icebergs are derived from
glaciers they commonly carry a great
deal of rocky matter torn from the sur-
face over which they have found their
way. The bottom portion of any thick
glacier is commonly filled, sometimes
to the depth of a hundred feet or more,
with this fractured stone, varying in
size from grains of mud or sand to
blocks the size of a small house. When
the icebergs float away from the land
they bear the mass of debris with them
on their journey, it may be for a great
distance from their birthplace. If the
berg remains for a long time in the
position in which it entered the sea
a relatively slight amount of melting
will release the stones and earthy waste,
which will then fall, bit by bit, into
the sea-floors in the paths of the wan-
dering ice ; but as it often happens that
the berg is turned upside down before
it has attained any great distance from
its point of origin, in this position the
waste from the land will remain afloat
until the ice again capsizes or melts
awa}^, when it will be tumbled into a
heap on the ocean bottom. In this
way a very large amount of the land
waste torn from the bed rocks by the
action of the glaciers is distributed far
and wide over the surface, where new

ICEBERGS,

197

strata are constantly accumulating.
The number of icebergs delivered to the
open sea in the summer season, of either
pole, must amount to many thousands.
It will be probably safe to estimate the
aggregate area of this floating glacial
material as not less than live hundred
square miles in surface. It will also
be reasonable to reckon that the debris
from the circumpolar lands contained
in these bergs is sufficient to form a
layer not less than one foot in thick-
ness over all this field of ice. On this
basis we find that in one thousand
years the sea-floor, over an area of one
million square miles, might receive a
contribution of debris having a mean
depth of six inches. Although these
reckonings are to be taken only as prob-
able, or perhaps possible, estimates,
it is evident from them that the land
areas about the poles are rapidly wear-
ing away, and that their waste is being
deposited with extreme rapidity upon
the floors of the oceans in high latitudes.
While the massive icebergs are carry-
ing on this singular work of depositing
the waste of the circumpolar regions on
the wide fields of the oceans, the ice-
floes are doing a similar, and perhaps
equally important, work in conveying
the detritus from the shallow waters
next the shore out to sea and along the
coast lines in considerable though less
extended journeys. In the winter sea-
son, when the floe-ice forms or thickens
in the shore-packs which beset the lands
in high latitudes, the stones and other
movable detritus of the coast-line be-
comes frozen into the sheets, and when
they float off in the spring season are
rafted for some distance, and finally,
but more speedily than in the case of
the materials conveyed by bergs, are
dropped upon the bottom. The car-
riage is for a less distance, because the
floe-ice, being thin, survives for a less
time in the sea-water. The immediate
effect of this action is to rob the shore-
line of the debris which the waves have
plucked from the cliffs, and thus to has-
ten the wasting of the shores ; it also
contributes a large amount of detritus
to the ocean depths. Although this ac-
tion is of most importance within the
Arctic Circle, its effects are felt all along
the shores where ice forms to the thick-

ness of a foot or more, and after severe
frosts floats away seaward. Its influ-
ence has long been remarked in the
waters of the Baltic Sea. One of the
English men-of-war which was sunk
during the attack on the Danish fleet in
1807, was visited by divers seven years
after that battle ; its deck was found
covered with blocks of stone which had
drifted there in ice-floes. It is said that
all sunken ships in that part of the
sea quickly become overladen by thick
debris.

In the occasional severe winters which
occur along the New England coast as
far south as Rhode Island this floe-ice
makes to a thickness of three feet. Un-
der the influence of the strong tides and
winds these ice-fields are often urged
against the shore, upon which they break
into fragments, which are crowded by
the great pressure from above and
below until they form extensive ram-
parts which are frozen solidly together.
When these masses float away they often
carry with them bowlders w^eighing one
to two tons, and drop them at a distance
from the land. In their collision with
the shore these fields of rock-covered ice
exercise a very great disruptive force.
At many points, even in southern New
England, it is difficult to build piers,
even of firm masonry, strong enough
to withstand their assaults. The fact
that these artificial constructions fail to
withstand the action of this floating ice,
shows how vigorous is the attack which
it makes on the shore. All persons
who are familiar with the coast of New
England, especially those who have an
intimate acquaintance with the dis-
tricts of any particular portion of it,
must have remarked the often conspic-
uous changes which a very frigid winter
brings about in the appearance of the
bowldery shores. We have then only
to conceive that in the geologic ages
these actions are to be multiplied by the
million-fold in order to make it clear
that this agent is capable of accom-
plishing a great deal of geologic work.
In general this work is most effectively
done in the embayments of the shore, for
on the headlands the waves prevent the
ice from forming, or keep it broken into
small blocks, so that it cannot seize
upon the large stones ; in this way the

19§

ICEBERGS.

floc-ice serves to wear away the shores
of re-entrants more than those of the
headlands. 8and-beaches are but lit-
tle affected by the ice which may form
upon them, for the reason that the
continual movement of water from the
land side prevents their materials from
freezing, so that they do not become
entangled in the floe. As we have now
considered the more important gener-
al features which floating ice presents
to the geologist's eye ; it will not be un-
interesting to devote a part of this pa-
per to the questions concerning those
masses which have a more human in-
terest, viz., their scenographic quality
and the dangers which they bring to
navigators.

In taking account of the place occu-
pied by any natural phenomena, it is
well to consider the effect which they
produce on the aesthetic sensibilities of
man. From this point of view we must
give a high place to the greater ice-
masses of the sea, the bergs which come
down from the circumpolar glaciers.
There is an architectural splendor in
many of the aspects of frozen water
which is found in no other natural forms.
Majestic as is the tumult of Niagara, the
scene inexpressibly gains in sublimity
when winter has framed it in an encase-
ment of ice. The Alps and the Hima-
layas have a dignity which is in but
small part due to the hardy forms of
their rocky slopes, but is lent them
by the snows of their uplands and the
glaciers of the valleys. Even the snow-
sheets of an ordinary house-roof, and the
fringe of icicles pendant from its eaves,
may make the most commonplace build-
ing a curiously impressive and pleasing
object.

There is, perhaps, no condition of
frozen water in which this element of
the picturesque is more pronounced
than where it is exhibited in a fleet of
icebergs within the regions where they
have not yet been worn out by long
journeys. Those who see them only in
the usually traversed route between the
American ports and Europe behold only
the scanty relics of the vast structures
which started from the Arctic Ocean
months before. The charm of these
floating islands consists, in part, in sin-
gularity and variety of forms, and in

the beauty of coloration ; but in larger
part the eflect is due to the weird loneli-
ness and lifelessness of their crags and
steeps. Save for the splashing of the sea
against their steep sides, or the hoarser
crash of the masses which now and then
tumble from the heights to the lower
levels of the floating islands or into the
sea, we may journey for hours through
the berg fleet in perfect stillness. When
the floating masses are near together,
as they often are in the high north,
where sometimes hundreds may be seen
in a day, they break the waves and make
an almost cavernous stillness in the
space of water between them. The im-
pression made on the mind by a strong
sea breaking against a rock-bound shore,
and that of a volcano in energetic erup-
tion, are more startling ; but it is doubt-
ful if any of the aspects of nature, save
the ever-familiar depths of the heavens,
is so awe-inspiring as that exhibited by
a great fleet of bergs as they come forth
from the icy mountains of Greenland
in their long southern voyage.

One of the most notable of the mani-
fold modern developments of interest
in the external world is that which
leads people to make long journeys to
behold the more inspiring scenes of
nature. It seems likely that in a few
decades this relish for the flavor of
scenery will, among cultivated people,
become as well developed as that of the
Romans of the second century for the
luxuries of the table. When this stage
of our social development is attained
we may expect that the fields of the ice-
bergs will be as much visited by the
seekers after the nobler aspects of nat-
ure as are the ice-streams of the Alps ;
certainly this world has no more im-
pressive spectacles than those afforded
by the high northern seas when their
vast annual fleet of bergs set forth on
their journey into the broad Atlantic.

Against the good which is given us
in the grandeur and beauty of the ice-
bergs we must set the grave and inevi-
table danger which they bring to the
seafarer who has to traverse the waters
where they abound. These dangers
have always been great, but are more
serious in this age of swift steamships
than of old. Against the common perils
of the sea the skill of shipmaker and

Icebergs.

199

shipmaster, when at their best, can ef-
fectively guard. The ocean is so well
charted that there is no island in the
usual paths of commerce, hardly indeed
a rock which need be approached, the
j)osition of which is not well known.
The art and science of navigation is so
well explored and taught, that with the
aid of his chronometers and sextants
the navigator can often without risk al-
most graze these obstructions with his
keel. There is no longer much to be
apprehended from storms ; our abler
commercial ships at least can make light
of the winds which might have over-
whelmed an ancient armada. Among
the first class ocean-going vessels of
this day only the armor-laden men-of-
war, which are indeed rather floating
fortresses than ships, have any serious
reason to apprehend the results of a
tropical hurricane in the open sea. But
all these conquests of the modern sailor
depend upon the application of skill to
well-ascertained facts, and the difficulty
with icebergs is that their position in
the sea, where they lie until they melt,
is essentially anomalous.

The only information which the navi-
gator can have as to the existence of
these obstacles in his path is derived
in part from the reports of the ship-
masters who have recently traversed
the path which he is following, and in
part from the conditions of the air and
water about his vessel. The reports of
his predecessors may lead him to believe
that in about a certain field of the sea
ice abounds. If he be a wary person —
and fortunately for the ocean travellers
these men are caretaking beyond the
understanding of most landsmen — he
will watch the temperature of the wa-
ter and attend to the conditions of the
air when he comes into the suspected
district. When his ship enters into a
chill, foggy atmosphere he will suspect
the neighliorhood of ice ; if the ther-
mometer shows that the water has sud-
denly lowered to near the freezing-point,
he will know that he is very near ice-
bergs. But good as these indications
are, they are not unerring. Small bergs,
though trifling remnants of greater
masses, though they may be less in
bulk than the vessel itself, are sufficient
to bring about the destruction of the

strongest ship that floats, if the vessel
encounters them when going at a speed
of fifteen knots an hour. These berg-
lets often float to a great distance from
the main fields of ice, and being small,
do not affect the temperature of the wat-
er or the conditions of the air. Again,
it sometimes happens that a strong
wind will drive the air and water before
it, so that there is no fog about the
bergs and no very cold water on the side
from which the bergs are approached.
These exceptional conditions make the
path of a ship, which in the night-time
traverses an iceberg-laden portion of
the sea, the seat of grave perils.

A collision with an iceberg has cer-
tain elements of hopelessness which be-
long to no other calamities of the deep.
Colliding with another vessel, the blow
is not likely to be so severe as to dam-
age more than one of the compart-
ments of a ship, the others may keep
her afloat. An iceberg, owing to its un-
yielding and massive nature, gives a
much harder blow. Moreover, as the ex-
perience of the steamer Arizona showed,
the fall of masses of ice from the cliffs
of the berg upon the bow of the ship,
is likely to add to the damage done
to her forward parts. When running
against another ship, or against the
land, there is always some hope of res-
cue or of refuge for the shipwrecked
people, either on the shore or the deck
of the other vessel ; but no more hope-
less condition can be imagined than
that of people who might seek a foot-
hold on the inhospitable islands. The
steep, generally overhanging, cliffs, us-
ually deny access to their masses, and
even if by chance the shipwrecked peo-
ple attain the summit of the ice, they
would have little chance of rescue, for
no craft willingly comes near to those
dangerous objects.

It has been suggested that the men-
of-war of the great navies should be
employed in the destruction of the ice-
bergs of the North Atlantic. Accord-
ing to this plan the bergs are to be
bombarded with great shells, which,
penetrating deep into the ice and ex-
ploding there, will shatter them to
pieces. There is no doubt that this
would be a far more profitable expen-
diture of ammunition than the uses for

200

ICEBERGS.

which it is designed ; for any target is
better than the dear-bought frame of
man or the products of his skill of
hand and mind ; but it is more than
doubtful if the end could be attained
in this way. In the first place, to ac-
complish the desired result, it would
be necessary for the men-of-war to
w^atch the exit of Baffin's Bay in the
spring-time, and break up the bergs into
relatively small bits, so that they would
no longer float with their bases in the
deep southward - setting current, but
would drift with the floe-ice. To do
this, with several hundred great masses,
averaging probably at least a thousand
feet in cube, would require an enormous
expenditure of money. Including the
wear and tear of guns, the shells from
the great modern ordnance cannot be
fired at a less cost than five hundred
dollars for each shell, and it would
probably require many hundred rounds
of ammunition to break up a single
berg. It would not at all serve the
purpose to rend the ice to pieces in the
mid-Atlantic district, for there the frag-
ments would float about and multiply
the dangers of navigation ; such work,
if done, would make that region nearly
impassable for a portion of the year,
though from the readier melting of the

ice the trouble would not endure so
long. On the whole, this interesting
project does not seem practicable.

The only way to avoid the perils due
to this berg field of the Atlantic is for
ships to take a course which will lead
them to the south of the tolerably well-
marked field into which the icebergs
journey. The detour which it is neces-
sary to make, even in the years when
the ice-fleets are most numerous and
journey the farthest south, would be
but slight ; it would not add more than
a day to the duration of the voyage.
The fleeter scouting ships of the war
marine might well be employed in re-
connoitring the position of these ene-
mies, so that their place would be well
known to the merchantman. With
these relatively slight precautions there
is no reason why, in the century to
come, when the Atlantic shipping is
tenfolded in amount, this sea should
not be traversed without any danger
from this source. There is, perhaps, no
other of the more majestic phenomena
of nature which has so little in the
way of veritable evils as those noble
remains of the circumpolar glaciers ;
they have, moreover, a peculiar charm
in that they are so far from the erring
touch of man.

AS ONE HAVING AUTHORITY."

By H. C. Biinner.

THE ramshackle little train of three
cars was joggling slowly on as only
a Southern railroad train can jog-
gle, its whole frame shaking and jarring
and rattling in an agony of exertion, ut-
terly out of proportion to the j^rogress it
was making. It put me in mind, some-
how, of the way a very aged negro saws
wood when he sees charitable gentlefolk
coming along the road.

In the seat beside me Mr. John Mc-
Marsters fidgeted — fidgeted for New
York, for the New York papers, for
news of the races, for somebody to talk
horse with, for a game of cards, or pool,
or billiards, or anything that could be
called a game. These were the things
that made life sweet to Handsome Jack,
and these things being denied him for
the time being, he fidgeted. He tugged
at his great fair mustaches, shifted
about his seat, twisted and untwisted
his long legs ; his face twitched and
grimaced, and from time to time he
swore under his breath in a futile and
scattering way.

Then his light-blue boyish eyes began
to wander over the car in a blank,
searching stare, and I knew he was
looking for "a real live sport." Yes, I
knew he would gladly have exchanged
my society for that of the humblest
jockey from a Kentucky stable, and that
our twenty years of friendship would
count as naught in the balance. Yet I
did not repine. It is the way of the
world. I turned to my book and took
a walk with Mr. John Evelyn to see
King Charles go by.

Suddenly I felt Jack grasp my arm.

" Say ! " he said, " look there ! What
kind of a boss parson do you call that ? "
■ He pointed to a magnificent old man
in the dress of the church, who sat fac-
ing us at the other end of the car.

"How's that?" said Jack, who had
been graduated of the Bowery and
dropped by Columbia College. "Get
on to the physique ! Why, that man
has no business to be a dominie. He
was built to fight. Say ! he must have
been right in his good time when Hee-

nan and Morrissey were on deck. He
must have been a beautiful man. How
do you suppose they ever got him to
take a religious job?"

"John," said I, laying down my book,
"I know that your life is practically
circumscribed by the race - track, and
that you are a bigoted and intolerant
sport. But ivill you tell me how an old
New Yorker like you, and an old Ninth-
Warder, can get to your age without
knowing Bishop Waldegrave, by sight
at least."

"Well," said Jack, flushing a little,
" I suppose he keeps off miy beat ; and
I don't worry his very much. But I'll
tell you one thing, my friend. I don't
know much about bishops, but I do
know something about men, and I j)ick
this man out of this car — see ? And
I'm going to make his acquaintance."

" What do you mean ? " I cried,
aghast.

"Mean?" repeated Jack. "I mean
I'm going to introduce myself to him.
He looks as if he'd like to have a little
talk with a white man. Who's that fel-
low with him — that sour little prune ?

"That's his nephew, Frederick Dil-
lington," said I.

"Is it?" said Jack. "AVell, I bet
he's just waiting for the old man's
wealth. I'll bet it on his face. Say !
what wages does a bishop get? He's
got big money, hasn't he? Thought
so. Look at that English valet in the
seat behind him. That's the correctest
thing I ever saw, and the correct thing
comes high. Too correct for me. I'm
glad my man isn't like that. I wouldn't
come home to that man at three o'clock
in the morning for five hundred dol-
lars. Why, it would be just an act of
holy charity to go over and brighten
that bishop up a bit. Come along ! "

I talked my best to Jack. I tried my
best to make him understand who and
what Bishop Waldegrave was, or rather
had been. I told him that the Bishop
had been in his time the greatest man
in his Church, and that he was famous
the world over for his scholarship, his

202

"AS ONE HAILING AUTHORITY."

l^liilanthropy, his vast abilities, and his
splendid oratory, and his jjower over
the hearts and minds of men. I told
him that he had long ago retired from
active life, and that it was more than
suspected that his great mind was fail-
ing with his advancing j-ears. I tried to
explain to the honest soul that our com-
pany might not be acceptable to such a
man. Then I made a hopeless blunder.

"Why, Jack," I said, "think of his
age ! That man may have baptized your
father, and perhajDS mine, for all I know."

" That does it," said Jack, rising
promptly. " It's a long shot, but I take
the chances. I'm going to ask him."
And he sped down the aisle.

Three minutes later, I looked over
the top of my Evelyn, and saw the
Bishop and Jack holding the friendliest
of converse, while Mr. Dillington glared
at them in an unpleasant way, and the
English valet took the strange scene in
without anything in his face that could
remotely suggest an expression. It is
one peculiar thing about human nature
that there is always a great deal to
learn about it.

But now I began to feel uneasy on
my own account. I felt sure that Jack,
in the simple hospitality of his spirit,
would take me into his new friendship ;
and I felt that much might be par-
doned to Jack that might not be par-
doned to me. I went back into the
smoking-car, which was in the rear of
the train — it was one of those trains that
travel down the road mth one end fore-
most, and up wdth the other end in front.

I had smoked two cigars, and was
wondering how long I could hold out,
when my astonished eyes saw Jack Mc-
Marsters appear in the doorway, wdth
the Bishop leaning on his arm.

" All right, now, Bishop," I heard him
say, as he and his tall charge got safely
within the car, " free before the wind ! "

With athletic skill, yet with a gentle-
ness that was pretty to see, he guided
the old man to the seat which I rose to
give him. Then, as we settled ourselves
opposite, he presented me to Bishop
Waldegrave, in his own easy fashion.

"I knew you'd want to know the
Bishop," he remarked to me, airily, after
the brief ceremony was over. " He did
baptize my father, and he thinks he bap-

tized yours. Can you give him any
pointers on your old man ? "

I looked at the Bishop. He did not
smile. He had accepted Jack just as
all Jack's friends had accepted him.
The old man's broad charity, and the
profound knowledge of the world which
he had j^ossessed in his days of active
service, had opened the way to his heart
for all sorts and conditions of men, who
bore the passport of genuineness. That
passport being undoubtedly in Jack's
possession, it made no difference to the
Bishop that he spoke a peculiar dialect
of the English language.

Moreover, we had not talked a quar-
ter of an hour before I discovered that
Jack's interpretation of the expression
that the old man's face had worn was
absolutely right. His kind and happy
spirit ivas yearning for good fellowship.
There was that in him which craved
better companionship than his cold
and soulless caretakers could give him.
The dignified, thoughtful lines of his
face softened as he talked to us in an
eager, pleased way, rambling on of old
times and old houses, and the good men
and the dear women whom he had wed
and buried. He seemed to grow younger
as he talked.

But in a very short time he showed
that he was tired, and, lying back in his
seat, he fell into that curious light
slumber of old age that is not all sleep,
but is partly a dim revery.

Jack watched him carefully until he
was "off" — as Jack expressed it — and
then he whisj)ered softly to me.

" Great, ain't he ? AVish you could
have seen the fun when I started to
take him in here. Nephew tried to
make him believe he didn't want to
come. Old man wouldn't have it. Said
he thought a cigar w^ould do him good.
Nephew tried it again — I couldn't hear
what he said. Then the old man got
right up on his choker. His voice was
just as sweet and mild as a May morn-
ing, but when he put the emphatic s on,
it sounded like a chunk of ice falling
off a five-story building. ' Fred-er-ick,'
says he, ' I am GOING into the SMOK-
ING-CAE to have a little CONVEKSA-
TION with the grandson of my old
FKIEND, Judge McMarsters. I will
see you, Frederick, on my KETURN.'

AS ONE HAFING AUTHORITY."

203

Frederick turned pale green, and sat
down. He just muttered something'
about sending the valet with him in
case he wanted anything. I waited
until the Bishop had a move on him,
and then I slipped back and tapped
Nephew Fred on the shoulder. ' Look
here,' says I, 'your man stays just
where he is. You may not have had
a father yourself, but / have.' You
don't think I said too much, do you ? "

"Oh, no, not at all," said I, "not in
the least. He would have been quite
justified in throwing you out of the
car, that's all."

"That fellow?" said Jack, disdain-
fully ; " why, he couldn't lift one side of
me." And I gave it up.

"Now, you said," continued Jack,
nodding toward the dozing Bishop,
"that his head was going. 'Tisn't,
though. It's nothing but old age.
When a man gets to be as old as that,
he talks a while and then he kind of
loses his grip, just for a minute — see ?
All he needs is a little help. My old
father was like that for the last six
years of his life, and I learned how to
manage him. When I saw he was like-
ly to go to i)ieces, I just put my hand
on him — so — quiet, but firm ; and I
whispered to him very low : ' Steady
down. Governor, steady down — don't
break ! Then he pulled himself right
together ; and if he thought nobody
had noticed him he'd be just as straight
as you or I. That's the way to han-
dle them ! "

I was wondering if this was the way
he had "handled" Bishop Waldegrave,
when the train began to slow down by a
little variation on the series of jerks and
bumps, and the negro brakeman put his
head in the doorway and shouted :

" Ashe River Ferry ! "

The Bishop still dozed — in fact, he
was fast asleep now — too sound asleep
to be awakened by the bump with which
we finally stopped. Jack and I went to
the door and looked out. We saw a
forlorn place at the forlornest hour of
a forlorn day. Even in full summer,
Ashe River Ferry could not have been
an attractive town. Seen in the dim
light of a late spring evening, it was a
singularly depressing specimen of the
shiftless and poverty-stricken little set-

tlements that dot the waste spaces of
the South — towns, if towns they may be
called, tliat come into existence solely
to supply the special needs of some
little group of railroad operatives. A
dozen hideously ugly frame houses, for-
ty or fifty negro shanties, a few acres
of wretched farm -land, sparsely bris-
tled with dead corn - stalks, one to a
hill ; blackened stumps spotting great
stretches of half - cleared land ; thin,
sickly pine - woods hemming in the
horizon on three sides ; on the fourth
a broad, muddy, dreary river, swollen
and turbulent from the spring freshets,
with the same poor pine-woods on the
other side, scratches of black against
the one pale-yellow line that cleft the
dull gray sky to the eastward If one
lived a hundred years at Ashe River
Ferry, he could make no more of it
than this.

Looking out on this unengaging
prospect, I was surprised to see Jack's
face suddenly light up with mirth, and
to hear him break into a low, happy
laugh. Then he touched my shoulder
and pointed down the track.

"How's that for a joke on the
nephew ? " he said.

I looked down toward the river at the
little ferry-slip, with its crazy piles and
rusty chains. The ferry-boat, which
was likewise crazy and rusty, could
carry but one car at a time, and it had
just started on its first trip with car
No. 1 of our train. On the rear plat-
form stood two figures — the imj^assive
English valet and Mr. Frederick Dil-
lington, who was anything but impas-
sive. We were too far away to hear
what he was saying to the stolid deck-
hands below him, but there was not the
slightest need of words to explain the
situation, or to make us understand
that Mr. Dillington was executing every
variation in his power on the simple
theme of " stop the boat ! " — and that
his solo was receiving choral responses
of " it can't be done."

And it was not done. The ferry-
boat puffed and wheezed on her way as
well as she was able — and, indeed, noth-
ing but the strange stupidity of selfish-
ness could have blinded Mr. Dillington
to the fact that, in such wild and rough
water, the clumsy craft could ill afford

204

''AS ONE HAVING AUTHORITY:'

to ^"0 one foot further than was abso-
hitcly needful.

Jack leaned forward with his hands
on his knees, his face fairly wrinkled
with merriment, and he crowed and
chuckled with glee.

" Oh, I'd have given a hundred dol-
lars for this ! " he said. " And if that
boat gets stuck on the other side, I
make it five hundred."

" John," I said, " is not this one of
the occasions when you are an idiot?
What should we do if we were left with
that old gentleman on our hands ? "

" Why," said Jack, heartily and sim-
ply, " bless your soul, Fd take care of
him ! I'd give him a better time than
he's had in twenty years, too ; and don't
you make a mistake."

That day, for sure, the gods were
with Mr. John McMarsters. The ferry-
boat did not get stuck on the other
side, to his deep disappointment, but
she fulfilled his desire by a different
method of procedure — she fixed things,
as he remarked, in her own blooming,
pig-headed way.

For, on her return trip, as she ap-
proached the shore, she ran well up the
river to avoid being carried past her
slip by the furious current, and, mis-
calculating her direction, came against
the trembling old spiles with a force
that wrecked nearly half one side of the
slip, and smashed her own wheel-box
into a tangle of kindling wood and
twisted iron.

" Great Csesar's Ghost ! " shouted
Jack, pounding his knees with delight,
" she's done it, she's done it ! Say !
who do I pay that five hundred to ? Do
the niggers get it, or do I blow it in on
the Bishop ? "

I tried to point out some of the seri-
ous aspects of the case to Jack, but he
would have none of my remonstrances.

" It's an elegant, gilt-edged lark," he
said. " I'm game for it, and so are you,
when you get through with your preach-
ing. Eloping with a bishop ! Holy
Moses ! Wait till I get back to New
York and tell the boys ! "

" But," said I, " it may be possible to
get a boat across the river. I will go
and inquire."

The veteran sport Avithered me with
superior scorn.

"You may inquire, if you like," he
said, " till your inquirer breaks, but /
don't want any man to tell me he can
get a boat across that river. Why,
I wouldn't take a ship's yawl out there.
Man, it's half a flood ! "

I did inquire, however, and was
scorned and despised by every native to
whom I addressed my inquiry ; so we
went back to the car to break the news
to the Bishop, who was awake by this
time.

At first he took it quite hard. He
seemed to be distressed and apprehen-
sive, and said "Oh, dear, oh, dear!"
over and over again, in a gentle, dis-
mayed way.

Then Jack took it upon himself to
address a brief philosophical discourse
to the Bishop.

" Everything goes, Bishop," he said ;
" see ? We've got to take things as they
come, and if they come mixed, why we've
got to take them that way. One day
you play in luck ; the next you ain't in
it, but it all goes — see? If you're all
right, that goes. If you get it in the
neck, that goes too. That's the way I
look at it. I don't know if I know, but
that's the way I look at it. Everything
goes. Is that right ? "

" Unquestionably you are right, Mr.
McMarsters," replied the Bishop, " and
you do well to remind me of the transi-
toriness of the annoyances which hu-
manity is too apt to exaggerate into afflic-
tions. But you will pardon an old man's
grumbling. Old men," he said, smil-
ing, "are allowed to grumble a little.
And I am sure I should be very thank-
ful to have fallen into such good hands."

Then, as he rose from his seat and
rested his hand on Jack's arm, he cast
a wistful glance at one and the other of
our faces, and said, with a gentle dig-
nity that honored us both :

" I am afraid, gentlemen, I may have
to ask your indulgence for the infirmi-
ties of a very old man — a very old man."

We made the Bishop fairly comfort-
able in the station, and I stayed with
him while Jack w^ent in search of a suit-
able lodging. It seemed a hopeless
task, and I began to feel the weight of
the responsibility that rested upon our
shoulders. But within half an hour
Jack was back, smiling cheerfully.

DRAWN BY W. T. 6MEDLEY.

"'All right now, Bishop, I heard him say." — Page 202.

Vol. Xn.— 21

206

"AS ONE HAILING AUTHORITY."

"Did you find a hotel?" I asked,
eagerly.

" Hotel ! " said Jack, contemptuously.
" What place do you think this is, Paris
or Saratoga ? There ain't a hotel with-
in ten miles. But there's a friend of
mine keej^s a little sporting place down
by the river "

" A friend of yours ! " I exclaimed.
*'In this place?"

"Well, I just met him," Jack ex-
claimed, calmly, " about fifteen minutes
ago. But he knows me — that is, he
knew all about me. He lost two hun-
dred once on a horse I owned. He's a
first-rate fellow^ — see ? and he'll take us
all in and do for us in elegant shape."

" Heavens, Jack ! " said I, " we can't
take the Bishop to a place like that."

" Yes, we can," said Jack ; " it's a
first-rate place. Clean as a new pin.
Regular old - fashioned sj^orting place.
Nice old colored prints all round.
Picture of Hiram Woodruff on one
side of the door, and Budd Doble driv-
ing Flora Temple on the other. My
friend and his wife will turn out and
giA^e the Bishop their room, and you and
I sleep behind the bar. If any of the
boys dro]3 in, he'll see that they're quiet,
and there won't be any game to-night —
see? Oh, you needn't think I don't
know the right thing for a religious
swell."

I had my misgivings, but it turned
out that Jack had really done very well
for us. " Magonigle's " was an absurd
little old two-story box on the very
edge of the river, evidently a house-of-
call for boating and driving men. The
whole building was scarcely more than
twenty feet square, but the interior
was neat and cosey, and the little room
up - stairs in which w^e installed the
Bishop was simply a delightful little
cabin, clean and sweet, and smelling
of castile - soap and fresh linen. Ma-
gonigle himself was a hearty, kindly
little Irishman, and Mrs. Magonigle
a motherly, fresh-faced little body, as
small for a woman as her husband was
for a man. The supper she cooked was,
as Jack said, a great deal too good for
the Prince of Wales. It was certainly
quite good enough for the Bishoj).
It was broiled spring chicken, fried
potatoes, and hot bread, and I shall re-

member it while I liave a palate. Nor
shall I forget the India i)ale ale.

After sujoper Jack put his usual
question to Magonigle :

" Say ! " he demanded, " what is there
to do in this town to - night ? Now,
don't give me any story about there
being nothing. You know me. There's
got to be something."

But Magonigle was firm in his assur-
ances that there were absolutely no en-
joyments to relieve the monotony of
life in Ashe Biver Ferry.

" It's a dead place it is, sir. If we
could get over the river I could show
you, gentlemen, axing his riverence's
pardon, maybe a bit of a cock-fight, but
on this side of the water there's noth-
ing to see at all, and every man in the
place will be at work the night long,
mending the ferry-boat. 'Tis different
in the summer, sir ; but in the wdnter
time it's just dead this town is."

"Magonigle," said Jack, imperatively,
" turn up something ! "

Magonigle looked doubtfully at Jack,
then at the Bishoj^, then at me ; and it
was to me that he addressed himself.

" Well, sir," he said, " there's some-
thing what they call a revival meeting
going on out in the woods. There do
be some people takes an interest in such
things. They're too sickly like for
me, sir, with the women screaming,
and having fits, like it might be, on the
ground ; but if ye'd like to see it I'd be
proud to hitch up the old mare, and it's
an easy ride for this j^art of the country,
where the roads is the devil, if I may
speak Avithout disrespect for his river-
ence."

" Niggers ? " inquired Jack.

" No, sir," replied Magonigle.
"White folks, such as they are. I don't
rightly remember Avliat religion they
call themselves ; for it's no church they
have here, only meetings like this three
or four times in the twelvemonth,
maybe."

Jack and I looked at each other.
There were limits to even Jack's audac-
ity. We both started as the Bishop's
full, deep voice joined in the conversa-
tion.

" Gentlemen," said he, " I do not in
the least Avish to obtrude my society
upon you. I feel that I have already

''AS ONE HAVING AUTHORITY."

207

given you iiiiieli trouble ; but, if it does
not conflict with your arran^^^enients for
this eyenin<»\ I shouhl very much like
to be one of your party. It has never
been my fortune to be present at one
of these gathering's, and it would deeply
interest me to look on as a spectator.
I do not feel that there can be any im-
propriety— and it is a form of worship
of which I have heard much, and which
I should like to see with my own eyes.

But, of course, if your plans " And

he stopped,

" Wh}', Bishop," said Jack, "we'd
sooner stay here than leave you out.
Magonigle, hitch up that mare ! "

It was eight o'clock when we climbed
into what Magonigle called the carriage
— a vehicle that was neither an express
wagon nor a rockawa}^, but partook of
the nature of both. On a road so
rough that to our Northern under-
standing it Avas no road at all, we
2)lunged into the shadowy, dreary
depths of the pine-wood. The night
was clearing, and through the ragged
evergreens we could catch glimpses of
a pale, wind-swept sky. The hot, moist,
sickly smell of the pines and firs half
choked us, the rough bumping of the
wagon tired us and set our nerves on
edge, and even Jack McMarsters had
no stomach for talk.

We were all but dazed with weariness
of mind and body, and wdth the smell
of the resin-laden air, when suddenly a
weird flicker of flaring torches played
before our eyes, dancing slashes of
yellow-orange slitting the deep gloom
ahead of us, and dazzling our sleepy
eyes.

Faintly there came to us across the
wind, that whistled and w^ailed through
the trees, the long-drawn-out notes of
a mournful, old-fashioned hymn, a dis-
mal tune that I knew in my boyhood.
It w^as one of those sad, stern, denunci-
atory old hymns that to my memory
still hold the very spirit of the dead
New England Sabbath in the cheerless,
hopeless melody. The singing ceased
for an instant only ; then there uprose
a far greater volume of voices, tumbling
over each other in a mad, rattling, jing-
ling strain, a popular dance - hall air,
shamelessly and grotesquely twisted in-
to the form of a hymn. It was a harm-

less jigging tune enough, l)ut linked to
the words which we could now hear in
the lulls of the wind, it sounded like a
profane travest}^

" 7/("'« the Lily of the Valley, the hrujld and
morning nt<ir,
J/e'ti t/te fairest often thoanamt to my soxl.^^

The Bishop turned to me with a look
of troubled surprise.

" Did I catch the meaning of those
words? " he asked ; " or did my ears de-
ceive me ? I certainly thought "

I tried to explain to the Bishop that
camp-meeting folk allowed themselves
a certain freedom and familiarity in
dealing with sacred subjects, which
might be in bad taste, but certainly was
not ill meant. But he checked me with
a touch on my arm.

" Nay, nay," he said, in his old-
fashioned manner, "do not misappre-
hend me. I had not meant to be un-
charitable."

" Any tune goes with these people —
see ? " said Jack, " so long as it is
snappy. That's 'The Little Old Log
Cabin in the Lane.'"

"Is it, indeed?" said the Bishop.

Magonigle led the wa}', and we fol-
lowed him into the circle of Avavering,
smoking kerosene torches. At first the
light dazzled our eyes, but after a few
moments we could take note of the
picture of gaunt, uncouth poverty
around us.

We were in a little clearing of the
woods where the stumps had been
roughly levelled to serve as supports
for heavy, rough-hewn planks, which
were the seats. The straggly pines
made a black belt around this rude
amphitheatre. At the further end was
a low platform of rough timber, where
the leaders of the meeting sat. Here
the smoky lamps were thickest, and
they cast a yellow glare on a little 2)atch
of smooth ground that we could see
had been trodden bare by many feet.
Here stood one bench, separate from
all the rest, which might have held a
dozen people, but nobody sat there as
we first saw it. Between two and three
hundred people were scattered round
among the other benches. They were
all " poor whites," children of the wilder-
ness, a class apart by themselves ; and

DRAWN BY W. T, 8MEDLEY.

"The Bishop, his eyes still far away, his hands stretched out over the people, went on." — Page 210.

''AS ONE HAILING AUTHORITY."

209

poverty, ignorance, and loneliness stared
out of every sallow face. They all
turned to look at us as we entered, but
it was with a vacant, self-absorbed look,
and then their eyes went back to the
platform and the man who stood on it,
or rather walked and leaped and stag-
gered on it.

He was a man between forty and fifty
years of age, with a straggling beard
and long hair ; tall, haggard, and hungry-
looking, like the rest ; but with a light
of intelligence in his face and a con-
sciousness of power in his bearing that
set him above his auditors. He was ac-
customed to public speaking ; his voice
was harsh and unpleasant, but strong
and clear, and in spite of its disagree-
able quality it had certain curiously
caressing and persuasive tones in it.
We did not need to study the dumb,
brute-like interest of the faces of his
hearers to know that this man had laid
a spell upon their dull spirits, and that
he spoke to each one as if they stood
tand-in-hand.

" Oh, my brethren," he cried, raising
his long arms high in air, and throwing
his lank frame forward in convulsive
excitement ; " oh, my sisters, the hour
is nigh at hand — the hour of grace —
the hour of deliverance ! For three
days have we labored here, for three
days have we sought and struggled and
prayed for the blessing to come, and no
answer has come. But now it's coming,
it's coming, it's coming, sinners ; I know
it's coming ! I feel it right here in my
heart ! Oh, glory, hallelujah ! Call
with me, all of you, for it's nigh at hand !
Salvation's right over you, right by your
side ! It's touching you right now !
Call with me! Oh, Glory! Glory!
Glory ! "

A few weak cries came up from the
outer edges of the throng.

" That won't do," shouted the revival-
ist, waving his arms in the air and beat-
ing the platform with his feet, "that
won't do ! I want you all to shout with
me ! I want you to shout so that the
Lord hears you ! Now once more !
Glory ! Glory ! "

"Glory!" thundered Jack McMar-
sters, next to me.

"Be quiet, you devil," I whispered,
grasping him by the arm.
Vol. Xn.— 32

" Got to help them out," said Jack.
"Glory! Glory!"

And as his big voice rang out upon
the air the whole crowd followed him
as if a sudden madness had seized them,
and the torches flickered as one wild,
deafening shout of " Glory ! Glory !
Glory ! " rose up to the bleak sky.

The sweat poured down the preacher's
face as he joined in the shout, quivering
from head to foot.

"That's it!" he fairly yelled. "I
knew it was coming ! I knew it had to
come ! Now, who is the first to come
forward? Who is the first to come to
this bench ? Who is the first to come
to this throne of glory and be bor]i
again ? Oh, don't wait, don't linger an
instant, or the moment may be forever
lost ! Hell eternal or eternal life !
Who is the first ? Who is the first to
save a soul from eternal hell ? "

He stretched his arms out as if he
were feeling for something in space.
Suddenly the long fore-finger of his
right hand pointed directly at a sickly
looking woman on a near-by bench.

" Oh, my sister ! " he cried out, " do
you feel it ? has it come to you ? Are
you the first on whom the Lord has
descended ? Come forward, come for-
ward ! Come to the seat of those who
wait for the Lord — come ! "

The woman arose, and slowly and
feebly, her eyes fixed on the face of the
preacher, she came forward as one who
had no power to resist.

" I knew it, I kncAv it ! " the revivalist
shouted. "Come forward, my sister,
and when you have touched that blessed
bench grace will come to you as your
soul wrestles in agony. I can see it
working. I can see the hand of the
Lord upon you ! "

The woman reached the bench as he
spoke, and touched it with her thin,
quivering hand, and a hysterical shriek,
horrible to hear, burst from her. Every
figure in the crowd behind her bent
forward, and cries of " Glory ! Glory ! "
rent the air. But none came from
Jack this time, for the woman was ly-
ing on her back across the bench, her
poor, thin form writhing and twisting,
clasping and unclasping her hands un-
til her nails tore the worn flesh.

I looked on with a shuddering sick-

210

"y^5 ONE HAVING AUTHORITY:'

ness. My brain whirled. I could not
make myself believe that it was real,
that it was true, that I saw tliis thing
going on before my eyes. Then I be-
came conscious of a sensation of acute
physical pain, and, looking down, I saw
that the Bishop had grasped my wrist,
and that his strong fingers had closed
on it in a grip that seemed to drive the
flesh into the bone. I understood what
that grasp meant when I looked at his
face. He was pale as death, and the
features were fixed in a sternness that
struck cold to my heart.

And all this time the revivalist
shouted to the sobbing, swaying crowd.

"Come," he cried, "come, all who
would be saved from hell ! Here is one
who has the grace. Who will join her?
Who will save his soul to-night ? This
is the only way, and this may be the
only moment ! Who comes forward for
salvation ? "

The Bishop was breathing heavily,
with long, trembling breaths, but I no-
ticed that his expression had changed. It
was no longer stern. It was strange and
sad, and his look was fixed on something
far away — far beyond the blackness of
the black woods behind the madman
who shrieked upon the platform. I felt
a sudden fear, and turned toward Jack.

He was not by my side. I looked
round and saw him at the rail that en-
closed the clearing. He was placing a
white-faced child in a woman's arms,
and I saw by his gestures that he was
forcing her to leave that place of hor-
ror. In a moment he was back, and,
with one glance at me, he sat down on
the other side of the Bishop and laid
his steady hand on the old man's arm.

" Come ! " screamed the man on the
platform. " Come and choose between
the Lord and hell ! Every soul here is
hanging over the fires of hell eternal.
Come and be saved ! "

But already, on the bench, under it,
and on all sides of it lay a score of
struggling, agonized human beings,
beating the ground, tearing their very
flesh in the exaltation of fear and
frenzy, choking, gasping ; and through
it all, shrieking mad and awful appeals
to the Most High ; while the crowd
around them, all on their feet, shouted
and yelled in incoherent delirium.

"Come! come!" the voice on the
platform rose above the din. " Be
saved while there is yet time."

"Almighty God "

My heart stood still. The Bishop
had risen to his feet, and his gigantic
figure towered up as he spread out his
hands above the crowd ; and, as his
deep tones rang out clear and domi-
nant in that hideous Babel, a sudden
silence fell upon them all.

" The Father of our Lord Jesus

Christ, who desireth not the death of
A sinner, but rather that he may turn

FROM HIS WICKEDNESS AND LIVE, HATH
GIVEN POWER, AND COMMANDMENT, TO HIS
MINISTERS, TO DECLARE AND PRONOUNCE TO
HIg PEOPLE, BEING PENITENT, THE ABSOLU-
TION AND REMISSION OF THEIR SINS. He
PARDONETH AND ABSOLVETH ALL THOSE WHO
TRULY REPENT, AND UNFEIGNEDLY BELIEVE

HIS HOLY Gospel."

The madness had gone — utterly gone
— out of that stricken throng. The
struggling figures around the bench
ceased to struggle. They raised their
heads as they lay upon the ground, and
every face in the clearing was turned
toward the Bishop, w^earing a look of
eager wonderment which I shall never
forget. The Bishop, his eyes still far
away, his hands stretched out over the
people, went on :

" Wherefore let us beseech him

to grant us true repentance, and his
Holy Spirit, that those things may

PLEASE him which WE DO AT THIS PRES-
ENT ; AND THAT THE REST OF OUR LIFE
HEREAFTER MAY BE PURE AND HOLY ; SO
THAT AT THE LAST WE MAY COME TO HIS
ETERNAL JOY ; THROUGH JeSUS ChRIST OUR

Lord."

And the people answered, "Amen."
When he had finished he steadied
himself by my shoulder, at first vdth a
nervous pressure ; but in a moment I
felt the tension of his muscles relax.
Then, in a voice that was almost feeble,
so tender had it grown, he turned
toward the East, and, in that abiding
silence, he pronounced the Benedic-
tion.

For a moment, until they began to
disperse softly and silentl}^ the Bishop
stood erect, then he sank back into his
seat, with one arm around my neck and
one around Jack's.

JACK-IN-THE-BOX.

By T. R. Stdlivan,

I.

A SAVING CLAUSE.

AKELY, very rarely,
it may safely be as-
serted, has your
strong and hearty
bachelor drawn
abreast of the half-
way post in life's tire-
some -uphill journe}^,
without one excursion, at least, into
the treacherous fields of romance that
lie on either hand so near the dusty
highway. To avoid a precipice is com-
paratively easy ; while the road remains
a road, a man has but to keep his eyes
upon it and let the danger drop behind
him. But where well-trimmed, level
turf invites the feet, to try its quality
with a step or two seems almost irre-
sistible. And two steps are quite
enough ; for that smiling greensward
is an enchanted carpet flung lightly
over a quagmire, as the sages know.
Any retreat is difficult. A retreat in
good form without some loss of dignity
is almost impossible. So one of the
above-mentioned sages would have it,
that to speak of falling in love is an
obvious error, since Nature is always
ready with her inclined plane, down
which the blind follow the blind in per-
fect confidence, and reach their com-
mon ground of insecurity before know-
ing that it is there.

John Dalton woke one morning in
Vienna to find himself, at twenty-five, a
rich man, with no other aim in life than
the gratification of his tastes, which
were decidedly luxurious. He had no
definite responsibilities, no family ties ;

for he was an only child, and had lost
his mother in his boyhood. The sud-
den death of his father, a retired New
York banker whom everybody respected,
and of whom he was devotedly fond,
left him now quite alone in the world.
He hurried home to busy himself for a
time with affairs of the estate, which the
executors could have managed quite
as well without him. Then he was free
as an Arab. He had never known the
want of money ; now, his income had
increased tenfold. He was in no un-
due haste to marry. There will be
time enough for that, he thought, dis-
covering no sign of baldness as he
looked at himself in the glass, and de-
ciding that his features, if not faultless,
had a kind of distinction in them, and
that his figure would probably hold its
own a few years longer. He was some-
what inclined to try his hand at litera-
ture, somewhat more inclined to travel ;
and he finally determined to combine
these two pursuits in travelling sys-
tematically and in recording his ad-
ventures. So he became a wanderer
upon the face of the earth.

Two years had died a very easy death
while the immortal work which should
have risen from their ashes still re-
mained to be written, when this light-
hearted traveller suddenly took the fa-
tal step aside, and found his purpose
complicated by a third pursuit, more ab-
sorbing than either of the others. On
a river steamer in Canada he chanced
to make the valuable acquaintance of
Major-General Sir Graham Leslie, then
commanding the Canadian militia, a
snowy-haired widower much younger
than his years, the best of good com-
pany, and facetiously known as . the

212

JACK-IN-THE-BOX.

Czar of all the Canadas. That merry
potentate took a fancy for Dalton, and
unsusj)iciously introduced him to his
family, which consisted of two lovely
daughters. Miss Leslie would surely
have been held the lovelier of the two
in any sober comjoarison, but the pe-
culiar piquancy of her younger sister,
Amy, attracted Dalton at once, and in
one long steamer-day he lost his heart
to her. Following them to Ottawa,
where they inhabited Leslie Hall, a fine
old landmark just outside the town, he
was entertained there, staying longer
than he intended, until, in fact, he had
offered himself and Miss Amy had ac-
cepted him. Then began their diffi-
culties. When, figuratively speaking,
they knelt before the Czar to make him
their confession, he would not listen to
it. He could not give his daughter to
an American who hardly knew her —
why, he did not know her himself, yet !
There were other minor objections
which a little persistence might have
overcome, but the crowning one, which
prevailed, was justly grounded, as even
the fortunate suitor reluctantly admit-
ted. Amy Leslie had looked upon the
world but sixteen years in all ; she had
no knowledge of society, no experience
of life : that she had learned to know
her own mind was inconceivable. What
right had Mr. Dalton to bind her by a
contract the full force of which she
could not possibly appreciate, which,
when appreciated, might make her the
most miserable of women ? The mon-
strous imposition must be stopped then
and there. Amy's marriage, at pres-
ent, was utterly out of the question.

" At present ! " Dalton caught ea-
gerly at the saving clause, and when
Sir Graham Leslie's first paroxysm of
dismay had subsided, inquired at what
epoch of his daughter's life the j)ossi-
bility of marriage, thus granted, might
be contemplated without offence.

" Certainly not before she is eigh-
teen," was the incautious answer.

"Ah, then we will wait," returned
Dalton, in provoking calmness. " Amy
knows her own mind now, and twenty
years wouldn't alter it "

" No, indeed, papa, fifty wouldn't ! "
interposed the cause of all the mischief,
with flashing eyes. .

"Two years, since 3'ou insist," Dal-
ton continued. " It will be a long en-
gagement. Still "

But here, at the word "engagement,"
Sir Graham Leslie grew purple with
rage. There was no engagement, there
could be none ; there was nothing at
all but an outrageous piece of folly and
of wilful misunderstanding. ' Surely,
a father in such a case had some claim
to consideration. Why did not Mr.
Dalton carry his child away by force,
and break his heart ?

His child, at this, looked much in-
clined to burst into tears, and Mr.
Dalton, with difficulty, suppressed a
burst of laughter which would certainly
have made the old soldier his life-long
foe. Then, preternaturally grave, he
withdrew the objectionable word, and
declared that an unfair advantage was
the last thing he wanted to take. He
had been inconsiderate, perhaps, but he
could not say that he regretted a step
which had brought him so much hap-
piness. He knew his own mind per-
fectly, and believed that Amy — Miss
Amy — knew hers. She was young, of
course ; so was he, for that matter ; so
were they all, in fact. They could af-
ford to wait, they would submit to any
test in reason ; they bowed before Sir
Graham Leslie's superior judgment,
and were prepared to }deld him every-
thing but their love for each other,
which could not be controlled. What,
under these circumstances, did he wish
them to do ?

At this conciliatory answer the hard-
ened veteran was subdued almost to
the melting mood. He begged time
for reflection, twenty-four hours at
most. And on the following day, ac-
cordingly, he communicated his plan of
campaign. The lovers were to part at
once, and to remain apart for two whole
years, during which they must pledge
themselves neither to meet nor to cor-
respond in any way. Until the end of
that time there should be no recognized
engagement, no obligation on either
side ; that each, untrammelled, free as
air, might cherish the illusion or out-
grow it — to admit, in his own behalf,
what appeared to them now impossible.
Upon a renewal of their acquaintance
(the dictator strongly emphasized this

JACK-IN-THE-BOX,

213

word), when the two 3'ears had elapsed,
if they were still of the same mind, he
pledged himself, for his part, to with-
draw his opposition. He declared that
in this he had no selfish desire to sacri-
fice his daughter's happiness to his
own unreasoning affection. He must
lose her some day, he knew ; yet when
that day came he must be sure of mak-
ing her happy, not for a day, but for
life. The conditions might seem hard,
especially that interdicting correspond-
ence ; but upon that especially he in-
sisted, as he felt to be wisest and best ;
in case of serious illness it might be
modified, not otherwise. Was it not a
poor kind of love that could not sur-
vive these, or indeed any, conditions
for two short years? Upon his soul,
he believed so. And, here, at the end
of an unusually long speech, the Czar
of all the Canadas stopped to take
breath, and then inquired what Mr.
Dalton had to say.

Mr. Dalton said many things, none
of which shook Sir Graham Leslie's
stern convictions in the least. The
lovers, then, in their turn demanded
time for consideration. After an agi-
tated conference which, on the part of
Miss Amy Leslie, was also a tearful one,
Dalton reluctantly yielded everything,
and agreed to enter upon his long term
of voluntary exile the following day.
The sooner it were begun, the sooner
it would be ended ; nothing should
delay his return by a single instant
when the end had come. At the an-
nouncement of this decision Sir Graham
Leslie was almost beside himself with
joy. Having won the day at the point
of the sword, he laid down his arms
to become a pattern of gentleness and
amiability. He ransacked his cellar for
the oldest port, and drank the health of
his victims many times over. It was
impossible to resist his flow of spirits.
-The dinner, that night, went almost
merrily. Later, hand in hand, the
lovers strolled up and down the gar-
den-paths, and called the clear August
stars to witness their abiding faith in
each other. The borders of box filled
the air with a delicate fragrance, des-
tined to be associated ever after with
that day and hour in Dalton's mind.
But, quite unconscious of this, he ig-

nored the minor sensation, and devoted
all his thought to keeping ba(;k the
tears from Amy's eyes. His plans,
breathlessly unfolded, left no room for
sadness. He should write his great
book at last ; she must think of him as
absorbed in that when he was not think-
ing of her ; on such a day he should be
in Paris, on such another in London ;
one summer he should pass in the
Tyrol, a part of the second in Switzer-
land. He made the dates exact, that
step by step her thought might follow
him. Would she promise to note these
auspicious hours in her calendar ? and,
further, when they came, to look up at
the north star, and repeat the striking
passage about it in the third act of
" Julius Caesar," while he from his dis-
tant standpoint of the other hemi-
sphere did the same? If the imj^erial
hero in constancy was the star itself,
he, John Dalton, was the needle pointing
to it. No woman should come between
them — no man either, he hoped. Yet
soldiers were dangerous rivals, and the
Dominion was one vast garrison. What
if — ? But here he broke off abruptly,
for at the first suggestion of doubt
Amy's tears welled over. He assured
her that he had not really doubted, that
he could never doubt. So they talked
and planned, and plotted, while the
lesser, nameless stars slowly moved in
their course round the unswerving
pole. And on the next morning they
met again to part almost silently. She
lingered in the porch for Dalton's last
signal, as his carriage turned at the
gate ; then, not content with that, she
rushed down the avenue in time to see
it turn again toward town. But he was
already looking forward, not behind.

IL

EASTWARD FROM THE POLE.

Though no two minds ever worked
precisely alike, all alike are human, and
their processes are much the same.
Everyone of us, for instance, upon un-
dertaking a long journey, is so apt to
find its first days the longest, that
" What ! not a week gone ! " has be-
come a commonplace of travel. To

214

JACK-IN-THE-BOX,

Dalton, " roaming with a hungry heart,"
the first days were like months.
Through them all he followed in rigid
exactness the itinerary supplied to
Miss Leslie ; even declining the urgent
invitation of an old Parisian friend
(who wished him to prolong his stay
for a few hours only), because the date
had come when by agreement with Amy
he should be in London. This contin-
ual reference to the starting-point, with
no definite occupation to offset it, re-
tarded the pace of lazy-footed Time,
which thus lagged inordinately. He
unpacked his note - books and began
work upon the very day appointed ;
but his progress was slow and painful.
Even at that dull season interruptions
were constant. Then, too, the roar of
London, the very consciousness of its
surrounding vastness, unsettled him
and made him long to know it better.
Time and time again, obeying this im-
pulse, he threw down his pen to wan-
der out where the thronged streets
were busiest ; to turn from them for a
while into the quiet Temple Garden or
among the forgotten mural tablets of
some City church, and then go back in-
to the restless world again ; until it
became evident that his book would
never be finished under these condi-
tions, and he resolved to change them.
The change had no place in his pre-
scribed plan, but his guiding star suf-
fered no occultation by it. For Folke-
stone is very near London, after all ;
and it was there that he established
himself, in a pleasant lodging on the
Lees. From his window he could look
up and down the shore to the pretty
hamlet of Sandgate on one side, and
the stern cliffs near Dover on the other.
Along the low horizon lay the French
coastline faintly discernible ; he had
white sails to watch, the flight of gulls,
the trailing smoke of steamers ; sea
and sky and cloud were never twice the
same ; but the restlessness of nature
is seldom a disturbing influence, and
the interest of literary work is cumula-
tive. Before long Dalton's task ceased
to be perfunctory, and as the sheets of
manuscript piled up before him he dis-
covered that he really had a story to
tell, not especially profound perhaps,
but worth telling, unless his hope was

more than commonly deceptive. From
the moment of that discovery the task
became no task at all. Having mas-
tered his subject, he was now complete-
ly mastered by it. In vain he threw
down his pen ; the words that were to
flow from its point, marshalling them-
selves into sentences, attended him
everywhere in his walk when the day's
work was done, over the breezy downs,
along the " high and bending head " of
Shakespeare Cliff, all the way to Dover
and back again. Fresh ideas and chap-
ters for the book came to him, he knew
not how ; until every breath of air
seemed to blow that way. In the early
days of his Folkestone life he had often
drifted back to town for an idle after-
noon and evening there ; now, when he
went up to London it was chiefly to
supply missing links in his chain of rec-
ollection, or to consult authorities for
fuller data that he felt were needed ;
returning by an afternoon train which
was never crowded, in which he usually
found an unoccupied compartment
where he could stretch out at ease and
examine his notes of the day without
fear of disturbance.

One afternoon, lingering a little too
long in the British Museum, Dalton
arrived late at the station and jumped
into the nearest first-class carriage just
as the guard w^as closing its doors.
There were already in possession two
persons whose shade of annoyance in-
dicated that they had desired and hoped
to keep the compartment to themselves.
One was a man of middle age, prem-
aturely gray, with fine, regular feat-
ures, sharpened by delicate health ; the
other, his wife, as Dalton at once saw
she must be, looked younger by ten
years at least. Her face was interest-
ing rather than handsome, the nose
being somewhat too long, the mouth too
large ; but it was a face of great intel-
ligence, and even her careless glance at
the intruder betrayed its rare mobility
of expression ; thin, worn, and almost
colorless, it suggested in repose a tragic
mask, and this suggestion led Dalton
to wonder if the woman were not an
actress. He took a seat at the farther
end of the carriage, making himself as
unobtrusive as possible to his fellow-
passengers, who evidently were English.

JACK-IN-THE-BOX.

215

After the English manner, they soon
began to discuss their own aftairs, ig-
noring Dalton's presence ; while from
these confidences thrust upon him he
learned that the man was an army offi-
cer, going south on leave of absence.
In time their talk languished, then
ceased altogether ; the husband oj)ened
a book, the wife leaned back, looking
out at the vanishing hedgerows and
stretches of landscape more gray than
green in the dull light of a rainy after-
noon. Her grave, thoughtful face at-
tracted Dalton, who could study it
without appearing to do so from the
corner opposite to hers. He wondered
what she was thinking about — surely
not these Kentish fields, which she
must have seen many times before. A
peculiar resonant quality in her voice
had pleased him — metallic, an envious
woman might have called it, he sup-
posed ; he wished he could hear it
again and judge if musical were not
the proper word. Over the leaves of a
review, he eyed her with increasing in-
terest, half tempted to speak for the
sake of her reply, cold and formal as
he felt that its tone would be. Then
his eye caught something in the page
before him, and for a while this was
permitted to come between them.

The silence into which the little group
of travellers thus settled down w^as sud-
denly broken by an exclamation from
the woman's lips, followed by her hus-
band's name spoken in alarm. " Ger-
ald ! " she cried, starting up just as the
book slipped from his hand. He fell
to one side along the cushions, and, but
for her, would have dropped to the
floor. Dalton was up, too, in an in-
stant, springing to her assistance, and
together they stretched him at full
length upon the seats. " He has only
fainted," she explained. Then, while
Dalton lifted the invalid's feet to prop
them with a roll of railway rugs, she
found a brandy-flask, and, kneeling be-
side her husband, forced him to drink
a little. This attitude revealed a beau-
ty which had escaped Dalton's notice
until now, but which now he noted in
all the nervous hurry of the moment.
Her brown hair was thick and soft and
fine, growing about her neck in a clus-
ter of small curls very neatly and be-

comingly arranged. " She has style ! "
he thought, as, turning toward him with
a grateful look, she said, simply : " I
am so much obliged to you. I ought
to have kept the servants with me.
But it is long since my husband had one
of these attacks, and they are not dan-
gerous. See ! he is better." In fact,
the sick man, reviving, called for more
brandy ; after a full glass of it he was
able to sit up again, and in his turn to
thank Dalton, who, protesting that he
had done nothing, as was indeed the
case, introduced himself. At the an-
nouncement of his nationality, Captain
Gerald Ramsay's gratitude redoubled ;
he at once presented Dalton to his
wife, and began to ask all manner of
questions about " the States," display-
ing the usual eagerness for statistics
with more than the usual ignorance of
American boundary lines. Dalton an-
swered as well as his knowledge per-
mitted, inwardly deploring this turn of
the conversation, in which Mrs. Ramsay
took the merest monosyllabic part.
Once or twice the captain addressed his
wife by name, which Dalton thus dis-
covered to be Mabel ; and, repeating
this to himself, he decided that the
sound of it suited her admirably. In
due course, the train drew up at his
destination, Folkestone, where his new
acquaintances also stopped to await
the first fair day for crossing the Chan-
nel by the tidal service. When they
had collected various encumbrances
in the way of luggage, together with
their valet and maid, who emerged
from a second - class carriage, they
whirled off to the hotel, after a friendly
hope that Dalton would soon call upon
them there. He did so that very even-
ing, and was not sorry to find that the
captain had taken to his bed, leaving
Mrs. Ramsay to receive him alone.
She would be down in a moment, the
servant said ; and when the moment
came he felt sure that this early visit
had been confidently expected.

The soft silk she wore fitted her to
perfection. Its gray hues, slightly iri-
descent, suggested mother-of-pearl, and
made the best of settings for her neck
and arms ; her only jewels being a
thread of small pearls at the throat.
If her face had its faults, her figure

21G

J ACK-JN-T HE-BOX.

was remarkably fine ; and she was a
little too conscious of this, perliaps.
For all her motions showed a kind of
studied grace which reminded Dalton
of his fancy that she must at some time
have been an actress. She had wel-
comed him very cordially, but, as they
talked, he began to fear that she was
thinking more of herself than of him —
not unnaturally, he admitted, since
what was he to her ? Then, for the
satisfaction of his own thought, he
proceeded to discuss the London thea-
tres, and, finding that she knew them
better than he did, expressed an exag-
gerated love of the stage and all con-
nected therewith.

"You think it a career, then?" she
said, smiling at his enthusiasm.

"■ Of course — a great one."

" And have you ever tried it ? "

"No," said he ; "have you? "

" One form of it, a little. I studied
a while for the opera, in Milan."

" Ah ! 3^ou sing ! "

" I did once. They called me the
prima donna of the future. But the
future never came."

" Once — once ? Not now ? "

" Now, very rarely," she said, with a
sigh. "My husband does not — is not
musical."

" But I am very fond of music," said
Dalton, sympathetically. " Won't you
sing to me ? "

" If there were a piano "

" There is one in the next room," he
urged, rising and leading the way, as
he spoke. "We may have it all to
ourselves. Come ! "

She followed, and, sitting down be-
fore him, tried the keys, while he leaned
over the case admiring the effect of a
faint color that had stolen up into her
pale cheeks. There was a new light,
too, in her eyes. He had thought them
gray before, but now they looked al-
most black.

" What shall I sing ? " she asked.

"Whatever you like best. Some-
thing you sang in Milan."

She hesitated a moment ; then began
upon Zerlina's song — Vedrai Carino,
from "Don Giovanni," giving it, after
the first slight nervousness was con-
quered, with strong dramatic expres-
sion, as if she were in the theatre. The

clear notes of her ringing soprano en-
raptured Dalton, and he begged her to
go on. So she passed from one song
to another, while one by one the hotel
officials gathered at the doors to listen.
Absorbed in the music, she did not ob-
serve this ; until at the end of a plain-
tive ballad by Marzials, with sentimental
words that set Dalton to thinking, the
small audience indiscreetly applauded.
The old air of indifference returned to
her upon the instant. She left the
piano and retreated to the inner room,
accompanied by Dalton, who thanked
her with effusion for the i^leasure she
had given him.

"You might have been the prima
donna of the present, had you cared,"
he added.

"But I did not," was her careless
answer ; " nor do I ; that was a dream,
and it is past. Let us talk of some-
thing else — of yourself. Why are 3'ou
quartered here, at Folkestone, of all
places in the world ? "

They sat down again, and Dalton ex-
plained his work in detail, with all his
hopes and plans about it ; speaking of
himself freely enough, except for one
important reservation. To his affair of
the heart he alluded not at all.

" Well ? " she said, dryly, when, after
talking a long while without interrup-
tion, he paused for breath.

" Well ? " he repeated, with a smile.

"I have been waiting for the ro-
mance ; where does it come in ? "

" Oh," said he, evasively, " there will
be time enough for that."

" Very wise philosophy ! " she re-
turned. " I like to see a man who is
sure of himself ; and there is no ro-
mance without a beginning, a middle,
and an end. Happy as we married ones
are, marriage, at best, is not an un-
alloyed blessing. Take time — take
time ! "

" Thanks for your advice," he replied,
rising to go, with a sense that the talk
had suddenly grown uncomfortable.
"I shall remember."

" Thank you for trusting me. Your
book will have at least one constant
reader."

" But I shall see you again — ? "

"That is doubtful. If the day is
fine, we go on to-morrow."

JACK-IN-THE-BOX,

217

" To-morrow ! " he echoed, in a tone
of disappointment that made her smile.
" But where ? You have not told me —
and I desire to send you the book if it
ever sees the light."

" To Alassio, on the Riviera, for a
time. Exactly how long, I don't know.
No matter ; I shall not wait for the
presentation copy. And Europe is
such a little playground of a place that
we are sure to meet again. So this is
good-night, and not good-by."

They shook hands warmly and part-
ed. As Dalton walked home along the
windy Lees he looked up at the flying
clouds, and feared that the storm was
really over. He went to bed humming
her last song, reviewing all her looks
and words. " She must have made up
well for the stage," he thought. " What
could have induced her to leave it for
that man? Money? Love? A little
of both, perhaps. I'll swear she does
not love him now. Yet she has herself
well in hand."

" Well in hand ! " The phrase seemed
so happily descriptive that he repeated
it the next morning as he strolled down
toward the pier. The capricious Chan-
nel was in its gentlest mood, and there
could be no better day for crossing ;
surely, the Ram says would take advan-
tage of it. They came late, when he had
begun to hope they were not coming,
when there was scarcely time to wish
them well. But in that brief space he
acquired a new impression of her, in a
becoming dark-blue costume with silver
chains and anchors and other accoutre-
ments appropriate to the perilous voy-
age. " Her dress of the third act," he
thought, as he took the final leave.

The crowd moved up the pier ; but
Dalton waited on alone to watch the
steamer course along over the quiet
sea, while he hummed once more the
little song of Marzials :

** * The long, long years are over ;
The great seas roll between ;
They have utterly past asunder,
From all that might have been ! '

Stupid words ! " he muttered, breaking
off impatiently. " I must get to work
again."

But he did no work that day ; in-
stead, he went up to London, staying

there over-night to see a play of which
Mrs. Ramsay had spoken. It bored
him, however, inexpressibly. And twen-
ty-four hours later he was back at
Folkestone, following the old chimera
of his day-dreams.

in.

ROUND ROBIN HOOd's BARN.

Night on the Arno in the heart of
Florence ! Under the hotel window,
midway between the Ponte Vecchio
and the Santa Trinita, the dark-green
water, swift and silent, reflects with won-
derful distinctness all the architectural
oddities of the Borgo San Jacopo ; the
little, melancholy church-apse built out
over the river ; the high, lemon-colored
dwelling houses with their tiled roofs
and lighted loggie, behind which a world
is turning. In one of these a dinner
has been in progress for an hour or
more ; there are flowers and Tuscan
wine-flasks over which the guests ges-
ticulate in merry pantomime, too far
away for their laughter to be heard.
The goldsmiths' shoj^s along Gaddi's
famous bridge are dark and still, but
through the black arches underneath
drifts down a boat with a flute, a guitar,
and a voice in it. The music passes,
grows faint, and fainter yet — is gone.
And John Dalton, with a sigh, leans
from the window to throw his cigar far
out into the water. One clear, steady
lamp shines down from the fortress of
San Giorgio. Beyond it, toward San
Miniato, many twinkling lights stretch
up to meet the stars ; but the window
faces the south, and from this point the
pole-star is invisible.

More than eighteen months have
slipped away since Dalton's patient in-
dustry at Folkestone began to yield
him signs of promise ; and this is
the first anniversary of his memorable
date of publication. His book, having
tiie good fortune to be accepted by one
of the foremost English publishers,
was favorably received, and soon made
what is called a critical success. Avoid-
ing the beaten path, it dealt Avith cer-
tain by-ways of the world after a man-
ner that showed on the writer's pait

218

JACK-IN-THE-BOX,

not only keen observation, but also a
descrij^tive power whicli Dalton had
never dreamed lie possessed. Its treat-
ment was peculiarly happy in combin-
ing lightness of touch with delicacy of
expression ; clever yet not flippant, the
style suggested the after - dinner talk
of a cultivated man of the w^orld who
has seen and studied much, but whose
good taste restrains him from dwell-
ing on his own exploits, and keeps his
terms of pedantry in reserve. One or
two chapters, where the author had
ventured upon a digression to work up
some traveller's tale, had imagination
in them, as more than one friendly re-
viewer had declared. These good qual-
ities, offsetting its obvious defects, had
given the rambling little book — quaint-
ly entitled "Round Robin Hood's
Barn " — an hour of popularity during
which Dalton's name had passed from
mouth to mouth. He became a small
lion of the London season ; and flat-
tered out of all proportion to his per-
formance by fashionable women, who
found the rich American of talent an im-
portant factor in their social schemes,
he began to accept their valuation, and
to take himself too seriously. Since
the present yielded him so much, what
triumphs a well-ordered future might
afford ! But to think of the future was
to remember that it had already ceased
to be all his own.

On the day that Dalton's book ap-
peared, a copy of it, luxuriously bound,
had been sent to Miss Amy Leslie.
And the return mail brought him a
letter of acknowledgment which her
father had graciously permitted her to
write. It was long, beginning with a
childish expression of . pleasure at the
sight of her lover's name in print, and
then, after a few words of praise, com-
ically extravagant, devoting pages to
the assurance of her boundless affec-
tion. Strange to say, the chief effect
of this letter upon Dalton was one of
disappointment. Still flushed with the
after-glow of his first work, he demand-
ed for it a kind of recognition that the
writer seldom obtains ; discernment of
what he himself knew to be best, with
a sense of the difficulties undergone,
and of his skill in overcoming them.
Certain passages of the book were

there solely for Miss Leslie's sake —
written at her, so to speak, as he hoped
she would see. But instead of this
nice discrimination, he found in her
letter only conventionalities that irri-
tated him ; hasty, perfunctory phrases
which the merest chance acquaintance
might have chosen. He forgot that in
her youth and inexjoerience, even sup-
posing her to be gifted wdth divine
perceptions, she would probably have
lacked the power to record them ; and
he put away the letter, oddly indiffer-
ent to what should have stirred him
most in it, thankful only that he had
the best of excuses for not sending a
reply. Day by day thereafter the sim-
ple, affectionate confidence she had
manifested touched him less and less,
until he could think of it only with
a grave doubt upon which he did not
care to dwell.

The other presentation copy so read-
ily promised at Folkestone had been
set aside and never delivered, for more
reasons than one. At the moment of
issue Dalton felt sure that the Ram-
says must have left Alassio ; and
though their change of address might
have been traced wdth a very slight ef-
fort, he took no pains about it. His
authorship was already an old story,
when, in one of the crowded London
days, chance mention of the captain's
name brought out the fact that the in-
valid had died suddenly on the journey
northward. And his widow ? She lin-
gered for the present in Italy, it was
believed. Exactly why and where no
one seemed to know, and Dalton cared
little. This was hardly the time to
force his work upon her notice ; if he
communicated with her at all it should
be by a sympathetic letter the thought
of which was distasteful to him. He
could not but surmise that her hus-
band's death had proved a release
rather than an affliction, and, if the
contrary were true, their acquaintance,
though of rapid growth, had been too
brief to make the formality of condo-
lence imperative. He let the whole
matter go, and ended by forgetting it.
Even her face grew dim and indistinct
to him. One meets and admires so
many new faces in the course of a
year's existence ! Hers had fixed his

JACK-IN-THE-BOX.

219

attention closely ; but it had jDassed, in
all probability never to be seen again.

Time wore on. The book lived its
little life and was succeeded by others
in the light hearts of those who had
been most lavish of their praises. Ui)on
the withdrawal of the advertisements it
disappeared from the book-stalls ; its
sale was over. That autumn is still
remembered throughout northern Eu-
rope as one of exceptional gloom, and
in the shortening daj^s of uninterrupted
fog and rain Dalton grew restless. His
friends were scattered he knew not
where, his London lodgings were too
dreary for endurance. What did his
plans matter ? He needed more change
than a sentimental conformity with
those long ago set down would give.
So he fled into the sunshine and fol-
lowed it across the sea to Egypt,
through the flickering streets of many-
colored Cairo, far up the Nile among
the yellow sand-waves, where he led for
weeks a life of barbaric simplicity. By
day he explored strange temple courts
in which the images of strange gods
baffled him with their mysterious, ex-
pectant smile. Strange stars, each
night, rose higher in the southern sky ;
but the familiar constellations low in
the north shone with unwonted brill-
iancy, as if to remind Dalton that his
responsibilities, though distanced, were
not to be shaken off. A day came, in
fact, all too soon, when the sunshine
was no longer grateful. Driven north
by the heat he travelled slowly seaward,
embarked once more and disembarked
again ; lingered a while at Capri, then
passed through Naples, Rome, and the
hill towns to Florence, where he arrived
in the best of all good months — the
month of May. The leaves were fresh
in the broad vmli, and all the hedges
were pink with roses. The blackbird
and nightingale made their notes heard
above the murmurs of the city, whose
loudest noise has no disturbing harsh-
ness of commerce in it ; whose domes
and towers and battlements, mellowed
by time, seem to have become a part
of the landscape and to have stolen
their tints and shadows from the glo-
rious hills.

One shadow deepened heavily in Dal-
ton's mind on this incomparable even-

ing, as the voice went down the river.
The two years of absence to which he
had committed himself were drawing to
a close with a swiftness that dismayed
him. The doubt he would not dwell
upon now dwelt with him persistently.
In these two years he had changed
much, had developed out of his small
success a new ambition. Could Miss
Amy Leslie understand and share it ?
He feared not ; in which case he was
just the man to make her miserable.
To withdraw from his bargain would
be unpleasant. Not that he had decid-
ed to withdraw from it ; but the reck-
oning day was very near ; he must re-
turn, and something must be decided
then. The dire necessity haunted him
like a ghostly visitant amid the sights
and sounds of this Florentine night.
Anything to forget it ! He would go
out into the streets, to the theatre, any-
where— if only there were light and a
crowd.

So, descending, Dalton turned into
the brilliant Via Tornabuoni and
strolled along it aimlessly, with but
half a look for the mosaics and minia-
ture masterpieces of the shop windows,
until a theatre placard on the blank
wall in a side street caught his eye.
He crossed to read it. " Carmen " at
the Arena Nazionale ! with a new sing-
er. La Masary, in the title part ! What
could be better ? The theatre was very
near, this dim street would lead him
almost to its doors. In another five
minutes he had exchanged his two lire
for one of the posti distinti, and found
himself under a glare of light in the
heart of a crowd noisy and distracting
enough to meet even his demands.

The curtain had fallen upon the first
act, and in the huge arena, which had
no flooring and was half open to the
night, the spectators partook freely of
the cigars and beer urged upon them
by the attendants with their shrill,
hawk-like cries. Dalton made his way
over the smooth gravel to his chair, and
then scanned through clouds of smoke
the groups in the boxes, neither there
nor at his own level discovering a fa-
miliar face. All looked excited and
interested, and it presently appeared
that the new Carmen had made a suc-
cess. Three men in front approved of

220

JACK-IN-THE-BOX,

her highly in the peculiar Tuscan ver-
nacular garnished with aspirates, to
which Dalton listened simply because
he could not help it ; until the curtain
rose to the gay music of the second act,
and he saw her perched upon the table,
smoking, in the house of Lillas Pastia
— saw and knew her instantly. For
the Carmen of the night was his old
acquaintance, Mrs. Ramsay, and look-
ing down at his play-bill he perceived
in another moment that the name by
which the public knew her was but the
anagram of her own.

Her song of the opening scene was
thrice repeated ; and in the scenes that
followed she conquered all her difficul-
ties superbly. She w^as thoroughly in
the part, technically speaking, all re-
sources of voice, looks, and insolent
coquetry of action being employed with
an artist's skill. As the Jose and Es-
camillo were both established favorites,
the performance swept along with none
of those harshly arrogant interruptions
which are often so annoying in Italy.
When the curtain fell again, the gen-
eral applause was unmarred by a sin-
gle dissenting note.

Dalton went out, found the stage-
door and sent in his card, forgetting
that she had a change of costume to
make. In spite of that, he was admit-
ted by her orders into the wings, where
he awaited her coming impatiently ;
but instead came a maid, burdened
with excuses. The curtain was going
up ; there was no time now to talk, yet
she must see him. Would he not come
to supper after the performance at the
address here given ? Dalton, feeling
this to be a rebuff, accepted the folded
paper stiffly with a word of thanks, but
the determination to sup anywhere
rather than with her. As he turned
away, her voice recalled him, and she
hurried out in her gypsy dress with a
striped mantle jauntily tossed over one
shoulder. The invitation was renewed
and urged most cordially ; he must not
disappoint her ; and Dalton once more
accepted it, this time in good faith.
Then she was called, and he went back
to his place in the theatre and watched
her success grow into a triumph, com-
plete, unquestionable. At the final
fall of the curtain the walls rano- wath

shouts for her. "La Masary ! La Ma-
sary ! " And she came and went in an-
swer, her hand upon her heart, her
cheeks flushed with excitement under-
neath the rouge.

*' The Villa Inglese, out of the Porta
Rom ana ! " That was a long way off,
but there could be no hurry and Dal-
ton preferred to walk. He turned to-
ward the river and crossed it by the
Carraja bridge, considering as he went
the surprise of the evening, the per-
formance and its chief performer. She
had been really very fine in the last
act. That was her vocation, and he
wondered how long she had been at it,
for the talk overheard in the theatre
showed him that this w^as but a repeti-
tion of her success in other Italian
cities. Long enough to lose some-
thing of her indescribable charm, he
could see that. She had gained some-
thing else — she was clever, a great art-
ist, perhaps ; interesting ver}% but with
the old fascination gone, so far as he
was concerned. There was no danger
now of losing his heart to her, as at
one moment had seemed almost possi-
ble. His heart ? Pshaw ! That organ
must be left out of the account, if he
were ever to succeed in setting the
world on fire. That was his vocation.
And there was no romance without a
beginning, a middle, and an end, as
this interesting woman had once said.
The end of his approached for better,
for w^orse, wdth the prospect beyond it
of a life free of all romance forever af-
ter.

The Villa Inglese stood at some dis-
tance from the gate, half - way up the
hill and on the left of the viale, so that
its garden overlooked the town. It
was a small house, plainly furnished in
a style that w^ould have betrayed its
owner's nationality, if Mrs. Ramsay
had not spoken of him as a resident
Englishman from whom she hired the
place for the moment. She should
never have a real home any more, she
sighed. Dalton, though her chief
guest, was not the only one, the others
being Italians and of the troupe ; her
manager and his wife, her Escamillo
and Michaela. Of their talk at table
he could remember afterward very lit-
tle, except that it w^as about themselves.

JACK-IN-THE-BOX,

221

He watched his hostess with secret
amusement at her eagerness to share
in it, to discuss recalls and receipts, her
past and present triumphs, her own
personaUty. Through it all he detected
the thirst for achievement ; what was
gained meant nothing in comparison
with what must come. Her whole atti-
tude toward life seemed to be changed.
The change in her looks, too, proved
greater than the mere lapse of time
would have led him to expect. She
was very simply dressed, to begin with,
in black, without ornaments. As for
her face, that had faded and hardened,
but was still a striking one ; before the
theatre-public there had been no age
in it.

Dalton said less and less as the talk
went on, and he carried through it all
a train of his own reflections that be-
came curiously diverted to a subject of
which the present company knew noth-
ing. The absent owner of the Villa
Inglese, evidently a traveller, had cov-
ered his dining-room walls with photo-
graphs of many lands. And directly
opposite Dalton's chair, between a Ve-
netian canal and a cataract of the Nile,
hung that remarkable view from the
bluff behind the Parliament House at
Ottawa. The broad, dark river filled
all its foreground ; beyond were the
roofs of the lower town, the great lum-
ber-yards, the suspension-bridge with
the Chaudiijre fall foaming under it,
and over all the long line of the Lau-
rentian Mountains. John Dalton knew
every inch of that prospect well. As
he looked now, he seemed to hear the
hum of the saw-mill always prevailing
over other sounds in the Dominion
capital ; he could swear that the near-
est pile of lumber was the same which
Amy had once compared to a huge
Jack-in-the-Box with the lid tilted, as if
the Jack were pressing at it, ready for
his. spring ; and there were all the other
Jacks in all the other Boxes, row on
row. Then the thought struck him
that he, himself, was just such another
— a Jack-in-the-Box with the lid still
do^vn ! Someone appealed to him, and
he responded intelligently enough. But
his mind went wandering off again to
the Government Grounds up there in
the north. The thing worried him. It

was like a bit of his own conscience
made visible by some new, mysterious
process, and framed and glazed for his
discomfiture.

" Come ! " said his hostess, in Eng-
lish, as the smoke grew thicker and
the statements more emphatic. "They
will never miss us." She led the way
to a glass door opening toward the
garden ; just outside, in the lighted
loggia, was a bench where they sat
down. "It is a pleasure to see you
once more," she continued ; "you were
so good to Gerald that day."

" I heard of his death," stammered
Dalton, taken aback by this allusion ;
"but — " he stopped, for her eyes were
full of tears.

She brushed them away, but others
came. " I beg your pardon," she said ;
" I cannot help it ; it is a remorse with
me. I treated him so unkindly."

"That is impossible," Dalton pro-
tested. "You do yourself injustice,
as we all do in thinking of the dead.
I saw you together. I am sure "

"No — no ! I was brutal, and all the
remorse in the world will not undo it.
Let us change the subject," she added,
with a strong effort to control herself ;
" there are things I want to say to you.
In the first place, your book ! "

" You have seen it ? "

" Of course. I said I should not
wait for the presentation copy. I have
read it more than once, and liked it."

" Tante grazie, gentilissima signora !"
said Dalton, smiling.

"And the other? How does it get
on?"

" The other ? "

" Yes ; the one you are doing now."

Dalton changed his position uneas-
ily. " I am doing nothing," said he.

"Nothing?"

" Nothing."

" Dilettante ! You, at least, are not
bitten by the tarantula ! I envy you."

" You, on the crest of the wave ! "
said Dalton, with a scornful little laugh.
" You envy me ? In heaven's name, for
what?"

" For the power to think of others a
little and to make them happy. I have
lost it. I am all for self. I live on
the public's favor, and should die of its
neglect. The thing was not worth the

222

JACK-IN-THE-BOX.

price I paid for it. I found that out —
too late. I cannot help it now ; I have
the poison in me, the madness is incur-
able. And as I saw you just now at
table, I thoujL^ht, ' He is mad, too ; Avith
him the poet's line has been reversed.
He has missed the man's joy, gained
the artist's sorrow ! ' "

" The artist's sorrow ! " repeated Dal-
ton, gravely. "The artist is one who
has attained. Not the dilettante — the
manikin, the Jack-in-the-Box that I
am."

" In what a tone you say that ! Some-
thing is the matter with you — I knew
it ; at supper, you were a thousand
miles away."

" Three thousand, to be a little more
exact," he returned ; then, having
stumbled into this admission, the time,
place and mood all being favorable to
a confidence, he suddenly resolved to
make it. " I may as well confess," he
continued ; " the fact is "

Thereupon he told her in detail the
story of his love-affair and his two
years' probation ; he explained the
growth of his doubt, his subsequent
perplexity; the box, so to speak, in
which he found himself, which had
suddenly fastened over him anew at
her own table. " The problem has
been difficult," he concluded; "but I
have solved it at last, and the way out
is as simple as Alexander's. I shall
break the hasp — meaning my appoint-
ment— when the time comes, send a
letter of regret, and never go back any
more."

She had listened to his tale with the
deepest attention, but after a moment's
thought she only said :

" You have decided to do that ? "

" Yes ; why not ? It is the simplest
way, the best way."

" The easiest, too," she said, signifi-
cantly. There came an outbreak of
laughter and light music in the room
behind them, at which she rose with an
impatient gesture. "Let us walk in
the garden and talk quietly," she sug-
gested.

So they went together down a dim
garden-path into starlight and fragrant
stillness, both to Dalton most disquiet-
ing. For the path was bordered with
box, and he recognized its fragrance ;

he looked up, and saw the north star
like a sharp eye fixed upon him. It
might have been that other garden at
Leslie Hall, in Ottawa. But there he
had comj^ared his own " true-fix'd and
resting quality " to the needle of a
compass. The needle, now, had suf-
fered deviation.

As they walked on, he left the first
word to his companion, and presently
she spoke it.

"You loved her, really loved her —
then, I mean ? "

"Yes," he sighed. "At least, I
thought so."

"And she still loves you?"

"Yes ; if her letter can be trusted."

"If you really loved her, you were
happy, more than happy, then."

" I was supremely happy."

" I am amazed that you can grant so
much."

"Amazed, why?"

" Because, remembering that, you
are content to let this supreme happi-
ness, this pearl of great price, slip from
your hand without one effort to recover
it."

They had followed the path to a nar-
row terrace in which the garden ended.
The dark roofs of Florence lay below
them ; and across the nearer ones they
saw the quivering shafts of light from
the bridges, the great dome and tower
rising, beyond the river, over all.

" But if," began Dalton ; then, shift-
ing his ground a little, " we all make
our mistakes," said he.

"Sometimes, when we least suspect
it," she agreed ; " as you did here just
now. For the artist never attains. He
strives fiercely and more fiercely, cen-
tred all in his poor passion ; and what
is the end of it ? Look ! Giotto's
tower is unfinished ; so is Brunel-
leschi's dome."

"But the joy of the conflict — the
name he leaves behind him ! "

" The name ! Who built the Pyra-
mids ? Who made our Venus there
in the Uffizi ? The joy of the conflict
is a fine thing. But how much finer
it might be if the conflict were not whol-
ly for self - interest — if its intoxicat-
ing triumphs were reflected, not in the
faces of the vulgar herd, but in the
eyes of one ! It is this that you are so

JACK-IN-THE-BOX,

223

ready to give up. A woman believes
in you and loves you, and it counts
with you for nothing."

" But if I do not love her ? "

" Go to her, then, and say so frankl3\
It is only fair. You owe her that, at
least."

« But "

*' I see. You are afraid of your own
weakness — afraid to yield and to miss
for her sake some high ideal, some di-
vinity of art. Well, I urge you to go
all the same — or, rather, all the more.
You can never reach your perfection
by climbing for it. The longest way
round is the shortest way home, Signor
Ambizioso. You will be all the better
artist, being human. Hark ! That
fellow down below us is all for love,
not for ambition ; and we cannot ap-
j^roach him with our art. Don't laugh
—listen ! "

It was only a nightingale hidden in
the thicket under the wall on which
they leaned. They waited until his
song was finished, and then turned up
the path to the house again.

"It is only fair, as you say," said
Dalton. "I will go back, and break
the new^s myself. It will be a dis-
agreeable duty, but "

" Ah, we all make our little sacrifices
to duty," she retorted, lightly. "And
there is no jo}^ like sacrifice, don't for-
get that ; the joy of the conflict is
nothing to it. Who knows ? You may,
at this moment, be making the mistake
of your life. You may live to thank
me, three years hence, for asking you
to do a disagreeable thing."

" Oh, if you expect that, let me thank
you now. It is safer."

"You will really go, then? You
promise ? "

"Really. I have said so."

" Then I thank you, brother artist,
for your tribute to my powers of per-
suasion."

So laughing and talking, half in jest,
half in earnest, they came into the
loggia, to be met there by a burst of
song.

" Toreador,
T'aspett' aspett ' amor ! "

roared Escamillo ; then the hostess
looked back at Dalton and laughed
once more.

" An omen, fratello d' armi ! "
But he shook his head, and whis-
pered as they crossed the threshold :

" Omens are like dreams, they go by
contraries."

IV.

THE POSTSCRIPT OF A LETTER.

"My wife adds her congratulations
to mine for your conquest of the Brit-
ish Lion. What mil become of you
when no worlds are left to conquer?
Meanwhile, in this one, we hope to see
and hear you before the season is over.
By the way, I have ventured to tell her
what a word of yours did for us both
that night, three years ago, in Florence
— and I wish you could have heard us
laugh together after this revelation of
my absurd misgiving. It wasn't ab-
surd, then, though ; and we owe it to
you, dear prima donna of the present,
that the romance of our married life,
now nearly three years old, is but just
beginning.

J. D."

Alla Signora Masary,
Royal Italian Opera,
Coven T Garden."

GUERIN'S CENTAUR.

'By Mrs. Fields.

0r^.

BROWN bird sitting

under the shadow

, ^ of a leaf proves to

\ be the sincer that

■« enchants us ; there-
S fore, when George
> Ts;V^->t ^ Sand (in the Revue
t^js^ 2. ^^*-^^' des Deux Mondes,
May 15, 1840) called attention to a new
poem in prose, entitled "Le Centaure,"
the world turned its gaze upon a re-
tired and decaying chateau at Le Cayla,
in Languedoc, from which, indeed, the
singer had already vanished, but whence
a strain of music came which will not
die.

Two children of kindred genius were
nourished in that ancient house. Five
years before the volume containing the
journal, letters, and poems of Maurice
de Guerin was published, the public had
learned to know his sister Eugenie and
delight in her wonderful letters. In-
deed, Sainte-Beuve thought her genius
equal, if not superior, to her brother's ;
but Matthew Arnold, to whom the Eng-
lish-speaking world is indebted for a
first introduction to the brother, says :
"No one has a more profound respect
for M. Sainte-Beuve's critical judgments
than I have ; but it seems to me that
this particular judgment needs to be a
little explained and guarded. In Mau-
rice's special talent, which was a talent
for interpreting nature, for finding words
which incomparably render the subtilest
impression which nature makes upon us,
which bring the intimate life of nature
wonderfully near to us, it seems to me
that his sister was by no means his equal.
She never, indeed, expresses herseK with-
out grace and intelligence ; but her
words, when she speaks of the life and
appearances of nature, are in general
but intellectual signs — they are not, like
her brother's, symbols equivalent with
the thing symbolized."

It is from Eugenie, however, that we
get most of the charming detail of their
simple country life in the old chateau
— the close acquaintance with the peas-

ants who came to M. de Guerin (pere)
for sympathy and assistance of every
sort. Madame Sand does not make us
see her own humble friends more clearly
than we see these sometimes in Eu-
genie's journals and letters. But all the
Cayla landscape, the pure thought, the
knowledge of humanity, and the delights
of rural life are crystallized in Maurice's
exquisite sentences.

Maurice de Guerin died in 1839, when
he was only twenty-nine years old.
Suddenly, in the following year, w^hen
George Sand introduced his work to the
French reading world, it was discovered
that a new star had indeed risen above
the horizon. Twenty-five years, how-
ever, elapsed before two English essays
by Matthew Arnold upon the brother
and sister were published in book-form
in America ; and even in these only
passages from "The Centaur" were
translated into English.

There were four children left in the
solitary chateau of Le Cayla, when their
mother died. Eugenie was thirteen
years old, and Maurice seven. The little
boy was confided to the care of his el-
dest sister by their mother on her death-
bed, and he became the object of the
tenderest, and what might almost be
called a maternal, solicitude. He was
sent away very early to school, and from
that time they began a series of letters
and journals which have made both their
names sacred to lovers of nature and re-
ligion. To neither of them does it seem
to have occurred that these intimate com-
munications might one day be published.
The brother was especially imconscious
and "careless of fame." His sister says
that he "let what he did be lost with
a carelessness imjust to himself ; " and
when we remember the quality of what
he gave, " how he furnished others much
of what we all live by," how his presence
and his memory were full of charm, it
was natural that after his death his sis-
ter should devote the few years which re-
mained to her in endeavoring to make
his name permanent. She died without

DRAWN BY C DELORT.

ENGRAVED BY H, W. PECKWELL.

"Sometimes, also, my mother would return to me fragrant with the perfume of the valleys."— Page 227.

Vol. XII.— 23

226

GUERIN'S CENTAUR.

being able to publish his works, which
was the chief desire of her heart, and it
was not until twelve ^^ears after her
death that the volume collected by his
friend, M. Trebutien, was brought out.
" Meanwhile," says Sainte-Beuve, "there
had been time for Gucrin to be imitated
by other poets, who seemed altogether
original by this imitation, while his own
work was unpublished and left in the
dark."

How hollow the trumpets of every-day
fame sound w^hen we read these words ;
when we think of this young poet, dead
so long ago, crowned by the hands of the
immortals ! And yet how few of us are
familiar with his work !

The development of his nature went
on almost in despite of school and col-
lege. He was sent first to Toulouse,
afterward to the College Stanislas in
Paris, and finally, after a visit to his be-
loved home in the South, we find him in
Brittany, where he passed what may be
called distinctly one of the ripening years
of his brief life, and which Sainte-Beuve
calls " cette epoque nouri^iciere de son
talent."

The picture of this wild solitude of
Brittany, La Chenaie, where M. de La
Mennais had established himself, always
surrounded by a group of young and
zealous followers and students, is not
onl}^ picturesque, it is moving and in-
spiring. It is rendered with the fine
power of an artist in the essay prefixed
to the volume of M. Trebutien, of which
I have already spoken. During the long
winter in Brittany Maurice read widely ;
not alone French literature, but v/e find
traces of Greek, Latin, and English favor-
ites. He writes to Eugenie: "I want
you to reform your system of composi-
tion ; it is too loose, too vague, too La-
martinian. Your verse is too sing-song —
it does not talk enough. Form for your-
self a style of your ow^n, which shall be
your real expression. Study the French
language by attentive reading, making
it your care to remark constructions,
turns of expression, delicacies of style,
but without ever adopting the manner
of any master. In the works of these
masters we mvist learn our language, but
we must use it each in his own fashion."

But his life at La Chenaie was devoted
to other things than literature. " The

religious feeling, which was as much a
part of his essence as the passion for
nature and the literary instinct, shows
itself at moments jealous of these its
rivals, and alarmed at their predomi-
nance."

The descriptions of nature during the
winter and spring, which are scattered
through his journals and letters, it would
be impossible to resist quoting if these
few w^ords were anything more than an
introduction to his poem. " Finally, I
have seen the ocean," he writes, and the
pen longs to transcribe what the mind
cannot forget after once reading his de-
scription of the talk and walk toward
the sea ; and finally the first view of
" les eaux resplendissantes."

" The last days which Guerin passed
at La Chenaie were full of sw^eetness, but
a sweetness frequently disturbed. He
felt that this retired life must soon end,
and the vacation-days would bring the
necessity of making some choice of a
vocation." And so the end came, and
the separation from friends and scenes
which were dear to him ; but the final
choice was still deferred. The sadness
of the change was softened by his be-
ing admitted into the household of his
friend, Hippolyte de La Morvonnais.
He whites: "See how full of goodness
Providence is to me ! Fearing that the
sudden passing from the sweet, subdued
air of a solitary and religious life into
the torrid zone of the world might prove
too much for me, I have been led from
my holy retreat into a house erected on
the confines of these two regions, where
neither are w^e in solitude nor do w^e be-
long to the world ; a house with win-
dows opening on one side toward the
country, w-here men are stirring, and on
the other upon a desert, where the ser-
vants of God sing ; on one side upon
the ocean, on the other upon the forest
— and this is no figure of speech. The
house is built upon the very verge of
the sea. I wish to set down here some
history of my sojourn, for the days are
full of happiness, and I know that in
the future I shall often tarn back to
read of my past joy. A religious and
poetic man, and a woman whose soul is
so perfectly suited to his ow^n that it is
like one doubled ; a child who is called
Marie after her mother, whose first

GUERIN'S CENTAUR.

227

gleams of love and intelligence pierce
like a star through the white cloud of
infancy ; a simple life in an antique
home ; by night and day the harmonies
of ocean ; finally, a traveller, descending
from Carmel on his way to Babylon, has
left at the door his sandals and his staff,
and seated himself by the hospitable
porch. Here is something for a biblical
poem, if I knew how to write about
things as well as to feel them."

This life affected him too deeply.
With his extreme sensitiveness the calm
and solitude were enervating — " he wept
without definite cause." The time came
when he was obliged to seek another
atmosphere.

No other course was left open to him
save the road to "Babylon." We next
find him in Paris, " poor, fastidious, and
with health which already, no doubt, felt
the obscure presence of the malady of
which he died — consummation. One of
his Brittany acquaintances introduced
him to editors, and tried to engage him
in the periodical literature of Paris.
Guerin's talent was so unmistakable that
even his first essays were immediately ac-
cepted. He made many acquaintances,
was brilliant in conversation, careful in
his dress, and a favorite in society ;
but the extreme delicacy of his nature
made the life of the world impossible to
him. For continuous literary labor,
also, he was entirely unfitted. Happily,
he soon married a young Creole lady of
some fortune, whom, to use his own
words, "Destiny, who loves these sur-
prises, has wafted from the farthest In-
dies into my arms." But he rapidly be-
came more ill, and, dreaming of the
South, he was carried to Le Cayla,
where he died in July, 1839.

The idea of " The Centaur, " says
Sainte-Beuve, came to him after a series
of visits which he made to the Museum
of Antiquities in the Louvre with his
friend, M. Trebutien. He was reading
Pausanias at that time, and was filled
with wonder at the multitude of objects
described by the Greek antiquary.

"So he lived like a man possessed ;
with his eye not on his own career, not
on the public, not on fame, but on the
Isis whose veil he had uplifted. He pub-
lished nothing."

" The Centaur," like every other true

poem, is really untranslatable ; 3'et there
is a stable value in the far-reaching
thought ; in its wide horizon, in the food
it contains for poetic minds, which have
made it seem worth while to attempt
to give a full rendering of it into Eng-
lish. The subtle values of a poem writ-
ten in rhythmic prose are, of course,
difficult to discern through the veil of
another language ; but the very seed-
grain of poetry is in this work which we
now rej^roduce in behaK of all lovers of
ideal things.

The Centaur.

I WAS bom in the caves of these
mountains. Like the river of this val-
ley, whose primitive drops flow from a
hidden rock in some dark grotto, the
first moments of my life fell among the
shadows of a remote abode, and with-
out troubling its silence. When our
mothers draw near the time of their
delivery they retire into the loneliest
dej^ths of the caves, where, covered by
the deepest shade, they bring forth, with-
out a murmur, children speechless as
themselves. Their puissant milk makes
us surmount, without weakness or doubt-
ful contest, the early hardships of life ;
nevertheless, we issue from our caverns
later than you from your cradles. It is
believed among us that this early period
of existence must be sheltered and con-
cealed, as if these days were occupied
by the gods. Nearly all my youth was
passed among the shades where I was
born. The recesses of my dwelling were
so far within the mountain-side that I
should have been ignorant of the way
out, had not the fresh winds sometimes
entered, with sudden troubling of the
inner air. Sometimes, also, my mother
would return to me fragrant with the
perfume of the valleys, or streaming
with the waters which she haunted.
When she came she never sjooke of the
valley's or of the rivers, but she was
followed by their emanations, and these
disturbed my spirit until I grew restless
in my shadowy retreat.

" What is it ? " I asked myself—" this
outer world whither my mother goes,
and what powers reign there and caU
her so often to themselves ? Are these

GUERIN'S CENTAUR.

229

spirits opposed to each other, that she
returns daily in such different moods ? "
Sometimes she would come animated by
the deepest happiness, and sometimes
sad and weary, as if w^ounded. The joy
that she brought with her might be dis-
cerned from afar, influencing her step
and overspreading her countenance. I
felt it Hash from her through my whole
being ; but her discouragement held me
still more strongly, and drew me yet
deeper into those conjectures to which
my mind was already inclined.

In these moments my own strength
made me uneasy. I recognized a power
which could not remain idle, and now
by tossing my arms, now by galloping
swiftly through the wide darkness of
the cavern, I forced myself to discover,
by blows which I struck out into the
void, and by the passionate strength of
my feet, whither my arms might reach
and my feet might carry me.

Since then I have wound my arms
about the breasts of Centaurs, the bodies
of horses, and the trunks of oaks ; my
hands have assayed the rocks, the waters,
innumerable plants, and the subtlest im-
pressions of the air — for I lift them when
the nights are dark and still, to catch
the breezes, and draw signs from them
of the way I should go. My feet — look,
O Melampus ! — how worn they are ! Yet,
benumbed as I am in this extremity of
age, there are days when, in the full
sunshine upon the mountain-heights, I
renew those youthful galloj^ings in the
cavern, and, unsatisfied still, I brandish
my arms, and employ all the fleetness
that is left to me.

These periods of unrest were alter-
nated with long seasons of repose. At
such times, through my whole being I
possessed no other feeling than that of
growth, and of the gradations of life
which were rising within me. Having
lost the love of passionate action and
withdra^^Ti into absolute quietude, I
tasted without fatigue the gifts of the
gods thus poured upon me. Calm and
shadow nourish the mystical unfolding of
the inner life. Shades who inhabit the
caverns of these mountains, I owe to
your silent fostering the development
in retirement which has so powerfully
strengthened me ; under your guardian-
ship I have tasted pure life as it came
Vol. XII.— 24

from the bosom of the gods! When I
descended from your retreat into the
light of day, I staggered and could not
salute it, for it snatched me from myself,
intoxicating me as some fatal draught
might have done. I understood that my
life, until then so balanced and simple,
was shaken, and had lost something of
itself ; as if it had been dispersed to the
winds.

O Melampus ! you who would under-
stand the life of Centaurs, by what will
of the gods have you been sent to me,
the oldest and the saddest of them all ?
It is long since I practised anything of
their life. I no longer quit this moun-
tain-top where age confines me. The
point of my arrows now serves me only
for uprooting tenacious plants ; the tran-
quil lakes still know me, but the rivers
have forgotten me. I will tell you some
things about my youth ; but these recol-
lections, bom of a tired memory, come
hke some mean libation from a ruined
urn. It was easy to tell of the first
years, because they were calm and per-
fect ; simple existence satisfied me, and
that we can recall and relate without
pain. A god besought to tell the story
of his life would do it in a word, O
Melampus !

The course of my youth was swift and
full of restlessness. Movement was my
life, and I knew no limit to my steps. In
the pride of my freedom and strength I
wandered through all this wilderness.
One day, as I threaded a valley seldom
entered by the Centaurs, I discovered a
man following the river on the opposite
shore. He was the first I had ever seen.
I despised him. " See ! " I said to my-
self ; "at best he is but haK what I
am. How short his steps are, and how
difficult his progress ! His eyes seem
to measure the distance with sadness.
Doubtless he is a Centaur unseated by
the gods, and condemned by them to
drag himself along in this way."

Often I found refreshment in the bed
of rivers. Half of me struggled with
the waters, while the other half bore
itself tranquilly, and I folded my idle
arms high above the flood. I forgot
myself, thus in the midst of the waves,
yielding to the attraction of their course
which led me afar and conducted me,
their savage guest, toward the varied

230

GUERIN'S CENTAUR.

delights of their banks. How many
times, surprised by the night, I have fol-
lowed the currents under the branches
which overshadowed them, as they
brought down to the very depths of the
valleys the nocturnal influence of the
gods. My impetuous nature was thus
tempered until only a faint conscious-
ness of life spread through my whole
being, as on the waters where I floated
shone the glory of that goddess who per-
vades the night. Melampus ! my old age
regrets the rivers ; peaceful for the most
part and monotonous, they follow their
destiny with greater calm than the
Centaurs, and with a more beneficent
wisdom than the wisdom of men. "When
I came out of their deeps I was followed
by their gifts, which accompanied me
for days together, and lingering, passed
away as perfumes do.

A wild and blind inconstancy prompt-
ed my steps. In the midst of the most
violent race I would stop suddenly, as if
I found myself on the verge of an abyss,
or as if a god stood before me. These
sudden halts shook my very life with
excitement. Sometimes I would cut
branches in the forest, and raise them
above my head as I raced ; the swiftness
of my course stilled the rustling of the
leaves, but with the least repose the
wind again set them murmuring. So
my life, at the sudden interruption of
these impetuous flights through the val-
leys, was set shuddering through all my
being. I knew that the heat was rising
and the fire growing that I had caught
from the spaces I had passed through
with such intense speed. I fought
against the flood which surged within
my beating flanks, and tasted in these
tempests the pleasures which the banks
of rivers know in setting safe bounds to
an irritated life risen to its full height.
At the same time, bowing my head to
the wind which brought coolness to me,
I looked up to the mountain-tops which
had so soon become distant ; I observed
the trees on the shores and the waters
of the rivers. The latter were swept
on by a constraining current ; the trees
were fastened to the bosom of the ea,rth,
and could only move as the breath of
the wind murmured in their branches.
"I alone," I said, "have free action; I
bear this life of mine from one end of

these valleys to another. 1 am happier
than the torrents which fall from the
mountains and cannot climb them again.
The echo of my feet is more beautiful
than the plaints of the woodland and tlie
noise of the waves ; it is the sound of
the wandering Centaur who guides him-
self." Thus, while my panting body
was still intoxicated by the race, I felt
a glowing pride and turned my head,
when I stopped, to behold my smoking
croup.

Youth is like verdant forests tor-
mented by the wind ; it displays every-
where the rich gifts of life, and a deep
murmur is forever heard in its green
branches. Wandering at my own will
with the freedom of the rivers, feeling
the presence of Cybele everywhere in
the shelter of valleys or on lofty moun-
tain-summits, I bounded whither I
would, like a blind and chainless life.
But when Night, filled with godlike
calm, found me on the mountain-slopes,
she led me to the entrance of the caves
and soothed me there, as she soothes the
waves of the sea, letting those delicate
undulations linger which kept sleep
away without hindering my repose.
Couched upon the threshold of my re-
treat, my flanks hidden in the cave, and
my head under the open sky, I watched
the pageant of the dark. Then the
strange life which had filled me during
the day detached itself, drop by drop,
and returned to the bosom of Cybele, as
the remnants of rain caught among the
leaves fall and rejoin the waters after a
tempest. It is said that the sea-gods
quit their sunken palaces by night and
seat themselves on promontories, to gaze
out over the waves. I watched thus
with an expanse of life before me like
the sleeping sea. Coming back to my
distinct and full existence, it seemed to
me that I was newly born, and that the
deep waters which had conceived me in
their bosom had left me on the moun-
tain-top, as the waves of Amphitrite leave
a forgotten dolphin on the sands.

My gaze swept over the far distance.
As upon wet shores, so the sinking sun
left a light on the moimtains which the
shadows had not altogether covered.
There the pure and naked summits still
rose in their pallid clearness. Some-
times I saw the god Pan descend, always

GUERIN'S CENTAUR.

231

solitary ; sometimes the choir of mystic
divinities or a nymph of the mountains
passed, enchanted by the night. Some-
times the eagles from Mount Olympus
traversed the height of heaven, and van-
ished among distant constellations or
into the haunted wood. The spirit of
the gods began to move, and troubled
the ancient oaks.

You follow wisdom, O Melampus !
which is the knowledge of the will of
the gods, and you wander among the
people like a mortal driven b}^ the
fates. There is a stone in this region
which gives forth a sound like the break-
ing cords of an instrument when it is
touched, and men say that Apollo, who
tended his flock in the wilderness, laid
his lyre upon the stone and left its
melody there. O Melampus ! many a
wandering god has placed his lyre upon
these stones, but no one — no one has
forgotten it. When I used to watch in
the caves I believed that I might sur-
prise the dreams of sleeping Cybele, and
that the mother of the gods, betrayed by
dreaming, would sometime let her se-
crets fall. I have never yet recognized
any sounds save those that were dis-
solved by the breath of night, or an in-
articulate speech like the bubbling flow
of rivers.

" O Macareus ! " the great Chiron
said to me one day, as I tended his old
age, "we are both Centaurs of the moun-
tains, but how different our habits are !
All the labor of my days is spent in the
search for plants, and you, you are like
those mortals who have gathered and
held to their lips some fragments of that
pipe broken by the god Pan. Having
breathed in an untamed spirit from these
relics of the god, perhaps being smitten
with a mystic madness, such mortals
henceforth seek the wilderness, plunge
into forests, skirt the waters, or lose
themselves upon the mountains, borne
onward unresting by their unknown
destiny. The mares beloved by the
winds in distant Scythia are not more
untamed than you, nor sadder when the
evening comes and the north wind is
withdrawn. Do you seek to know the
gods, O Macareus ! and from what source
men and animals and the elements of
the universal fire have issued? The
aged Ocean, father of all things, keeps

these secrets in his heart, and the sing-
ing nymphs surround him, with their
circling dances, to cover what may escape
in sleep from his half -opened lips. Mor-
tals who draw near to the gods by virtue
have received lyres from their hands
to delight the peojile, or new seeds to
enrich them, but from their inexorable
lips, nothing.

" In my youth Apollo inclined me to-
ward growing things, and taught me to
draw beneficent sweetness from their
veins. Since then I have faithfully kept
to my great dwelling-place in these
mountains, restless, but always in search
of simples, and ever communicating the
virtues I discover. Do you see yonder
the bald peak of Mount (Eta ? Alcides
stripped it to. build his funeral pyre.
O Macareus ! the demigods, children of
the gods, stretch the skins of lions over
their funeral pyres and consume them-
selves on mountain-tops. The poison
of Earth infects the blood of immortal
inheritance, and we Centaurs, engen-
dered by an audacious mortal in the
bosom of a cloud made in the shape of
a goddess, what succor could we expect
from Jupiter, who has struck the father
of our race with his thunder-bolt ? The
vulture of the gods tears eternally the
entrails of that workman who formed
the first man. O Macareus ! men and
Centaurs recognize these thieves of the
rights of the gods as the authors of their
race ; perhaps everything that lives out-
side the gods is only a stolen fragment of
their nature, borne afar as the seed flies,
carried by the omnipotent breath of fate.

" We are told that ^geus, father of
Theseus, hid signs and tokens under a
rock by the sea, so that his son might
one day recognize his birth. The jeal-
ous gods have hidden the proofs of the
descent of things ; but on the shore of
what sea, O Macareus ! have they rolled
the stone that covers them ? "

Such was the wisdom which the great
Chiron gave to me. Weakened by ex-
treme age, this Centaur nourished in
his spirit the loftiest discourse. His
breast, still strong, hardly seemed to
burden his flanks, which he surmounted
leaning but slightly, like an oak-tree
saddened by the winds ; nor had the
strength of his steps seemed to lose any-
thing of their force with the flight of

232

THE TRIUMPH OF MARIE LAHOLETTE.

years. We might have said that he still
kept the fragments of immortality, once
received from Apollo, but given again to
this god.

For myself, O Melami:)us ! I sink into
old age, calm as the setting constella-
tions. I am still strong enough to gain
the rocky heights, where I linger late,

gazing after the wild and restless clouds,
or watching the rainy Hyades, the Plei-
ades, or great Orion climb above the
horizon ; but I feel myself perishing,
passing away like a snow-fiake that
floats on the waves. Soon I shall min-
gle with the rivers that flow down to
the vast bosom of the Earth.

THE TRIUMPH OF MARIE LAVIOLETTE.

By Duncan Campbell Scott.

T was a still night.
Long clouds, per-
vaded with a pecu-
liar moony lustre,
lay above the hori-
zon ; higher in the
sky hung patches of
diaphanous vapor,
with a vast and steady outline, pierced
here and there with stars. The very
air had the seeming consciousness that
awaits some event expected since the
framing of the world. Even the black
hill shrouded with pines, at whose base
the river swept, seemed to wait. Over
its crest, at first twinkling in the pines
and then swinging clear above, the stars
rose. Even the rapids seemed con-
trolled, and their contemj)lative mur-
mur was withdrawn and sounded afar
oif. Through the dense shadows of the
forest, climbing a steep road cut into
the bank high above the river, two fig-
ures were toiling. The man, with a
canoe on his shoulders, was of gigantic
stature, and carried this burden as
lightly as a feather. Behind him walked
a young girl, who paused now and then
in the ascent to gaze through the gaps
in the trees, over the river to the hill,
which covered the horizon with its
shadow. After the steep there was a
level piece of road, and then a descent,
almost to the river. As they reached
the foot of this hill, the man under the
canoe gave a long whoop, and a few
moments after a turn in the road
brought them in view of a log-house,
set back from the road. The door was
open, and there was a light within.
" Is that you, Donald ? " asked a voice.

"It is," shouted the man under the
canoe, " and Maggie."

"Why Maggie ; what did she come
for?"

" Came to see her father, I guess ;
besides, she may be of some use."

"She wasn't asked, and besides she
may be in the way."

This last remark was almost whis-
pered to the giant, as he swung the
canoe off his shoulder. Maggie, with-
out speaking, went into the house ; the
man followed.

There was only one room in this
house ; in the middle of the floor stood
a stove, on a raised square of hard clay ;
around three sides ran two rows of
bunks, one above the other ; on the
fourth side was built a sort of loft,
reached by a small ladder ; there was
one window ; the walls were discolored
with smoke, and a smoky odor pervaded
the place.

Before Maggie O'Mara fell asleep that
night, she heard her father and Black
Donald talk over their j)lans.

" Is it the phosphates ? " said Donald.

" It is, you're right, Donald, it's the
phosphates."

" Is it a good show now ? "

"It is, you're right, it's a fine show.
You know, knowing the phosphates as
I do, I would call it a damn fine show,
and there's no use talking but it is."

" If it turns out well now, how would
it show up ? '"

" That's rather hard to tell, Donald ;
you know enough about the phosphates
to know that ; it's as hard to tell as how
a woman is going to behave after she's
married ; but if a capitalist was to plank

THE TRIUMPH OF MARIE LAyiOLETTE.

233

down ten thousand dollars on this here
stove for that there show, I'd tell him to
shove it in the lire."

Donald whistled softly to himself.

"But there's somebody on it?"

" There is ; that is, there's a French-
man."

"Well, what's the good of our both-
ering over it ; I guess he'll hang on,
won't he?"

"Perhaps he will, and perhaj^s he
won't ; perhaps he could be coaxed off,
and perhaps he could be scared off*.
You see, he don't know anything more
about them phosphates being there than
that girl Mag does ; and he's only a
Frenchman. He's got a young thing
for a wife there, and a little kid ; and
that's all there is to it."

" Well, and what are you going to
do?"

"I'm going to coax him, and you're
going to scare him, but Frenchy's got
to go. We'll go over to the ' show ' in
the morning and put in a shot, if you
like."

" Is it far ? "

"No, it's back of the lake, under a
little hill like."

The next morning a dense mist had
shrouded the world ; it filled in the
gaps in the trees and hung close to the
river ; everything was dripping with
moisture. It was so dark that Marie
Laviolette had to light a candle to get
the breakfast. Going about her work,
singing softly to herself, she heard a
sound a little heavier than the discharge
of a gun. She listened, but it did not
come again ; and when her husband
came in from his morning work she
said, " Gabriel, what was that firing back
in the woods ? "

" Some prospectors letting off a blast,
I suppose. I saw the little man they
call The Tim O'Mara around here last
week."

"Perhaps they're finding phosphates
on our land."

" Never a bit ; no such good luck ;
I've been over the whole place, and there
isn't a dollar's worth on it."

But wiiether this was so or not, there
was not a happier home on the Lievres
than Gabriel Laviolette's. He had
built his log - house about a stone's
throw from the river ; it was as white
Vol. XII.— 25

without and within as whitewash could
make it. A group of sunflowers blazed
against the shining wall, and scarlet run-
ners covered the windows. The floor
was as clean as the walls ; just under
the ceiling there was a row of saints'
pictures ; there was the good St. Anne,
and St. Nicholas with the children in the
tub, and one of the Christ, Avith His
wounded heart upon His breast. On a
very high chest of drawers, tliat ]Marie
had brought from her own home when
she was married, was a clock, and when
it struck a rooster came out and crowed.
Her little baby boy, Desire, watched
every hour for this rooster to crow.
Gabriel had the whole of fifty acres of
land of his own, but most of it was
covered with timber. He had cleared
some new land, and had a fine crop of
oats, which he was going to sell to the
lumbermen for their horses.

A few days after Marie had heard the
shot in the woods, she took Desire in
her arms and went back to where Ga-
briel was working. He was wiiere she
had expected to find him, but as two
men were talking to him, she put De-
sire down and let him play about in the
long grass. By and by the men went
away.

" Who were they ? " asked Marie.

" The little man was The Tim O'Mara ;
the great big man was Black Donald
McDonald."

" I don't like them ; they look very
bad."

"And they're just as bad as they
look ; that Black Donald is the worst
man on the river. I have heard tell
how he has smashed a man's jaw with
one blow."

" Oh, Gabriel, I hope he'll never be
angry with you."

" I'm not afraid of him. They're over
at the old shanty."

" And what did they want? "

"They want us to sell the jDlace ;
they say they will give us a thousand
dollars for it."

" And what do they want it for ? "

" I don't know ; I didn't ask them,
and they didn't tell me."

" Gabriel, they've found something
on our land."

" Never, there's nothing on it ; but
— " he hesitated.

234

THE TRIUMPH OF MARIE LAl^IOLETTE.

*' But we won't give it up, will we ? "
said Marie.

Gabriel shook Lis head.

Day after day Tim O'Mara came to
talk it over Avitli him. Gabriel asked
him what he wanted the land for. "I
don't mind telling you," said Tim ; "I
have found the phosj^hates back here
about two miles, not anywhere near
your land, but I want to get a clear
road to the river, and your place is on
the line. "We're going to work that
mine, and w^e want all this land for a
farm, and for horses and such."

Gabriel told Marie this. " And where
will we go if we leave here.^ " she
asked.

" Well, there are plenty of places."

" But this is our home, and besides,
if they want our land for all that, it is
worth more."

Gabriel was wavering. The next
time he saw Tim that speculator offered
him twice as much. He had hard work
to keep from saying yes, but he said
"Well, I'll see." "He's just about
done," said Tim to Black Donald, " if
that little wife of his doesn't talk him
over."

When Gabriel told Marie of this last

He had a pink blossom of hollyhock and a wooden horse,
which divided his attention."

offer she said, " Gabriel, don't give in ;
I'm sure they don't want it for that ;
they could get out to the river in other
places ; say No, and we'll wait and see
what comes of it."

" It's always the way with you wom-

en," said Gabriel. "You're afraid to
make a move."

He wsis angry and went out on the
river in his canoe ; but Marie had won
her point.

" It's no use," said Tim, " the French-
man won't budge."

"He will," said Black Donald, with
an oath.

" I don't see why you can't leave him
alone, there's plenty of j^hosphates ly-
ing around," said Maggie, who was
leaning against the door looking across
the river.

" What do vou know about phos-
phates ? "

" I was back and looked at the
show."

Her father jumped up and came over
to her. "Will you give the thing
away ? " he said.

" Let go of me, I'll do as I please,"
she said, sullenly, shaking him off.

"That girl's taken a shine to
Frenchy," he said.

" Can't you leave her alone," said
Black Donald, with a scowd. So they
all fought and did not sj^eak for three
days.

One day when Marie was working
outside, she took Desire and put him
on the grass to play. He had a pink
blossom of hollyhock and a wooden
horse, wdiich divided his attention. He
would throw the flower as far as he
could, and then crawl after it and come
back and present it to the horse, which
stood stolidly observing the proceed-
ings. Marie kept her eye on him, and
called to him not to get too near the
edge of the bank, and once she had to
go and lift him back to safety. Then
she left him and went into the house.
When she came back, after a moment,
he was nowhere to be seen. There
stood the wooden horse headed to the
river ; but Desire was not by. She
ran to the edge of the bank and looked
over ; he w^as not there ; he could not
have crept as far as the bushes, she
had only been awa}" a moment. She
rushed into the house and gave one
hurried glance at the cradle. She felt
faint; "Desire," she cried, "Desire!"
and listened. There was no cry in
answer ; she ran into the bushes and
then back, crying out all the time " De-

THE TRIUMPH OF MARIE LAHOLETTE.

235

"Then he paddled about the shores until almost dark, Marie watching him in a sort of dream."

sire, Desire ! " Then she rushed down
to the landing and looked along the
shore. There Avas nothing ; he was
not there. But something caught her
eye in the water ; her heart stopped ;
slowly in the turn of an eddy rose the
pink hollyhock blossom. She darted
into the water with a scream, and hold-
ing on by a bush waded in up to her
waist, and leaned far enough out to
catch it as it rounded with the swirl.
Then her one thought w^as for Gabriel ;
he could swim and dive, and she could
do nothing. So she ran back through
the garden and into the clearance,
shouting — " Gabriel, Gabriel ! " She
knew he was back at the lake nearly a
mile away. On she went, struggling
over the uneven ground, calling out as
she caught her breath, and almost fall-
ing Avith terror and fatigue, until at
last her voice reached him Avliere he
w^as working.

Before Marie had returned to the
river, Gabriel had dived time and again,
and was standing up in his canoe pad-
dling slowly with the current. Down
he went ; and Marie climbed the j^oint
and sank there to watch him. He went
right into the head of the rapid, until

she thought he would go over ; but he
turned and came back. Then he pad-
dled about the shores until almost dark,
Marie watching him in a sort of dream.
Suddenly he called out " Desire," with
a loud, choking cry. Marie answ^ered
him from the bank, and crying " Desire,
Gabriel ! " ran along the shore to the
landing.

The summer days passed ; but how
heavily without Desire. Marie could not
bear to look at the river ; she tried not
to think of it, and would shut her eyes
when she went out, and not open them
until she had turned away. She had
pressed the hollyhock in her pra^-er-
book ; the w^ooden horse and the cradle
she kept by themselves, until Gabriel
would not let her have them, she cried
so much, and hid them away and would
not tell her where.

Black Donald and Tim were seldom
seen ; they made no overtures for the
place, and seemed to have forgotten
they had a desire for it. Maggie was
the only one who seemed to pay any at-
tention to her neighbors. Twice, when
Gabriel Avas mowing, she rose almost
from under his eyes, as he j^aused to
Avhet his scythe, and went trailing

236

THE TRIUMPH OF MARIE LAl^IOLETTE.

through the grass, giving him a look
over her shoulder. Then she would sit
watching coolly from the busli as Marie
and he turned the hay. This enraged
Black Donald. " The girl's daft on the
Frenchman," he said one night to Tim.
That gentleman was mending a pair of
shoe-packs beside a smoky coal-oil lamp.
" Maggie's a fine girl," said he.

" And what for do you say that ? "

" Because you are too coarse, Donald ;
if you were educated, now, you might
carry on the negotiations in French
with Frenchy ; and there's no telling
what would come of it."

"Come of it— I'll French him. I'll
talk to him in a language he can under-
stand. I'll fire his hay for him, and see
how he likes that."

There was a silence, broken only by
the pulling of Tim's threads, and Don-
ald's hard breathing. " That mightn't
be a bad idea," said the former, quietly ;
" to warm him up a bit." But no
more was said about it, and Black Don-
ald went off to Baltimore in a rage with
Maggie.

Gabriel had built his stack in the
field and was cutting his last hay ; when
he had circled round a charred stump
and had cut the hay clean away from it,
he noticed a piece of paper pinned there.
He j)ulled it off ; there was writing on
it ; English writing. Gabriel put it in
his hat and showed it to Marie. She
read it to him. " Look out, Mr. Lavo-
let, watch that hay, that's wat's the ma-
ter, it may get skorchd."

" It means that they'll burn the stack.
Oh, Gabriel ! "

" They'll burn the stack, will they ;
well, let them try, that's all. I can't sit
out there and watch it all night, but if
they burn my hay — "' and here he
brought his fist down on the table,
thinking of all the work he had had
with it ; but he did not finish his threat.
Every morning at gray daylight he
walked out to his field ; but two weeks
passed and no sign of fire was on the
stack.

Marie used to go out and help Ga-
briel with his work ; she was so lonely.

" I wish you'd sing a bit," he said.

"Gabriel, I couldn't sing."

" Sing now ' Sur le pont d' Avignon.' "
He tried to start it himself ; she joined

in and he let her finish it alone. " That's
good," he smiled ; but Marie com-
menced to cry. Gabriel went on with
his work bitterly.

When Marie went home to get sup-
per, she found a scrap of paper j)inned
to the door. She read it with her hand
on the latch. " Missus, your little kid
ant drown, that's all ; if you go of that
land that's all right, but if you don't
go he's safe enuf, but you won't hav
him."

Marie hung to the door for support ;
then she went in and had to sit down,
trembling all over. She went about
her work wildly. Now she was all for
giving uj) the land. "I'll have him
back," her heart cried, " my little boy :
I'll have him back again." She let
Gabriel sit at his supper for a minute
as if nothing had happened, then she
cried out — " He's alive. Desire isn't
drowned ! " He thought she had gone
crazy. She went on, leaving her place
and going over to him. " There, this
paper says so ; I can have him back if
we only leave the land and let them
have it."

" The land ? " cried Gabriel, with an
angry accent.

" Oh, Gabriel, what's the good of the
land to us without Desire ! Let them
have it."

" The land ? Let who have it ? "

"The Black Donald and the little
man."

" Never, I'll never let them have it."

Marie tried to coax him, but he
would not hear. He was angry, and
struck the table, and broke his dish.
"You women are ahvays talking," he
said ; and then he w^as silent.

He did not eat a thing, but Marie sat
and watched him thinking. He walked
up and down for a while, and then went
out. As it was getting quite dark,
Marie lit a candle. It threw^ a light on
Gabriel, who came in carrying Desire's
cradle and the w^ooden horse. Marie
flung her arms around his neck and
commenced to cry softly ; she thought
" He has made up his mind to sell the
land." When she asked him that, he
said, "No, I am going to have Desire,
and I am not going to sell the land."
Then a terrible look came into his eyes,
and he w^alked to and fro and then

THE TRIUMPH OF MARIE LAyiOLETTE.

237

stood and glared at tlie floor, with Lis Avas answered from the bhick hill, re-
hands in his pockets. Marie was bounding across the rapids. Marie
frightened when she saw him take uj^ kept close to Gabriel, who walked fast ;

^-iO

She read it with her hand on the latch.'

his hat ; she put herself against the
door.

" I am going to get Desire," he said.
She could not keep him, but she
snatched her shawl, threw it over her
head, and followed. It was bright star-
light ; a whippoorwill in the dark
woods gave his notes boldly ; his call

she w^anted to say something to him
about being careful, but she wanted to
get Desire and she did not know what
to say. Just as they got to the door
she touched him on the shoulder. He
did not feel her ; he struck the door
with his fist and shoved it open.

The room was dimlv lighted ; bv the

238

THE TRIUMPH OF MARIE LAJ/IOLETTE.

stove, in which a little fire was burning,
Tim sat hunched together smoking ;
Black Donald was smootliing a whij:)-
handle ; Maggie was hidden in the
shadow.

" I want my boy," said Gabriel.

No one spoke for a moment ; then
Tim glanced up at Black Donald. " He
wants his boy, jou know ! "

" What have I got to do with his
boy ? "

" One of you devils has got my little
boy, Desire, and I have come to have
him or I want to know the reason."

"Your little boy ain't here, mister."

" He is, or you've got him some-
w^here, and I'm going to have him, or
else I'll kill somebody before I move
out of here."

"I guess," said Black Donald, put-
ting down the stick and rising slowly
to his full height, "you'd better kill
me."

Marie, standing by the door, gave a
little moan, and hid her face in her
shawl. Gabriel stood with his hands
by his side as Black Donald came on.

"You'd better go away, Mr. Lavi-
let," he said, reaching out one big hand
for his shoulder. Gabriel tossed it
aside and stepped back. Black Donald
hit down on him and broke through
his guard. Gabriel staggered, but re-
covered himself, and gathering all his
force, sprang and struck at the same
time. Black Donald flew off his feet
and fell crashing into the stove, knock-
ing it off its legs ; the pipes came down
with a clatter. He did not move. Mag-
gie was down over him, holding up his
head ; her hand showed some blood.

"You'd better get away before you
kill me," said Tim, who was bringing
some water in a dish.

Gabriel strode out past Marie ; she
followed him, but just on the threshold
she turned about and called, "Desire!
Desire ! " very clearly ; but there was
no answer. She cast a glance at the
group by the dismantled stove ; a thin
smoke from the fire was ascending into
the room and travelling along the raft-
ers ; the wounded man lay immova-
ble.

The night was as clear as before, only
the whippoorwill had come over the
river and was in the woods, and the two

birds moved al)out, singing monoto-
nously. The rapids roared below the
black hill, with no sound beyond.

Gabriel owned he had spoiled every-
thing by fighting. "Now we'll never
get him l)ack," he said, moodily. Marie
turned white ; she could not blame him,
because she had let him go without try-
ing to hold him.

One night, just a week after his fight
with Black Donald, Gabriel woke up to
see a glow on the wall. He sprang out
of bed and looked from the window ;
there w^as a glare in the sky. Marie
sprang up and lit a candle.

" That's the hay, sure," said Gabriel,
as he struggled into his clothes. He
snatched his gun and ran out. Marie
bolted the door and put out the can-
dle ; then she sat and cried ; and the
fire on the wall swelled and wavered
through her tears. When Gabriel got
to the stack it was burning up straight
into the air. He could do nothing ; he
stood and watched it blaze. Gradually
it smouldered down, and in a transport
of rage, he fired his gun into the woods.
An owl commenced to hoot, and he went
home, half blinded, through the dark.

Black Donald had set fire to the hay ;
Tim did not try to prevent him, and
Maggie could not. He went about with
his head tied up in a red handkerchief,
and he swore, as deep as he knew, not
to take it off until he had his revenge.
But the burning of the stack did not
satisfy him.

" I must have a shot at him, " he growled
to himself. He was still angrj^ at Mag-
gie. One night she went out and did
not come back until late ; this time he
was furious and commenced to break
things like a child. Tim got up on one
of the highest bunks and kept perfect-
ly still, while Donald raged underneath.
When the girl came in, he sat down still
for a while, then he said, quietly enough :
" Where have you been ? "

"That's none of your business," she
said.

He leaped up and caught her around
the neck. Tim raised a doleful howl
from the bunk, and, as Donald w^as
near enough, he threw a blanket over
his head. He let Maggie go and threw
off' the blanket ; then he pulled Tim
down, threw him on the floor, and stood

240

THE TRIUMPH OF MARIE LAyiOLETTE.

over him for a minute. Tlieii lie went
out and did not come back that night.

Marie could neither sleep nor eat ; she
thought of Desire all the time. Gabriel,
too, had become morose ; he walked
about with a frown, looking at the
ground. He found that a bear had
come into his oats one night, and he
had built a little stand by a stump, and
for two or three nights had sat there
watching for him, and thinking all the
time how he could get Desire back.
Black Donald knew he was watching
for the bear. He said to Tim, when
he thought that Maggie was nowhere
about :

" I must have a shot at him ; there's
no use. He's down there every night
watching his oats. I must have a shot
at him, that's all there is to it." His
eyes were bloodshot, and he broke his
pipe- stem in his teeth.

Gabriel had been half wild all that
day because Marie would do nothing
but cry, and his fighting mood came
over him again. " To-night," he said
to himself, "I'll leave the bear alone,
but I'll have Desire back."

"I'm going out to watch the oats,"
he said to Marie, and when it was dark-
er he slipped away. When he had been
gone some time she noticed he had not
taken his gun. She was frightened
when she thought the bear might come

Gabriel had waited for the bear. She
laid down on the stand and waited,
but Gabriel did not come. After an
hour she heard things breaking in the
woods.

" That's Donald," she thought. But he
had been watching her for a long while.
The moon Avas shining dimly behind a
cloud. He leaned against a tree, and
every little Avhile he would raise his
gun and take aim ; but he did not shoot.
" That thing's too white for the French-
man," he thought. The crashing in the
bush grew^ louder, and then ceased al-
together. Suddenly a huge black bear
came swinging down into the oats. He
rolled about and pulled them down with
his paws. Maggie watched him and
drew a knife she had with her. Sud-
denly the bear rose up and came by
just beside the stand. Maggie leaned
over and struck down on him. The
knife w^ent in between his shoulder-
blades, but her blow was not strong
enough, and she had lost her balance,
and fell almost over on the bear. He
gave a growl, and as she tried to re-
cover herself he rose and pulled her off
the stand. She tried to cry out, and
struggled with him. Just then Marie
came up with the gun ; she thought it
was Gabriel struggling with the bear.
" Gabriel ! " she screamed ; " Gabriel ! "
and she thought it was all over with him.

A curious procession took its way dovvri the steep road.

in when Gabriel had no gun ; so she
took it up and went off to the oat-field.
So soon as it had got dark, Mag-
gie had stolen away from the shanty,
and had gone down to the place where

But she put the muzzle up to the bear
and fired. He swayed for a moment, and
then fell over, and commenced to strug-
gle about in the oats.

Maggie was badlv torn, but she tried

THE TRIUMPH OF MARIE LAl^IOLETTE,

241

to sit up. Marie shredded her apron
into strips and bound up her arm.
Then Black Donald appeared above
them, looking like a demon in the half
light. Maggie made him take the hand-
kerchief off his head to bind her wrist ;
he looked about for Gabriel and then
pulled it off.

"I won't forget you, missis," said Mag-
gie, as she walked away holding to Black
Donald.

Marie waited until they had gone a
little way, then she left the gun and
the bear and fled.

When Black Donald and Maggie got
home they found Tim tied to his chair
and the room in disorder. He was going
to say: "Frenchy's been here, and he's
gone crazy ; " but he saw how pale
Maggie was and the blood on her dress.
Gabriel had tied him in his chair, and
had ransacked the room ; but he did
not find Desire.

Marie was sure now they would never
get him back ; but Gabriel was curing
the bear's skin. "It will make a coat
for Desire," he said.

"I believe he's drowned all the time,"
moaned Marie, " and they just said he
was alive to make us give up the land."

Gabriel commenced to take in the
oats ; it was a fine crop, close and
strong, and stood above the lake on the
clear land. From a distance it looked
like a wedge of gold driven into the for-
est. Marie worked with him, binding
it and loading it on the cart. She could
not sing, although Gabriel wanted her
to, and would say : " Come now, ' Sur
le Pont d' Avignon.' " But when she
would not, he would go on working as
though he was never going to leave off,
until the sweat ran into his eyes. Ma-
rie always went home early to get the
meals. One evening she went back to
get supper. It was raining across the
river, and a great rainbow sprang up,
hardly touching the plain with one of
its delicate wavering feet, curving
grandly with deepened and gorgeous
colors against the black cloud, until
the hill cut it off. Marie looked at it,
with a hand on the latch, and then she
pushed the door ; but there was some-
thing against it. Desire had taken to
his feet, had pushed a chair all across

the room, and was holding it against
the door. When his mother overcame
the soft resistance, he laughed up in
her face. There he was in his little
pink dress, the same as the day she lost
him, only bigger and stronger. When
Gabriel came home supj)er was not
ready ; but Marie, when she heard him
coming, jout Desire in his cradle and
threw the bear-skin over him, and when
Gabriel came in he stood up just as if
he had been told, and his father had to
catch him to keep him from falling out
of the cradle.

That night when Marie undressed De-
sire she found a piece of paper pinned
to his dress. She read there, printed
with a pencil, these words :

" Dear Missis : What did I tell you ?
You safed my lif. I g'e's ^^our lit'le kid
is al' rite. There's fosfates on your place,
that's the reason why. My dad ses it's
worth a pot. ■ Tel' your man to go back
by the old road and by the end of the
lak'. The show is there. That's all
We're going to get out.

"Maggie O'Mara."

The next day Gabriel went back to
see the " show," and Marie went with
him, and carried Desire all the way ;
but his father had to bring him back,
he had grown so heavy.

A week after this, a curious proces-
sion took its way down the steep road ;
first came Black Donald, carrying a
canoe on his back ; then came a wagon
drawn by an ox and a horse ; in the
centre of the wagon a table was turned
with its legs in the air ; between these
sat Maggie on a feather-bed and some
brightly-colored quilts. She had her
eyes half closed, her arm was bandaged,
her face was rather pale and wore a con-
temptuous expression as she leaned
back against one of the table-legs. Tim
brought up the rear, with a pipe in his
mouth, his hands m his pockets, and a
whip under his arm, the lash of which
trailed on the ground. It had been
raining all day and the road was muddy ;
water lay in the ruts. Gradually the
clouds roUed off, and the night came,
still and very clear, with many stars
over the black hill, and the rapids roar-
ing loudly through the dark.

Vol. XIL— 26

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS.

By Kate Douglas IViggin.

I

my
the
his
said

HE subject of chil-
dren's rights does
not provoke much
sentimentalism in
this country, at this
time, where, as some-
body says, the present
problem of the children
is the painless extinc-
tion of their elders,
interviewed the man who washes
windows, the other morning, with
purpose of getting at the level of
mind in the matter. " Dennis," I
, as he was polishing the glass, "I
an article on the ' Rierhts

am writing
of Children,' what do you think about
it ? " Dennis carried his forefinger to
his head in search of an idea, for he is
not accustomed to having his intelli-
gence so violently assaulted, and after
a moment's puzzled thought, he said,
" What do I think about it, mum ?
Why I think we'd ought to give 'em to
"em. But Lor', mum, if we don't they
take 'em, so what's the odds ? " As he
left the room I thought he looked pained
that I should spin words and squander
ink on such a topic.

The French dressmaker was my next
victim. As she fitted the collar of an
effete civilization on my nineteenth cen-
tury neck, I put the same question
given to Deimis.

" The rights of the child, Madame ? "
she asked, her scissors poised in air.

" Yes, the rights of the child."

"Is it of the American child, Ma-
dame ? "

"Yes," said I, nervously, "of the
American child."

" 3[on Dieu ! he has them ! " — which
leads us to take up the question of rights
vs. privileges.

A multitude of privileges, or rather
indulgences, can exist with a total dis-
regard of the child's rights. You re-
member the man who said he could do
without necessities if you would give
him luxuries enough. The child might
say, " I will forego all my privileges, if
you will only give me my rights : a lit-
tle less sentiment, please, more justice ! "
There are women who live in perfect
puddles of maternal love, who yet seem
incapable of justice ; generous to a fault,
perhaps, but seldom just.

Who owns the child ? If the parent
owns him — mind, body, and soul — we
must adopt one line of argument ; if, as
a free-will human being, he owns him-
self, we must adopt another. In my
thought the parent is simply a divinely
appointed guardian who acts for his
child until he attains what we call the
age of discretion, that highly uncertain
period which arrives very late in life
with some persons and never arrives at
all with others.

The rights of the parent being almost
unlimited, it is a very delicate matter to
decide just when and where they in-
fringe upon the rights of the child.
There is no standard ; the child is the
creature of circumstances.

The mother can clothe him in Jaeger
wool from head to foot, or keep him in
low neck, short sleeves, and low stock-

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS.

243

ings because she thinks it pretty ; she
can feed him exclusively on raw beef, or
on vegetables, or on cereals ; she can
give him milk to drink or let him sij)
his father's beer or wine ; put him to
bed at sundown or keep him up till
midnight ; teacli him the Catechism and
the Thirty-nine Articles, or tell him that
there is no God ; she can cram him with
facts before he has any appetite or power
of assimilation ; or she can make a fool
of him. She can dose him with old-
school remedies, w^ith new-school reme-
dies, or she can let him die without
remedies, because she doesn't believe
in the reality of disease. She is quite
willing to legislate for his stomach, his
mind, his soul ; her teachableness, it
goes without saying, being generally in
inverse proportion to her knowledge ;
for the arrogance of science is humility
compared with the pride of ignorance.

In these matters the child has no
rights. The only safeguard is the fact
that if parents are absolutely brutal, so-
ciety steps in, removes the untrust-
worthy guardian and appoints another.
But society does nothing, can do noth-
ing, with the i^arent who injures the
child's soul, breaks his will, makes him
grow up a liar or a coward, murders his
faith !

And it is not so very long since we de-
cided that when a parent did brutally
abuse his child, it could be taken from
him and made the ward of the state ;
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Children is of later date than the So-
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals.

At a distance of a century and a half
we can hardly estimate how powerful a
blow Rousseau struck for the rights of
the child in his educational romance,
" Emile." It was a sort of Gospel in its
day ; Rousseau, once arrested and exiled,
and his book burned by the executioner
(a few years before he would have been
burned with it), his ideas naturally be-
came a craze. Many of the reforms for
"which he so passionately pleaded are so
much a part of our modern thought that
we do not realize the fact that in that
day of routine and pedantry and slavish
worship of authority, they were the dar-
ing dreams of an enthusiast, the seem-
ing impossible prophecy of a new era.

Aristocratic mothers were converts to
his theories, and began nursing their
children as he commanded them.
Great lords began to learn handicrafts ;
physical exercise came into vogue ;
everything that Emile did, other people
longed to do.

With all Rousseau's vagaries, oddities,
misconceptions, posings, he rescued the
individuahty of the child and made a
tremendous j^lea for a more natural, a
more human education. He succeeded
in making people listen where Rabelais
and Montaigne had failed, and he in-
spired other educators, notably Pesta-
lozzi and Froebel, who knit up his
ragged seams of theory, and translated
his dreams into possibilities.

Rousseau vindicated to man the right
of "being." Pestalozzi said "Grow!"
Froebel, the greatest of the three, cried
" Live ! you give bread to men, but I
give men to themselves."

The parent whose sole answer to
criticism or remonstrance is, " I have a
right to do what I like with my ow^n
child ! " is the only impossible parent.
His moral integument is too thick to be
pierced with any shaft however keen.
To him we can only say as Jacques did
to Orlando, "God be with you ; let's
meet as little as we can."

But most of us dare not take this
ground. We may not philosophize or
formulate, we may not live up to our
theories, but we feel in greater or less
degree the responsibility of calling a
human being hither, and the necessity
of guarding and guiding, in one way or
another, that which owes its being to
us.

We should all agree if put to the vote
that a child has a right to be well born.
That was a trenchant speech of Henry
Ward Beecher on the subject of being-
born again ; that if he could be born
right the first time he'd take his chances
on the second. " Hereditary rank," says
Washington Irving, " may be a snare
and a delusion, but hereditary virtue is
a patent of innate nobility which far
outshines the blazonry of heraldry."

Over the unborn our power is almost
that of God, and our responsibility, like
His toward us ; as w^e acquit ourselves
toward them, so let Him deal with us.

Why should we be astonished at the

244

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS.

warped, cold, unhappy, suspicious nat-
ures we see about us, when we reflect
upon the number of unwished-for, un-
welcomed children in the world ; chil-
dren who at best were never loved until
they were seen and known, and often
grudged their being from the moment
they began to be. I wonder if some-
times a starved, crippled agonized hu-
man body and soul does not cry out :
" Why, O man, O woman, why, being
what I am, have you suffered me to be !"

Physiologists and psychologists agree
that the inflaences affecting the child
begin before birth. At what hour they
begin, how far they can be controlled,
and how far directed and modified,
modern science is not assured ; but I
imagine those months of preparation
were given for other reasons than that
the cradle and the basket, and the ward-
robe might be ready ; those long months
of supreme patience when a host of
mj'sterious influences, messages and im-
pulses are being carried silently, from
mother to child. And if " beauty born
of murmuring sound shall pass into "
its face, how much more subtly shall
the grave strength of peace, the sun-
shine of hope and sweet content, thrill
the delicate chords of being and warm
the tender seedKng into richer life.

Mrs. Stoddard speaks of that sacred
passion, maternal love, that " like an
orange - tree buds and blossoms and
bears at once." When a true woman
puts her finger for the first time into
the tiny hand of her baby, and feels
that helpless clutch which tightens her
very heart-strings, she is born again
with the new-born child. A mother has
a sacred claim on the world ; even if
that claim rest solely on the fact of her
motherhood, and not on any other. Her
life may be a cipher, but when the child
comes God writes a figure before it, and
gives it value.

When the child is born, one of his
inalienable rights, which we too often
deny him, is the right to his childhood.

If we could only keep from untwist-
ing the morning-glory, only be willing to
let the sunshine do it. Dickens said
real children went out with powder and
top-boots ; and yet the children of
Dickens's time were simple buds com-
pared with the full-blown miracles of

conventionality and enidition we raise
nowadays.

There is no substitute for a genuine,
free, serene, health}^ bread-and-butter
childhood. A fine manhood or woman-
hood can be built on no other founda-
tion ; and yet our American homes are
so often filled with hurry and worry, our
manner of living is so keyed to conceii;
pitch, our plan of existence so compli-
cated, that we drag the babies along in
our wake, and force them to our arti-
ficial standards, forgetting that " sweet
flowers are slow, and weeds make haste."
If we must, or fancy that we must,
lead this false, too-feverish life, let us
at least spare them ! By keeping them
forever on tiptoe we are in danger of
producing an army of conventional little
prigs, who know much more than they
should know about matters which are
profitless even to their elders.

In the matter of clothing we sacrifice
children continually to the " Moloch of
maternal vanity," as if the demon of
dress did not demand our attention, sap
our energy, and thwart our activities
soon enough at best. And the right
kind of children, before they are spoiled
by fine feathers, do so detest being
dressed beyond a certain point.

A tiny maid of my acquaintance has
an elaborate Parisian gown, which is
fastened on the side from top to bottom,
in some mysterious fashion, by a multi-
tude of tiny buttons and cords. It fits
the dear little slab like a glove, and ter-
minates in a collar which is an instru-
ment of torture to a person whose pa-
tience has not been developed from year
to year by similar trials. The getting
of it on is anguish, and as to the get-
ting of it off, I heard her moan to her
nurse the other night, as she wriggled
her curly head through the too-small exit
— " Oh ! only God knows how I hate
gettin' peeled out o' this dress ! "

The spectacle of a small boy whom
one meets sometimes in the horse-cars,
under the wing of his predestinate idiot
of a mother, wrings one's very soul.
Silk hat, ruffled shirt, silver-buckled
shoes, kid-gloves, cane, velvet suit with
one two-inch pocket w-hich is an insult
to his sex, how one pities the pathetic
little caricature ! Not a spot has he
for a top, or a marble, or a nail, or

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS. 245

a string, or a knife, or a cake, or a light and liberty, when busy or at rest."

nut ; but as a bloodless substitute for But we might make it a little less arti-

these necessities of existence, he has a ticial than we do, perhaps,

toy watch (that will not go) and an em- Take the question of toys for instance,

broided handkerchief with cologne on Every thoughtful person knows that the

it. simple, natural playthings of the old-

As to keeping children too clean for fashioned child, or the country child,

any mortal use, I don't suppose any- which are nothing more than pegs on

thing is more disastrous. The divine which he hangs his glowing fancies, are

right to be gloriously dirty a large por- healthier than our complicated modern

tion of the time, when dirt is a necessary mechanisms, in which the child has only

consequence of direct, useful, friendly to "press the button" and the toy

contact Avith all sorts of interesting, " does the rest."

helpful things, is too clear to be denied. The electric talking doll, for exam-

The children who have to think of pie ; imagine a generation of children

their clothes before playing with the brought up on that ! And the toy mak-

dogs, digging in the sand, helping the ers are not even content with this grand

stableman, working in the shed, building personage, four feet high, who says,

a bridge, or weeding the garden, never "Papa ! Mamma ! " She is j^cissee al-

get half their legitimate enjoyment out ready ; they have begun to improve on

of life. And oh ! unhappy fate, do not her ! An electrician described to me

many of us have to bring up children the other day a superb, new, altruistic

without a vestige of a dog, or a sand doll fitted to the needs of the present

heap, or a stable, or a shed, or a brook, decade. You are to press a judiciously-

or a garden ! Conceive, if you can, a located button and ask her the test

more difficult problem than giving a question, which is, if she will have some

child his rights in a city flat. You may candy ; whereupon, with an angelic

say that neither do we get ours; but detached -movement -smile (located in

bad as we are we are always good enough the left cheek), she is to answer, "Give

to wish for our children the joys we brother big piece ; give me little piece ! "

miss ourselves. If the thing gets out of order (and I

Thrice happy is the country child, or devoutly hope it will), it will doubtless
the one who can spend a part of his return to a state of nature, and horrify
young life among living things, near to the bystanders by remarking, " Give me
Nature's heart. How blessed is the big piece ! Give brother little piece ! '
little toddling thing, who can lie flat in Think of having a gilded dummy like
the sunshine and drink in the beauty of that given you to amuse yourself with,
the " green things growing;" who can Think of having to play, to play, for-
live among the other little animals, his sooth, with a model of proj^riety, a high-
brothers and sisters in feathers and minded monstrosity like that ! Doesn't
fur ; who can put his hand in that of it make j'ou long for your dear old
dear mother Nature and learn his first darkey doll with the ravelled mouth, and
baby lessons without any meddlesome the stuffing leaking out of her legs ; or
middleman ; who is cradled in sweet your beloved Arabella Clarinda with
sounds " from early morn to dewy eve ; " the broken nose, beautiful even in dis-
lulled to his morning nap by hum of solution, creatures " not too bright and
crickets and bees, and to his night's good for human nature's daily food ? "
slumber by the sighing of the wind, the Banged, battered, hairless, sharers of
plash of waves, or the ripple of a river, our mad joys and reckless sorrows, how
He is a part of the " shining web of we loved them in their simple ugliness !
creation," learning to spell out the uni- With what halos of romance we sur-
verse letter by letter, as he grows sweet- rounded them ! With what devotion
ly, serenely, into a knowledge of its we nursed the one with the broken
laws. head, in those early days when new

It is easy to see that the hurlyburly heads were not to be bought at the

of our city life is not wholly favorable nearest shop. And even if they could

to the simple creed of childhood " de- have been got foi* us, would we, the
Vol. XIL— 27

24G

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS.

primitive children of those clear, dark
ages, have ever thought of wrenching
off the cracked blonde head of Ethe-
linda and buying a new, strange, name-
less, brunette head, and gluing it calm-
ly on to Ethelinda's body, as a small ac-
quaintance of mine did last week, appar-
ently without a single pang ? Never !
A doll had a personality in those times
and has yet to a few simple backwoods
souls even in this day and generation.
Think of Charles Kingsley's song, "I
once had a sweet little doll, dears." Can
we imagine that as being written about
one of these modern monstrosities with
eyeglasses and corsets and vinaigrettes !

"I once liad a sweet little doll, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world ;
Her face was so pink and so white, dears,
And her hair was so charmingly curled.
But I lost my sweet little doll, dears.
As I played on the heatli one day,
And I cried for her more than a week, dears ;
But I never could find where she lay.
I found my poor little doll, dears,
As I played on the heath one day ;
Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,
For her paint is all washed away,
And her arms trodden off by the cows, dears,
And her hair not the least bit curled :
Yet for old sake's sake she is still, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world."

One has a good deal of sympathy for
the little people during their first eight
or ten years when they are just beginning
to learn life-lessons, and when the laws
which govern them must often seem so
strange and unjust. It is not an occa-
sion for a big burning sympathy, per-
haps, but for a tender little one with a
half smile in it, as we remember what
we were, and " what in young clothes
we hoped to be," and how many things
have come across; for. childhood is an
eternal promise which no man ever
keeps.

The child has a right to a place of his
own, to things of his own., to surround-
ings which have some relation to his
size, his desires, and his capabilities.

How should we like to live, half the
time, in a place where the piano was
twelve feet tall, the door knobs at an
impossible height, and the mantel-shelf
in the sky ; where every mortal thing
was out of reach except a lot of highly
interesting objects on dressing-tables

and bureaus, which, however, would be
guarded by giants and giantesses, three
times as large and powerful as ourselves,
who would say, " mustn't touch ; " and if
we did touch we should be spanked and
have no other method of revenge save
to spank back symbolically on the inof-
fensive persons of our dolls ?

My little nephew was prowling about
my library during the absence of his
nurse. I was busy writing, and when
he took up a delicate pearl opera-glass,
I stopped his investigations with the
time-honored, " No, no, dear, that's for
grown-up people."

" Hasn't it got any little boy end ? "
he asked, wistfully.

That "little-boy end" to things is
sometimes just what we fail to give,
even when we think we have been strain-
ing every nerve to surround the child
with pleasures. For children really
want to do the very same things that we
want to do, and yet have constantly' to
be thwarted for their own good. They
would really like to share all our pleas-
ures ; keep the same hours, eat the
same food ; but they are met on every
side with the seemingly impertinent
pieces of dogmatism, " It isn't good for
little boys," or "It isn't nice for little
girls."

Robert Louis Stevenson shows in his
" Child's Garden of Verses," that he is
one of the very few people who remem-
ber and appreciate this phase of child-
hood. Could anything be more de-
liciously real than these verses ?

" In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle light ;
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people "s feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you.
That when the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
I have to go to bed by day ? "

Again, the child has a right to more
justice in his discipline than we are gen-
erally wise and patient enough to give
him. He is, by and by, to come in con-
tact with a world where cause and efifect
follow each other inexorably. He has a
right to be taught, and to be governed

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS.

247

by the laws under which he afterward
must hve ; but in too many cases par-
ents interfere so mischievously and un-
necessarily between causes and effects,
that the child's mind does not, can-
not, perceive the logic of things as it
might. We might write a pathetic re-
monstrance against the Decline and Fall
of Domestic Authority. There is food
for thought, and perhaps for fear in the
subject, but the facts are obvious, and
their inevitableness must strike any
thoughtful observer of the times. " The
old educational regime was akin to the
social systems with which it was con-
temporaneous ; and, similarly, in the
reverse of these characteristics our mod-
ern modes of culture correspond to our
more liberal religious and political in-
stitutions."

It is the age of independent criticism.
The child problem is merely one phase
of the universal problem that confronts
society. It seems likely that the rod of
reason will have to replace the rod of
birch. Parental authority never used
to be called into question ; but neither
was the Catechism, nor the Bible, nor
the minister. How should parents hope
to escape the universal interrogation
point which is levelled at every thing
else ? In these days of free speech it is
hopeless to suppose that even infants
can be muzzled. We revel in our re-
publican virtues ; let us accept the vices
of those virtues as philosophically as
possible.

A lady has been advertising in a cer-
tain weekly journal, for a German gov-
erness " to mind a littJle girl three years
old." The lady's English is doubtless
defective, but the fate of the governess
is thereby indicated with much greater
candor than is usual.

The mother who is most apt to in-
fringe on the rights of her child (of
course with the best intentions) is the
firm person, afflicted with the "lust of
dominion." There is no elasticity in
her firmness to prevent it from degen-
erating into obstinacy. It is not the
firmness of the tree, that bends without
breaking, but the firmness of a certain
long-eared animal whose force of char-
acter has impressed itself on the com-
mon mind and become proverbial.

Jean Paul says if ''pas trop gouverner "

is the best rule in politics, it is equally
true of discipline.

But if the child is unhappy who has
none of his rights respected, equally
wretched is the littla despot who has
more than his own rights, who has never
been taught to respect the rights of
others, and w^hose only conception of
the universe is that it is an absolute
monarchy of which he is sole ruler.

*' Children rarely love those who spoil
them and never trust them. Their keen
young sense detects the false note ir
the character and draws its own conclu-
sions which are generally very just."

The very best theoretical statement
of a wise disciplinary method that I
know, is Herbert Spencer's : " Let the
history of your domestic rule typify, in
little, the history of our political rule ;
at the outset, autocratic control, where
control is really needful ; by and by an
incipient constitutionaHsm, in which the
liberty of the subject gains some express
recognition ; successive extensions of
this liberty of the subject, gradually
ending in parental abdication."

We must not expect children to be
too good ; not any better than we are
ourselves, for example ; no, nor even
as good. Beware of hothouse virtue.
" Already most people recognize the
detrimental results of intellectual pre-
cocity ; but there remains to be recog-
nized the truth that there is a moral
precocity which is also detrimental.
Our higher moral faculties, like our
higher intellectual ones, are compara-
tively complex. By consequence they
are both comparatively late in their
evolution. And with the one as with
the other, a very early activity produced
by stimulation will be at the expense of
the future character."

In these matters the child has a right
to expect examples. He lives in the
senses ; he can only learn through ob-
ject lessons, can only pass from the con-
crete example of goodness to a vision of
abstract perfection.

" O'er wayward childhood would' st thou hold

firm rule,
And sun thee in the light of happy faces ;
Love, Hope and Patience, these must be thy

graces,
And in thine own heart let them first keep

school.''

248

A LITTLE PARABLE,

Yes, " in thine own heart let them
first keep school ! " I cannot see why
Max O'Rell should have exclaimed with
such unction that if he were to be born
over again he would choose to be an
American woman. He never has tried
being one. He doesn't realize that she
not only has in hand (generally) the
emancipation of the American woman,
but the reformation of the American
man and the education of the American
child. If that triangular mission in
life does not keep her out of mischief
and make her the angel of the twentieth
century, she is a hopeless case.

Spencer says, " It is a truth yet re-
maining to be recognized that the last
stage in the mental development of each
man and woman is to be reached only
through the proper discharge of the
parental duties. And when this truth
is recognized it will be seen how admir-
able is the ordination in virtue of which
human beings are led by their strongest
affections to subject themselves to a dis-

cipline which they would else elude."
Women have been fighting many battles
for the " higher education " these last
few years ; and they have nearly gained
the day. When at last complete victory
shall perch upon their banners, let us
hope they will make one more struggle,
and that for the liighest education, which
includes a specific training for parent-
hood, a subject thus far quite omitted
from the curriculum.

The mistaken idea that instinct is a
sufficient guide in so delicate and sacred
and vital a matter, the comfortable su-
perstition that babies bring their own di-
rections with them, are fictions that have
existed long enough. If a girl asks me
why, since the function of parenthood
is so uncertain, should she make the
sacrifices necessary to such training,
sacrifices entailed by this highest educa-
tion of body, mind, and spirit, I can only
say that it is better to be ready, even if
you are not called for, than to be called
for and found wanting.

A LITTLE PARABLE.
By Anne Reeve Aldrich.

I MADE the cross myself, whose weight

Was later laid on me.
This thought adds anguish as I toil

Up life's steep Calvary.

To think mine own hands drove the nails !

I sang a merry song.
And chose the heaviest wood I had

To build it firm and strong.

If I had guessed — if I had dreamed
Its weight was meant for me,

I should have built a lighter cross
To bear up Calvary !

HOW I SENT MY AUNT TO BALTIMORE.

A TEUE STOKY.

By Charles Stewart Davison.

*VERY well-regulated
^ New Engiander is, or
should be, possessed
of at least three maid-
en aunts, whose ages,
by the way, never by
any possibility, aggre-
gate less than one
hundred and ninety -five to two hun-
dred and forty years. While not de-
siring to arrogate to myself any supe-
riority in this respect over the average
descendant of the pilgrim fathers, I
can, or rather could, at the time when
the events hereinafter detailed occurred,
have laid claim to this distinctive badge
of Puritan descent. In the course of
events, which may possibly be regarded
as natural, the oldest of my three aunts,
then a frail and deHcate old lady of
about seventy-four, became (some six
years since) overwhelmed with a desire
to travel. Her first pilgrimage extend-
ed as far from the " centre of the uni-
verse " as Staten Island. After a brief
stay at our house she determined that
the next step in her peregrinations
should be to the house of a married sis-
ter residing in Baltimore. It being im-
possible, on account of other duties,
that any member of the family should
accompany her, I was delegated, as be-
ing the most experienced traveller and
the possessor of the greatest executive
abihty in the family, to see her safely
placed in some seat in some drawing-
room car, which should deposit her, if
not in the arms of her relatives in Mary-

land, at least in the Baltimore railroad
depot.

The enterprising Canadian, who now
rules the destinies of Staten Island, hav-
ing at that time not yet burst upon an
astounded community in the full and
effulgent glory of Rapid Transit, island-
ers were accustomed to visit the city of
New York at comparatively irregular,
but officially stated, periods. On con-
sideration, it seemed unnecessary to
leave Staten Island by a boat which
would afford opportunity for at the
very least fifty-five minutes reflection in
the railroad depot before train time,
and an alluring time-table promised a
much closer connection by the succeed-
ing boat. We therefore determined to
take it. It is needless to say that that
boat was five minutes late in starting,
unnecessary to add that at New York a
passing canal-boat delayed for a few
minutes our entrance into the ferry
slip ; and it surely was nothing more
than might be expected, that an ele-
vated train at South Ferry should leave
one end of the platform as we reached
the other. As a result, however, of
these wholly natural forces, we entered
the ferr^'-house on the New York side
of the North River with three minutes
to spare before the last boat which
would catch a fast through train, whose
intermediate stops were so few and
brief as not to deserve mention, would
leave. With the tendency which has
been well called " the gorgeous oriental-
ism of the Western mind," this train

250

HOIV I SENT MY AUNT TO BALTIMORE,

bore a special name which had become
famiHar as its designation to many ears,
including my own. From this fact
many troubles thereafter arose, as will
be seen. Fortunately, one thing was in
our favor, my aunt's trunk had pre-
ceded us, and, with a calm confidence
in the baggage system in vogue in this
country, it reposed on one end awaiting
its inevitable tagging, in front of the
baggage counter, as I had time to no-
tice while dashing into the ferry-house.
Cautioning my aunt under no circum-
stances to move until I returned, I
rushed to the ticket-office, tossed the
man a ten-dollar biU, and in my haste,
with the *train on my mind, mentioned
mechanically the name by which it was
known, and which included the name of
an intermediate city. It will be readily
seen how the name of the train she was
to travel by momentarily obliterated all
consciousness as to the objective point
of the journey.

I had just time enough to wonder, in
a semi-stupefied way, as to the amount
of change that was returned out of the
ten-dollar bill, while hurrying to the
baggage-room. There I silently exhib-
ited the ticket, was handed a check, and
rushed back to my aunt. I hurried her
through the gates, and we had a few
moments breathing time crossing the
river. Simultaneously, on our arrival
at the New Jersey side of the North
River, the gates leading to the train
were opened, and the stentorian guar-
dian of the portal recited, in unintelli-
gible tones, the names of most of the
railroad stations of the United States.
I found time, however, to get a seat-
ticket at the little window in the ex-
treme right-hand corner of the waiting-
room, where for the purpose of making
matters as inconvenient as possible, as it
momentarily seemed to me, those valua-
ble pieces of pasteboard were dealt out.
Fortunately, I noticed that the seat as-
signed on the little slip of card handed
me, was No. 25, in car No. 1. But here,
again, instead of asking for a seat to
any particular place, I silently exhibited
the railroad ticket which I had pur-
chased on the other side of the river.
We hurried through the gates, found
car No. 1, and placing my aunt in the
first vacant chair, I proceeded to look

for seat No. 25. As I turned from her
to do so, I noticed that the sides of the
station were gently shp2)ing past the
car. Asking the nearest person if it
was possible that the train had already
started, I received so unquaUfied an
affirmative response that no possible
doubt could remain. As the train's
first stop was a full hour away, and as I
had several matters needing attention
in New York, the conclusion was forced
upon me that extreme promptness
would alone procure their being duly
attended to. Selecting the nearest
traveller, I thrust into his hands my
aunt's railroad tickets, her little wicker
basket of lunch, and a novel purchased
at the elevated station ; asked him in
one breathless phrase to find her seat
for her, fled to the door, and jumped
from the steps as the train cleared the
end of the long station. After perform-
ing various agile contortions in the air,
with a view to an ultimate recovery of
equihbrium, I rested from my labors in
this respect and walked slowly back
along the platform, reflecting upon the
very unsatisfactory way in which I had
started her on her journey, and, natur-
ally, as anyone in contemplative mood
would, I thrust my hands into the pock-
ets of my overcoat. With gloomy fore-
bodings I extracted from one pocket a
strange object. It was my aunt's purse,
which I had taken from her that I might
for greater security put her trunk-check
in one of its compartments. This raised
a new doubt, if not a new complication.
It was clearly necessary to make certain
beyond peradventure that she should
be met on her arrival at her destina-
tion, since she had no money with her.
With this object in view, I made my
way to the telegraph window in the

station, secured a blank, and wrote ,

Esq., No. — Lexington Street, Balti-
more ? The pen dropped from my hand.
Photographed on the mental wall before
my inward eye aroused by this first
recognition of Baltimore as a distinct
entity, appealed the designation of the
train including the name of the inter-
mediate city. In a flash the superabun-
dance of change which I had received
at the ticket office became understanda-
ble. There could be no doubt. I had
started an elderly lady, totally inexperi-

HOIV I SENT MY AUNT TO BALTIMOKE,

251

enced in the ways of the world at large,
and of the travelling- world in particu-
lar, without money and without power
of reclaiming her trunk, with a ticket
and a seat only, to a point a couj^le of
hundred miles short of her destination.

Desperate cases need prompt action.

I had in mind but one idea, that if I
could hire a special locomotive I might
overtake the train at its first stopping
place.

Looking firmly at the telegraph oper-
ator, I said, " Has this road got any
superintendent ? "

''Yes."

" Where is he ? "

"Outside, to the right, upstairs."
And outside, to the right, upstairs, I
proceeded.

Opening a door, I came on several
clerks seated at desks, writing.

" Where is the superintendent ? "

" Through there," said one, pointing.
Through there I went.

I found a medium-sized room ; a
desk in the centre, a youngish man of
dark complexion and smooth - shaven
face ; a man not over thirty-five, of pleas-
ing impression and unruffled front, seat-
ed at it.

" Are you the superintendent ? "

*'Yes."

I sat down.

Looking at him with as much of ear-
nest entreaty, desperate resolve, alarm,
determination, and a few other qualities
as I could summon to my instant aid, I
said, without a breath or pause, " I have
just started an old lady inexperienced in
travelling who wants to go to Baltimore
with tickets only half-way and without
any money ; she is in car No. 1, seat 25."

Never yet have I seen a man rise so in-
stantly, so calmly, and so unconsciously
to the exact level of an occasion. He
smiled and touched a bell and said,
"That is all right. As long as she
does not get scared and get off the train,
we've got her. I will have them flag the
train, and tell the conductor to look out
for her." While he talked he wrote.
Almost instantly the door opened. A
messenger appeared. The message was
finished. It read, " Conductor, train
37. Elderly lady, car No. 1, seat 25.
Is to go through to Baltimore whether
she has tickets or not. Don't let her

leave the train." Handing the slip to
the messenger he turned to me and re-
peated, with a smile, "As long as we
have got her on the train she is all
right. Now," he said, continuing,
" we will telegraph to the agent at the
station at which her tickets expire, to
buy her a ticket on to Baltimore, and to
buy the same parlor-car seat she is now
in, on to Baltimore, and to take the
tickets to her on the train." In two
minutes the telegram was sent. " Now,"
he said, "we will telegraph the con-
ductor fully, at his first regular stop,
what the circumstances are. And,"
said he, turning again to me, "you say
she has no money." " I have her purse
here," I replied. " Well," he said, " we
will tell the conductor to hand her ten
dollars in change." While talking his
pen was busy. In a moment more he
read me a concise statement of the facts
of the case, addressed to the conductor
at the first way - station. This des-
patched, he sat back in his chair and re-
flected for a moment. " Now," he said,
pushing over to me a pad of paper and
a pencil, " she won't know what all this
means, and may get alarmed. Had you
not better send her a long conversational
telegram to be delivered on the train ? "

I wrote some twenty lines explaining
the situation, telling her that all she
need do was to remain in her seat until
the train reached Baltimore, that tickets
and money would be supplied to her,
that under no circumstances was she to
leave the train, and that I was over-
whelmed with sorrow at having so badly
arranged her journey. While writing
this telegram another door opened, and
a head and hand appeared through it.
The hand waved a little slip of yellow
paper, and the head said, " Conductor,
train 37, says. Elderly lady all right."
An enormous weight rolled from my
mind. The man who, so far as my pur-
view extended, controlled the destinies
of creation, then said, " Now, how are
you going to get her purse and trunk
check, which I see you have, to her ? "

"I thought of sending them by mail."
" Well, suppose you write her a note and
do it up with the purse in a package,
and I will send it down the line so she
can get it to-night. We have a wild-cat
engine going over the line in about half

252

HOIV I SENl^ MY AUNT TO BALTIMORE.

an hour." The resources of the road
seemed inexliaustible, and it is needless
to say that to this further extent I
availed myself of them. But before the
package was sealed, another idea had
occurred to the superintendent, who
indeed, I think, rather made a point
of showing me what the j^ossibiUties
of their system of management were.
" That trunk check," he said, " is only
for the same point as her tickets. What
is its number? " I told him. " Now,"
said he, " we will telegraph the baggage-
master there, that tliat piece of luggage,
though checked only to his point, is
not to be put off, but is to go on to
Baltimore, where it will be redeemed on
the original check."

Again his pen sought the invaluable
pad, and the final message was des-
patched.

With a general feeling that I had in-
curred anywhere from one to five thou-
sand dollars of expense, I inquired
in relation to this delicate question.
*' Well," said he, " now let me see.
The difference in fares is (referring to
a schedule) $3, the parlor -car seat is
$1. We gave her $10 in the train (ob-
serve the unconscious certainty with
which he spoke of that which he had
by telegraph ordered done being al-
ready the fact) that makes in all $14."
"But," I said, "is there no charge for
all these telegrams and the trouble that
tlie road has been put to in the mat-
ter? " " Oh, no," he said, " all these are
matters of detail ; " giving one the gen-
eral impression that " the road " stood
in loco paremtis to those who travelled
by it. With thanks which were sin-
cere, if not effusive, I was about leav-

ing, when again the head and yellow-
sHpped liancl a2)peared through the
door. " Ticket agent number nine-two-
three says, All right. Baggage-master
nundier four-four-five says. All right,"
and the head vanished. I came away
with the general stunned feeling which
we all experience when we run up
against an approximately perfect sys-
tem, working without hitch or delay.
On the succeeding evening I learned by
letter from my aunt that it had not
been mere appearance of efficiency. As
she expressed it, before she knew any-
thing was wrong, people kept bringing
her telegrams, and handing her money,
and saying that ever^^thing was all right.
The conductor came to her immediately
after the train was flagged, explained to
her that her tickets were accidentally
for the wrong place (of which she had
not become aware), but that she would
be carried on to Baltimore, and that
under no circumstances was she to
leave the car or the train. Came to
her again at the first stop and handed
her ten dollars. A ticket agent came
to her thereafter and handed her new
tickets to take her to Baltimore. She
was met at Baltimore in accordance
with a telegram w^hich I forgot to men-
tion w^as also despatched by my friend,
the superintendent, and later in the
evening her purse and trunk check
were delivered to her at her sister's
house.

The above might well be thought to
be an imaginary sketch of what might
be done on and by a well-organized road.
It is, however, something more than
that, it is an exact statement of facts
which actually occurred.

Joining of the Central and Union Pacific.

The continent spanned— scene at Promontory Point, Utah, May 10, 1869.

[From the only existing photograph,]

HISTORIC moments:

DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE OF THE UNION PACIFIC.

By Sidney Dillon.

THE traveller over the Union Pa-
cific Railroad in 1892 sees very few
things aside from the physical
features and general topography of the
country through which it passes to re-
mind him of the scenes which presented
themselves to the view of those who
composed the first excursion party over
the completed road, and who witnessed,
on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point,
Utah, the formal ceremony of driving
the last spike. Nothing now marks
the spot where this ceremony took
place, and even the small station known
as Promontory, is at some distance
from the point where the connection
between the two transcontinental roads
was originally made. The whole as-

pect of the country, from the Missouri
River to Salt Lake, has marvellously
changed. Where there were then only
tents, there are now well - built, sub-
stantial, and prosperous towns, and
instead of the great desert wastes,
supposed to be beyond reach of cul-
tivation, one may now see an almost
unbroken stretch of corn-fields and
cultivated lands.

It is not too much to say that the
opening of the Pacific Road, viewed
simply in its relation to the spread of
population, development of resources,
and actual advance of civilization, was
an event to be ranked in far-reaching
results with the landing of the Pil-
grims, or perhaps the voyage of Coluni-

254

DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE OF THE UNION PACIFIC.

bus. In less than twenty-five years it
has accomplished results which have
influenced tlie whole world more than
what happened in the century following
the landing of the Pilgrims.

The five or six hundred men who saw
the connection made at Promontory
were strongly impressed with the con-
viction that the event was of historic
importance ; but, as I remember it now,
we connected it rather with the notion
of transcontinental communication and
trade with China and Japan than with
internal development, or what railroad
men call local traffic. We were some-
what visionary, no doubt, but none of
us dreamed that the future of the Pa-
cific roads depended more on the busi-
ness that would grow out of peopling
the deserts it traversed, than on the
through traffic. We have not been dis-
appointed in the stupendous results
attained, but they are different from
those we looked for, and of vastly
greater consequence to the country.
Our expectations concerning Asiatic
trade, it must be owned, have fallen
short of fulfilment, but the enormous
development of local business has sur-
passed anything we could have ever
dreamed of. Instead of being incidental
and subordinate it is the chief business,
the main dependence of the road, the
through business for 1891 being only
about five per cent., and the local nine-
ty-five of the whole volume of traffic.

Nearly forty years earlier Asa Whit-
ney, reading in China the account of
the first experiment in railroad build-
ing in England, began to reflect upon
the enormous changes the new inven-
tion made possible in bringing to-
gether remote sections of the globe ;
and naturally enough, his thoughts
turned upon the possibilities opened to
Asiatic commerce. So impressed was
he with the feasibility of a railroad
across the American continent as a
means of rapid communication between
the Asiatic ports and European coun-
tries that he set to work at once com-
piling statistics concerning the trade
of China, Japan, and India, with a
view of directing public attention to
the subject. He began his public work
somewhere about 1841, and in 1845 se-
cured a hearing before Congress. It

was due almost entirely to his persist-
ent efforts tliat the first appropriation
for surveys was made in 1858. His
proposition was to build a railroad
from Lake Superior to Puget Sound, in
consideration of a grant of land from
the Government to a certain amount
over the whole line. Experience has
shown that his plan was far from feasi-
ble, but he clung to it with the faith
of an enthusiast, keeping it before the
people and before Congress until he
had sacrificed his own private fortune
and became discouraged. About the
time the present charter was passed he
disappeared from the scene.

But the idea that a transcontinental
railroad must depend chiefly upon the
commerce of China and Japan con-
tinued to possess the public mind.
How little thought was given to the
development of the vast territory be-
tween the Missouri River and the Pa-
cific is indicated by the fact that the
examinations and surveys made by or-
der of Congress included the isthmus
routes and the possibilities for rail-
roads or canals on the Avhole stretch of
country from Panama north to the
Canada line. The main thing was not
to develop the country and make it
habitable, but to get across it as quick-
ly as possible. The gold discoveries in
1849, the large emigration in conse-
quence, and the admission of Califor-
nia as a State, added an important ele-
ment to be considered, and contributed
largely toward keeping the subject in
the public mind. But the real objec-
tive point continued to be China and
Japan and Asiatic trade.

Congress spent large sums of money
between 1853 and 1860 in surveys of
the country between the Missouri River
and the Pacific Ocean, the results of
which were printed in large volumes,
profusely illustrated, and distributed
to the people at Government expense.
Beyond these tentative steps nothing
could be effected. Political conditions
prevented fuither progress. In the
first place, the agitation of the slav-
ery question occupied the attention
of Congress to the exclusion of every-
thing else ; and out of the sectional
jealousies engendered by that contro-
versy had arisen differences as to the

DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE OF THE UNION PACIFIC.

255

route to be adopted — whether a north-
ern, southern, or middle — which were
irreconcilable. Nothing could be done
as long as those conditions continued.
The South, w-hicli was then in the con-
,trol of the Government, would never
consent to any northern route, and not
a dollar of capital could be enlisted for
the southern route recommended by
Secretary of War Jefferson Davis.

But politics, which had so much to
do in preventing progress, took a turn
in 1860, which resulted in the enter-
prise being put in practicable shape
and hurried forward with unexampled
speed to completion. The charter of
1862 was rushed through Congress be-
cause the w^ar had disclosed the dan-
gers of the existing situation. Our
Pacific coast and the new States of Cal-
ifornia and Oregon were from twenty
to twenty-four days out of reach, and
only accessible then by transit through
a foreign country. The coast was al-
most entirely undefended, and the
Trent affair had awakened anxiety in
the direction of a war with England,
which the Confederate Admiral Semmes
had intensified by the destruction of
nearly a hundred whaling vessels in
the Pacific Ocean. The citizens of the
new States were urgent for some action
by Congress, and President Lincoln
publicly and privately pressed the im-
portance of the subject upon members
of Congress and upon capitalists.

China and Japan were for the mo-
ment lost sight of, and the ruling
thought in the public mind was as to
the necessity for strengthening the
Union by bringing its remotest coasts
in quick and easy communication, as
soon as possible and at any cost. Even
then the possibility of making the great
intervening deserts habitable and pop-
ulous and fruitful of profitable traffic,
had not entered men's minds. Investi-
gation showed that the transportation
of mails, troops, munitions, and sup-
plies between the Missouri River and
the Pacific Ocean was costing the Gov-
ernment upward of seven million dol-
lars annually. It was estimated that
the road could be built for one hun-
dred million dollars. So that simply
to do its own work the Government,
had there been no constitutional hin-

drance, could well afford to issue its
six per cents, for the amount, build the
road, and save a million dollars annual-
ly on its own transportation.

The charter of 1862 was believed by
Congress to contain sufficient induce-
ments in its land grant and subsidy
loan to enlist the capital requisite to
begin the enterprise. No one had any
idea that the full capital would be sub-
scribed or paid in. That was plainly
impossible. There were not many who
believed the scheme was j)racticable.
Most people looked upon the whole
thing as visionary. Under the charter
of 1862 nothing was done beyond ef-
fecting an organization. Capital held
aloof from so unpromising a venture.

In 1864 the charter was amended,
the land grant was doubled, and other
changes made enlarging the induce-
ments to capitalists to j)ut enough
money into the enterprise to give it a
start. Even then the practical railroad
builders, who were extending to and be-
yond the Mississippi the lines of what
are now the great systems of that sec-
tion, after thorough examination of the
subject shrank from the undertaking.
The Hock Island and the Northw^estern
were half-way across Iowa, but still
a long distance from their objective
point, the Missouri River. To one or
the other of these roads it would fall
naturally to take hold of the Union Pa-
cific charter, and under it extend its
own line beyond the river. The fran-
chise was more valuable to them than
to any one else. Both looked the mat-
ter over, considered the whole subject,
and shook their heads. They saw no
money in it.

With experienced railroad builders
so advantageously situated, taking this
view of the enterprise, the difficulty of
procuring subscriptions and raising
money to start the work may be easil}'
imagined. Enough subscriptions were
made, however, to justify a beginning,
though it w^as quite evident that very
few of the subscribers had any expecta-
tion of a return on the investment either
as interest or principal. The first in-
stalments on these subscriptions fur-
nished about money enough to pay the
costs of a celebration on the occasion
of breaking ground at Omaha in the

25G DRIl/JNG THE LAST SPIKE OF THE UNION PACIFIC,

autumn of 1804. This was quite an could only he used as collateral for

afl'air for Omaha and Council Blufis, k^ans made through the means of the

both of them at that time sprawling construction company,

settlements chiefly made of canvass, This money was a great help to us,

with hardly a two- story house in the though it came far short of relieving

whole outfit ; but it did not make much the pecuniary embarrassments which

impression on the outside world, constantly beset us. Evcr;yiihing was

Ground having been broken with proper done at enormous cost. None of the

ceremony everything stopped. Durant Iowa roads had reached the river, con-

and Bushnell, who were the leading sequently all our materials, machinery,

spirits in obtaining the charter and ef- fuel, provisions, men, everything in

fecting an organization, were hard at fact, had to go to St. Louis and be

work raising money and vainly trying transferred thence by boat to Omaha,

to get hona-fide subscriptions enough The treeless plains furnished no ties,

to warrant going ahead. The limita- and we were obliged to transport them

tions of the charter were a fatal ob- from remote points at very great ex-

struction. It w^as only when these dif- pense. Ties for a long distance cost

ficulties were surmounted by the device us sometimes $2.50 a piece. The cost

of a construction company that they of labor and provisions was also greatly

began to see light. enhanced by the lack of direct com-

This is not the place to treat of the munication with markets ; and in the
operations of the Credit Mobilier. I absence of w^ood or coal we were
have only to say, as its Executive obliged to procure fuel from long dis-
Officer during the period of its activ- tances at a frightful cost,
ity, that in my judgment its methods Affairs wore a very unpromising look
were as legitimate and honorable as at the close of 1865, and were not much
those of any corporation with which I better at the end of 1866, though we
have ever been connected ; and with- had laid 260 miles of track during the
out it the Pacific Railroad could not year. During 1867 we climbed to the
have been built. It was through this summit of the Rocky Mountains, and
organization, having been in the busi- added 240 miles of track, making
ness of a railroad contractor all my about 540 miles of completed road
life, that I became interested in the beyond the Missouri River. At the
Union Pacific ; and I may say as evi- end of that year we were over the top
dence of my faith in the property that of the mountains and nearly half-way
a large part of my original stock in the to Salt Lake City. The cost of build-
company is held by me to-day. ing over the mountains was so much

The advances made by the Credit less than we had expected that the

Mobilier enabled the railroad company construction company found itself with

to go ahead, but on account of dif- a surplus from the proceeds of the

ferences arising from a change in subsidy bonds. This was imprudently

the original location of the line from distributed in dividends, so that in a

Omaha west, work was delayed so short time we w^ere in greater distress

that it was about the beginning of than ever for money. To add to our

1865 when construction may be said to embarrassments the fact that we had

have fairly begun. Some grading was reached the dividend point brought

done in the autumn of 1864, but the the harpies down on us from outside,

first rail was not laid till July, 1865. and led to dissensions among ourselves.

During 1865 we laid forty miles of Nothing but the faith and pluck of

track, on the acceptance of which by the Ameses, fortified with their exten-

tlie Government we received $640,000, sive credit, and the active financial aid

in Government bonds — being $16,000 of men like John I. Blair and other

a mile — as a subsidy loan. The land capitalists carried the thing through,

grant was in addition to this, but was Meantime the scene of active operation

not available to meet current expenses, from the river to the mountains was

Our land-grant bonds and first mort- attracting public interest and exciting

gages were practically unsalable, and public curiosity more and more every

DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE OF THE UNION PACIFIC.

257

day. People who thought for a long
time that the whole scheme was wild
and visionary began after a wliile to
realize that out there on the '' Great
American Desert " an extremely inter-
esting enterprise was afoot, and that
whatever came of it one thing was
certain, the world had never seen rail-
road building on so grand a scale under
such overpowering disadvantages and
at such a rapid rate of progress. It
opened fresh fields to the newspaper
correspondents and a theme of uncom-
mon interest for the press. After the
first year the newspapers of the
country began to be filled with ac-
counts of the progress of the w^ork,
with descriptions of the methods pur-
sued in construction and the physical
aspect of the country traversed. Pub-
lic interest had gradually been wrought
up in this way to such an extent that
during the last year of construction it
was the jDrominent topic ; and the prog-
ress made in track-laying was tele-
graphed all over the country each day.
It culminated on May 10, 1869, when
in all the large cities of the Union busi-
ness stood still while the telegraph
clicked the blows of the hammer that
drove the last spike.

The chief engineer of the work, a
man w-hose animating spirit had much
to do with the wonderful rapidity with
which it was pushed, was General G.
M. Dodge, who had explored the whole
country from the Missouri River to
Salt Lake as far back as 1853, when he
was employed on the Rock Island Road
making surveys. He was an enthusi-
ast who communicated enthusiasm to
his working forces, and he showed skill
in the management of hostile Indians,
contractors, laborers, and the ruffians
and gamblers who followed the camp.
The close of the w^ar, in which he dis-
tinguished himself, left him at liberty
to accept this position of chief engineer,
and his intimate relations with Grant
and Sherman put him on such terms
with commanding officers of garrisons
and military posts along the route that
he was enabled to avail himself of mil-
itary aid against marauding Indians,
and also frequently in maintaining
order when worthless camp-followers
became unruly. With him were Gen-

eral Jack Casement and his brother Dan,
in charge of the track-laying, men of
boundless energy and undoubted cour-
age, upon whom he could rely to carry
out any order with military promptness
and unquestioning obedience. The
working force was almost entirel}- com-
jDosed of discharged soldiers, whose ex-
perience during the war admirably fit-
ted them to encounter the dangers from
hostile Indians and endure the priva-
tions and hardships of camp life on the
Plains. At an alarm of Indians these
men fell into line and prepared to meet
the attack with the readiness and deci-
sion of veteran soldiers.

During 1868, and to May 10, 1869,
we laid five hundred and fifty-five miles
of track, w^hich took us to Promontory
Point, just north of the shores of Salt
Lake, where we met the track of the
Central Pacific and made the connection
between the two roads. For various
reasons the two companies had not
always worked together in perfect har-
mony ; and one result of mutual misun-
derstanding was, that instead of making
the connection when the working par-
ties came together, the graders on both
sides kept right on until the two road-
beds lapped over two hundred miles.
When the track-layers met the law re-
quired a junction to be made and this
was done at Promontory. A contro-
versy on the subject was subsequently
settled by the Central Pacific leasing of
the Union the track from Promontory
to Ogden, which became the junction
point.

Popular interest in the enterprise had
become so universal and absorbing, and
the event of completion was awaited
with so much anxiety, that a celebration
of the occasion with some formal cere-
monies was not only proper but neces-
sary to meet the public expectation.
But the scene was so remote, and we
who were on the ground had been so
much occupied with pushing construc-
tion and overcoming the pecuniary em-
barrassments and other complications
with which we were beset, that there
w^as no opportunity to make arrange-
ments on any adequate scale for the
celebration of what w^e all felt to be one
of the most important achievements of
the nineteenth century. There was no

258

DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE OF THE UNION PACIFIC.

time to make an elaborate programme
nor any facilities for carrying it out
when made. But our feeling was that,
however simple the ceremony might be,
the people of the whole country, who
had kept in such close touch with us
and had given us such sympathy and
encouragement from the beginning,
should be with us in spirit at the cul-
minating moment and participate in the
joy of the occasion.

Arrangements for this purpose were
made at very short notice, and through
the hearty co-operation of the tele-
graph companies, all the principal offi-
ces in the country were informed a few
hours beforehand that as soon as the
preliminaries were completed a signal
would be given and every office being
put in connection with Promontory ;
the blow of the hammer driving the
last spike would be communicated by
the click of the instrument at the same
moment to every station reached by the
wires.

General Dodge and the two Case-
ments, and the force under them, were
not idle during the night of May 9th
and the early hours of the 10th. The
rivalry between the two companies had
been very sharp, and neither neglected
an opportunity to gain an advantage.
The tracks were only a few feet apart on
the night of the 9th. During the even-
ing General Dodge learned that the
Central people had made their arrange-
ments to put in sidings early next morn-
ing and secure possession of the ter-
minus. But when in the gray of the
morning the Central's construction
train moved up they found, to their
surprise, the sidings all laid and the
rails occupied by the Union Pacific lo-
comotives and cars. The Central peo-
ple took it on the whole very good-
naturedly, and did not permit it to dis-
turb the general good feeling of the
occasion.

It was not a large crowd. In brass
bands, fireworks, procession, and ora-
tory, the demonstration, when ground
was broken at Omaha, less than five
years before, was much more imposing.
A small excursion party, headed by
Governor Stanford, had come from San
Francisco ; while on our side, besides our
own men, there were only two or three

persons present, among whom was the
Rev. Dr. Todd, of Pittsfield. Not more
than five or six hundred, all told, com-
prised the whole gathering, nearly all
of whom were officials of the two com-
panies— contractors, surveyors, and em-
ployees.

The point of junction was in a level
circular valley, about three miles in
diameter, surrounded by mountains.
During all the morning hours the hur-
ry and bustle of preparation went on.
Two lengths of rails lay on the ground
near the opening in. the road-bed. At
a little before eleven the Chinese labor-
ers began levelling up the road-bed pre-
paratory to placing the last ties in po-
sition. About a quarter past eleven the
train from San Francisco, bringing Gov-
ernor Stanford and party arrived and
was greeted with cheers. In the en-
thusiasm of the occasion there were
cheers for everybody, from the Presi-
dent of the United States to the day-
laborers on the road.

The two engines moved nearer each
other, and the crowd gathered round
the open space. Then all fell back a
little so that the view should be unob-
structed. Brief remarks were made by
Governor Stanford on one side, and
General Dodge on the other. It was
now about twelve o'clock noon, local
time, or about 2 p.m. in New York.
The two superintendents of construc-
tion— S. B. Reed of the Union Pacific,
and S. W. Strawbridge of the Central —
placed under the rails the last tie. It
was of California laurel, highly polished,
with a silver plate in the centre bearing
the following inscription : " The last tie
laid on the completion of the Pacific
Railroad, May 10, 1869," with the names
of the officers and directors of both
companies.

Everything being then in readiness
the word was given, and "Hats off"
went clicking over the wires to the wait-
ing crowds at New York, Philadelphia,
San Francisco, and all the principal cit-
ies. Prayer was offered by the vener-
able Rev. Dr. Todd, at the conclusion
of which our operator tapped out : " We
have got done prating. The spike is
about to be presented," to which the
response came back : " We understand.
All are ready in the East." The gentle-

DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE OF THE UNION PACIFIC.

259

men who had been commissioned to
present the four spikes, two of gold,
and two of silver, from Montana, Ida-
ho, California, and Nevada, stepped for-
ward, and with brief appropriate re-
marks discharged the duty assigned
them.

Governor Stanford, standing on the
north, and Dr. Durant on the south side
of the track, received the spikes and
put them in place. Our operator tapped
out : " All ready now ; the spike will
soon be driven. The signal will be
three dots for the commencement of
the blows." An instant later the silver
hammers came down, and at each stroke
in all the offices from San Francisco to
New York, and throughout the land,
the hammer of the magnet struck the
bell.

The signal " Done " was received at
Washington at 2.47 p.m., which was
about a quarter of one at Promontory.
There was not much formality in the
demonstration that followed, but the
enthusiasm was genuine and unmistak-
able. The two engines moved up until
they touched each other, and a bottle
of champagne was poured on the last

rail, after the manner of christening a
ship at the launching.

The event was celebrated in all the
large cities, and everywhere hailed with
demonstrations of delight. In New
York, Trinity Church was thrown open
at mid-da}', an address was delivered
by Bev. Dr. Vinton, and a large crowd
united *' to tender thanks to God for
the completion of the greatest work
ever undertaken by man." In Phila-
delphia bells were rung and cannon
fired. At Chicago a great impromptu
demonstration took place, in which all
citizens joined ; at Buffalo a large crowd
gathered to hear the telegraph signals,
sang the "Star-Spangled Banner," and
listened to speeches from distinguished
citizens ; and at every important point
the announcement of the completion of
the work was received with unbounded

joy-
That night our party started on their

return, and the next day, May 11, 1869,
trains began running regularly over
the whole line. New York was in di-
rect rail communication with San Fran-
cisco, and a new empire was thrown
open in the heart of the continent.

THE POINT OF VIEW.

Whatever may have been its plight in
some earlier times, literature certainly has
now of esteem of a certain sort enough and
to spare.

Let a boy disclose a preference for books
over toys and sports, and immediately he
becomes the peculiar pride of his parents,
and the marvel of the neighborhood. The
preference may confine itself to books of
the desperate brigand sort, but still is he a
lad apart ; a lad on whom heaven has be-
stowed an unusual endowment. The pa-
rents, in that case, perhaps confess to a fear
that he reads too many stories ; but through
their very confession their pride shines as
clear as its artificiality through an eye of
glass. And men and women grown attain,
within the circle of their more immediate
acquaintance, to the distinction of being
great readers with little more difficulty than
the boy. It were easy to frame a simple
prescription which might safely be war-
ranted to produce, if pursued with anything
like diligence, a luxuriant growth of literary
reputation in six weeks, so ready is local
public oiDinion to give a reader credit for
large achievements. From the smallest to
the greatest, the reading man's reading usu-
ally falls short of the public estimate, like a
rich man's estate ; and it is always accounted
in him a peculiar grace.

All this indicates unmistakably a wide
and spontaneous deference to literature.
And it is further indicated in the habit of
men who, beginning life in poverty and
comparative illiteracy and finally achieving
wealth, furnish their houses with books and

found public libraries. But, in spite of it
all, the practical faith in literature is ex-
tremely weak. One is never surprised to
find men in stores and offices reading the
newspaper ; but one would be surprised to
find them reading books, and many would
be perfectly scandalized. Immediately ques-
tion would arise of their energy and alert-
ness as men of business.

A boy out of school for the long vacation
was set at some light task in a bank. His
duties left him with an hour or two each day
quite unoccupied. One morning he carried
with him to the bank a copy of " Old Mor-
tality," having come in that engaging history
to such a pass that he could not comfortably
permit his reading to lie over until evening.
As he sat over the tale in an intermission
from work, there stopped before his desk a
man who had a sufficient interest in books
to have collected a considerable library, and
even to have read by easy stages some of
the volumes it contained. Noting the book,
but without noting either its title or its
character, he said in the gravest tone, "I
suppose they use you a little tenderly yet,
while you're new, and allow you to read."
No doubt it was but a bit of pleasantry,
framed with the awkwardness usual to a
grave man in his efibrts to be playful with
a boy. But back of it there lay a sense that
a boy reading p. book in a bank was unbusi-
nesslike ; and this sense the boy received
with such force that he was ashamed to
have been caught reading there and carried
his book to the bank no more. Thereafter
he fancied, as no doubt most of the wise,

THE POINT OF VIEW,

261

■earnest men who did business at that bank
fancied, that in the odd moments when the
bank had nothing for him to do he might
better do nothing rather than get interested
in a book.

In after years the lesson of this experience
was repeated to him in another. He was
on a journey, and there entered the car in
which he was travelling a man of his ac-
quaintance who, stopping to greet him,
found him reading "In Memoriam." "Ah,"
said the man, "reading poetry?" and he
smiled as one might at catching a friend
kissing a pretty girl.

If, business done, and the business hours
spent, a business man chooses, in the pri-
vacy of his own home, to divert himself with
Shakespeare, instead of playing with his
children, or drowsing over his newspaper,
or going into society, oftentimes he may.
A few there will be (his own business part-
ners like enough) to begrudge him even
this liberty, and to contend that he were
better abroad making friends who may later
become customers. Against any liberty be-
yond this the authority of the whole volume
of every-day wisdom stands opposed. In
short, for all the deference paid it, litera-
ture is in the general apprehension a thing
quite apart and distinct from all practical
vocations : well enough if one has time to
devote to it, but not unless one has time,
and not in the least conducive, rather ob-
structive, to skill and success in those vo-
cations.

Much behind the rest of the world, as
usual, I have just been reading Mr. Steven-
son's " Song of Eahero," but as I do not pro-
pose any discussion of it from a literary
point of view, my tardiness is perhaps of
no importance. It is the significance of the
story itself with which I am struck.

In his notes Mr. Stevenson tells us that
he has heard two complete versions of the
story, which he has not consciously changed
in a single detail, and which we must
therefore conclude are identical. He adds
that "there seems no reason why the tale
should not be true."

Stripped of its graceful adornments,
which I presume we may, at all events, at-
tribute to Mr. Stevenson, the story is this :

Rahero, who hates the King of Taiarapu,
Vol. xn.— 28

contrives a deadly in.sult, using as an in-
strumentality a half-witted boy, who is pur-
sued by one of the king's guard and slain.
The boy's mother, after vainly seeking the
aid of all the dignitaries or " kings " of her
own land, goes to the other side of the isl-
and, to the hereditary foes of her people,
whose king undertakes the pleasant task of
avenging her. First, he caused the rejDort
to go forth of the great abundance of food
in his land, and sent boat loads to be cast
into the sea and washed up at the veiy
feet of the Tevas in proof of it. Meantime
he built a strong house with a roof, into
which he purposes to toll his foes like a
drove of i^igs and there burn them. All
goes as planned, and the Taiarapus, to the
number of eight hundred, the king and
everyone of his people set out for this land
of promise. They are received with appar-
ent welcome and a great feast is prepared,
and everyone of them, men, women, chil-
dren, babes, and gi-aybeards, if they had any
beards, eat to repletion and drink them-
selves into a dead stupor. Wood is there-
upon piled all about, the building fired,
and all perish except Rahero, who escapes
through the roof after it had fallen in, and
taking one of the women of the hostile
tribe by force, his own wife and children
being burned, rows back to his own land.
From this pair all the Taiarapus claim de-
scent. Mr. Stevenson is a little astonished
at the idea of the king, commons, women
and children all eating together, but naively
adds : " It troubled none of my numerous
authorities ; so there must certainly be
some natural explanation."

Seeing that Mr. Stevenson is so fine a
story teller, j)erhaps we ought not to hold
him too rigidly to accountability as a his-
torian or scientist. But I might almost as
well say that the incidents set forth in
" Kidnapped " and " Treasure Island " have
not troubled me and other admiring readers,
and that they are capable of natural ex-
planation. Certainly, they are not impos-
sible, but I have an impression that the
author did not expect us to accept them as
literal fact.

That there may be a germ of truth in the
story of Rahero is not denied ; but all its
details stamp the tale as legend — as one of
the innumerable attempts of a race to ac-
count for its origin, nothing whatever being

2G2

THE POINT OF VIEW.

known of the facts. Usually it is a flood,
in some shape, which intervenes between
the present and the very remote past, from
which a single pair only escaped. In this
form the deluge legend has gone over the
whole world.

But destruction by fire is rare. I do not
recall a good example of it. There is, how-
ever, the story of the rabbit who shot the
sun, causing a general conflagration, from
which he alone appears to have escaped in
a sadly fragmentary condition. But in the
Eddas we are told that at Ragnarok the
world will be burned, a single pair, Lif and
Lifthraser surviving, from whom a purer
race will spring.

Aside from the matter of race origin, the
incidents in the story of Rahero are frequent-
ly paralleled. In the Volsung Saga, Sig-
mund and Sinfjotli " go home to the hall,
when as men slept there, and bear wood to
the hall and lay fire therein ; and withal
the folk therein are waked by the smoke
and the hall burning over their heads."
There was in this case nothing to prevent
their escape except the two grim warriors
waiting outside, for Sigmund's sister comes
out and takes a tender leave of him and
goes back into the hall to share the fate of
the king, whom she cordially hates and
whose death she had planned. The victims
have taken no precautions and make no at-
tempt to save themselves.

So also, later in this narrative, Gudrun
"cast fire into the hall," and the people
waking, instead of escaping, which there is
nothing in the world to hinder, smite each
other down with swords. Gudrun alone
survives and is borne over the sea waves to
Jonakr. Here again is a touch of the race
legend. She becomes the mother of Ham-
dir, Sorli, and Erp, but the curse which
attaches to the Andvari hoard prevents a
further development. The two first go to
avenge their sister Swanhild and are slain,
first having themselves killed Erp, who
elsewhere appears to be only a half-
brother. From the Lay of Hamdir it
would seem that here was another instance
of setting fire to the hall :

"Look on these hands of thine,
Look on these feet of thine
Cast by us, Jormunrek,
On to the flame."

The fire may, however, have Ijeen merely
what would have been burning in the hall,
and it does not appear that Jormunrek had
been surprised.

In the Nibelungen Lied the hall in which
the Burgundian heroes had taken refuge
was fired, but here there is nothing mar-
vellous or improbable in the incident itself.
But taken in connection with the rest of the
story, it would be exceedingly unsafe to
conclude that it represents any actual event.

In the wistful, not to say regretful, mood
stirred by the more and more frequent in-
trusions of the novel without a hero, it may
prove solacing to note how little real use
fiction has ever been able to make of the
Perfect Person. If the mood were of grief
at an assured bereavement, of course one
would hardly dare to enlarge on the small-
ness of the loss. But thus far the novel
with a hero has not been finally disi3laced,
only ominously crowded ; and its friends
are still in a sufficient composure, one may
trust, to submit to fortification against the
worst.

The man who yields to no assaults of pas-
sion, does no injustice, harbors no illusions,
and maintains his aflections ever fresh and
warm, is an ideal precious to every heart
not warped out of all capacity for ideals ;
and imaginative literature, to be of more
than the day, has always had to give, and
always will have to give, at least sufficient
glimpses and intimations of him to keep the
ideal quick and gracious. Whenever a com-
plete portrayal of him has been undertaken,
however, by presenting him as an actor in
the living scene, it has been more or less of
a failure, so far as I recall, except when he
has been kept to a subordinate role.

The finest instance of the perfectly bal-
anced man that imaginative literature sup-
plies, the one that seems surest of never
losing its charm, is perhaps Horatio. He
is imaged to us as completely as can be ;
we hold him always for our personal friend.
And yet no chara<3ter in the whole play is
of less moment to its story than he ; and
nothing that Le either does or says is the
source of our impression of him. The im-
pression comes wholly of the afi'ection in
which Hamlet held him, of the enticing ac-
counts that Hamlet gave of him, and of the
illumination of his by Hamlet's own charac-

THE POINT OF HEIV.

263

ter. That the beauty and effectiveness of
the play are greatly heightened by his pres-
ence, is undoubted ; but with no " neces-
sary question of the play " is his connection
vital. He is a sympathetic, indeed, but a
perfectly composed and level-headed look-
er-on at an awful tragedy. Nor could he
have been much more, I dare think, and
not have been marred in his true perfec-
tion.

When the attempt has been made to put
the balanced man at the centre of the ac-
tion one of two catastrophes has infalli-
bly befallen. Either he has become a
wooden and insipid personage whose very
name died out of memory the moment the
book or spectacle was done ; or he has gone
off into a course of conduct in gross con-
flict with the character given him at his in-
troduction. Esi^ecially prone to the latter
kind of undoing were the heroic youths of
the last century. Action was secured to
them only by making life between the de-
scriptive ravishment of the first scene and
the repentant exaltation of the last a self-
stultifying debauch ; and the real feat of
the imagination was for the reader, who,
seeing with what depravity they behaved,
could still think them noble.

The difficulty lies in the nature of things.
Novelists and playwrights have not lacked
the power of truly conceiving the perfectly
balanced character. Indeed, the best of
them work constantly under the influence
of such a conception, even in the creation
of characters of a designedly different sort.
One must have the sense of a right line to
know a crooked one. But there is so lit-
tle that the perfectly balanced character
can be made to do. Karely is the file of
strange and moving incident set marching
by him. Whim, foible, perversion, one-
sidedness, not balance and perfection, are
the bread of fiction.

For an instance, take Moliere. He is
better than almost any other ; for with him
the action is brief and simple, the charac-
ters are few and often simple, too, and it is
easy to see the method by which the i^iece
is evolved. The clear victim of some mag-
got of the brain, a human creature distinct-
ly out of plumb, is found and set free to
follow his mania of hallucination to fatal
lengths ; and the acts into which his dis-
torted sense of the relation of things leads

him and enforces others make the story.
All else is subordinate. The well-balanced
man is brought in, but only as an interlo-
cutor ; a person with a stick to prod the
animals into diverting gambols. Mr. Low-
ell has said that Moli^re's " quality was
comic power rather than humor." And this
is true in respect of the development of the
story ; but in the choice of these central
characters out of whom the story springs,
he is preeminently humorous. They are
one and all fellows overridden by humors.
No other than a humorist could have had
Moliere's quick eye for them. And the in-
dispensable material of fiction is always
somewhat after their sort.

When a man is planning for the comfort
of his mature and declining years, there are
some things that he arranges for as matters
of course. He will try to plan so that he
may have an income proportionate to his
habits of expenditure as long as he lives,
and he will arrange, if possible, to have the
income continue just the same to himself
or his heirs after he is tired and stops work-
ing. He will be apt to try to arrange also
to have a wife to grow old with, and to have
children about him, in various convenient
stages of development, to keep him in touch
with contemporary life. And he will form
the whist habit or the habit of reading
books, and take reasonable measures not to
have gout, or dyspepsia, or any unreason-
able affection of the liver.

Such precautions any prudent man will
take as he sees the propriety of them, and
many others too ; but there are one or two
comforts that he may miss by not appreciat-
ing their value until it is too late to provide
for them. A particular luxury of this sort,
for which a timely arrangement must be
made if a man is to have it at all, is a peri-
odical meeting with the men who were
young when he was. In order to secure
this enjoyment, it is necessary, in the first
place, to be young with a considerable num-
ber of persons associated in the pursuit of
some common interest, and to form more or
less intimate relations with them. They
must be the right sort of people too ; peo-
ple whom it is not only edifying to know
while they are young, but who promise a
development which will make a fair propor-

264

THE POINT OF VIFW.

tion of them good comjmny in their matu-
rity. Having formed such an acquaintance
betimes, the habit of renewing it periodi-
cally should be started early and carefully
nursed, the periods growing gradually less
until they become annual.

The simjDlest way to accomplish all this is
doubtless to go early in life to a good col-
lege, and return yearly to its Commence-
ments. But where that has not been feas-
ible, the same end is often otherwise
accomplished, as by being a veteran of the
war, and meeting one's fellow-veterans an-
nually at a Grand Army Encampment ; or
by being an earnest politician and getting
sent pretty regularly to conventions. The
points that require attention are, that you
must meet old friends who were young, or
comparatively young, in your company, and
from whom you are ordinarily separated.
The old friends whom you meet every day
won't do. You talk to them, when you see
them, about what happened yesterday and
was in the morning paper. The sight of
them does not annihilate time for you;
vour intercourse with them has been too

constantly contemporaneous for that. But
the old acquaintances whom you only see
once a year cany you back every time to the
years when you first knew them.

It is a valuable refreshment to the spirit
to be thus transported, and one which
rightly constituted persons prize with in-
creasing appreciation as the years pile up on
them. After a man has found his vocation
and got into the root of it, existence comes
to smack too much of the tread-mill, and
a sensation that is quickening and perva-
sive, and out of his every-day experience, is
the more welcome and the more reviving to
him in proportion to the increase of the
difficulty in finding it.

Therefore, if you intend to be happy
though old, form the habit early of regular
attendance on some periodical function.
Have a taste for something in particular,
and stick to it until the other enthusiasts
on the subject are old acquaintances. Then
meet them persistently once a year, and
presently you will have a habit that will be
of real value to you when you have passed
the time for making new friends.

DRAWN BY ILYA EFIMOVITCH REPIN. ENGRAVED BY FRANK FRENCH.

THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA BLESSING THE WATERS OF THE NEVA AT EPIPHANY.

SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XII.

SEPTEMBER, 1892.

No. 3.

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

By

George Bird Grinnell.

N the floor, on either
side of my fireplace,
lie two buffalo skulls.
They are white and
weathered, the horns
cracked and bleached
by the snows and
frosts, and the rains
and heats of many
winters and summers. Often, late at
night, when the house is quiet, I sit be-
fore the fire, and muse and dream of the
old da^^s ; and as I gaze at these relics of
the past, they take life before my eyes.
The matted brown hair again clothes
the dry bone, and in the empty orbits
the wild eyes gleam. Above me curves
the blue arch ; away on every hand
stretches the yellow prairie, and scat-
tered near and far are the dark forms
of buffalo. They dot the rolling hills,
quietty feeding like tame cattle, or lie
at ease on the slopes, chewing the cud
and half asleep. The yellow calves are
close by their mothers ; on little emi-
nences the great bulls paw the dust,
and mutter and moan, while those
whose horns have grown one, two, and
three winters are mingled wdth their
elders.

Not less peaceful is the scene near
some river-bank, when the herds come
down to water. From the high prairie
on every side thej' stream into the val-
ley, stringing along in single file, each
band following the deep trail worn in
the parched soil by the tireless feet of
generations of their kind. At a quick
walk they swing along, their heads held

Copyright, 189:3, by Charles Scr

low. The long beards of the bulls
sweep the ground ; the shuffling tread
of many hoofs marks their jDassing, and
above each long line rises a cloud of
dust that sometimes obscures the Avest-
ering sun.

Life, activity, excitement, mark an-
other memory as vivid as these. From
behind a near hill, mounted men ride
out and charge down toward the herd.
For an instant the buffalo pause to
stare, and then crowd together in a
close throng, jostling and pushing each
other, a confused mass of horns, hair,
and hoofs. Heads down and tails in
air, they rush away from their j^ursuers,
and as they race along herd joins herd,
till the black mass sweeping over the
prairie numbers thousands. On its
skirts hover the active, nimble horse-
men, with twanging bowstrings and
sharp arrows piercing many fat cows.
The naked Indians cling to their naked
horses as if the two were parts of one
incomparable animal, and swing and
yield to every motion of their steeds
with the grace of perfect horseman-
ship. The ponies, as quick and skil-
ful as the men, race up beside the fat-
test of the herd, swdng off to avoid the
charge of a maddened cow, and return-
ing, dart close to the victim, whirling
hither and yon, like swallows on the
wing. And their riders, Avith the un-
conscious skill, grace, and power of
matchless archery, are drawing their
bows to the arrow's head, and driving
the feathered shaft deep through the
bodies of the buffalo. Returning on

ibner's Sons, All rights reserved.

2G8

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

their tracks, tlicy skin tlio dead, then
load the meat and robes on their horses,
and with laughter and jest ride away.

After them, on the deserted prairie,
come the wolves to tear at the carcasses.
The rain and the snow wash the blood
from the bones, and fade and bleach

carefully guarded in the forests of
Grodno, about equal in numbers the
buffalo in the Yellowstone Park ; while
the wild bison in the Caucasus may be
compared with the "wood" buffalo
which survive in the Peace River dis-
trict. In view of the former abundance

A Blackfoot Pi'skun.

the hair. For a few months the skele-
ton holds together ; then it falls down,
and the fox and the badger j)ull about
the whitening bones and scatter them
over the plain. So this cow and this
bull of mine may have left their bones
on the prairie where I found them and
picked them up to keep as mementoes
of the past, to dream over, and in such
reverie to see again the swelling hosts
which yesterday covered the plains, and
to-day are but a dream.

So the buffalo passed into history.
Once an inhabitant of this continent
from the Arctic slope to Mexico, and
from Virginia to Oregon, and, within
the memory of men yet young, roam-
ing the plains in such numbers that it
seemed that it could never be extermi-
nated, it has now disappeared as utter-
ly as has the bison from Europe. For
it is probable that the existing herds
of that practically extinct species, now

of our buffalo, this parallel is curious
and interesting.

The early explorers were constantly
astonished by the multitudinous herds
which they met with, the regularity of
their movements, and the deep roads
which they made in travelling from
place to place. Many of the earlier
references are to territory east of the
Mississippi, but even within the last fif-
teen years buffalo were to be seen on
the Western plains in numbers so great
that an entirely sober and truthful
account seems like fable. Describing
the abundance of buffalo in a certain
region, an Indian once said to me, in the
expressive sign language of which all
old frontiersmen have some knowledge,
" The country was one robe."

Much has been written about their
enormous abundance in the old days,
but I have never read anything that I
thought an exaggeration of their num-

itw

L: i. .::ST E. THOMPSON.

Through the Mist.

270

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

bers as I liavo seen them. Only one
who has actually sj^ent months in trav-
ellin<j^ among- them in those old days
can credit the stories told about them.
The trains of the Kansas Pacific Rail-
road used frequently to be detained by
herds which were crossing the tracks
in front of the engines, and in 1870,
trains on which I was travellingf were

alarmed and running, but were usually
scattered about, feeding or lying down
on the prairie at a little distance from
one another, much as domestic cattle
distribute themselves in ajmsture or on
the range. As far as we could see on
every side of the line of march, and
ahead, the hillsides were dotted with
dark forms, and the field- glass revealed

twice so held, in one case for three
hours. When railroad travel first be-
gan on this road, the engineers tried
the experiment of running through
these passing herds, but after their en-
gines had been thrown from the tracks
they learned wisdom, and gave the buf-
falo the right of way. Two or three
years later, in the country between the
Platte and Republican Rivers, I saw a
closely massed herd of buffalo so vast
that I dare not hazard a guess as to its
numbers ; and in later years I have
travelled for weeks at a time, in north-
ern Montana, without ever being out
of sight of buffalo. These were not in
close herds, except now and then when

yet others stretched out on every side
in one continuous host, to the most dis-
tant hills. Thus was gained a more
just notion of their numbers than could
be had in any other . way, for the sight
of this limitless territory occupied by
these continuous herds was more im-
pressive than the sj^ectacle of a surging,
terrified mass of fleeing buffalo, even
though the numbers which passed rap-
idly l3efore one's gaze in a short time
were very great.

The former range of the buffalo has
been worked out with painstaking care
by Dr. Allen, to whom we owe an ad-
mirable monograph on this species. He
concludes that the northern limit of this

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

271

range was north of the Great Slave
Lake, in latitude about 03° N. ; while to
the south it extended into Mexico as far
as latitude 25° N. To the west it ranged
at least as far as the Blue Mountains of
Oregon, while on the east it was abun-
dant in the western portions of New
York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North and
South Carolina, and Georgia. In the in-
terior the buffalo were very abundant,
and occupied Ohio, Kentucky, West
Virginia, Tennessee, West Georgia, Illi-
nois, Indiana, and Iowa, parts of Michi-
gan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, the
whole of the great plains, from south-
ern Texas north to their northern limit,
and much of the Kocky Mountains. In
Montana, Idaho, Wj^oming, and most of
New Mexico they were abundant, and
probably common over a large part of
Utah, and perhaps in northern Nevada.
So far as now known, their western
limit was the Blue Mountains of Ore-
gon and the eastern foothills of the
Sierra Nevada.

Thus it will be seen that the buffalo
once ranged over a large part of the
American Continent — Dr. Allen says
one-third of it — but it must not be im-
agined that they were always present at
the same time in every part of their
range. They were a wandering race,
sometimes leaving a district and being
long absent, and again returning and
occupying it for a considerable period.
What laws or what impulses governed
these movements we cannot know.
Their wandering habits were well un-
derstood by the Indians of the Western
plains, who depended upon the buffalo
for food. It was their custom to follow
the herds about, and when, as sometimes
occurred, these moved away and could
not be found, the Indians were reduced
to great straits for food, and sometimes
even starved to death.

Under natural conditions the buffalo
was an animal of rather sluggish hab-
its, mild, inoffensive, and dull. In its
ways of life and intelligence it closely
resembled our domestic cattle. It was
slow to learn by experience, and this lack
of intelligence greatly hastened the de-
struction of the race. Until the very
last years of its existence as a species,
it did not appear to connect the report
of fire-arms with any idea of danger to

itself, and, though constantly pursued,
did not become wild. If he used skill
and judgment in shooting, a hunter who
had " got a stand " on a small bunch
could kill them all before they had
moved out of rifle-shot. It was my fort-
une, one summer, to hunt for a camp
of soldiers, and more than once I have
lain on a hill above a little herd of buf-
falo, shot down what young bulls I
needed to suj)ply the camp, and then
walked down to the bunch and, by wav-
ing my hat and shouting, driven off the
survivors, so that I could prepare the
meat for transportation to camp. This
slowness to take the alarm, or indeed
to realize the presence of danger, was
characteristic of the buffalo almost up •
to the very last. A time did come when
they were alarmed readily enough, but
this was not until all the large herds
had been broken up and scattered, and
the miserable survivors had been so
chased and harried that at last they
learned to start and run even at their
own shadows.

Another peculiarity of the buffalo
was its habit, when stampeded, of dash-
ing blindly forward against, over, or
through anything that might be in the
way. When running, a herd of buffalo
followed its leaders, and yet these lead-
ers lost the power of stoj^ping, or even
of turning aside, because they were
constantly crowded upon and pushed
forward by those behind. This ex-
plains why herds would dash into
mire or quicksands, as they often did,
and thus perish by the thousands.
Those in front could not stop, while ^
those behind could not see the danger J
toward which they were rushing. So,. '<
too, they ran into rivers, or into traps ■
made for them by the Indians, or ;
against railroad cars, or even dashed {
into the rivers and swam blindly against
the sides of steamboats. If an obstacle
lay squarely across their path, they
tried to go through it, but if it lay at an
angle to their course they would turn a
little to follow it.

The buffalo calf is born from April to
June, and at first is an awkward little
creature, looking much like a domestic
calf, but with a shorter neck. The hump
at first is scarcely noticeable, but devel-
ops rapidly. They are odd-looking and

ej

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

273

very playful little animals. They are
easily caught and taiued, when quite
young, but when a few months old they
become as sh}' as the old buffalo, and are
much more swift of foot.

Although apparently very sluggish,
buffalo are really extremely active, and
are able to go at headlong speed over a
country where no man Avould dare to
ride a horse. When alarmed they will
throw themselves down the almost verti-
cal side of a canon and climb the oj^posite
wall with cat-like agility. Sometimes
they will descend cut banks by jumping
from shelf to shelf of rock like the moun-
tain sheep. To get at water when thirsty,
they wall climb down bluffs that seem
altogether impracticable for such great
animals. Many years ago, while descend-
ing the Missouri Biver in a flat-boat
with two companions, I landed in a wide
bottom to kill a mountain sheep. As
we were bringing the meat to the boat,
we saw on the opposite side of the river,
about half-way down the bluffs, which
were here about fifteen hundred feet
high, a large buffalo bull. The bluffs were
almost vertical, and this old fellow was
having some difficulty in making his way
down to the water. He went slowly and
carefully, at times having pretty good
going, and at others slipping and sliding
for thirty or forty feet, sending the clay
and stones rolling ahead of him in great
quantities. We watched him for a little
while, and then it occurred to some
malicious spirit among us that it would
be fun to see whether the bull could go
up where he had come down. A shot
was fired so as to strike near him — for
no one wanted to hurt the old fellow —
and as soon as the report reached his
ears, he turned about and began to
scramble up the bluffs. His first rush
carried him, perhaps, a hundred feet
vertically, and then he stopped and
looked around. He seemed not to have
the slightest difficulty in climbing up,
nor did he use any caution or appear to
pick his way at all. A second shot
caused another rush up the steep as-
cent, but this time he went only half
as far as before and again stopped.
Three or four other shots drove him by
shorter and shorter rushes up the
bluffs, until at length he would go no
further, and subsequent shots only

caused him to shake his head angrily.
Plainly he had climbed until his wind
had given out, and now he would stand
and fight. Our fun was over, and look-
ing back as we floated down the river,
our last glimpse was of the old bull, still
standing on his sh^lf, waiting with low-
ered head for the unknown enemy that
he supposed was about to attack him.

It is not only under stress of circum-
stances that the bison climbs. The
mountain buffalo is almost as active as
the mountain sheep, and was often
found in places that tested the nerve
and activity of a man to reach ; and even
the buffalo of the plains had a fondness
for high places, and used to climb up
on to broken buttes or high rocky
points in the foothills. In recent years
I have often noticed the same habit
among range cattle and horses.

The buffalo were fond of rolling in
the dirt, and to this habit, practised
when the ground was wet, are due the
buffalo wallows which so frequently
occur in the old ranges, and which often
contain water after all other moisture,
except that of the streams, is dried up.
These wallows were formed by the roll-
ing of a succession of buffalo in the
same moist place, and were often quite
deep. They have often been described.
Less well known was the habit of
scratching themselves against trees and
rocks. Sometimes a solitary erratic
bowlder, five or six feet high, may be
seen on the bare prairie, the ground
immediately around it being worn down
two or three feet below the level of the
surrounding earth. This is where the
buffalo have walked about the stone,
rubbing against it, and where they trod
loosening the soil, which has been blowTi
away by the wind, so that in course of
time a deep trench was worn about the
rock. Often single trees along streams
were worn quite smooth by the shoul-
ders and sides of the buffalo.

When the first telegraph line was
built across the continent, the poles
used were light and small, for trans-
portation over the plains was slow and
expensive, and it was not thought nec-
essary to raise the wires high above the
ground. These poles were much re-
sorted to by the buffalo to scratch
against, and before long a great many

274

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

of them were pushed over. A story,
now of considerable antiquity, is told
of an ingenious employee of the tele-
graph comj^ii-iiy, who devised a plan for
preventing the buffalo from disturbing
the poles. This he expected to accom-
plish by driving into them spikes which
should prick the animals when they
rubbed against them. The result some-
what astonished the inventor, for it was
discovered that, where formerly one
buffalo rubbed against the smooth tele-
graph poles, ten now struggled and
fought for the chance to scratch them-
selves against the spiked poles, the iron
furnishing just the irritation which
their tough hides needed.

It was in spring, when his coat was
being shed, that the buffalo, odd-look-
ing enough at any time, presented his
most grotesque appearance. The mat-
ted hair and w^ool of the shoulders and
sides began to peel off in great sheets,
and these sheets, clinging to the skin
and flapping in the wdnd, gave the ani-
mal the appearance of being clad in
rags.

The buffalo was a timid creature, but
brought to bay would fight with feroc-
ity. There were few sights more terri-
fying to the novice than the spectacle
of an old bull at bay. His mighty bulk
a quivering mass of active, enraged
muscle ; the shining horns, the little,
spiky tail, and the eyes half hidden be-
neath the shaggy frontlet, yet gleaming
with rage, combined to render him an
awe - insj)iring object. Nevertheless,
owing to their greater speed and activ-
ity, the cows were much more to be
feared than the bulls.

It was once thought that the buffalo
performed annually extensive migra-
tions, and it was even said that those
which spent the summer on the banks
of the Saskatchewan wintered in Texas.
There is no reason for believing this to
have been true. Undoubtedly there
were slight general movements north
and south, and east and west, at certain
seasons of the year, but many of the
accounts of these movements are en-
tirely misleading, because greatly exag-
gerated. In one portion of the north-
ern country I know that there was a
decided east and west seasonal migra-
tion, the herds tending in spring away

from the mountains, while in the au-
tumn they worked l^ack again, no doubt
seeking shelter in the rough, Ijroken
country of the foothills from the cold
west winds of the winter.

The buffalo is easily tamed when
caught as a calf, and in all its ways of
life resembles the domestic cattle. It
at once learns to respect a fence, and
manifests no disposition to w^ander.

Three years ago there were in this
country about two hundred and fifty
domesticated buffalo, in the possession
of about a dozen individuals. Of these
the most important herd was that of
Hon. C. J. Jones, of Garden City, Kan.,
which included about fifty animals
captured and reared by himself, and the
Bedson herd of over eighty, purchased
in Manitoba. The Jones herd at one
time consisted of about one hundred and
fifty head. Next came that of Charles
AUard and Michel Pablo, of the Flat
Head Agency in Montana, which in
1888 numbered thirty-five, and has now
increased to about ninety. Mr. Jones's
herd has been broken up, and he now
retains only about forty-five head, of
which fifteen are breeding cows. He
tells me that within the i^ast year or
two he has sold over sixty pure buffalo,
and that nearly as many more have
died through injuries received in trans-
porting them by rail.

Mr. Jones is the only individual who
of recent years has made an}" systematic
effort to cross the buffalo with our own
domestic cattle. As far back as the be-
ginning of the present century, this was
successfully done in the West and North-
west, and in Audubon & Bachman's
" Quadrupeds of America " may be
found an extremely interesting account,
written by Robert AVickliffe, of Lexing-
ton, Ky., giving the results of a series
of careful and successful experiments
which he carried on for more than thirty
years. These experiments showed that
the cross for certain purposes was a very
valuable one, but no systematic efforts
to establish and perpetuate a breed of
buffalo cattle were afterward made un-
til within the past ten years. Mr. Jones
has bred buffalo bulls to Galloway,
Polled Angus, and ordinary range cows,
and has succeeded in obtaining calves
from all. Such half-breeds are of very

276

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO,

liiY^e size, cxtreniely hardy, and, an a
fanner would say, "easy keepers." They
are fertile among themselves or with
either parent. A half-breed cow of Mr.
Jones's that I examined Avas fully as
large as an ordinary work-ox, and in

domesticated l)uffalo will l)e allowed to
leave the country where they were born.
Indeed, it would seem quite within the
lines of the work now being carried on
by the Agricultural Dej^artment for the
Government to purchase all the domes-

A Relic.

spring, while nursing a calf, was fat on
grass. She lacked the buffalo hump, but
her hide would have made a good robe.
The great size and tremendous frame of
these cross-bred cattle should make
them very valuable for beef, while their
hardiness would exempt them from the
dangers from winter — so often fatal to
domestic range cattle — and they pro-
duce a robe which is quite as valuable
as that of the buffalo, and more beauti-
ful because more even all over. If con-
tinued, these attempts at cross-breeding
may do much to improve our Western
range cattle.

Mr. Jones has sold a number of buf-
falo to persons in Europe where there
is a considerable demand for them. It
is to be hoped that no more of these

ticated American buffalo that can be
had, and to start, in some one of the
Western States, an exj^erimental farm
for buffalo breeding and buffalo cross-
ing. With a herd of fifty pure bred
buffalo cows and a sufficient number of
bulls, a series of experiments could be
carried on which might be of great
value to the cattle growers of our west-
ern country. The stock of pure buffalo
could be kept up and increased, surplus
bulls, pure and half bred, could be sold
to farmers, and, in time, the new race
of buffalo cattle might become so firmly
established that it would endure.

To undertake this with any prospect
of success, such a farm would have to
be managed by a man of intelligence
and of wide experience in this particu-

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO,

211

lar field ; otherwise all the money in-
vested would be wasted. Mr. Jones is
perhaps the only man living who knows
enough of this subject to carry on such
an experimental farm with success.

Although only one species of buffalo
is known to science, old mountaineers
and Indians tell of four kinds. These
are, besides the ordinary animal of the
plains, the " mountain buffalo," some-
times called "bison," which is found in
the timbered Kocky Mountains ; the
" wood buffalo " of the Northwest, which
inhabits the timbered country to the
west and north of Athabaska Lake ; and
the "beaver buffalo." The last named
has been vaguely described to me by
northern Indians as small and having a
very curly coat. I know of only one
printed account of it, and this says that
it had " short, sharp horns which were
small at the root and curiously turned
up and bent backward, not unlike a
ram's, but quite unlike the bend of the
horn in the common buffalo." It is pos-
sible that this description may refer to
the musk ox and not to a buffalo. The
" mountain " and " wood " buffalo seem
to be very much alike in habit and aip-
pearance. They are larger, darker, and
heavier than the animal of the plains,
but there is no reason for thinking
them specifically distinct from it. Such
differences as existed were due to the
conditions of their environments.

The color of the buffalo in its new
coat is a dark liver-brown. This soon
changes, however, and the robes, which
are at their best in November and early
December, begin to grow paler toward
spring ; and when the coat is shed, the
hair and wool from young animals is
almost a dark smoky-gray. The calf
when first born is of a bright yellow
color, almost a pale red on the line of
the back. As it growls older it be-
comes darker, and by late autumn is
almost as dark as the adults. Varia-
tions from the normal color are very
rare, but pied, spotted, and roan ani-
mals were sometimes killed. Blue or
mouse-colored buffalo were occasion-
ally seen, and a bull of this color was
observed in the National Park last Jan-
uary. White buffalo — though often re-
ferred to as mythical — sometimes oc-
curred. These varied from gray to
Vol. XU.— 30

cream-white. The rare and valuable
*' silk " or " beaver" robe owes its name
to its dark color and its peculiar sheen
or gloss. White or spotted robes were
highly valued by the Indians. Among
the Blackfeet they w^ere presented to the
Sun as votive offerings. Other tribes
kept them in their sacred bundles.

Apart from man, the buffalo had but
few natural enemies. Of these the
most destructive were the wolves, which
killed a great many of them. These,
however, were principally old, straggling
bulls, for the calves were protected by
their mothers, and the females and
young stock were so vigorous and so gre-
garious that they had but little to fear
from this danger. It is probable that,
notwithstanding the destruction which
they wrought, the wolves performed an
important service for the buffalo race,
keeping it vigorous and healthy by kill-
ing weak, disabled, and superannuated
animals, which could no longer serve
any useful purpose in the herd, and yet
consumed the grass which would sup-
port a healthy breeding an'imal. It is
certainly true that sick buffalo, or those
out of condition, were rarely seen.

The grizzly bear fed to some extent
on the carcasses of buffalo drowned
in the rivers or caught in the quick-
sands, and occasionally they caught
living buffalo and killed them. A
Blackfoot Indian told me of an attempt
of this kind which he witnessed. He
was lying hidden by a buffalo trail in
the Bad Lands, near a little creek, wait-
ing for a small bunch to come down to
water, so that he might kill one. The
buffalo came on in single file as usual,
the leading animal being a young heifer.
When they had nearly reached the wa-
ter, and were passing under a vertical
clay wall, a grizzly bear, lying hid on a
shelf of this w^all, reached do's\Ti, and
with both paws caught the heifer about
the neck and threw himself upon her.
The others at once ran off, and a short
struggle ensued, the bear trying to kill
the heifer, and she to escape. Almost
at once, however, the Indian saw a
splendid young bull come rushing down
the trail toward the scene of conflict,
and charge the bear, knocking him
down. A fierce combat ensued. The
bull would charge the bear, and when

278

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

he struck liim fairly would knock him
off his feet, often inflicting severe
wounds Tvith his sharp horns. The
bear stiiick at the bull, and tried to
catch him by the head or shoulders,
and to hold him, but this he could not
do. After fifteen or twenty minutas of
fierce and active fighting the bear had
received all the punishment he cared
for, and tried to escape, but the bull
would not let him go, and kept up the
attack until he had killed his adver-
sary. Even after the bear was dead the
bull would gore the carcass and some-
times lift it clear of the ground on his
horns. He seemed insane with rage,
and, notwithstanding the fact that most
of the skin was torn from his head and
shoulders, appeared to be looking about
for something else to fight. The Indian
was very much afraid lest the bull
should discover and kill him, and was
greatly relieved when he finally left the
bear and went off to join his band.
This Blackfoot had never heard of Un-
cle Remus's tales, but he imitated Brer
Rabbit — laid low and said nothing.

To the Indians the buffalo was the
staff of life. It was their food, cloth-
ing, dwellings, tools. The needs of a
savage people are not many, perhaps,
but whatever the Indians of the plains
had, that the buffalo gave them. It is
not strange, then, that this animal was
reverenced by most plains tribes, nor
that it entered largely into their sacred
ceremonies, and was in a sense wor-
shipped by them. The PawTiees say
" Through the corn and the buffalo we
worship the Father." The Blackfeet
ask, "What one of all the animals is
most sacred?" and the reply given is
" The buffalo."

The robe was the Indian's winter
covering and his bed, while the skin,
freed from the hair and dressed, con-
stituted his summer sheet or blanket.
The dressed hide was used for mocca-
sins, leggings, shirts, and women's
dresses. Dressed cow -skins formed
their lodges, the warmest and most
comfortable portable shelters ever de-
vised. Braided strands of raw hide
furnished them with ropes and lines,
and these were made also from the
twisted hair. The green hide was some-
times used as a kettle, in which to boil

meat, or, stretched over a frame of
boughs, gave them coracles, or boats,
for crossing rivers. The tough, thick
hide of the bull's neck, allowed to
shrink smooth, made a shield which
would turn a lance-thnist, an arrow, or
even the ball from an old-fashioned
smooth-bore gun. From the raw hide,
the hair having been shaved off, were
made parfleches — envelope-like cases
which served for trunks or boxes — use-
ful to contain small articles. The can-
non-bones and ribs were used to make
implements for dressing hides ; the
shoulder-blades lashed to sticks made
hoes and axes, and the ribs runners
for small sledges drawn by dogs. The
hoofs were boiled to make a glue for
fastening the feathers and heads on
their arrows, the hair used to stuff cush-
ions, and later saddles, strands of the
long black beard to ornament articles
of weamig-apjiarel and implements of
war, such as shields and quivers. The
sinews lying along the back gave them
thread and bow-strings, and backed
their bows. The horns furnished spoons
and ladles, and ornamented their war
bonnets. Water buckets were made
from the lining of the paunch. The
skin of the hind leg cut off above the
pastern, and again a short distance
above the hock, was once used for a
moccasin or boot. Fly-brushes were
made from the skin of the tail dried on
sticks. Knife- sheaths, quivers, bow-
cases, gun-covers, saddle-cloths, and a
hundred other useful and necessary ar-
ticles, all were furnished by the buffalo.
The Indians killed some smaller
game, as elk, deer, and antelope, but
for food their dependence was on the
buffalo. But before the coming of the
whites their knives and arrow-heads
were merely sharpened stones, weapons
which would be inefficient against such
great, thick-skinned beasts. Even un-
der the most favorable circumstances,
with these primitive implements, they
could not kill food in quantities suf-
ficient to supply their needs. There
must be some means of taking the buf-
falo in considerable numbers. Such
wholesale capture was accomplished by
traps or surrounds, which all depend-
ed for success on one characteristic of
the animal — its curiosity.

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO,

279

The Blackfeet, Plains Crees, Gros
Ventres of the Prairie, Sarcees, some
bands of the Dakotas, Snakes, Crows,
and some others, drove the herds of buf-
falo into j)ens from above, or over high
cliffs, where the fall killed or crippled a
large majority of the herd. The Chey-
ennes and Arapahoes drove them into
pens on level ground ; the Blackfeet,
Aricaras, Mandans, Gros Ventres of
the Village, Paw^nees, Omahas, Otoes,
and others, surrounded the herds in
great circles on the prairie, and then
frightening them so that they started
running, kept them from breaking
through the line of men, and made
them race round and round in a circle,
until they were so exhausted that they
could not run away, and were easily
killed.

These primitive modes of slaughter
have been described by earlier writers,
and frequently quoted in recent years ;
yet, in all that has been written on this
subject I fail to find a single account
which gives at all a true notion of the
methods employed, or the means by
w^hich the buffalo were brought into
the enclosures. Eye - witnesses have
been careless observers, and have taken
many things for granted. My under-
standing of this matter is derived from
men who from childhood have been fa-
miliar with these things, and from them,
during years of close association, I have
again and again heard the story of these
old hunting methods.

The Blackfoot trap was called the
phkun. It was an enclosure, one side
of which was formed by the vertical
wall of a cut bank, the others being
built of rocks, logs, poles, and brush
six or eight feet high. It was not nec-
essary that these walls should be very
strong, but they had to be tight, so
that the buffalo could not see through
them. From a point on the cut bank
above this enclosure, in two diverging
lines stretching far out into the prai-
rie, piles of rock w^ere heaped up at
short intervals, or bushes were stuck
in the ground, forming the wings of a V-
shaped chute, which would guide any
animals running down the chute to its
angle above the p'lskun. When a herd
of buffalo were feeding near at hand,
the people prepared for the hunt, in

which almost the whole camp took part.
It is commonly stated that the buffalo
were driven into the jjhtan by mounted
men, but this is not the case. They
were not driven but led, and they w^ere
led by an appeal to their curiosity.
The man who brought them was usu-
ally the possessor of a " buffalo rock," a
talisman which was believed to give
him greater power to call the buffalo
than was had by others. The pre-
vious night was spent by this man in
praying for success in the enterprise of
the morrow. The help of the Sun,
Ndpi, and all Above People was asked
for, and sweet grass was burned to
them. Early in the morning, without
eating or drinking, the man started
away from the camp and went up on
the prairie. Before he left the lodge
he told his wives that they must not
go out, or even look out, of the lodge
during his absence. They should stay
there, and pray to the Sun for his suc-
cess, and burn sweet grass until he re-
turned. When he left the camp and
went up on to the prairie toward the
buffalo, all the people follow^ed him,
and distributed themselves along the
wings of the chute, hiding behind the
piles of rock or brush. The caller
sometimes wore a robe and a bull's
head bonnet, or at times was naked.
When he had approached close to the
buffalo, he endeavored to attract their
attention by moving about, wheeling
round and round, and alternately ap-
pearing and disappearing. The feed-
ing buffalo soon began to raise their
heads and stare at him, and presently
the nearest ones would walk toward
him to discover what this strange creat-
ure might be, and the others would
follow. As they began to approach,
the man withdrew toward the entrance
of the chute. If the buffalo began to
trot, he increased his speed, and before
very long he had the herd well within
the wings. As soon as they had passed
the first piles of rock, behind w^hich
some of the people were concealed, the
Indians sprang into view, and by yelling
and waving robes frightened the hind-
most of the buffalo, which then began
to run down the chute. As they passed
along, more and more people showed
themselves and added to their terror,

280

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

and in a very short time the herd was
in a headlong stampede, guided toward
the angle above the p'lskun by the piles
of rock on either side.

About the walls of the p7skun, now
full of buffalo, were distributed the
women and children of the camp, who,
leaning over the enclosure, waving their
arms and calling out, did all they could
to frighten the penned-in animals, and
to keep them from pushing against the
walls or trying to jump or climb over
them. As a rule the buffalo raced round
within the enclosure, and the men shot
them down as they passed, until all were
killed. After this the people all en-
tered the piskun and cut up the dead,
transporting the meat to camp. The
skulls, bones, and less perishable offal
were removed from the enclosure, and
the wolves, coyotes, foxes, and badgers
devoured what was left.

It occasionally happened that some-
thing occurred to turn the buffalo, so
that they passed through the guiding
arms and escaped. Usually they went
on straight to the angle and jumped over
the cliff into the enclosure below. In
winter, when snow was on the ground,
their straight course was made addi-
tionally certain by placing on, or just
above the snow, a line of buffalo chips
leading from the angle of the V, mid-
way between its arms out on to the
prairie. These dark objects, only
twenty or thirty feet apart, were easily
seen against the white snow, and the
buffalo always followed them, no doubt
thinking this a trail where another
herd had passed.

By the Sauihsik tribe of the Black-
foot nation and the Plains Crees, the
piskun was built in a somewhat differ-
ent way, but the methods employed
were similar. With these people, who
inhabited a flat country, the enclosure
was built of logs and near a timbered
stream. Its walls were complete ; that
is, there was no opening or gateway in
them, but at one point this wall, else-
where eight feet high, was cut away so
that its height was only about four feet.
From this point a bridge or causeway
of logs, covered with dirt, sloped by a
gradual descent down to the level of
the prairie. This bridge was fenced
on either side with logs, and the arms

of the V came together at the point
where the l)ridge reached the ground.
The buffalo were driven down the chute
as before, ran up on this bridge, and
were forced to leap into the pen. As
soon as all had entered, Indians who
had been concealed near by ran up and
put poles across the opening through
which the buffalo had passed, and over
these poles hung robes so as entirely
to conceal the outer world. Then the
butchering of the animals took place.

Further to the south, out on the
prairie, where timber and rocks and
brush were not obtainable for making
traps like these, simpler but less effec-
tive methods were adopted. The peo-
ple would go out on the prairie and
conceal themselves in a great circle,
open on one side. Then some man
would approach the buffalo, and decoy
them into the circle. Men would now
show themselves at different points and
start the buffalo running in a circle,
yelling and waving robes to keep them
from approaching, or trying to break
through, the ring of men. This had to
be done with great judgment, however,
for often if the herd got started in one
direction it was impossible to turn it,
and it would rush through the ring and
none would be secured. Sometimes if
a herd was found in a favorable posi-
tion, and there was no Avind, a large
camp of people would set up their
lodges all about the buffalo, in w^hich
case the chances of success in the sur-
round were greatly increased.

The tribes which used the piskun also
practised driving the buffalo over high,
rough cliffs, where the fall crippled or
killed most of the animals which went
over. In such situations, no enclos-
ure was built at the foot of the preci-
pice.

In the later days of the piskun in
the north, the man w^ho brought the
buffalo often w^ent to them on horse-
back, riding a white horse. He would
ride backward and forward before them,
zig-zagging this way and that, and af-
ter a little they would follow him. He
never attempted to drive, but always
led them. The driving began only
after the herd had passed the outer
rock piles, and the people had begun
to rise up and frighten them.

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO,

281

This method of securing meat has
been practised in Montana within thirty
years, and even more recently among
the Plains Crees of the north. I have
seen the remains of old plskuns, and the
guiding wings of the chute, and have
talked with many men
who have taken part
in such killings.

All this had to do,
of course, with the
primitive methods of
buffalo killing. As
soon as horses became
abundant, and sheet-
iron arrow-heads, and
later guns, were secured by the
Indians, these old practices be-
gan to give way to the more ex-
citing pursuit of running buffalo
and of surrounding them on
horseback. Of this modern
method, as practised twenty
years ago, and exclusively with
the bow and arrow, I have al-
ready written at some length in
another place.

To the white travellers on the
plains in early days the buffalo
furnished support and suste-
nance. Their abundance made
fresh meat usually obtainable,
and the early travellers usually
carried with them bundles of
dried meat, or sacks of pemmi-
can, food made from the flesh
of the buffalo, that contained a
great deal of nutriment in very
small bulk. Kobes were used
for bedding, and in winter buf-
falo moccasins were worn for
warmth, the hair side within.
Coats of buffalo skin are the
warmest covering known, the
only garment which will pre-
sent an effective barrier to the
bitter blasts that sweep over the
plains of the Northwest.

Perhaps as useful to early trav-
ellers as any product of the buffalo, was
the " buffalo chip," or dried dung. This,
being composed of comminuted woody
fibre of the grass, made an excellent
fuel, and in many parts of the treeless
plains was the only substance which
could be used to cook with.

The dismal story of the extermina-

tion of the buffalo for its hides has
been so often told, that I may be spared
the sickening details of the butchery
which was carried on from the Mexican
to the British boundary line in the
struggle to obtain a few dollars by a
most ignoble means.
As soon as railroads
penetrated the buffalo
country, a market was
opened for their hides.
Men too lazy to work
were not too lazy to
hunt, and a good hunt-
er could kill in the
early days from thirty
to seventy-five buffalo
a day, the hides of
which were worth from J1.50
to J4 each. This seemed an
easy way to make mone}^, and
the market for hides was un-
limited. Up to this time the
trade in robes had been main-
ly confined to those dressed
by the Indians, and these were
for the most 2^art taken from
cows. The coming of the rail-
road made hides of all sorts
marketable, and even those
taken from naked old bulls
found a sale at some price.
The butchery of buffalo was
now something stupendous.
Thousands of hunters fol-
lowed millions of buffalo and
i/, destroyed them wherever
'<' found and at all seasons of
the year. They pursued them
during the day, and at night
camped at the watering places,
and built lines of fires along
the streams, to drive the buf-
falo back so that they could
not drink. It took less than
six years to destroy all the
buffalo in Kansas, Nebraska,
Indian Territory, and north-
ern Texas. The few that were
left of the southern herd retreated to the
waterless plains of Texas, and there for
a while had a brief respite. Even liere
the hunters followed them, but as the
animals were few and the territory in
which they ranged vast, they held out
here for some years. It was in this
country, and against the very last sur-

ian Mau

282

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

vivors of this southern herd, that " Buf-
falo Jones " made his very successful
trips to capture calves.

The extirpation of the northern herd
was longer delayed. No very terrible
slaughter occurred until the comple-
tion of the Northern Pacific Railroad ;
then, however, the same scenes of
butchery were enacted. Buffalo were
shot down by tens of thousands, their
hides stripped off, and the meat left to
the Avolves. The result of the crusade
was soon seen, the last buffalo were
killed in the Northwest near the bound-
ary line in 1883, and that year may be
said to have finished up the species,
though some few were killed in 1884 to
1885.

After the slaughter had been begun,
but years before it had been accom-
plished, the subject was brought to the
attention of Congress, and legislation
looking to the preservation of the spe-
cies was urged upon that body. Little
general interest was taken in the sub-
ject, but in 1874, after much discussion.
Congress did pass an, act providing for
the protection of the buffalo. The bill,
however, was never signed by the Pres-
ident.

During the last days of the buffalo, a
remarkable change took place in its
form, and this change is worthy of con-
sideration by naturalists, for it is an
example of specialization — of devel-
opment in one particular direction —
which was due to a change in the en-
vironment of the species, and is inter-
esting because it was brought about in
a very few years, and indicates how rap-
idly, under favoring conditions, such
specialization may take place.

This change was noticed and com-
mented on by hunters who followed the
northern buffalo, as well as by those who
assisted in the extermination of the
southern herd. The southern hunters,
however, averred that the " regular "
buffalo had disappeared — gone off some-
where— and that their place had been
taken by what they called the southern
buffalo, a race said to have come up
from Mexico, and characterized by lon-
ger legs and a longer, lighter body than
the buffalo of earlier years, and which
was also peculiar in that the animals
never became fat. Intelligent hunters

of the northern herd, however, recog-
nized the true state of the case, which
was that the buffalo, during the last
years of their existence, were so con-
stantly pursued and driven from place
to jDlace that they never had time to lay
on fat as in earlier years, and that, as a
consequence of this continual running,
the animal's form changed, and instead
of a fat, short-backed, short-legged ani-
mal, it became a long-legged, light-
bodied beast, formed for running.

This specialization in the direction of
speed at first proceeded very slowly,
but at last, as the dangers to wiiich the
animals were subjected became more
and more pressing, it took place rap-
idly, and as a consequence the last buf-
falo killed on the plains were extremely
long-legged and rangy, and were very
different in appearance — as they were
in their habits — from the animals of
twenty years ago.

Buffalo running was not a sport that
required much skill, yet it was not
without its dangers. Occasionally a
man was killed by the buffalo, but deaths
from falls and from bursting guns were
more common. Many curious stories
of such accidents are told by the few
real old - timers wdiose memory goes
back fifty years, to the time when flint-
lock guns were in use. A mere fall
from a horse is lightly regarded by the
practised rider ; the danger to be feared
is that in such a fall the horse may
roll on the man and crush him. Even
more serious accidents occurred when
a man fell uj)on some part of his equip-
ment, which was driven through his
body. Hunters have fallen in such a
way that their whip - stocks, arrows,
bows, and even guns, have been driven
through their bodies. The old flint-lock
guns, or " fukes," which were loaded on
the run, with powder poured in from
the horn by guess, and a ball from the
mouth, used frequently to burst, caus-
ing the loss of hands, arms, and even
lives.

While most of the deaths which oc-
curred in the chase resulted from
causes other than the resistance of the
buffalo, these did occasionally kill a
man. A curious accident happened in
a camp of Red River half-breeds in the
early '70s. The son of an Iroquois half-

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO,

283

breed, about twenty years old, went out
one day with the rest of the camp to run
buffalo. At night he did not return, and
the next day all the men went out to
search for him. They found the horse
and the arms, but could not find the
man, and could not imagine what had
become of him. About a year later, as
the half-breeds were hunting in another
part of the country, a cow was seen
w^hicli had something unusual on its
head. They chased and killed her, and
found that she had on her head the
pelvis of a man, one of the horns hav-
ing pierced the thin part of the bone,
which was wedged on so tightly that
they could hardl}^ get it off. Much of
the hair on the head, neck, and shoul-
ders of the cow was worn off short, and
on the side on which the bone was,
down on the neck and shoulders, the
hair was short, black, and looked new,
as if it had been worn entirely off the
skin, and was just beginning to grow
out again. It is supposed that this
bone was part of the missing young
man, who had been hooked by the cow,
and carried about on her head until
his body fell to pieces.

My old and valued friend, Charles
Reynolds, for years chief of scouts at
Fort Lincoln, Dak., and who was
killed by the Sioux in the Custer fight
in 1876, told me of the death of a hunt-
ing partner of his, which shows how
dangerous even a dying buffalo may be.
The two men had started from the rail-
road to go south and bring in a load of
meat. On finding a bunch of buffalo,
they killed by stalking what they re-
quired, and then on foot went up to the
animals to butcher them. One cow,
lying on her side, was still moving a lit-
tle convulsively, but dying. The man
approached her as if about to cut her
throat, but when he was within a few
feet of her head, she sprang to her feet,
rushed at him, struck him in the chest
with her horns, and then fell dead.
Charley ran up to his partner, and to
his horror saw that the cow's horn had
ripped him up from the belly to the
throat, so that he could see the heart
still expanding and contracting-.

Charley buried his partner there,
and returning to the town, told his
story. He was at once arrested on the

charge that he had murdered his com-
panion, and was obliged to return to
the place and to assist in digging up
the body to establish the truth of his
statements.

In the early days when the game was
plenty, buffalo running was exhilarating
sport. Given a good horse, the only
other requisite to success was the abil-
ity to remain on his back till the end
of the chase. No greater degree of
skill was needed than this, and yet the
quick motion of the horse, the rough
ground to be traversed, and the feeling
that there was something ahead that
must be overtaken and stopped, made
the ride attractive. There was the very
slightest spice of danger, for while no
one anticij)ated an accident, it was pos-
sible that one's horse might step into a
badger hole, in which case his rider
would get a fall that would make his
bones ache.

The most exciting, and by far the
most interesting, hunts in which I ever
took j)art were those with the Indians
of the plains. They were conducted
almost noiselessly, and no ring of rifle-
shot broke the stillness of the air, nor
puff of smoke rose toward the still,
gray autumn sky. The consummate
grace and skill of the naked Indians,
and the speed and quickness of their
splendid ponies, were well displayed in
such chases as these. More than one
instance is recorded where an Indian
has sent an arrow entirely through the
bodies of two buffalo. Sometimes such
a hunt was signalized by some feat of
daring bravado that, save in the see-
ing, was scarcely credible, as when the
Cheyenne Big Ribs rode his horse close
up to the side of a huge bull, and,
springing on his back, rode the savage
beast for some distance, and then with
his knife gave it its death-stroke. Or
a man might find himself in a position
of comical danger, as did " The Trad-
er " who was thrown from his horse on
to the horns of a bull without being
injured. One of the horns passed un-
der his belt and supported him, and at
the same time prevented the bull from
tossing him. In this way he was car-
ried for some distance on the animal's
head, when the belt gave way and he
fell to the ground unhurt, while the

284

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

bull ran on. There were occasions
when buffalo or horses fell in front of
horsemen riding at full run, and when
a fall was avoided only by leaping one's
horse over the fallen animal. In the
buffalo chase of old days it was well for
a man to keep his wits about him, for,
though he might run buffalo a thou-
sand times without accident, the mo-
ment might come when only instant
action would save him his life, or at
least an ugly hurt.

In the early days of the first Pacific
Railroad, and before the herds had been
driven back from the track, singular
hunting parties were sometimes seen
on the buffalo range. These hunters
were capitalists connected with the
newly constructed roads, and some of
them now for the first time bestrode a
horse, while few had ever used fire-
arms. On such a hunt, one well-known
railroad director, eager to kill a buf-
falo, declined to trust himself on horse-
back, preferring to bounce over the
rough prairie in an ambulance driven
by an alarmed soldier, who gave less
attention to the mules he was guiding
than to the loaded and cocked pistol
which his excited passenger was brand-
ishing. These were amusing excur-
sions where a merry party of pleasant
officers from a frontier post, and their
guests, a jolly crowd of merchants,
brokers, and railroad men from the
East, start out to have a buffalo hunt.
With them go the post guide and a
scout or two, the escort of soldiers, and
the great blue army wagons, under
whose white tilts are piled all the com-
forts that the post can furnish — unlim-
ited food and drink, and many sacks of
forage for the animals. Here all was
mirth and jest and good fellowship,
and, except that canvas covered them
while they slept, the hunters lived in
as much comfort as when at home.
The killing of buffalo was to them only
an excuse for their jolly outing amid
novel scenes.

It was on the plains of Montana, in
the days when buffalo w^ere still abun-
dant, that I had one of my last buf-
falo hunts — a hunt with a serious pur-
pose. A company of fifty or more
men, who for weeks had been living on
bacon and beans, longed for the " boss

ribs " of fat coav, and when we struck
the buffalo range two of us were de-
puted to kill some meat. My compan-
ion was an old prairie man of great
experience, and I myself was not alto-
gether new to the West, for I had
hunted in many territories, and had
more than once been "jumped" by
hostile Indians. Our horses were not
buffalo runners, yet we felt a certain
confidence that if we could find a bunch
and get a good start on them, we would
bring in the desired meat. The troops
would march during the day, for the
commanding officer has no notion of
waiting in camp merely for fresh meat,
and we w^ere to go out, hunt, and over-
take the command at their night's
camp.

The next day after we had reached
the buffalo range we started out long
before the eastern sky was gray, and
were soon riding off over the chilly
prairie. The trail which the command
was to follow ran a little north of east,
and w^e kept to the south and away from
it, believing that in this direction we
would find the game ; and that if we
started them they would run north or
northwest — against the wind, so that
we could kill them near the traih Un-
til some time after the sun had risen we
saw nothing larger than anteloj^e, but
at length, from the top of a high hill we
could see far away to the east dark dots
on the prairie, which w^e knew could only
be buffalo. They were undisturbed too,
for, though we watched them for some
time, we could detect no motion in their
ranks.

It took us nearly two hours to reach
the low, broken buttes on the north
side of which the buffalo were, and, rid-
ing up on the easternmost of these, we
tried to locate our game more exactly.
It was important to get as close as pos-
sible before starting them, so that our
first rush might carry us into the midst
of them. Knowing the capabilities of
our horses, which were thin from long
travel, we felt sure that if the buffalo
should take the alarm before we were
close to them, w^e could not overtake the
cows and young animals which always
run in the van, and should have to con-
tent ourselves with old bulls. On the
other hand, if w^e could dash in among

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

285

them during the first few hundred yards
of the race, we should be able to keep
up with and select the fattest animals in
the herd.

When we reached a point just below
the crest of the hill, I stopped and
waited, while my comi^anion rode on.
Just before he got to the top he too
halted, then took off his hat and peered
over the ridge, examining so much of
the prairie beyond as was now visible to
him. His inspection w^as careful and
thorough, and when he had made sure
that nothing was in sight, his horse
took a step or two forward and then
stopped again, and the rider scanned
every foot of country before him. The
horse, trained as the real hunter's horse
is always trained, understood what was
required of him, and with pricked ears
examined the prairie beyond with as
much interest as did his rider. When
the calf of Charley's right leg pressed
the horse's side, two or three steps more
were taken, and then a lifting of the
bridle hand caused another halt.

At length I saw my companion slowly
bend forward over his horse's neck,
turn, and ride back to me. He had seen
the backs of two buffalo lying on the
edge of a little flat hardly a quarter of
a mile from where we stood. The others
of the band must be still nearer to us.
By riding along the lowest part of the
sag which separated the two buttes, and
then down a little ravine, it seemed
probable that we could come within a
few yards of the buffalo unobserved.
Our preparations did not take long.
The saddle cinches were loosened,
blankets arranged, saddles put in their
proper places and tightly cinched again.
Cartridges were brought round to the
front and right of the belt, where they
would be convenient for reloading. Our
coats tied behind the saddle were looked
to, the strings which held them being
tightened and securely retied. All this
w^as not lost on our horses, which un-
derstood as well as we did what was
coming. We skirted the butte, rode
through the low sag and down into the
little ravine, which soon grew deeper, so
that our heads were below the range of
vision of almost anything on the butte.
Passing the mouth of the, little side
ravine, however, there came into full

view a huge bull lying well up on the
hillside. Luckily his back was toward
us, and, each bending low over his
horse's neck, we rode on, and in a mo-
ment were hidden by the side of the
ravine. Two or three minutes more,
and we came to another side ravine
Avhich was wide and commanded a view
of the flat. We stopped before reach-
ing this, and a peep showed that we
were within a few yards of two old
cows, a young heifer, and a yearling, all
of them to the north of us. Beyond,
we could see the backs of others all ly-
ing down.

We jumped on our horses again, and,
setting the spurs well in, galloped up
the ravine and up on the flat, and as
we came into view the nearest buffalo,
as if propelled by a huge spring, were
on their feet, and, with a second's pause
to look, dashed away to the north.
Scattered over the flat were fifty or
seventy-five buffalo, all of which, by
the time we had glanced over the field,
were off, with heads hanging low to the
ground, and short, spiky tails stretched
out behind. We were up even with the
last of the cows, and our horses were
running easily and seemed to have
plenty of reserve power. Charley, who
was a little ahead of me, called back,
" They will cross the trail about a mile
north of here. Kill a couple when we
get to it." I nodded, and we went on.
The herd raced forward over the rolling
hills, and in what seemed a very short
time we rushed down a long slope on to
a wide flat, in which was a prairie dog
town of considerable extent. We were
on the very heels of the herd, and in a
cloud of dust kicked up by their rapid
flight. To see the ground ahead was
impossible. We could only trust to
our horses and our good luck to save
us from falling. Our animals were do-
ing better than we had supposed they
could, and were going well and under
a pull. I felt that a touch of the spurs
and a little riding would bring us up
even with the leaders of the buffalo.
The pace had already proved too much
for several bulls, which had turned off
to one side and been passed by. As
we flew across the flat, I saw far off a
dark line and two w^hite objects, which
I knew must be our command. I called

286

THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.

to my comrade and, questioning by the
sign, pointed at the buffalo. He nod-
ded, and in a moment we had given free
rein to our horses, and were up among
the herd. During the ride I had two
or three times selected my game, but
the individuals of the band changed
positions so constantly that I could not
keep track of them. Now, however, I
picked out a fat two-year-old bull, but
as I drew up to him he ran faster than
before, and rapidly made his way to-
ward the head of the band. I was re-
solved that he should not escape, and
so, though I was still fifteen or twenty
yards in the rear, fired. At the shot
he fell heels over head direct^ across a
cow, which was running by his side
and a little behind him. I saw her turn
a somerset, and almost at the same
instant heard Charley shoot twice in
quick succession, and saw two buffalo
fall. I fired at a fat young cow, that I
had pushed m}^ pony up close to. At
the shot she whirled, my horse did the
same, and she chased me as hard as she
could go for seventy-five yards, while I
did some exceedingly vigorous spur-
ring, for she was close behind me all
the time. To do my horse justice, I
think that he would have run as fast as
he could, even without the spurs, for
he appreciated the situation. At no
time was there any immediate danger
that the cow Avould overtake us ; if
there had been, I should have dodged
her. Presently the cow stopped, and
stood there very sick. When I rode
back I did not find it easy to get my
horse near her, but another shot was
not needed, and while I sat looking at
her, she fell over dead. The three buf-
falo first killed had fallen within a
hundred yards of the trail where the
wagons afterward passed, and my cow
was but little farther away. The com-
mand soon came up, the soldiers did the
butchering, and before long we were
on the march again.

Of the millions of buffalo which even
in our own time ranged the plains
in freedom, none now remain. From
the prairies which they used to darken,
the wild herds, down to the last strag-
gling bull, have disappeared. In the
Yellowstone National Park, protected

from destruction by United States
troops, are the only wild buffalo which
exist within the borders of the United
States. These are mountain buffalo,
and, from their habit of living in the
thick timber and on the rough moun-
tain sides, they are only now and then
seen b}^ visitors to the Park. It is im-
possible to say just how many there
are, but from the best information that
I can get, based on the estimates of
reliable and conservative men, I con-
clude that the number was not less
than four hundred in the winter of
1891-92. Each winter or spring the
Government scout employed in the Park
sees one or more herds of these buffalo,
and as such herds are usually made up
in part of young animals and have
calves with them, it is fair to assume
that they are steadily if slowly increas-
ing. The report of a trip made last
January speaks of four herds seen in
the Hayden Valley, which numbered re-
spectively 78, 50, 110, and 15. Besides
these, a number of single animals and
of scattering groups were seen at a dis-
tance, which would perhaps bring the
total number up to three hundred.
Of course, it is not to be supposed that
all the buffalo in the Park were at that
time collected in this one valley.

In the far Northwest, in the Peace
River district, there may still be found
a few wood buffalo. Judging from re-
ports of them which occasionally reach
us from Indians and Hudson's Bay men,
their habits resemble those of the Euro-
pean bison. They are seldom killed,
and the estimate of their numbers
varies from five hundred to fifteen
hundred. This cannot be other than
the merest guess, since they are scat-
tered over many thousand square miles
of territory which is without inhabi-
tants, and for the most part unexplored.

On the great plains is still found the
buffalo skull half buried in the soil and
crumbling to decay. The deep trails
once trodden by the marching hosts
are grass-gro^vn now, and fast filling
up. When these most enduring relics
of a vanished race shall have passed
away, there will be found, in all the lim-
itless domain once darkened by their
feeding herds, not one trace of the
American buffalo.

THE TILDEN TRUST LIBRARY! WHAT SHALL

IT BE ?

By John Bigelow.

KECENT decision
of the Court of
Appeals, nullifying
the clause of the
late Mr. Tilden's
will in which he
tried to provide a free
monumental library for
the city of New York, imports
a most humiliating reflection
either upon the statesmen who
made our testamentary laws or
upon the court which interpreted them.
In either case, and irrespective of the
loss visited upon our commercial me-
tropolis by this decision, the result can-
not fail to be regarded not only as a de-
feat of justice, but as a public calamity.
What were Mr. Tilden's wishes and
intentions in regard to the disposition
of the bulk of his fortune after making
what he deemed an adequate provision
for his kindred, no one who has read
his will could entertain a doubt. His
intentions have been disregarded and
his will set aside by the Court of Ap-
peals, apparently, because he had re-
posed more confidence in his executors
than the law permits. Had he selected
for his executors gentlemen in w^hose
integrity he had less confidence, gen-
tlemen w^hose discretion he distrusted,
and had he tied them up with such re-
strictions as obvious prudence would
have dictated in such a case, his wishes
might have been respected and the city
of New York be now the richer by
some five millions of dollars.

Whether this decision is in accord
with the laws of the State or merely a
caprice of the judiciary, it is final so
far .as the Tilden Trust is concerned ; and,
despite the carefully elaborated direc-
tions of his will, the whole of this large
bequest was decided to belong to heirs
for whom he designed only what was
indeed a generous provision, none of
them being descendants of his body,
but which amounts in fact to less than
one-fifth of his estate.

Hap)pily a remnant has been saved

from the wreck ; what may be character-
ized as a lunar rather than a solar rem-
nant, but still a remnant of planetaiy
proportions. In view of the uncertain-
ties, expense, and delays incident to ht-
igation of this character, the executors
of Mr. Tilden and the trustees of the
Tilden Trust deemed it prudent, previ-
ous to the final argument of the Court
of Appeals, to accept the terms of a set-
tlement proffered by the grand-niece of
Mr. Tilden, who was a party to the suit
for the invalidation of the will, and who
upon the death of her grandmother,
Mr. Tilden's sister, and under her will,
not under the wdll of Mr. Tilden, be-
came entitled to one-half of all that part
of the estate that had been intended for
the Tilden Trust.

By the terms of this settlement the
trustees of the Tilden Trust came into
the possession of a j)roperty from which
they expect to realize from two to two
and a quarter millions of dollars. None
of this sum, however, comes to the
Tilden Trust through the will of Mr.
Tilden. If this remnant shall ever be
consecrated to the purpose for which
the larger sum was designed, it will
represent the shadow only of Mr. Til-
den's beneficent intentions : the sub-
stance having been entirely diverted by
the courts in other directions. Had
the trustees of the Tilden Trust declined
to avail themselves of this opportunity
of insuring the city against the risks
of a total loss, any private citizen would
have encountered no legal obstacle in
taking the same risk and putting the
proceeds of the venture into his own
pocket.

Notwithstanding his long-cherished
desire, his carefull}^ matured j)lans and
clearly expressed instructions, the pub-
lic will never receive a single penny
directly from Mr. Tilden's estate except
what may come to it periodically in the
form of taxes.

Shamefully unjust to the memory of
Mr. Tilden as this state of facts will ap-

288 THE TILDEN TRUST LIBRAKY : WHAT SHALL IT BE?

pear, when the judicial lif^ht of history
shall be turned upon it, it delivers the
trustees of the Tilden Trust from some
of the restrictions in the administration
of what they have saved — a fact which
may ultimately prove advantageous to
the public.

By his will it is clear that Mr. Tilden
intended to confer upon his trustees a
wide discretion in regard to the appli-
cation of his bequest. He sought to
provide for the city in which he had
passed most of his life, in which he had
amassed his fortune, and from which he
had received every mark of public re-
gard that could render life attractive to
him, not only a free library, but such
other educational facilities as in their
judgment would be most opportune.*

Had the validity of the Tilden Trust
been sustained by the courts, the trus-
tees would have been compelled to re-
strict their operations rigorously to the
needs of " A free library in the city of
New York." This testamentary restric-
tion, however, does not apply to the
fund which has come into the hands of
the trustees, except so far as such re-
striction is perpetuated by the charter
of the Tilden Trust, a restriction which
the legislature, if requested, will hardly
hesitate to modify in any direction that
would manifestly enlarge the usefulness
of the Trust.

"The horse that drags its halter is
not lost." Though the law has fla-
grantly shorn the Trust of its just pro-
portions, a princely endowment for a
library has been saved, and the imme-
diate and pressing question now is, how
can this endowment be used to the best
advantage ? In this question every New
Yorker, at least, has a vital interest,
and the press of New York a manifest
duty, for it is only through the press
that the best judgment of her citizens
can be evolved and the public authori-

* "If for any cause or reason," he says in the 35th
section of his will, " ray said executors and trustees shall
deem it inexpedient to convey said rest, residue, and re-
mainder or any part thereof or to apply the same or any
part thereof to the said institution, I authorize my
said executors and trustees to apply the rest, residue,
and remainder of my property, real and personal, after
making good the said special Trusts herein directed
to be constituted, or such portions thereof as they may
not deem it expedient to apply to its use, to such chari-
table, educational, and scientific purposes as in the
judgment of my said executors and trustees will render
the said rest, residue, and remainder of my property
most widely and substantially beneficial to the inter-
ests of mankind."

ties properly encouraged and sustained
in giving that judgment fit and ade-
quate expression. Had the portion of
his estate which Mr. Tilden destined for
the Tilden Trust come into the hands of
its trustees, it would have been their
duty, as we understand it to have been
their purpose, to open a library at once,
or at least without unnecessary delay, at
the testator's former residence. No. 15
Gramercy Park, a structure which could
be made to accommodate some two
hundred thousand volumes, and which
would have the important advantage of
being accessible both from Nineteenth
and Twentieth Streets. Though this
property would not furnish for any con-
siderable time such accommodation as
the Tilden Trust Library would require,
even with its curtailed resources, it
would have enabled the trustees to com-
mence operations, within six months or
a year at the latest, with a collection ex-
ceeding both in number and value the
collections which first welcomed the
public to any of the other great libra-
ries of the world.

The fact that this structure had been
for many years the residence of Mr.
Tilden, as well as the obvious duty of
the trustees to lose no time in giving
the public an opportunity of profiting
by his munificence, favored this idea.
Could this dream have been realized, the
library might have been dispensing its
blessings, and at the same time develop-
ing organized strength and vigor, while
the trustees should be taking the neces-
sary steps to provide ampler accommo-
dations for its progressive needs in the
early future.

In view of their reduced resources,
this policy is less likely to commend it-
self to the trustees. In the first place,
they do not own the Gramercy Park
property which Mr. Tilden intended
them to have. They are joint owners
of but half of it, the other lialf belong-
ing to the heirs, and a suit in parti-
tion and sale at public auction may
be necessary for a division of their re-
spective interests. To whom it will be-
long after the sale, and the time to be
consumed in the partition, are both, of
course, uncertain.

In the second place, should the trus-
tees become the purchasers of the

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Vol. XII.— 31

1290 THE TILDEN TRUST LIBRARY : WHAT SHALL IT BE?

Gramercy Park house, would they be jus-
tified in sinking so large a proportion
of their reduced capital in non-income
producing property, by appropriating
it to such a purpose ? They cannot
count with any certainty, at present,
upon an income of much over $80,000 a
year. All of that will be needed to
equip and operate such a reference lib-
rary as befits a city already more popu-
lous than London fifty years ago, and
likely to be as populous fifty years
hence as London itself will then be.

In the third place, the Gramercy
Park house was constructed for a resi-
dence ; it would require strengthening
and other extensive and more or less
expensive alterations to adapt it to the
purposes of a library, and when all was

View in One of the Stack-rooms of the Library.

done, it would not be fire-proof, a very
serious objection to the dwelling-place
of any large library.

In the fourth place, its territory
would in a very few years be totally in-
adequate to the expanding needs of the
library, for which it is manifestly wiser,
if possible, to provide in the beginning
than to incur all the disturbance, incon-
venience, and expense of a removal, a

new classification of the books, a recon-
structing of catalogues, and numberless
other subsidiary clianges which would
be required to adjust the libraiy and its
work to a new domicile and a new en-
vironment.

Were the trustees ever willing, would
it be wise or prudent for the city to
allow the funds for this library, the
manifest destiny of which is to become
the most important library of the con-
tinent, to be farther shrunk, merely
to provide a shelter for its opera-
tions ?

New York has already as many smaU,
incomplete, and struggling libraries as
are needed. Would it not be a folly to
add to their number? What the city
now wants is a library that shall pos-
sess sufficient vital force to become, rea-
sonably soon, a repair for students from
all parts of the world ; to constitute an
attraction to the literary and contem-
plative class, fitly corresponding with
the incomparable attractions which she
has always held out to men of affairs ;
to the organizers of the material indus-
tries and interests of the nation.

With their income unimpaired and
entirely applicable to the equipment
and operation of the library, this result
could be realized in a very few^ years,
for there probably was never a time in
the history of the world when there were
so many valuable libraries awaiting the
advent of cash purchasers. Even in
our own country there are very many
large and valuable collections of books
which would soon and without cost
gravitate into any receptacle which
would enlarge their usefulness and
dignify the name and taste of their
collectors. Of this the Tilden Trust
has already received some substantial
proofs, and only needs a suitable domi-
cile to receive many more.

The British Museum owed its rapid
growth and some of its most valuable
possessions as much to the liberality of
individuals as to its levies upon the
national exchequer. In 1757 George
II. gave it the library of the former
kings of England. The same year the
same monarch presented to it the Cot-
ton Library. In 1763 George III. gave
it the Thomason Collection of books and
pamphlets issued in England between

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292 THE T/LDEN TRUST LIBRARY : IVHAT SHALL IT BE?

Bird's-eye View of the Bryant Park and Suggested Library.
(Seen from the Fifth Avenue side.)

the years 1640-1662, embracing all the
controversial literature of that interest-
ing period. In 1799 it received the
bequest of the Rev. Mr. Cracherode's
valuable collection. In 1820 Sir Joseph
Banks, for many years President of the
Roval Society, gave to it his library of
16,000 volumes. In 1823 George IV.
presented to it the collection, of his
father, which is reported to have cost
£650,000. In 1846 the Grenville Lib-
rary of over twenty thousand volumes
was bequeathed to it. These are some
of the larger donations by the aid of
which this library has reached its pres-
ent enormous proportions, but they
constitute by no means the larger part
of its possessions acquired through the
liberality of less conspicuous givers, such
as Richard Gough, Richard Rawlinson,
Robert Mason, F. W. Hope, and many
others of later date. It does not re-
quire the gift of prophesy to foresee
the time when a metropolitan free
library, such as the Tilden Trust is
destined to become if provided with
suitable accommodations, would have
quite as many and as bountiful bene-
factors.

Were any public-spirited citizen to
address to the mayor and commonalty of
the city of New York a proposition to
secure to it the income of two or three
millions of dollars for the equipment
and operating of a free library within
its borders on the single condition that
they would provide for it a suitable re-
pository, it is difficult to conceive of
anyone hesitating about the acceptance
of it. To close with such a proposition
at once would seem to be a matter of
course, neither inviting nor admitting
of debate.

Such would seem to be precisely the
opportunity now presented to the mu-
nicipality of the most populous and
wealthiest city of the American conti-
nent. This opportunity too presents
itself at a most propitious moment. In
the quarter of the city which has no
rival in appropriateness for such a pur-
pose, the city has a park now cumbered
with a reservoir which is understood
to have substantially survived its useful-
ness. This park embraces all the land
betw^een the Fifth and Sixth Avenues
and between Fortieth and Forty-second
Streets, and is now known as Bryant

THE TILDEN TRUST LIBKARY : IV HAT SHALL IT BE? 293

Park. Tlie approprintion of parts of iugton, the late Samuel J. Randall was
this park has already been seriously lunching with the writer, and a gentle-
discussed, man present sketched on a Lit of paper

A bill was introduced into the Legis- a plan for the National Library, upon
lature only a year or two before Mr. which he had long been musing, and the
Tilden's death, with the acquiescence if details and merits of which he proceed-
not with the formal sanction of the ed to expound to his listeners. Mr. Ran-
municipal authorities, to have a portion dall was so much taken with the plan
of this park consecrated to a free library that he requested the author to send
to be equipped and operated altogether him a detailed account of it in writing,
at the city's expense. Mr. Tilden's This was done and forwarded to Wash-
co-operation was solicited. With his ington, but failed to arrive there until
views upon the subject of such an in- after the plan now in progress of execu-
stitution, which had already taken for- tion had been practically adopted by
mal shape in his will, he naturally de- the committee. Before it left New
clined to give the projected legislation York, however, it was submitted to Mr.
any encouragement. How far his de- Tilden. He was so much impressed by
clension influenced the promoters of the it as to say that it would insure larger
bill and whether any intimations of his and better results for its cost than
own purpose had anything to do with any plan of a library building he had
its fate has never transpired, but the ever seen, and he expressed the wish
bill was not pressed after it was ascer- that it might be adopted by Congress.
tained that Mr. Tilden's co-operation This structure was to be in the form
could not be counted upon. of a cross, a form than which no other

It has more recently been proposed to secures in an equal degree the two j)i'i-

erect a new municipal building for all the mary requisites of a dwelling-place for

courts and other municipal offices on books — light and air.

this park ; and a bill was also framed It can hardly be thought extravagant

for that purpose, and submitted to the to say that no site better adapted for a

Legislature. The inconvenience of re- structure of suitable proportions for a

moving the judicial and administrative metropolitan library could be carved

offices of the city so far from the great out of any part of the city than this of

centre of business, and other objections Bryant Park. It is on the highest

of a no less grave character welled up ground between the Central Park and

so rapidly that that bill was not pressed, the Battery ; it is, and will continue to

and the project, we believe, has been be, central as long as any place in New

definitively abandoned. York is ever likely to be central ; it is

Only one of the objections that either accessible by two of the most frequent-

of these projects had to contend with ied thoroughfares of the city, and is pre-

would be even apparently applicable to cisely of the shape and proportions best

the consecration of a portion of Bryant calculated to combine all the required

Park to the uses of a library, and that accommodations for a library, without

is the wise reluctance of the people to restricting the present privileges of the

any reduction of the breathing spaces park.

of the city, a reluctance with which we The plan in question, somewhat elab-

are in entire sympathy. If, however, orated as to details in the accompany-

ample library accommodations for the ing sketches since it was submitted to

Tilden Trust Library can be provided Mr. Tilden, may be briefly described as

in the Bryant Park for at least half a a cross, the upper part lying toward

century to come, not only without re- the Fifth Avenue ; the lower and longer

stricting the present park accommoda- part toward the Sixth Avenue ; the arms

tions, but actually increasing them — extended, one toward Fortieth Street,

as we shall presently show that they can and the other toward Forty - second

be — this objection will disappear. Street. The width in the clear of the

One day, during the later stages of main structure, both from east to west

the debate over the plans to be adopted and from north to south, to be, say, sixty

for the new library structure at Wash- or sixty-five feet.
Vol. XIL— 33

294 THE TILD^N TRUST LIBRARY : [VHAT SHALL IT BE?

Double-faced wbelves perpendicular to
the wall, for the stacking of books, will
rise one tier above another four stories
high on both sides of every part of the
building not otherwise appropriated.
These stacks of shelves on the lower
floor would be about twenty-five feet
long, making for both sides fifty feet of
shelving and leaving an open passage in
the centre for the circulation of the
public, of from ten to fifteen feet. The
shelves on the next and succeeding
floors would recede as they rose, and
each upper stack would be about three
feet shorter than the stack immediately
below it, to leave the space of a narrow
gallery for communication from alcove
to alcove on each story. The stacks of
the upper story or tier would therefore
be nine or ten feet shorter than the
stacks on the lower floor, thus affording
opportunities of securing to the library
at all times the greatest abundance of air
and light. These several stacks would
form a series of alcoves eight feet wide,
with a small table in each, admirably
calculated to combine with every facility
of access to books a seclusion and ex-
emption from interruption which the
serious student in New York now seeks
in vain, whether in private or public re-
sorts. The stack rooms to the right
and left would be 60 x 108 feet, while
the stack room toward the west, or Sixth
Avenue, would be 60 x 335 feet.

At the intersection of the arms with
the stems of the cross, as laid down on
the accompanying plans, is a central
hall or rotunda 90 feet in diameter, in
the centre of which the librarian on
duty would have his desks, catalogues,
and bibliographical conveniences around
him, and from which he could cover
with his eye all the thoroughfares of the
library. Tubes or other modern con-
trivances for the rapid delivery of books
from the galleries and other remote
parts of the library would concentrate
at this station.

Four passages leading out of the four
corners of this rotunda conduct to four
octagonal pavilions, each 45 feet in di-
ameter, having on their lower floors
spacious vestibules through which the
rotunda could be reached from four
directions. In the upper part of each
pavilion is a reading - room. One of

these could be used for adult males, one
for females, a third for children, and
the fourth for whatever use it shall ul-
timately prove to be most needed. These
pavilions are each lighted upon seven of
their eight sides, and so located as to
bring them in convenient proximity to
the stack rooms and rotunda, yet com-
pletely sheltered from the noise and
bustle of both.

At the foot of the main or lower stem
of the cross are two projecting herai-
cycles designed for lecture - rooms or
audience chambers, which may be
reached from the street without enter-
ing the library.

On entering by the main doorway
from the Fifth Avenue to the first floor,
the student finds himself in a vestibule
22 X 37 feet. A corridor to the right
and left conducts to the ofiices of the
administration. Crossing the vestibule
he passes into a spacious hall divided
into three uninclosed compartments or
bays supported by columns, suited for
the arrangement and display of books
of peculiar value, curious documents,
prints, autographs, etc. This hall, com-
prising most of the upper stem of the
cross, will measure 115 feet in length
and will be 35 feet between the columns,
or 60 feet from wall to wall, forming an
imposing approach to the rotunda, and
may be visited without disturbing the
readers or distracting the attention of
those appointed to wait upon them.

In the basements there will be room
for receiving, cleaning, cataloguing and
binding books ; alcoves for bound news-
papers and other bulky periodicals ; and
several auditoriums for literary, scien-
tific, and other societies, and laboratories
and such apparatus as may be appropri-
ately accommodated there. As the Sixth
Avenue is about ten feet lower than
the Fifth, the heating and lighting ma-
chinery would naturally be mounted in
the sub-basement, at the western end of
the building.

The total shelving on sides of alcoves
secured by this plan would measure
132,000 feet. It is usual to allow 110
square feet for 1,000 books. At that
rate there would be accommodation in
the alcoves alone for 1,200,000 books.
The British Museum contains about
1,600,000, the Bibliotheque Nationale in

THE TILDEN TRUST LIBRARY: WHAT SHALL IT BE? 295

GGE5T10N5 FOR LJBRAKY^.BVlLDir^G. :;

SEC"?'

OVGH KOTVHDA

..-LATERAL S'
N LINE OD OF PLAN.

'l^DOMS,

3F PLAN:.-:

[See Plans on pa

Paris, 2,500,000, the Congressional Li-
brary, more than 500,000. By utiHzing
the walls and corridors of the rotunda as
in the British Museum, accommodations
would be secured for an additional 300,-
000 volumes, which would more than
suffice for the needs of the lending libra-
ry. The vacant alcoves, or rather the
place they would ultimately occupy,
might be appropriated to the free ex-
hibition of works of art of every descrip-
tion, a convenience which would be of
great and reciprocal advantage to artists
and the public.

We have stated that the structure we
have proposed would increase instead
of diminish the present park accommo-
dations of the city. We will now ex-

.;-... :xv.^OMS,ONLINE
ER^si£STFLAGOi
AFlCHi. .

ges 297 and 299.]

plain and establish what may seem to
our readers a somewhat paradoxical
statement.

The proposed structure would leave
the remaining and unoccupied portions
of the park divided practically into four
parks. The extreme length of the cross
will be 715 feet. The arms, measured
from the end of one to the end of the
other, will measure 390 feet in length,
and 65 feet in width. By setting the
building back 150 feet from the Fifth
Avenue and 50 feet from the Sixth Av-
enue, the two parks on Fifth Avenue
would measure about 200 x 355 square
feet each, and the two on Sixth Avenue,
about 200 X 485 feet each.

Bryant Park entire contains 418,000

296 THE TILDBN TRUST LIBRARY : WHAT SHALL IT BE?

square feet. It lies 1)20 feet on Fortieth
and Forty-second Streets, and 455 feet
on Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The res-
ervoir occupies a little more than half
of the whole plot. The proposed build-
ing would cover only 89,647 square feet,
or about one -fifth of the plot, 21.44
per cent, exactly. Assuming that the
reservoir occupies only half the plot,
the park accommodations would be
increased three- tenths, or, say, 12,540
square feet, by permitting the library
to displace the reservoir.

In presenting this plan for a library
we have intended to show the extreme
available capacity of the plot under con-
sideration. It might be reduced in the
length of stem and arms to half the pro-
jected dimensions, preserving, of course,
its proper proportions, and thus give
the city adequate accommodations for
many years. As increased accommoda-
tions came to be required, the structure
could be extended in accordance with
the plan, like the palace of the Tuileries,
which was commenced by Catherine de
Medici in 1564, and only completed dur-
ing the reign of Napoleon.

In enumerating the advantages which
the Bryant Park possesses over any other
site in the city for a great library, we
omitted to mention one of an economi-
cal character which is of by no means
secondary importance.

The reservoir seems to be regarded as
no longer a necessity to the city, or will
soon cease to be such. The New York
public will not be content to leave it
cumbering the earth long after it has
survived its usefulness. It contains not
less than 80,000 cubic yards of stone
and rubbish. Now, not only every
ounce of this pile could be used in the
construction of the proposed library and
the terrace with which it should be sur-
rounded, but all of the library walls ex-
cept the exterior facing could be built
from this material, while the old plas-
ter of the reservoir would furnish all
the sand that would be required for
the mortar to lay them with. When we
consider the cost of quarrying and
bringing upon the premises the sand
and stone required for such a structure
as this, allowing the stone in the quarry
to cost nothing, and add to it the cost
of removing the reservoir, it is easy to

see how a very large part of the cost of
the library might be saved to the city
by building it in Bryant Park.

When Carlyle said that " the true
university of these days is a collection
of books," he said nothing in disparage-
ment of universities which are indis-
pensable for teaching the young the
use and value of books. In the felicit-
ous lines of Wordsworth :

"Books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good,
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and

blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow."

The appetite for them grows by what
it feeds on. They displace meaner tastes
and recreations. By bringing within our
reach the accumulated wisdom of our
race, they put us in stronger sympathy
with all its members ; thereby making
better citizens and more harmonious
families, with a constant tendenc}^ to the
elevation of national character. They
make life sweeter and better. The}- fur-
nish the most effective antidote to the al-
lurements of the drinking saloon, and
they can do more than any available sub-
stitute to purify the ballot, to quench the
unhallowed fires of political partisanship,
and to make statesmen of politicians.

*' It was profoundly true," said Mr.
John Morley, speaking in support of
the Free Library Act adopted in Eng-
land in 1850, and quoting the expression
of Burke, " that ' education was not read-
ing a parcel of books, but exercising re-
straint, discipline, virtue and justice.'
The parcel of books, however, if well
chosen, reconciled us to the discipHne,
interpreted the virtue and justice, and
awakened within us the diviner mind
as to what was best in others and our-
selves."

If the citizens of our great metropohs
knew how few of the great books which
have been the pride and delight of the
world for the last two centuries would
ever, could ever, have been written
without the facilities accumulated for
their authors in four or five of the great
libraries of Europe, they would consider
no duty more pressing, no disposition
of their wealth more profitable, than the
establishment of a library complete in
all directions, as the first step to be

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298 THE TILDEN TRUST LIBRAKY : WHAT SHALL IT BE?

taken to secure to their country that and lack that unity of plan and pur-

eininence in the world of letters with- pose which is of great importance in

out which their commercial and indus- laying the foundations of a great library,

trial eminence must soon become, if it The aid of the Legislature would have

should not already be, a source of humil- to be invoked ; and tinkering with old

iation rather than of pride. It is to be charters is always a delicate business,

hoped that they will look upon the pres- and usually fruitful of litigation,
ent moment as the occasion, and the Second, they may make the best use

Tilden Trust as the opportunity, to lay they can of the means at their disposal

the foundations of an institution which to establish an independent library,

shall make at least one indispensable In such case they would be likely — we

contribution toward our country's at- think it would be wise in them — to

taining, and at no distant day, that abandon the idea of forming a general

supremacy in the republic of letters library, but to concentrate their re-

which is easily within her reach, and sources with the view of supplying com-

the falling short of which will be justly plete collections of books on a limited

a reproach to her. range of subjects, and, in the selection

It may happen that the time when the of those subjects, to endeavor to meet as
reservoir can be spared by the city is far as possible the most pressing needs
too remote or indefinite to be treated as of the metropolis by supplementing the
a factor in the problem which the Trus- more serious deficiencies of other libra-
tees of the Tilden Trust have to solve, ries.

It ma}' be ; and we know there are some These deficiencies are supposed to be

whose judgment will have and deserves most felt at present in the departments

to have great weight in determining of physical science.

this question, who incline to the opin- Next to the foundation of a general

ion that the reservoir should be re- library of which the literature of the

garded as a permanent institution to sciences would form only a section, the

meet unexpected and extraordinary foundation of a scientific library pure

exigencies such as great cities are and simple, that should be full and

always more or less exposed to. With adequate, would probably prove of the

those questions we do not propose to greatest practical value to the public,

deal. We have discussed this subject and most in harmony with the views of

on the presumption that our municipal Mr. Tilden had the problem ever pre-

government had been and were still sented itself to him in the shape in

seriously entertaining the purpose of which it may be presented to his Trus-

dispensing with the reservoir as no tees.

longer a necessity to the city for the In this direction there would be un-

uses for which it was constructed. questionably ample employment for all

In either of the contingencies just the funds of the Tilden Trust, if they

referred to, the Bryant Park must be were devoted not only to the providing

left out of the calculations of the Tilden of books but to facilitating and encour-

Trust. The duty and interests of the aging original research and populariz-

city, however, to provide a shelter for ing its results by lectures and the press,

the Tilden library remain unchanged. The way has been in a measure pre-

Should it, however, for the reasons pared for such an intervention by a

named or for any other, decline to pro- comparatively recent alliance of the

vide such shelter, the following alterna- principal scientific associations of the

tives are open to the Trustees : city. This alliance already includes

First, to consolidate with some one the New York Academy of Sciences,
or more of the larger libraries already the Torrey Botanical Club, the New
established in New York. This course York Microscopical Society, the Lin-
would be beset with difficulties which nsean Society of New York, the New
might in time possibly be surmounted ; York Mineralogical Club, and the New
but the result of such a combination, York Mathematical Society. There is
would be likely to embody more or less scarcely a person of any note in the
of the peculiarities of each corporation, scientific world of New York and its

300

SURE,

^vicinage whose name does not figure in
the Hst of members of one or more of
these societies.

The object of their confederation
was to combine facihties and opportuni-
ties for the promotion of scientific re-
search which, separate, they could not
enjoy. They all require ampler accom-
modations and appointments than their
resources will command, and most of
them have libraries which they cannot
afford to keep up to the times and the
needs of their members.

Should the competent authorities de-

cline to avail themselves of this oppor-
tunity to make New York the intel-
lectual as it is the commercial centre of
the country, by refusing to provide a
shelter for the great library with which
the trustees of the Tilden Trust are
prepared to endow it, a decision in
many if not in all respects to be de-
plored, the Tilden Trust could at least,
by taking these associations under its
protection, give an impulse to science in
New York which would help her citizens
to forget the act of judicial spoHation
of which she has been the victim.

^ .1'/^,

fVi

H

SURE.
By Anna C. Brackett.

My thoughts go out like spider-threads

Cast forth upon the air;
Filmy and fine, and floating wide,
Caught by whatever may betide,

To seek thee everywhere.

In league with every breeze that blows,

All ways, all holds they dare ;
North, east, or south, or west they fly,
And sure, though winds be low or high,
To find thee everywhere.

Love still is lord of space and fate ;

All roads his runners fare ;
All heights that bar, they laughing climb.
They find all days the fitting time,

Aid highways everywhere.

flfS^^^! >

hi I"

^.-.•..,-'T~i>-f '-r i-

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Sledge-road on the Frozen Neva.

THE NEVSKY PROSPEKT.
By Isabel F. Hapgood.

The Illustrations by Ilya Efimovitch Repin.

HE Nevsky Prospokt !
From the time
when, as children, we
first encounter the
words, in geographi-
cal compilations dis-
guised as books of
travel, what visions
do they not summon up ! Visions of
the realm of the Frost King and of his
Regent, the White Tzar, as fantastic as
any of those narrated of troj^ic climes
by ■ Scheherezade, and with which we
are far more familiar than we are with
the history of our native land.

When we attain to the reality of our
visions, in point of locality at least, we
find a definite starting-point ready to
our hand, where veracious legend and
more veracious history are satisfactorily
blended. It is at the eastern extremity
Vol. XIT.— 33

of the famous broad avenue — which is
the meaning of Prospekt. Here, on the
bank of the Neva, tradition alleges that
Alexander, Prince of Novgorod, won his
great battle — and, incidentally, his sur-
name of Nevsky and his post of patron
saint of Russia — over the united forces
of the Swedes and oppressive Knights
of the Teutonic Order, in the year 1240.
Nearly five hundred years later the
spot was occupied by Rhitiowa, one of
the forty Finnish villages scattered over
the present site of St. Petersburg, as
designated by the maps of the Swedes,
whom Peter the Great — practically Rus-
sia's second patron saint— expelled anew
when he captured their thriving com-
mercial town, on the shore of the Neva,
directly opposite, now known as Mt'daya
Okhta, possessed of extensive foreign
trade, and of a church older than the

302

THE NEl^SKY PROSPEKT.

capit<al, which recently celebrated its
two-hundredth anniversary.

It was in 1710 that Peter I. named the
place " Victory," in honor of Prince-
kSaint Alexander Ncvsky's conquest, and
commanded the erection of a Lavra, or
first class monastery, the seat of a Met-
ropolitan, and of a theological semi-
nary. By 171 G the monastery was com-
pleted, in wood, as engravings of that
day show us, but in a very different
form from the complex of stone build-
ings of the present da}'. Its principal
fayade, wdth extensive, stiffly arranged
gardens, faced upon the river, the only
means of communication in that town,
planted on a bog, threaded wdth marshy
streams, being by boat. In fact, for a
long time horses were so scarce in the
infant capital, where reindeer were used
in sledges even as late as the end of the
last century, that no one was permitted

ing-place in the Vladimir Government,
in 1724, Peter the Great occupying his
favorite post, as i)ilot and steersman
in the saint's state barge, and they now
repose in the monastery cathedral, un-
der a cano2>y, and in a tomb of silver,
8,()00 pounds in weight, given by Pe-
ter's daughter, the devout Empress Eliz-
abeth. Li the cemetery surrounding
the cathedral, under the fragrant firs
and birches, with the blue Neva ripj^ling
far below, lie many of the men who have
contributed to the advancement of their
country in literature, art, and science,
during the last two centuries.

Of all the historical memories con-
nected with this monastery none is
more curious than that relating to the
second funeral of Peter m. He had
been buried by his wdfe, in 1762, with
much simplicity, in one of the many
churches of the Lavra, which contains

Ifc^

"*-^

(t^x-

--/

Arkhangel Fishermen at the Market.

to come to Court, during Peter the
Great's reign, otherwise than by water.
Necessity and the enforced cultivation
of aquatic habits in his inland subjects,
which the enterprising Emperor had so
much at heart, combined to counsel this
regulation.

The bones of Prince Alexander were
brought to Petersburg, from their rest-

the family tombs and monuments not
onl}' of members of the Imperial family,
but of the noble families most illustri-
ous in the eighteenth century. When
Paul I. came to the throne, in 1796, his
first care was to give his long-deceased
father a more fitting burial. The body
was exhumed. Surrounded by his
court, Pavel Petrovitch took the Impe-

( ^ \ iP

304

THE NEySKY PROSPEKT.

rial crown from the nltar, placed it on
his own head, tlien laid it reverently on
his father's coffin. When Peter III. was
transferred immediately afterward, with
magnificent ceremonial, to the Winter
Palace, there to lie in state by the side
of his wife, Katheriue 11., and to accom-
pan}' her to his proper resting-place
among the sovereigns of Russia, in the
cathedral of the Peter - Paul fortress.

symbols of the Holy Ghost, inviolable
in Russia, attack with impunity the
grain bags in the acres of storehouses
oj^posite, pick holes, and eat their fill
undisturbed.

From this spot to the slight curve
in the Prospc'kt, at the Znamenskaya
Square, a distance of about a mile,
where the Moscow Railway station is
situated, and where the train of steam

I

't;\

iv^

Teamsters on the Quay.

Count Alexei Grigorevitch Orloff w^as
appointed, with fine irony, to carry the
crown before his former master, whom
he had betrayed, and in the necessity
for whose first funeral he had played the
part of Fate. It was with considerable
difficulty that he was hunted up, while
Emperor and pageant waited, in the ob-
scure corner where he was sobbing and
weeping ; and with still greater diffi-
culty was he finally persuaded to per-
form the task assigned to him in the
procession.

Outside the vast monastery, which,
like most Russian monasteries, resem-
bles a fortress, though, unlike most of
them, it has never served as such, the
scene is almost rural. Pioeons, those

tram-cars is superseded by less terrify-
ing horse-cars, the whole aspect of the
avenue is that of a provincial town, in
the character of the people and the
buildings, even to the favorite crushed
strawberry and azure washes, and green
iron roofs on the countrified shops.
Here and there, not very far away, a
log-house may even be espied.

During the next three-quarters of a
mile the houses and shops are more
city -like, and, being newer than those
beyond, are more ornamented as to
the stucco of their windows and doors.
Here, as elsew^liere, in this stoneless
land, with rare exceptions the build-
ings are of brick or rubble, stuccoed
and washed, generally in light yellow,

THE NEl^SKY PROSPEKT.

30.J

The Katherine Canal.

with walls three feet or more apart,
warmly tilled in, and ventilated through
the hermetically sealed windows by
ample panes in the centre of the sashes,
or by apertures in the string-courses
between stories, which open into each
room. Shops below, apartments above,
this is the nearly invariable rule.

It is only Avhen we reach the Anitch-
koff Bridge, with its graceful railing of
sea-horses, adorned with four colossal
bronze groups of horse-tamers, from the
hand of the Russian sculptor, Baron
Klodt, that the really cliaracteristic part
of the Nevsky begins.

It is difficult to believe that fifty years
ago this spot was the end of the Peters-
burg world. But at that epoch the
Nevsky was decorated with rows of fine
large trees, whicli have now disappeared
to the last twig. The Fontanka River,
or canal, over which we stand, offers the
best of the many illustrations of the man-
ner in which Peter the Great, with his
ardent love of water and Dutch ways,
and his worthy successors, have turned
natural disadvantages into advantages
and objects of beauty. The Fontanka
was the largest of the numerous marshy
rivers in that Arctic bog selected by

Peter I. for his new capital, which have
been deepened, widened, faced with cut
granite walls, and utiHzed as means of
cheap communication between distant
parts of the city, and as relief channels
for the inundating waves of the Gulf of
Finland, which rise, more or less, every
3^ear, from August to November, at the
behest of the southwest gale. That this
last precaution is not superfluous is
shown by the iron flood-mark set into
the w^all of the Anitchkoff Palace, on
the southern shore of the Fontanka, as
on so many other public buildings in
the city, with " 1824 " appended — the
date of one celebrated and disastrous
inundation which attained, in some
places the height of thirteen feet and
seven inches. This particular river de-
rived its name from the fact that it was
trained to carry water and feed the
fountains in Peter the Great's favorite
Summer Garden, of \vhicli only one now
remains.

At the close of the last century, and
even later, persons out of favor at Court,
or nobles who had committed misde-
meanors, were banished to the southern
shores of the Fontanka, as to a foreign
land. Among the amusements at the

306

THE NEl^SKY PROSPPXT.

dachas — the wooden country hovises —
in the wilder recesses of the vast parks
which studded both shores, the chase
after wild animals, and from bandits,
played a prominent part.

The stretch which we have traversed

with his Russianized German name,
should fall a victim to this order, and he
was detained until his fantastic cogno-
men, so harsh to Slavic ears, could be
investigated.

By day or by night, in winter or sum-

The Restaurant Dominique.

on our way from the monastery, and
which is punctuated at the comer of
the canal and the Prospekt by the pleas-
ing brick and granite palace of the
Emperor's brother, Grand Duke Ser-
giei Alexandrovitch, which formerly
belonged to Prince Byeloselsky - Bye-
lozersky, was the suburb belonging to
Lieutenant - Colonel Anitchkoif, who
built the first bridge, of wood, in 1715.
As late as the reign of Alexander I. all
persons entering the town were required
to inscribe their names in the regis-
ter kept at the barrier placed at this
bridge. Some roguish fellows having
conspired to cast ridicule on this cus-
tom, by writing absurd names, the
guards were instructed to make an ex-
ample of the next jester whose name
should strike them as suspicious. Fate
willed that the Imperial Comptroller,
Baltazar Baltazarovitch Kampenhausen,

mer, it is a pure delight to stand on
the Anitchkoff Bridge and survey the
scene on either hand. If we gaze to
the north toward what is one of the
oldest parts settled on the rivulet-
riddled, so-called " mainland," in this
Northern Venice, w^e see the long, plain
fa§ade of the Katheriue Institute for the
education of the daughters of officers,
originally built by Peter the Great for
his daughter Anna, as the " Italian Pal-
ace," but used only for the palace ser-
vants, until it was built over and con-
verted to its present purpose. Beyond,
we catch a glimpse of the yellow wings
of Count ScheremetiefPs ancient house
and its great iron railing, behind which,
in a spacious court-yard, after the Mos-
cow fashion so rare in thrifty Peters-
burg, the main building lies invisible to
us. If we look to the south, we find the
long ochre mass of the Anitchkoff Pal-

THE NEySKY PROSPEKT.

307

ace, facing on the Nevsky, upon the
right shore ; on the left, beyond the
palace of Sergiei Alexandrovitch, the
branch of the Alexander Nc'vsky Mon-
astery, in old Russian style, with highly
colored saints and heads of seraphim
on the outer walls ; and a perspective
of light, stuccoed building — dwellings,
markets, churches — until the eye halts
with pleasure on the distant blue dome
of the Truitzky cathedral, studded with
golden stars. Indeed it is difficult to
discover a vista in St. Petersburg which
does not charm us with a glimpse of one
or more of these cross-
crowned domes, float-
ing, bubble-like, in the
pale azure of the sky.
Though they are far
from being as beautiful
in form or coloring as
those of Moscow, they
satisfy us at the mo-
ment.

If it is on a winter
night that we take up
our stand here, we may
catch a distant glimpse
of the numerous " skat-
ing gardens," laid out
upon the ice cleared
on the snowy surface
of the canal. The ice-
hills will be black with
forms flitting swiftly
down the shining roads
on sledges or skates,
illuminated by the elec-
tric light ; a band will
be braying blithely, re-
gardless of the piercing
cold, and the skaters
will dance on, in their
fancy-dress ball or
prize races, or other-
wise, clad so thinly as
to amaze the shivering
foreigner as he hugs
his furs.

By day the teamsters
stand upon the quay,
with rough aprons over their ballet-
skirted sheepskin coats waiting for a
job. If we hire one of them, we shaU
find that they all belong to the ancient
Russian Artel, or Labor Union, which
prevents competition beyond a certain

point. When the price has been fixed,
after due and inevitable chafiering, one
loinomi grasps his shapeless cap by its
worn edge of fur, bites a kopek, and
drops it in. Each of the other men
contributes a marked cojiper likewise,
and we are invited to draw lots, in full
view, to determine which of them shall
have the job. The master of the Artel
sees to it that there is fair play on both
sides. If an unruly member presumes
to intervene with a lower bid, with the
object of monoj^olizing the job out of
turn, he is promptly squelched, and,

Below Zero — a Fire in the Sno-/..

though his bid may be allowed to stand,
the man whose kopek we have drawn
must do the work. The winner chee-
ee-eeps to his little horse, whose shaggy
mane has been tangled by the loving-
hand of the domovoi (house-sprite) and

308

THE NEySKY PROSPEKT.

The Corner of the Central Hall in the Gostmny Dvor.

hangs to his knees. The patient beast,
which, like all Russian horses, is never
covered, no matter how severe the
weather may be, or how hot he may bo
from exercise, rouses himself from his
real or simulated slumber, and takes
up the burden of life again, handicapped
by the huge wooden arch, gayly painted
in flowers and initials, which joins liis
shafts, and does stout service despite
his sorry aspect.

But the early summer is the season
when the Fontanka is to be seen in its

most characteristic state. The brilliant
blue water sj^arkles under the hot sun,
or adds one more tint to the exquisite
hues which make of the sky one vast,
gleaming fire-opal on those maiwellous
"Avliite nights" when darkness never
descends to a depth beyond the point
where it leaves all objects with natur-
al forms and colors, and only spiritual-
izes them with the gentle vagueness
of a translucent veil. Small steamers,
manned by wooden-faced, blond Finns,
connect the unfashionable suburban

THE NEFSKY PROSPEKT.

309

quarter, lying near the canal's entrance
into the Neva on the west, with the fash-
ionable Court quarter on the northern
quays at its other entrance into the Neva,
seven versts away. They dart about like
sea-gulls, picking their path, not un-
fraught with serious danger, among the
obstructions. The obstructions are
many : Washing-house boats (it is a good
old unexploded theory in Petersburg that
clothes are clean only when rinsed in run-
ning water, even though our eyes and
noses inform us, unaided by chart, where
the drainage goes) ; little flotillas of
dingy flat-boats, anchored around the
"• Fish Gardens," and containing the Let-
ter's stock in trade, where persons of
taste pick their second dinner-course
out of the flopping inmates of a tem-

Novgorod the Great," where Prince Ru-
rik ruled and laid the foundations of the
present Imperial Empire, and wlience
came Prince- Saint Alexander, to win
his surname of Nevsky, as we have
seen, at the spot where his monastery
stands, a couple of miles, at most, away.
The boatmen, who have trundled all
day long their quaint little barrows over
the narrow iron rails into the spacious
inner court-yards of the houses on the
qua}', and have piled up their wood for
winter fuel, or loaded it into the carts for
less accessible buildings, now sit on the
stern of their barks, over their coarse
food — sour black bread, boiled buck-
wheat groats, and salted cucumbers —
doffing their hats and crossing themselves
reverently before and after their simple

A Fish-shop.

porary scoop-net ; huge, unwieldy, wood
barks, put together with wooden pegs,
and steered with long, clumsy rudders,
which the poor peasants have painfully
poled — tramp, tramp, tramp, along the
sides — through four hundred miles of
tortuous waterways from that province
of the former haughty rei^ublic, " Lord

meal, and chatting until the red glow
of sunset in the north flickers up to
the zenith in waves of sea-green, lilac,
and amber, and descends again in the
north, at the pearl pink of dawn. Sleep
is a lost art with these men, as with all
classes of peojfle, during those nerve-de-
stroying " white nights." AYhen all the

310

THE NEJ^SKY PROSPEKT.

silvery satin of the birch logs has been
removed from their capacious holds,
these primitive barks will be unpegged,
and the cheaj) " bark-wood," riddled with
holes as by a mitrailleuse, will be used
for poor structures on the outskirts of
the town.

On the upper shore of this river, sec-
ond only to the Neva in its perennial
fascination, and facing on the Prospekt,
stands the Anitchkoff Palace, on the
site of a former lumber-yard, which was
purchased by the Empress Elizabeth,
when she commissioned her favorite ar-
chitect, Rastrelli, to erect for Count Ra-
zumovsky a palace in that rococo style
which he used in so many palaces and
churches during her reign and that of
Katherine 11. — the rococo style being,
by the way, quite the most unsuited dis-
coverable for Russian churches.

Count Alexei Grigorevitch Razum-
ovsky was the Empress Elizabeth's hus-
band, the uneducated but handsome
son of a plain Kazak from Little Russia,
who attracted the attention of Elizaveta
Petrovna as his sweet voice rang out in
the Imperial choir, at mass, in her pal-
ace church. When the palace was com-
pleted, in 1757, it did not differ mate-
rially from its present appearance, as a
painting in the Winter Palace shows,
except that its colonnade, now inclosed
for the Imperial Chancellery and offices,
then abutted directly on the Fontanka.
It has had a very varied ownership, with
some curious features in that connection
which remind one of a gigantic game of
ball between Katherine II. and Prince
Potemkin. Count Razumovsky did not
live in it until after the Empress Eliza-
beth's death, in 1762. After his own
death his brother sold it to the state,
and Katherine 11. presented it to Prince
Potemkin, who promptly resold it to a
wealthy merchant-contractor in the com-
missariat department of the army, who in
turn sold it to Katherine 11., who gave
it once more to Potemkin. The Prince
never lived here, but gave sumptuous
garden parties in the vast park, which is
now in great part built over, and sold
it back to the state again in 1794. It
was first occupied by royalty in 1809,
when the Emperor Alexander I. settled
his sister here, with her first husband
(that Prince of Oldenburg whose terri-

tory in Germany Napoleon I. so sum-
marily annexed a few years later), there-
by converting the Oldenburgs perma-
nently into Russian princes.

The Grand Duke Heir Nicholas used
it from 1819 until he ascended the throne,
in 1825, and since that time it has been
considered the palace of the heir to the
throne. But the present Emperor has
continued to occupy it since his acces-
sion, preferring its simplicity to the
magnificence of the Winter Palace.

The high walls, of that reddish-yel-
low hue, like the j)alace itself, which is
usually devoted to government build-
ings in Russia, continue the line of of-
fices along the Prospekt, and surround
wooded gardens, where the Emperor
and his family coast, skate, and enjoy
their winter pleasures, invisible to the
eyes of passers-by.

These woods and walls also form the
eastern boundary of the Alexandra
Square, in whose centre rises Mikeshin
and Opekushin's fine colossal bronze
statue of Katherine II., crowned, scep-
tred, in Imperial robes, and with the
men who made her reign illustrious
grouped about her feet. Among these
representatives of the Army, Navy,
Literature, Science, Art, there is one
woman — that dashing Princess Eliza-
veta Romanovna Dashkoff, who helped
Katherine to her throne. As Empress,
Katherine appointed her to be first
president of the newly founded Acad-
emy of Sciences, but afterward with-
drew her favor, and condemned her to
both polite and impolite exile, because
of her very services, the Princess hints,
in her celebrated and very lively " Me-
moirs."

In the Alexandra Theatre, for Russian
and German drama, which rears its new
(1828) Corinthian peristyle and its
bronze quadriga behind the great Em-
press, forming the background of the
Square, two of the Empress's dramas still
hold the stage, on occasion. For this
busy and energetic woman not only
edited and published a newspaper, the
greater part of which she wrote with
her own hand, but composed numer-
ous comedies and comic oj)eras, where
the moral, though sufficiently obvious
all the way through, one would have
thought, in the good old style, is neatly

THE NEl^SKY PROSPEKT.

311

labelled at the end. These were acted School, and other government offices in

first in the private theatres of tlie va- the background ; the new building for

rious palaces, by the dames and cava- shops and apartments, where ancient

liers of the Court, after which profes- Russian forms have been adapted to

Buying Christmas Trees.

sional actors presented them to the
public in the ordinary theatres.

It is in vain that we scrutinize the
chubby-cheeked countenance of the
bronze Prince Potemkin, at Katherine
II. 's feet, to discover the secret of the
charm which made the Imperial lady
who towers above him force upon him
so often the ground upon which they
both now stand. He stares stolidly at
the Prosp6kt, ignoring not onl}' the
Theatre, but the vast structures con-
taining the Direction of Theatres and
Prisons, the Censor's Office, Theatrical

modern street purposes ; and even the
wonderfully rich Imperial Public Lib-
rary, begun in 1794, to contain the books
brought from Warsaw, with its Corin-
thian peristyle interspersed with bronze
statues of ancient sages, on the garden
side — all of vvhich stand upon the scene
of his former garden parties, as the
name of the avenue beyond the plain
end of the Library on the Prospekt —
Great Garden Street — reminds us. Not
far away is the site of the tunnel dug
under the Prospekt by the revolution-
ists, which, however, was fortunately

312

THE NEySKY PROSPEKT.

discovered iu time to 2:>revent the de-
struction of one of the fairest parts of
the city, and its most valuable build-
ings. With the next block we enter
upon the liveliest, the most character-
istic portion of the Nevsky Prospekt, in

find in the ancient ej^ic songs of Russia.
Its frontage of seven hundred feet on
the Prospekt, and one thousand and
fifty on Great Garden and the next
parallel street, prepare us to believe
that it ma}' really contain more than

<' B r

- <.i'^..4o;K^

A Vendor.

that scant fraction over a mile, which
is left to us above the Anitchkoff
Bridge.

Here stands the vast bazaar known
as the Gostmny Dvor — " Guests' Court "
— a name which dates from the epoch
when a wealthy merchant engaged in
foreign trade, and owning his own
ships, was distinguished from the lesser
sort by the title of " Guest," which we

live hundred shops in the two stories,
the lower surrounded by a vaulted ar-
cade supporting an open gallery, which
is invaluable for decorative purjDoses at
Easter and on Imperial festival days.
Erected in 1735, very much in its pres-
ent shape, the one common throughout
the country, on what had been an im-
passable morass a short time before, and
where the ground still quakes at dawn,

THE NEl/SKY PROSPEKT. 313

it may not contain the largest and best brought in, in the majority of cases, by
shops in town, and its merchants cer- Einns from the surrounding couDtry.
tainly are not " Guests " in the ancient Again, in the week preceding Palm Sun-
acceptation of the word ; but we may day, the Verhnaya Ydrmarka, or Pussy
claim, nevertheless, that it presents a Willow Fair, takes place here. Nomin-
compendium of most purchasable arti- ally it is held for the purpose of provid-
cles extant, from samovars, furs, and mil- ing the public with twigs of that sesthet-
itary goods, to books, sacred images, and ic plant (the only one which shows a
Moscow imitations of Parisian novelties vestige of life at that season), which are
at remarkably low prices, as well as the used as palms, from the Emperor's pal-
originals, ace to the poorest church in the land.

The nooks and spaces of the arcade, In reality it is a most amusing fair for

especially at the corners and centre, are toys and cheap goods suitable for

occupied by booths of cheap wares. Easter eggs ; gay paper roses, where-

The sacred image, indispensable to a with to adorn the Easter cake, and that

Russian shop, is painted on the vaulted combination of sour and sweet cream

ceiling ; the shrine lamp flickers in the and other forbidden delicacies, the

open air, thus serving many aproned, pdskha, with which the long, severe fast

homespun- and sheepskin-clad dealers, is to be broken, after midnight matins

The throng of promenaders here is al- on Easter. Here are plump little red

ways varied and interesting. The prac- Finland parrots, green and red finches,

tised eye distinguishes infinite shades and other song-birds, which kindly

of difference in wealth, social standing, people buy and set free, after a pretty

and other conditions. The lady in the custom. The board and canvas booths,

velvet shuba, lined with sable or black the sites for which are drawn by lot by

fox, her soft velvet cap edged with cost- soldiers' widows, and sold or used as

ly otter, her head wrapped in a fleecy suits their convenience, are locked at

knitted shawl of goat's down from the night by dropping the canvas flap, and

steppes of Orenburg, or pointed hood — are never guarded ; while the hint that

the hashli)k—oi woven goat's-down from thefts may be committed, or that watch-

the Caucasus, has driven hither in her ing is necessar}^ is repelled with indig-

sledge or carriage, and has alighted to nation by the stall-keepers,

gratify the curiosity of her sons. We There is always a popular toy of the

know at a glance whether the lads be- hour. One year it consisted of highly

long in the aristocratic Pages' Corps, on colored, beautifully made bottle-imps,

Great Garden Street, hard by, in the which were loudly cried as Amerikdn-

University, the Law School, the Lyceum, skiya zhUeli — inhabitants of America,

or the Gymnasium, and we can make a We inquired the reason for their name,

shrewd guess at their future professions " They are made in the exact image

by their faces as well as by their uni- of the Americans," explained the peasant

forms. The lady who comes to meet us vendor, offering a pale blue imp, with a

in sleeved pelisse, wadded with eider- long, red tongue and a phenomenal tail,

down, and the one in a short jacket, for our admiration,

have arrived, and must return, on foot ; " We are inhabitants of America. Is

they could not drive far in the open air, the likeness very strong ? " w^e asked,

so thinly clad. The crowd tittered softly ; the man

At Christmas-tide there is a great looked frightened ; but finding that no

augmentation in the queer "Vyazem- dire fate threatened, he was soon vo-

sky " and other cakes, the peasant ciferating again, with a roguish grin :

laces, sweet Vyborg cracknels, fruit pas- " KupUi, kupi-i-Ui ! Frevoskhodniya

tils, and other popular goods, on which Arrierikanskiya zhlteli ! Sd - d - miya

these petty, open-air dealers appear to nastoydshtschiyal " "Buy, buy, splendid

thrive, both in health and purse. The natives of America ! the most genuine

spacious area between the bazaar and sort ! "

the sidewalk of the Nevsky is filled with Far behind this Gostlnny Dvor ex-
Christmas-trees, beautifully unadorned, tends a complex mass of other curious
or ruined with misplaced gaudiness, " courts " and markets, all worthy of a
Vol. XII.— 34

314

THE N^ySKY PROSPEKT.

visit for the popular types which they
afford of the lower classes. AmoDg
them all none is more steadily and di-
versely interesting, at all seasons of the
year, than the Syenndya Floshti^chad —
the Haymarkct — so called from its use
in days long gone by. Here, in the Fish
Market, is the great repository for the
frozen food which is so necessary in a
land w^here the Church exacts a sum
total of over four months' fasting out of
the twelve. Here the fish lie piled like
cordwood, or overflow from casks, for
economical buyers. Merchants wives',
with heads enveloped in colored ker-
chiefs, in the olden style, well tucked in
at the neck of their salopi, or sleeved
fur-coats, prowl in search of bargains.
Here sit the fishermen from the distant
Murman coast, from Arkhangel, with
weather-beaten but intelligent faces, in
their quaint skull-caps of reindeer hide,
and baggy, shapeless garments of mys-
terious skins, presiding over the wares
which they have risked their lives to
catch in the stormy Arctic seas, during
the long days of the brief summer-
time ; codfish dried and curled into
gray unrecognizableness ; yellow caviar
which resists the teeth like tiny balls of
gutta-percha — not the delicious gray
"pearl" caviar of the sturgeon — and
other marine food which is never seen
on the rich man's table.

But we must return to the Nevsky
Prospekt. Nestling at the foot of the
City Hall, at the entrance of the broad
street between it and the Gostinny
Dvor, on the Nevsky, stands a tiny
chapel, which is as thriving as the
bazaar, in its own way, and as striking
a compendium of some features in Rus-
sian architecture and life. Outside
hangs a large image of the " Saviour-
not - made - with - hands " — the Russian
name for the sacred imprint on St. Ve-
ronica's handkerchief — which is the
most popular of all the representations
of Christ in ikons. Before it burns the
usual " unquenchable lamp," filled with
the obligatory pure olive- oil. Beneath
it stands a table bearing a large bowl of
consecrated water. On hot summer days
the thirsty wayfarer takes a sip, using the
ancient Russian kovsh, or short-handled
ladle, which lies beside it, crosses him-
self, and drops a small offering on the

dish piled with copper coins near by,
making change for himself if he has not
the exact sum which he wishes to give.

Inside, many ikons decorate the
walls. The pale flames of their shrine-
lamps is supplemented by masses of
candles in the huge standing candle-
sticks of silver. A black-robed monk
from the monastery is engaged, almost
without cessation, in intoning prayers
of various sorts, before one or another
of the images. The little chapel is
thronged ; there is barely room for re-
spectfully flourished crosses, such as the
peasant loves, often only for the more
circumscribed sign current among the
upper classes, and none at all for the
favorite " ground reverences." The ap-
proach to the door is lined with two
files of monks and nuns : monks in high
klobuks, like rimless chimney-pot hats,
draped wdth black woollen veils, which
are always becoming ; tchermtzi, or lay
sisters, from distant convents, in sim-
ilar headgear, in caps flat or pointed
like the small end of a watermelon, and
with ears protected by black woollen
shawls ungracefully pinned. Servicea-
ble man's boots do more than peep out
from beneath the short, rusty -black
skirts. Each monk and nun holds a
small pad of threadbare black velvet,
whereon a cross of tarnished gold braid,
and a stray copper or two, by w^ay of bait,
explain the eleemosynary significance
of the bearers' "broad" crosses, dizzy
" reverences to the girdle," and mut-
tered entreaty, of which w^e catch only :
" Khrtsti Rddi — " for Christ's sake.

People of all classes turn in here for
a moment of prayer, to " place a candle "
to some saint, for the health, in body or
soul, of friend or relative : the work-
man, his tools on his back in a coarse
linen kit ; the bearded muzhik from the
country, clad in his sheepskin tul'iip,
wool inward, the soiled yellow leather
outside set off by a gay sash ; ladies,
officers, civilians — the stream never
ceases.

The only striking feature about the
next building of importance, the Grads-
kdya Duma, or City Hall, is the lofty
tower, upon whose balcony, high in air,
guards pace incessantly on the watch
for fires. By day, they telegraph the
locality of disaster to the. fire depart-

THE mySKY PROSPEKT.

315

ment by means of black balls and
white boards, in fixed combinations ;
by night, with colored lanterns. Each
section of the city has a signal-tower of
this sort, and the engine-house is close
at hand. Gradskaya Duma means liter-
ally, city thought, and the profundity
of the meditations sometimes indulged
in in this building, otherwise not re-
markable, may be inferred from the
fact discovered a few years ago, that
many honored members of the Duma
(which also signifies the Council of
City Fathers) whose names still stood on
the roll, were dead, though they contin-
ued to vote and exercise their other civic
functions with exemplary regularity !

Naturally, in a city which lies on a
level with the southern point of Green-
land, the most characteristic season to
select for our observations of the life is
winter.

The Prospekt wakes late. It has been
up nearly all night, and there is but lit-
tle inducement to early rising when the
sun itself sets such a fashion as nine
p'clock for its appearance on the hori-
zon, like a pewter disk, with a well-
defined hard rim, when he makes his
appearance at all. It we take the Pros-
pekt at different hours, we may gain
a fairly comprehensive view of many
Russian ways and people, cosmopolitan
as the city is.

At half-past seven in the morning, the
horse cars, which have been resting since
ten o'clock in the evening, make a start,
running always in groups of three, stop-
ping only at turnouts. The dvorniks
retire from the entrance to the court-
yards, where they have been sleep-
ing all night with one eye open,
wrapped in their sheep-skin coats, a few
shabby izvostchiks make their appear-
ance somewhat later, in company with
small school-boys, in their soldierly uni-
forms, knapsacks of books on back, and
convoyed by servants. Earliest of all
are the closed carriages of officials, evi-
dently the most lofty in grade, since it
was decided, two or three years ago, by
one of this class, that his subordinates
could not reasonably be expected to ar-
rive at business before ten or eleven
o'clock after they had sat up until day-
light over their indispensable club vint
— which is Russian whist.

Boots [muzh'iks] in scarlet cotton
blouses, and full trousers of black vel-
veteen, tucked into tall wrinkled boots,
dart about to bakery and dairy shop,
preparing for their masters' morning
" tea," Venders of newspapers congre-
gate at certain spots, and charge for
their wares in inverse ratio to the ex-
perience of their customers ; for reg-
ular subscribers receive their papers
through the post-office, and, if we are
in such unseemly haste as to care for
the news before the ten o'clock delivery
— or the eleven o'clock, if the postman
has not found it convenient otherwise —
we must buy on the street, though we
live but half a block from the news-
paper office, which opens at ten. By
noon, everyone is awake. The restaur-
ants are full of breakfasters, and Do-
minique's, which chances to stand on
the most crowded stretch of the street,
on the sunny north side beloved of
promenaders, is dense with officers,
cigarette smoke, and characteristic na-
tional viands judiciously mingled with
those of foreign lands.

Mass is over, and a funeral passes
down the Nevsky Prospekt, on its way
to the fashionable Alexander Nevsky
monastery or Novo-Dyevitche convent
cemeteries. The deceased may have
been a minister of state, or a great of-
ficer of the Court, or a military man
who is accompanied by warUke pageant.
The choir chants a dirge. The priests,
clad in vestments of black velvet and
silver, seem to find their long thick
hair sufficient protection to their bare
heads. The professional mutes, with
their silver trimmed black baldrics
and cocked hats, appear to have plucked
up the street lanterns by their roots to
serve as candles, out of respect to the
deceased's greatness, and to illustrate
how the city has been cast into darkness
by the withdrawal of the light of his
countenance. The dead man's orders
and decorations are borne, in imposing
state, on velvet cushions, before the
gorgeous funeral car, where the pall,
of cloth of gold, which will be made
into a priest's vestment once the funer-
al is over, droops low among artistic
wreaths and palms, of natural flowers,
or beautifully executed in silver. Be-
hind come the mourners on foot, a few

316

THE mySKY PROSP^KT,

women, many men, a Grand Duke or
two among them, it may be ; the car-
riages follow ; the devout of the lower
classes, catching sight of the train,
cross themselves broadly, mutter a
prayer, and find time to turn from their
own affairs and follow for a little way,
out of respect to the stranger corpse.
More touching are the funerals which
pass up the Prospekt on their way to
the unfashionable cemetery across the
Neva, on Vasily 6stroff ; a tiny pink cof-
fin resting on the knees of the bereaved
parents in a sledge, or borne by a couple
of bareheaded men, with one or two
mourners walking slowly behind.

From noon onward, the scene on the
Pros23ekt increases constantly in vivac-
ity. The sidewalks are crowded, espe-
cially on Sundays and holidays, with a
dense and varied throng, of so many
nationalities and types that it is a valu-
able lesson in ethnography to sort them,
and that a secret uttered is absolutely
safe in no tongue — unless, possibly, it be
that of Patagonia. But the universal
language of the eye conquers all diffi-
culties, even for the remarkably fair
Tatdr women, whose national garb in-
cludes only the baldest and gauziest
apology for the obligatory veil.

The plain fayades of the older build-
ings on this part of the Prospekt, which
are but three or four stories in height —
elevators are rare luxuries in Peters-
burg, and few buildings exceed five
stories — are adorned, here and there,
with gayly colored pictorial representa-
tions of the wares for sale within. But
little variety in architecture is furnished
by the inconspicuous Armenian, and the
uncharacteristic Dutch Reformed and
Lutheran churches which break the
severe line of this " Tolerance Street,"
as it has been called. Most fascinating
of all the shops are those of the fur-
riers and goldsmiths, with their sur-
prises and fresh lessons for foreigners ;
the treasures of Caucasian and Asian art
in the Eastern bazaars ; the " Colonial-
wares " establishments, with their de-
licious game cheeses, and odd studend
[fishes in jelly], their pineapples at five
and ten dollars, their tiny oysters from
the Black Sea, at twelve and a half cents
apiece.

Enthralling as are the shop windows,

the crowd on the sidewalk is more en-
thralling still. There are Kazaks, dra-
goons, cadets of the military schools,
students, so varied, though their gay
uniforms are hiddon by their coats, that
their heads resemble a bed of verbenas
in the sun. There ai*e officers of every
sort : officers with rough gray overcoats
and round lambskin caps ; officers in
large, flat-peaked caps, and smooth-sur-
faced voluminous cape-coats, wadded
with eiderdown and lined with gray
silk, which trail on their spurs, and
with collars of costly beaver or striped
American raccoon, and long sleeves for-
ever dangling unused. A snippet of
orange and black ribbon worn in the
buttonhole shows us that the wearer
owns the much-coveted military order
of St. George. There are civilians in
black cape-coats of the military pattern,
topped off with cold, uncomfortable,
but fashionable chimneypot hats, or,
more sensibly, with high caps of beaver.

It is curious to observe how many
opinions exist as to the weather. The
officers leave their ears unprotected ; a
passing troop of soldiers — fine, large,
hardy fellowS' — wear the strip of black
woollen over their ears, but leave their
bashlyks hanging, unused, on their
backs, with tabs tucked neatly under
shoulder-straps and belts, for use on the
Balkans or some other really cold spot.
Most of the ladies, on foot or in sledges,
wear bashlyks or Orenburg shawls, over
wadded fur caps, well pulled down to
the brows. We may be sure that the
pretty woman who trusts to her bonnet
only has also neglected to put on the
necessary warm galoshes, and that when
she reaches home, sympathizing friends
will rub her vain little ears, feet, and
brow with spirits of wine, to rescue her
from the results of her folly. Only of-
ficers and soldiers possess the secret of
going about in simple leather boots, or
protected merely by a pair of stiff, slap-
ping leather galoshes, accommodated to
the spurs.

For some mysterious reason, the
picturesque nurses, with their pearl-em-
broidered, diadem-shaped caps, like the
kokoshniks of the Empress and Court
ladies, their silver-trimmed petticoats
and jackets, patterned after the ancient
Russian " soul-warmers," and made of

THE mySKY PROSPEKT.

317

pink or blue cashmere, never have any
children in their charge in winter. In-
deed, if we were to go by the evidence
offered by the Nevsky Prospekt, especi-
ally in cold weather, we should assert
that there are no children in the city,
and that the nurses are used as " sheep-
dogs " by ladies long past the danger-
ous bloom of youth and beauty.

The more fashionable people are driv-
ing, however, and that portion of the
one hundred and fourteen feet of the
Prospekt's width which is devoted to
the roadway, is, if possible, even more
varied and entertaining in its kaleido-
scopic features than the sidewalks. It is
admirably kept at all seasons. With the
exception of the cobblestone roadbed
for the tramway in the centre, it is laid
with hexagonal wooden blocks, well
spiked together and tarred, resting
upon tarred beams and planks, and
forming a pavement which is both elas-
tic and fairly resistent to the volcanic
action of the frost. The snow is main-
tained at such a level that, while sledg-
ing is perfect, the closed carriages which
are used for evening entertainments,
calls, and shopping are never incom-
moded. Street sweepers in red cotton
blouses and clean white linen aprons,
sweep on calmly in the icy chill. The
police, with their baslilyks wrapped
round their heads in a manner peculiar
to themselves, stand always in the
middle of the street and regulate the
traffic.

We will hire an izvostchik and join
the throng. The process is simple ; it
consists in setting ourselves up at auc-
tion on the curbstone, among the nu-
merous cabbies waiting for a job, and
knocking ourselves down to the lowest
bidder. If our Vanka (Johnny, the
generic name for cabby) drives too slow-
ly, obviously with the object of loitering
away our money, a policeman will give
him a hint to whip up, or we may effect
the desired result by threatening to
speak to the next guardian of the peace.
If Vanka attempts to intrude upon the
privileges of the private carriages, for
whom is reserved the space next the
tramway track and the row of high, sil-
vered posts which bear aloft the electric
lights, a sharp "Beregls ! " [Look out for
yourself !] will be heard from the first

fashionable coachman who is impeded
in his swift career, and he will be called
to order promptly by the police. Ladies
may not, unfortunately, drive in the
smartest of the public carriages, but
must content themselves with something
more modest and more shabby. But
Vanka is usually good-natured, patient,
and quite unconscious of his shabbi-
ness, at least in the light of a grievance
or as affecting his dignity. It was one
of these shabby, but democratic and
self - possessed fellows, who furnished
us with a fine illustration of the peas-
ant qualities. We encountered one of
the Emperor's cousins on his way to
his regimental barracks ; the Grand
Duke mistook us for acquaintances, and
saluted. Our izvostchik returned the
greeting.

"Was that Vasily Dmitrich?" we
asked, in Russian form.

" Yes, madam."

" Whom was he saluting ? "

" Us," replied the man, with imper-
turbable gravity.

Very different from our poor fellow,
who remembers his duties to the saints
and churches, and salutes Kazan Cathe-
dral as we pass, with cross and bared
head, is the fashionable coachman, who
sees nothing but his horses. Our man's
cylindrical cap of imitation fur is old,
his summer armyak of blue cloth fits,
as best it may, over his lean form and
his sheepskin tuliip, and is girt with a
cheap cotton sash.

The head of the fashionable coachman
is crowned with a becoming gold-laced
cap, in the shape of the ace of diamonds,
well stuffed with down, and made of
scarlet, sky-blue, sea-green, or other hue
of velvet. His fur-lined armyak reach-
ing to his feet, through whose silver but-
tons, under the left arm he is bursting
with fashion or good living, is secured
about his portly waist by a silken girdle
glowing with roses and butterflies. His
legs are too fat to enter the sledge — that
is to say, if his master truly respects his
own dignity — and his feet are accom-
modated in iron stirrups outside. He
leans well back, with arms outstretched
to accord with the racing speed at which
he drives. In the tiny sledge — the small-
er it is, the more stylish, in inverse ra-
tio to the coachman, who is expected

318

THE N^.l^SKY PROSP^KT.

to be as broad as it is — sits a lady hug-
gin<>' her crimson velvet i^huba lined with
curled white Thibetan goat, or feathery
black fox fur, close about her ears. An
officer holds her firmly with one arm
around the waist, a very necessary pre-
caution at all seasons, with the fast
driving, where drozhkies and sledges
are utterly devoid of back or side rail.
The spans of huge Orloff stallions, black
or dappled gray, display their full beau-
ty of form in the harnesses of slender
straps and silver chains ; their beautiful
eyes are unconcealed by blinders. They
are covered with a coarse-meshed wool-
len net fastened to the winged dash-
board, black, crimson, purple, or blue,
which trails in the snow in company
with their tails and the heavy tassels of
the fur-edged cloth robe. The horses,
the wide-spreading reddish beard of the
coachman, parted in the middle like a
well-worn whisk broom, the hair, eye-
lashes, and furs of the occupants of the
sledge, all are frosted with rime until
each filament seems to have been turned
into silver wire.

There is an alarm of fire somewhere.
A section of the fire department passes,
that imposing but amusing procession
of hand-engine, three Avater-barrels, pen-
nons and fine horses trained in the haute
ecole, which does splendid work with ap-
parently inadequate means. An officer in
gray lambskin cap flashes b}^, drawn by
a pair of fine trotters. " Vot on sam ! "
mutters our izvostchtik — " There he is
himself ! " It is General Gresser,"^ the
Prefect of the Capital, who maintains
perfect order, and demonstrates the pos-
sibilities of keeping streets always clean
in an impossible climate. The pound-
ing of those huge trotters' hoofs is so
absolutely distinctive — as distinctive as
the unique gray cap — that we can recog-
nize it as they pass, cry like the izvos-
tchik : " Vot on sam ! " and fly to the
window with the certainty that it will
be "he himself."

Court carriages with lackeys in crim-
son and gold, ambassadors' sledges with
cock-plumed chasseurs and cockaded
coachmen, the latter wearing their chev-
rons on their backs ; rude wooden
sledges, whose sides are made of knotted

* Since the above was wi'itten this able officer aud very
efficient Prefect has died.

ropes, filled with superfluous snow ;
Grand Ducal troikas with clinking har-
nesses studded with metal plaques and
flying tassels, the outer horses coquetting,
as usual, beside the staid trot of the
shaft-horse, all mingle in the endless pro-
cession which flows on up the Nevsky
Prospekt through the Bolshaya Morsk-
aya — Great Sea Street — and out upon
the Neva quays, and back again, to see
and be seen, until long after the sun has
set on the short days, at six minutes to
three. A plain sledge approaches. The
officer who occupies it is dressed like an
ordinary general, and there are thou-
sands of generals ! As he drives quietl}'
along, police and sentries give him the
salute of the ordinary general ; so do
those who recognize him by his face or
his Kazak orderly. It is the Emperor
out for his afternoon exercise, tl we
meet him near the gate of the Anitch-
kolf Palace, we may find him sitting
placidly beside us, while our sledge
and other sledges in the hne are stopped
for a moment to allow him to enter.

Here is another sledge, also differing
in no respect from the equipages of
other people, save that the lackey on
the low knife-board behind wears a pe-
culiar livery of dark green, pale blue,
and gold (or with white in place of the
green at Easter-tide). The lady whose
large, dark eyes are visible between her
sable cap and the superb black fox
shawl of her crimson velvet cloak, is the
Empress. The lady beside her is one
of her ladies-in-waiting. Attendants,
guards, are absolutely lacking, as in the
case of the Emperor.

Here, indeed, is the place to enjoy
winter. The dry, feathery snow de-
scends, but no one heeds it. We turn
up our coat collars and drive on. Um-
brellas are unknown abominations. The
permanent marquises, of light iron-
work, which are attached to most of the
entrances are serviceable only to those
who use closed carriages, and in the
rainy autumn.

Just opposite the centre of this
thronged promenade, well set back
from the street, stands the Cathedral of
the Kazan Virgin. Outside, on the quay
of the tortuous Katherine Canal, made
a navio-able water-way under the sec-
ond Katherine, but lacking, through

THE NE^SKY PROSPEKT.

319

its narrowness, the picturesque feat-
ures of the Fontanka, flocks of pigeons
are fed daily from the adjoining grain
shops. In the curve of the great colon-
nade, copied, like the exterior of the
church itself, from that of St. Peter at
Rome, bronze statues, heroic in size, of
Generals Kutuzofif and Barclay de Tolly,
by the Russian sculptor Orlovsky, stand
on guard.

Hither the Emperor and Empress
come " to salute the Virgin," on their
safe return from a journey. Hither are
brought Imperial brides in gorgeous
state procession — when they are of the
Greek faith — on their way to the altar
in the Winter Palace. We can never
step into this temple without finding-
some deeply interesting and characteris-
tically Russian event in progress. After
we have run the inevitable gauntlet of
monks, nuns, and other beggars at the
entrance, we may happen upon a bap-
tism, just beyond, the naked, new-
born infant sputtering gently after his
thrice-repeated dip in the candle-decked
font, with the priest's hand covering
his eyes, ears, mouth, and nostrils, and
now undergoing the ceremony of anoint-
ment, or confirmation. Or we may
come upon a bridal couple, in front of
the solid silver balustrade ; or the ex-
quisite liturgy, exquisitely chanted, by
the fine choir in their vestments of scar-
let, blue, and silver, with the seraphic
wings upon their shoulders, and in-
toned, with a finish of art unknown in
other lands, by priests robed in rich
brocade. Or it may be that a popular
sermon by a well-known orator has at-
tracted a throng of listeners among the
lofty pillars of gray Finland granite,
hung with battle-flags and the keys of
conquered towns. What we shall as-
suredly find is, votaries ascending the
steps to salute with devotion the be-
nignant, brown-faced Byzantine Virgin
and Christ-Child, encrusted with su-
perb jewels, or kneeling in " ground
reverences " with brow laid to the mar-
ble pavement, before the ikonostds, or
rood-screen, of solid silver. Our Lady
of Kazan has been the most popular of
wonder-working Virgins ever since she
was brought from Kazan to Moscow, in
1579, and transported to Petersburg, in
1721 (although her present cathedral

dates only from 1811), and the scene
here on Easter-night is second only to
that at St. Isaac's when the porticos
are thronged by the lower classes wait-
ing to have their flower- and candle-
decked cakes and cream blessed at the
close of the Easter matins.

One of the few individual dwelling-
houses which linger on the Nevsky
Prospekt, and which presents us with a
fine specimen of the rococo style which
Rastrelli so persistently served up at
the close of the eighteenth century, is
that of the Counts Stroganoff, at the
lower quay of the Moika. The Moika
[literally. Washing] River is the last
of the semicircular, concentric canals
which intersect the Nevsky and its two
radiating companion Prospekts, and im-
part to that portion of the city which is
situated on the (comparative) mainland
a resemblance to an outspread fan, whose
palm-piece is formed by the Admiralty
on the Neva quay.

The stately pile, and the pompous air
of the big, gold-laced Swiss lounging at
the entrance on the Nevsky, remind us
that the Stroganoff family has been a
power in Russian history since the mid-
dle of the sixteenth century.

It was a mere handful of their Kazaks,
led by Yermak Timofeevitch, who con-
quered Siberia, in 1581, under Ivan the
Terrible, while engaged in repelling the
incursions of the Tatars and wild Sibe-
rian tribes on the fortified towns which
the Stroganoffs had been authorized to
erect on the vast territory at the west-
ern foot of the Ural Mountains, con-
veyed to them by the ancient Tzars.
Later on, when Alexei Mikhailovitch,
the father of Peter the Great, estab-
lished a new code, grading punishments
and fines by classes, the highest money
tax assessed for insult and injury was
fifty rubles ; but the Stroganoffs were
empowered to exact one hundred ru-
bles.

Opposite the Stroganoff house, on the
upper Moika quay, rises the large, red-
dish-yellow Club of the Nobility, repre-
senting still another fashion in archi-
tecture, which was very popular dur-
ing the last century for palaces and
grand mansions — the Corinthian peri-
style upon a solid, lofty basement. It
is not an old building, but was prob-

320

THE NEySKY FROSPEKT.

ably copied from the palace of the Em-
press Elizabeth, wliicli stood on this
spot. Elizaveta Petrovna, though she
used this palace a great deal, had a habit
of sleeping in a different place each
night, the precise spot being never
known beforehand. This practice is at-
tributed, by some Russian historians,
to her custom of turning night into day.
She went to the theatre, for example, at
eleven o'clock, and any courtier who
failed to attend her was fined fifty ru-
bles. It was here that the populace
assembled to hurrah for Elizaveta Pe-
trovna, on December 6, 1741, when she
returned, with little Ivan VI. in her
arms, from the Winter Palace, where
she had made captive his father and
his mother, the regent Anna Leopoldina.
It may have been the recollection of the
ease with which she had surprised indo-
lent Anna Leopoldina in her bed-cham-
ber which caused her to be so uncertain
in her own movements, in view of the
fact that there were persons so ill-ad-
vised as to wish the restoration of the
slothful German regent and her infant
son, disastrous as that would have been
to the country.*

Later on, the chief of police lived
here, and the adjoining bridge, which
had hitherto been known as the Green
Bridge, had its name changed to the
Police Bridge, which rather puzzling
appellation it still bears.

A couple of blocks beyond this corner
of the Nevsky, the Moika and the Grand
Morskaya, the Nevsky Prospekt ends
at the Alexander Garden, backed by the
Admiralty, and the Neva, after having
passed in its course through all grades
of society, from the monks at the ex-
treme limit, peasant huts — or something

* We must do the Russians who occupy the building
at the present day, the justice to state that they uphold
religiously the nocturnal tradition thus established by
Elizaveta Petrovna, and even improve upon it. From
six o'clock in the evening onward, the long windows of
the Club, on the bel Stage, blaze with light. The occa-
sional temporary obscurations produced by the steam
from relays of samovars, do not interfere materially with
the neighbors' view of the card-parties and the final ex-
change of big bundles of bank-bills, which takes place
at five o'clock the next morning, or later. Even if play-
ers and bills were duly shielded from observation, the
mauvais quart d'heure would be accurately revealed by
the sudden rush for the sledges, which have been hang-
ing, in a swarm, about the door, according to the usual
convenient custom of Vanka, wherever lighted windows
suggest possible patrons. Poor, hard-worked Vanka
slumbers all night on his box, with one eye open, or falls
prone in death-like exhaustion over the dash-board, upon
his sleeping horse, while his cap lies on the snow, and
his shaggy head is bared to the bitter blasts.

very like them, on the outskirts — artistic
and literary circles in the Peski quarter
(the Sands), well-to-do merchants and
nobles, officials and wealthy courtiers,
until now we have reached the culminat-
ing point, where the Admiralty, Im-
perial Palace and War Office complete
the national group begun at the church.
When, in 1704, Peter the Great
founded his beloved Admiralt}', as the
first building on the mainland then de-
signed for such purposes as this, and
not for residence, it was simply a ship-
yard, open to the Neva, and inclosed on
three sides by low wooden structures,
surrounded by stone-faced earthworks,
moats, and palisades. Hither Peter was
wont to come of a morning, after having
routed his ministers out of bed to hold
Privy Council, at three and four o'clock,
to superintend the work, and to lend a
hand himself. The first stone buildings
were erected in 1726, after his death.
In the early years of the present century
Alexander I. rebuilt this stately and
graceful edifice, after the plans of the
Russian architect Zakharoff, who created
the beautiful tower adorned with Rus-
sian sculptures, crowned by a golden
spire, in the centre of the immense
fa9ade, fourteen hundred feet long,
which forms a feature inseparable from
the vista of the Prospekt for the greater
part of its length, to the turn at the
Znamenskaya Square. On this spire, at
the present day, flags and lanterns w^arn
the inhabitants of low -lying districts
in the capital, of the rate at which the
water is rising during inundations. In
case of serious danger the flags are re-
inforced by signal guns from the for-
tress. But in Peter I.'s day these flags
and guns bore exactly the opposite
meaning to the unhappy nobles whom
the energetic Emperor was trying to.
train into rough-w^eather sailors. To»
their trembling imaginations these sig-
nal orders to assemble for a practice saill
signified, " Come out and be drowned ! '*'
since they were obliged to embark in
the crafts too generously given to them
by Peter, and cruise about until their
leader (who delighted in a storm) saw
fit to return. There is a story of one
unhappy wight, who was honored by
the presence aboard of his craft of a
very distinguished and very sea -sick

THE NEl^SKY PROSP^KT.

321

Persian, making his first acquaintance
with the pleasures of yachting, and who
spent three days, without food, tacking
between Petersburg and Kronstadt, in
the vain endeavor to effect a landing
during rough weather.

When the present Admiralty was
built, a broad and shady boulevard
was organized on the site of the old
glacis and covered way, and later still,
when the break in the quay was filled
in, and the shipbuilding transferred
to the New Admiralty a little farther
down the river, the boulevard was en-
larged into the New Alexander Garden,
one of the finest squares in Europe. It
soon became the fashionable promenade,
and the centre of popular life as well,
by virtue of the merry-makings which
here took place. Here, during the Car-
nival of 1836, the temporary cheap
theatre of boards was burned, at the
cost of one hundred and twenty -six
lives, and many injured persons, which
resulted in these dangerous halagdni
and other holiday amusements being
removed to the spacious parade ground
known as the Empress's Meadow.

If we pass round the Admiralty to
the Neva, we shall find its frozen sur-
face teeming with life. Sledge roads
have been laid out on it, marked with
evergreen bushes, over which a yamtscMk
will drive us with his troika, fleet as
the wind, to Kronstadt, twenty miles
away. Plank walks, fringed with street
lanterns, have been prepared for pedes-
trians. Broad ice paths have been
cleared, whereon the winter ferry-boats
ply — green garden-chairs, holding one
or more persons, furnished with warm
lap -robes, and propelled by stout
muzhiks on skates, who will transport
us from shore to shore for the absurdly
small sum of less than a cent apiece,
though a ride with the reindeer (now a
strange sight in the capital), at the Lap-
landers' encampment, costs much more.

It is hard to tear ourselves from the
charms of the river, with its fishing, ice-
cutting, and many other interesting
sights always in progress. But of all the
scenes that which we may witness on
Epiphany Day — the " Jordan " or Bless-
ing of the Waters, in commemoration of
Christ's baptism in the Jordan — is the
most curious and typically Russian.

After mass, celebrated by the Metro-
politan, in the cathedral of the Winter
Palace, whose enormous reddish-ochre
mass we perceive rising above the frost-
jewelled trees of the Alexander Garden,
to our right as we stand at the head of
the Nevsky Prospekt, the Emperor, his
heir, his brothers, uncles, and other
great personages, emerge in procession
upon the quay. Opposite the Jordan
door of the palace a scarlet, gold, and
blue pavilion, also called the " Jordan,"
has been erected over the ice. Thither
the procession moves, headed by the
Metropolitan and the richly vestured
clergy, their mitres gleaming with gems,
bearing crosses and church banners, and
the Imperial choir, clad in crimson and
gold, chanting as they go. The Em-
press and her ladies, clad in full Court
costume at mid-day, look on from the
palace windows. After brief prayers in
the pavilion, all standing with bared
heads, the Metropolitan dips the great
gold cross in the rushing waters of the
Neva, through a hole prepared in the
thick, opalescent, green ice, and the guns
on the opposite shore thunder out a sa-
lute. The pontoon Palace Bridge, the
quays on both sides of the river, all the
streets and squares for a long distance
round about are densely thronged, and,
as the guns announce the consecration
every head is bared, every right hand in
the mass, thousands strong, is raised to
execute repeated signs of the cross on
brow and breast.

From our post at the head of the
Prospekt we behold, not the ceremony
itself but the framework of a great na-
tional picture, the great Palace Square,
whereon twenty thousand troops can
manoeuvre, and in whose centre rises
the greatest monolith of modern times,
the shaft of red Finland granite, eighty-
four feet in height, crowned with a
cross-bearing angel, the monument to
Alexander I. There stand the Guards'
Corps; and the huge building of the
General Staff, containing the Ministries
of Finance and of Foreign Affairs, and
many things besides, originally erected
by Katherine 11. to mask the rears of
the houses at the end of the Nevsky, and
rebuilt under Nicholas I., sweeping in
a magnificent semicircle opposite the
Winter Palace. Reeiments restrain the

322

THE NEySKY PROSPEKT.

zeal of the crowd to obtain the few
posts of vantaf^e from whi(;h the conse-
cratioD of the waters is visible, and to
keep open a lane for the carriages of
royalty, diplomats, and invited guests.
They form part of the pageant, like the
Empress's cream-colored carriage and
the white horses and scarlet liveries of
the Metropolitan. The crowd is devout
and silent, as Russian crowds always
are, except when they see the Emperor
after he has escaped a danger, when
they become vociferous with an anima-
tion which is far more significant than
it is in more noisy lands. The ceremony
over, the throngs melt away rapidly
and silently; pedestrians, Finnish ice-
sledges, traffic in general, resume their
rights on the palace sidewalks and the
square, and after a state breakfast the
Emperor drives quietly home, unguard-
ed, to his Anitchkoff Palace.

If we glance to our left, and slightly
to our rear, as we stand thus facing the
Neva and the Admiralty, we see the
Prefecture and the Ministry of War,
the latter once the mansion of a grandee
in the last century ; and, rising above the
latter, we catch a glimpse of the upper
gallery and great gold-plated, un-Bus-
sian dome, of St. Isaac's Cathedral, which
is visible for twenty miles down the
Gulf of Finland. The granite pillars
glow in the frosty air with the bloom
of a Delaware grape. We forgive St.
Isaac for the non -Russian character of
the modern ecclesiastical glories of
which it is the exponent as we listen
eagerl}^ to the soft, rich, boom-boom-bo-
o-om of the great bourdon, embroid-
ered with silvery melody by the multi-
tude of smaller bells, chiming nearly all
day long with a truly orthodox sweet-
ness unknown to the Western world,
and which, to-day, are more elaborately
beautiful than usual, in honor of the
great festival. We appreciate to the full
the wailing cry of the prisoner, in the an-
cient epic songs of the land : " He was
cut off from the light of the fair, red sun,
from the sound of sweet church-bells."

On the great Palace Square another

characteristic sight is to be seen on
the nights of Court balls, which fol-
low the Jordan, when the blaze of elec-
tric light from the rock-crystal chan-
deliers, big as liaystacks, within the
state apartments, is supplemented b}-
the fires in the heater and on the snow
outside, round which the waiting coach-
men warm themselves, with Rembrandt-
esque effects of chiaro - oscuro second
only to the picturesqueness of dvornika
in their nondescript caps and shaggy
coats, who cluster round blazing fagots
in less aristocratic quarters when the
thermometer descends below zero.

AVhen spring comes, with the magical
suddenness which characterizes North-
ern lands, the gardens, quays, and the
Nevsky Prospekt still preserve their
charms for a space, and are thronged far
into the night with promenaders, who
gaze at the Imperial crowns, stars, mon-
ograms, and other devices temporari-
ly applied to the street lanterns, and
the fairy flames on the low curb -posts
(whereat no horse, though unblinded.
ever shies), with which man attempts,
on the numerous royal festival days of
earty summer, to rival the illumination
of the indescribably beautiful tints of
river and sky. But the peasant-izvost-
chik goes off to the country to till his
little patch of land, aided by the shaggy
little farm-horse, which has been con-
sorting on the Prospekt with thorough-
bred trotters all winter, and helping
him to eke out his cash income, scanty
at the best of times ; or he emigrates to
a summer resort, scorning our insinua-
tion that he is so unfashionable as to
remain in town. The deserted Prospekt
is torn up for repairs. The merchants,
especially the goldsmiths, complain that
it would be true economy for them to
close their shops. The annual troops of
foreign travellers arrive, view the lovely
islands of the Neva delta, catch a glimpse
of the summer cities in the vicinity, and
dream, ah, vain dream ! that they have
also really beheld the Nevsky Prospekt,
the great av^enue of the realm of the
Frost King and the White Tzar !

A CASE IN POINT.

By George A. Hibbard.

" For better for worse."

— The Form of Solemnization of Matrimony.

THE Rev. Laurence Thesiger stood
looking out of one of the many
narrow windows — Hamboyant and
mullioned — through which the sunlight
poured into his " study " in the tower of
the Church of the Ascension, in the town
of Millville. The building, as conscien-
tiously ecclesiastic and as smartly pict-
uresque as the fancy of a young archi-
tect just back from the Beaux Arts
had been able to create, stood on the
corner, where the main street joined the
" Square," and its windows commanded
the meagre life of the place.

Under the diffused haze of one of the
latest days of a late Indian summer the
scant aspects of Millville might be, for
the time, forgotten. The " stores " across
the small, dusty park, in the centre of
which was the " Soldiers^ Monument,"
were less crudely prominent and the
newly built residences and older dwell-
ings farther up the street seemed, each
after its kind, to possess a noteworthy
dignity, or, in no inconsiderable degree,
a certain homely beauty.

" Yes," he said, "I suppose you may
make the announcement. I don't think
that there is any doubt about it. The
place has been proffered to me by Mr.
Cooley and Mr. Tarkington, and it only
remains for the Vestry to pass on the
matter ; but as Tarkington and Cooley
are ' pillars ' of the church, I don't
think there can be any uncertainty as
to the result. Give me a good word,
Ricart ; I believe you can do it with a
clear conscience."

Ricart, a man older than the young
clergyman, but still his evident contem-
porary, jerked out a short, indulgent
laugh before he replied.

" As you are not going to preach my
funeral sermon after all, it would be
quite safe for me to say what I please ;
that is, if I were pleased to say anything
that wasn't entirely flattering about our
departing pastor. But never fear. I'll
depict in the most moving terms the
grief of your ' flock,' and your own

heartfelt sorrow at leaving those under
your ministration. I'll touch upon the
good you have done here, and say that
it is only a fitting reward that you
should have the opportunity of continu-
ing your labors in a larger field." Ricart
laughed again. " I'll do more than the
usual thing, for I take it, from what you
say, that you'll accept."

" Accept ! " cried Thesiger, " accept a
metropolitan ' call ' to the rectorship
of St. James's ! Of course, a man would
be mad to think of refusing." Then he
went on in a less assertive and a more
explanatory manner, that, before he was
done, had indeed become almost apolo-
getic. " I won't talk that sort of thing
that is so often justly ridiculed, about
the chance of doing greater good and
the duty of bearing the heavier burden.
I have not always thought about the
Church in the usual way. I never could
understand why it is not possible to be
a man and a clergyman at the same
time. It has not lessened my power of
accomplishment here, that I have always
looked for something better ; I mean
for something that might enable me to
reach a greater number of those who
might perhaps be in peculiar need of
my aid. I may be wrong, but I am con-
vinced that I am equal to meeting the
requirements of a more complex life.
I believe, and truly believe, that much
that I have preached here has not been
fully understood. It is my fault. I
should have met the spiritual difficul-
ties that were likely to present them-
selves to my congregation, not have at-
tempted to graj^ple with abstract ques-
tions not likely to concern it."

"Well, brother Thesiger," laughed
Ricart, "there have been times when it
has seemed to me that you have rather
preached over our heads."

"I certainly can justif}' myself to my-
self," said Thesiger, thoughtfully, " and,
with the full knowledge of my own life,
accept this good fortune without a pang
of self- accusation, or the consciousness

324

A CASE IN POINT.

that I have been unduly self-seeking. I
think I have accomplished a good deal
here. This beautiful church," and he
proudl}^ glanced around the room,
"would hardly have been built if it had
not been for my insistence ; and in go-
ing away from here I can feel that I
leave behind me a work accomplished."
He paused, then continued : " By re-
maining, I could only carry on what
already has been begun — something an-
other can do as well as I — and, in time,
life would become a mere routine, and
all initiative power would be finally lost.
Now I go to meet new requirements,
and, with the new demands upon me, I
hope to find new strength. Yes, Ricart,
I will say it boldly, I am ambitious, I
have striven to satisfy my ambition, and
such success is very precious to me."

"I suppose," said Ricart, quietly,
" that it is because you are so vividly
human yourself, that you have had the
power to touch, as you have, human
hearts. Well, personally, I am sorry
you are going ; I shall miss you, Thesi-
ger, and so will a great many others."

"I have many good friends from
whom it will be a grief to part."

" Exactly," said Ricart ; " I can under-
stand that there are reasons why you
will be sorry to go after all."

" What do you mean ? "

" As a married man myself," remarked
Ricart, throwing one leg over the other,
and looking up quizzingly, "I have
always wondered, Laurence, how you
have managed to remain a single one so
long."

The Rev. Laurence Thesiger blushed
— unmistakably blushed — in an embar-
rassed and youthful fashion.

"Really, Lucius " he began.

" You think that isn't any of my busi-
ness— you're right, it isn't. Only when
you've been at college with a man — lived
shoulder to shoulder with him through
the most impassioned decade of his life,
you naturally take an interest in him,
and watch him a little more closely than
you do another. Laurence," continued
Ricart, with a good-humored directness
with which it was impossible to feel in-
dignant, "you're in love. I've seen it
for a long time. You're in love, although
I must say that I am uncertain as to the
object of your affections ; but then I

rather think that the reason that I am
uncertain is that you are a little uncer-
tain yourself."

Thesiger did not answer, and only un-
easily shufHed some papers lying upon
the table.

" You should have taken a wife long
ago."

"I have thought for some time "

began Thesiger. Then he paused and
again w^ent on : "A man's life is certainly
in many ways incomplete unless he is
married, and a clergyman "

" Certainly," interrupted Ricart. " A
clergyman. Matrimony is as much ex-
pected of him as it is of a physician."

" I should never think of getting mar-
ried in an}^ spirit — of — expediency," re-
plied Thesiger.

" Come, come, Laurence," cried Ric-
art, " where's your usual directness ?
You know, and you know that I know,
that you have thought out the whole
matter. Now that this has come, you
will go and offer yourself to her at once.
The town has settled it all, and only
wonders that you haven't asked her to
marry you already."

"Whom do you mean?" asked The-
siger, weakly.

" There — look at him ! " exclaimed
Ricart, " and yet, what can you expect
from a mortal in love, but subterfuge
and dissimulation? One of the first
effects of that condition seems to be the
development of all the guilefulness in a
man's make-up. Whom do I mean ?
Why, Eleanor Cranstone, of course."

"Isn't she a noble woman!" ex-
claimed Thesiger, enthusiastically.

"Yes," continued Ricart, "nobly
planned and all the rest of it. Elea-
nor Cranstone is a glorious creature,
and I don't w^onder that you admire her.
We all do. But she's rather too splen-
did a possession even for the dreams of
most men. It's only for one like your-
self— predestined to honor and glory —
that such gifts are intended."

" She makes me feel my own unwor-
thiness," said Thesiger, simply. " Often,
when I have done something in which I
have taken perhaps undue pride, I have
perceived when meeting her that it did
not amount to so very much after all."

" Oh, she is perfect," assented Ricart,
with a shrug of his shoulders ; " but I

A CASE IN POINT.

325

confess that I, for my part, can get on
better with humanity that is much far-
ther from complete excellence."

'• Don't you believe," asked Thesiger,
anxiously, "that we ought to admire
what we know to be the best ? "

"I don't know what we ought to do ;
I know that, with my imperfect nature,
Miss Cranstone assumes the aspect of an
Inquisition and frightens me with unap-
prehended terrors. Of course, with
you it's different ; your superior organ-
ism can breathe in such a rarefied air
and thrive in it. Nothing could be bet-
ter. Everyone says so, and I tell you,
the very tangible judgment of that very
intangible entity — quantity — or what
you will, is not to be despised."

"I will confess, Lucius," said the
Rev. Laurence Thesiger with something
like a sigh, " that there have been times

when I have " he stopped abruptly.

"But she has always, as you say, with your
customary recklessness of expression,
seemed something remote and unattain-
able. I have always hesitated "

" What becoming modesty," laughed
Ricart, "in one whom all our fair maid-
ens flock to hear, and before whom they
reverently bow down ! "

" Don't be common, Lucius," returned
Thesiger ; " you'll say something about
embroidered slippers next, but really
you'd better keep all that for the ' fun-
ny ' column of your newspaper."

"Well," laughed Ricart, good-hu-
moredly, " I shan't embarrass you by a
too plain statement of plain facts ; still
I think you hardly need have feared at
any time to present yourself before any
young woman in the place. There is
not one who wouldn't jump at you."

The Rev. Laurence Thesiger frowned
his serious displeasure.

"One and all," continued the un-
abashed Ricart, " from little Marion
Thorpe to the great Eleanor Cranstone
herself. By the way," he went on, " how
do you reconcile your conduct in regard
to little Marion with your painfully ac-
curate ecclesiastical conscience ? There
was a time "

" Don't be an idiot," remonstrated
Thesiger, impatiently; "Miss Thorpe
and I were very good friends — we are
very good friends still. She is very
pretty and very charming, but she is

not like Miss Cranstone — not so inspir-
ing, not so "

"So depressingly supereminent. No,
I am afraid there is a good deal of in-
dividual imperfection about Marion.
At least there is so much of it that she's
capable of feeling hurt by the way you
have acted toward her."

"Honestly, Ricart — " remonstrated
Thesiger.

"I know," said his companion, "that
3'ou gentlemen who call us all to ac-
count don't like very much to be called
to account yourselves."

"But I assure you," interrupted
Thesiger, " there was never anything
between Miss Thorpe and myself. She
is always so bright and jolly that you
naturally fall into a certain camaraderie,
and it easily might appear to the out-
side world to mean more than it really
does."

" I don't know what it meant to you,
but it must have been rather hard for
her to see herself so completely put out
by Miss Cranstone. However, I suppose
Marion'll get over it. She's generally
a plucky little soul, but really "

"Ricart, I won't have you talk this
way, as if I had been — ah — allowing the
girl to think that I felt more than I
really did. Marion Thorpe is very
charming, and we are great friends "

"But nothing more. All right. I
am keeping you." Ricart moved tow-
ard the door. " I have seen 3'our grow-
ing impatience for a long time."

" I have nothing to do ; I "

" But still you'll be willing to be rid
of me. There are times, Laurence,
when the best of friends is in the wa^-,"
and with a quick smile of intelligence
Ricart opened the door. "I may not
treat you or your good luck with quite
the respect either of you deserves, but
that's only my way. I really admire the
one and am sincerely glad of the other."

"Thank you, Lucius," said Thesiger
as they shook hands on the threshold ;
"if you said you overrated the first and
underestimated the last you would be
nearer the truth — but — thank you."

Thesiger closed the door and re-
turned to the window. Although there
Avas something hasty in his movements,
he stood looking out at the dusty road
and the leaf -strewn grass. He knew

326

A CASE IN POINT,

what lie was going to do now, and he
would not long delay its accomplish-
ment ; but there was a certain charm in
the moment before direct action was
taken, and when he could still feign to
himself that there miglit be some doubt
as to the result. It seemed almost as if
he had waited for this success before
coming at a decision. The promotion
he had desired had, in some inexplica-
ble way, seemed to settle it all, and he
felt that now he should ask Eleanor
Cranstone to become his wife. How
could it have been possible for him to
have doubted for an instant ? He felt
amazed at his own blindness, and a
vision of Eleanor Cranstone, calm,
stately, and beautiful, rose before his
eyes and increased his wonder at his
own hesitancy.

He seized his soft, clerical hat and,
locking the door, hastened downstairs.

"I shall not be back to-day," he said
to the conservative sexton, who evidently
viewed the rector's nervous hastiness
with suspicion, if not with disapproba-
tion ; " and if anyone wants me, say I
shall not be at the rectory until evening."

The Rev. Laurence Thesiger was a
very happy man as he made his way
down the straight stone walk that cut
the carefully kept lawn surrounding his
church ; he was a happy man — as one
is happy in the conscious attainment of
a long-sought desire — and it was with a
feeling that a little self-glory was not
only pardonable, but fitting, that he
walked along. He glanced up the vil-
lage street where the thinning leaves
permitted the intersecting branches of
the great elms to be seen. It was all
very charming, very reposeful ; but he
assured himself that it was no place for
him ; and with a relief inexpressible he
felt a renev/ed thankfulness that libera-
tion had at last come.

At the corner made by the first cross-
street, placed upon what was really a
terrace — for the stone facing that ran
along the sidewalk was quite high and
topped with a handsome balustrade —
stood one of those houses that attest, if
nothing else, the wealth and liberality
of the owner. It was a massive build-
ing, the finest in the place, and fit in-
deed to do honor in a larger town.
When Cranstone, the local banker, had

built it there had at first been a certain
inappropriateness in its size and char-
acter ; but, with the quick changefulness
of an American place, other houses of
the same sort had grown up around it,
which, if they did not equal, helped to
remove the aspect of isolation that had
given it a certain appearance of cnide-
ness.

Thesiger mounted the few steps that
led from the street ; opened the heavily
wrought iron gate ; walked along the
winding gravel path leading to the
house, and, crossing the drive which ap-
proached the main door in a generous
sweep, passed under the porte cochere.
He could not conceal the fact that his
heart beat a little quicker than ordinar-
ily and that there was a queer, hot sen-
sation about his temples. He was a
little ashamed of it, for, as has been
said, he was very young, and he won-
dered apprehensively, after he had rung
the bell, whether there w^as anything in
his appearance that w^ould lead the ser-
vant to suspect that he was more excited
than usual.

" Is — is Miss Cranstone in ? " asked
the Rev. Laurence Thesiger, with a limp
uncertainty he had no power to control.
It seemed to him that the servant, as
well as the sexton, noticed something
unaccustomed in his aspect or manner,
and eyed him suspiciously.

" No, sir. Miss Cranstone has gone
out to drive."

" Oh ! " exclaimed Thesiger, feebly
and helplessly.

"But," continued the servant, with
what Thesiger could not convince him-
self was not a sympathetic inflection of
comforting assurance, " she has been
gone for some time and may be back
very soon. Indeed, Miss Eleanor said
that she would be in at five o'clock."

" Yes," murmured Thesiger, " she
said she would be in at five o'clock."

" Will you wait, sir ? " asked the ser-
vant, who knew very well who he was.

" No, no," he replied with an air of
indifference, and half consciously striv-
ing to create the impression that it was
of no consequence ; " but you are sure
she said she would be in at five o'clock ?"

" Yes, sir."

It certainly was very perplexing and
annoying. In all his. experience of

A CASE IN POINT.

327

secular literature Thesiger did not
remember to have encountered any in-
stance when a hero, hastening to throw
himself at the feet of his lady-love, was
checked by a servant's simple announce-
ment that she was " out." It generally
requires a crime or a catastrophe to
turn aside a young man bent upon such
a purpose ; and here he was, as effectu-
ally cut off by this conventional state-
ment as he would have been by the ma-
chinations of the most successful villain.

There seemed to be something wrong,
but there was no escape from the posi-
tion, and the only thing to do was to
find some 4nethod of employing his
time until five o'clock.

He could as he walked from the door
look across the street, and he saw, with
the imperfect consciousness of one in
deep absorption, the opposite house.
As the Cranstone residence character-
ized a period in the growth of Millville,
so did the dwelling opposite mark an-
other. It was wooden, clap-boarded,
painted a dull brown, and it stood
nearly flush with the street. There was
a broad porch before its door, with nar-
row, transverse seats, and what were
now leafless vines climbed briskly up
the slender supporting columns of the
roof. That it was old as houses go in
America was evident, and already it had
gained something of the charm which
we begin to find in a self-respecting
dwelling that has lasted more than two
or three generations. It was of the old
order of things at Millville, when in-
deed Millville had not been Millville at
all, but Manlius, and the sound of the
steam whistle and the gleam and glitter
of the arc light were still unknown.
But the Rev. Laurence Thesiger did
not muse upon the changing conditions
of an American village life. He only
thought that it was mail time, and that
if he walked to the post-office to get
his letters he might be able to fill up
some part of that hour that seemed to
stretch out before him to such an inter-
minable length.

Some one, not recognizing him,
pushed against Thesiger as he halted
motionless before the checkered wall of
post boxes, but he did not look up ;
another spoke to him, but he did not

answer. It had been so sudden that,
for a moment, full comprehension had
not been possible ; but now that he had
read the letter for the second time, the
reality of the situation was clearly be-
fore him. He felt the sudden sickness
of disappointment — the helplessness of
despair. That what had happened had
been utterly unexpected to the writer
was evident, for it was with the apolo-
getic tone of one who feels that he has
guiltily raised false hopes that the an-
nouncement was made. And so the
vestry had made its decision, and he —
the Rev. Laurence Thesiger — was not
the man after all ; but Dr. Riddelber-
ger, who, in assuming the position of rec-
tor of St. James's, would leave a charge
of almost equal importance in an almost
equally large city. The complimentary
assurances did not in the least lighten
the blow for Thesiger ; nor did the rea-
son given, that it was only his inexperi-
ence that had prevented him from re-
ceiving the " call," in any degree com-
fort him. The one crushing fact, that
what he had hoped was not to be, com-
pletely overwhelmed him, and in that
despair that, in youth, seems endless
he could see no hope of relief.

He walked down the post-office steps
and into the " Square," then instinc-
tively turned in the direction from
which only a moment before he had
come. There was to be no change ;
only the same old story, growing duller,
older, harder, tamer all the time. He
could not hope now to get out of Mill-
ville for a long time — if forever ; and
life, which before had carried with it a
sense of accomplishment, must now be-
come the mere regular fulfilment of
duty. He knew so well what to expect ;
and at his age there is hardly anything
more depressing than the dead weight
of certainty.

" Hello ! ' said some one, at what
seemed a great distance, but who, as he
gradually aroused himself from his leth-
argy, he discovered was really quite
near.

" Hello !" repeated the same voice.

" Why, Ricart," said Thesiger, " is
that you ? "

" Yes," answered Ricart ; " but why is
the reverend gentleman so surprised to
see me, in view of the fact that we have

328

A CASE IN POINT.

met on an average twice a day for the
last three years ? "

" It seemed to me singularly oppor-
tune, that is all. There was something
I wanted to tell you "

"I am to offer my congratulations.
The fair one has proved kind," inter-
rupted Ricart. " Laurence, you're a
lucky fellow — youth, success, and such
a wife as Eleanor Cranstone."

"But I haven't even asked Miss Cran-
stone to marry me."

" Not asked her ? What have you
been doing? I left you hastening to
pour your tale of love into her ears."

" But she was ' out,' " stammered The-
siger.

" What a fearful lion in the path,"
laughed Eicart. " I understand the
bold lover is now hastening to see if
she is ' in.' But I don't see great deter-
mination in your eye. However, all is
so fitting that I won't say to you "

" What ? " asked Thesiger, as Ricart
paused.

" Nothing — nothing."

" What were you going to say ? "

" Why, that in asking a woman to
marry you there is always one thing that
you ought to . think of — that is, when
the matter isn't simplified by not being
able to think at all."

"And what is that?"

"You should ask yourself: Is this
the woman with whom I should be the
happiest if the world went against me,
if misfortune came ? That's the ques-
tion, and on the answer depends all.
There's many a girl whom it would be
a joy and a privilege for us to 'love,
honor, and cherish ' if we were always
successful, but those with whom we feel
that we could bear ill-luck are very few
— very few. It isn't given to a man to
know more than one such in his life —
one with whom the world were ' well
lost,' and with whom even defeat were
bearable. But," and Ricart moved on,
" this is neither here nor there."

" Wait a moment," said Thesiger,
catching him by the sleeve as he turned
away ; " I told you that there was some-
thing I wanted to say. You needn't
make the announcement after all."

" Not make the announcement ! " ex-
claimed Ricart.

" No," continued Thesiger, " the ves-

try of St. James's has taken action, and
the Rev. Dr. Riddleberger has been
made rector. I have just received a let-
ter notifying me of the fact."

" And so," said Ricart, after a short
pause, "we shall still have you with us.
Well, Laurence, I'm sorry on your ac-
count ; but in this instance what's one
man's poison is another man's meat.
We gain by your loss."

" Of course, I am disappointed."

" And so you will have to put up with
Millville, and all that Millville implies.
Wellj you might have a worse fate — the
most prominent and respected person
in a place of this size, with a woman like
Eleanor Cranstone to share all with
you."

" Ricart, you know that our old friend-
ship permits you to say much "

" But I mustn't go too far." Ricart
looked at the other for a moment, and
then laughed shortly. "Well, perhaps
I had better be more careful, consider-
ing— And I shan't make the announce-
ment."

Ricart moved away, but before he had
gone many steps he looked back at The-
siger, w^ho still stood where he had left
him. He saw Thesiger pause, half
turning as if he would again go down
the street, then saw him straighten
himself and advance briskly in the di-
rection in which he had been going.

It was only a short distance, and The-
siger found himself before the porch of
the brown, clap-boarded house that had
before only so momentarily occupied his
attention. He quickly ascended the
steps, pulled the bell, letting the bell-
pull fly back sharply, and then sat down
on the hard, warped, and weatherbeaten
bench.

There must have been something in
the manner in w^hich he rang, for a
trimly capped maid speedily opened the
door, with something of a startled air.

" Is Miss Thorpe at home ? " asked the
Rev. Laurence Thesiger, quickly rising.

" Yes, sir," said the maid, as she
opened the door still farther so that he
might come m.

Ricart, who had seen but not heard,
continued on his way, a smile of intelli-
gence slowly gathering about his lips.

"So it was a case in point a-fter all,"
he half said to himself.

The Apparition of Saint Scholastica. — Lesueur.

FRENCH ART.

I. CLASSIC PAINTING.

Bv W. C Brownell.

MORE than that of any other
modern people French art is a
national expression. It epit-
omizes very definitely the national fies-
thetic judgment and feeling-, and if its
manifestations are even more varied
than are elsewhere to be met with,
Vol. XII.— 35

thej' share a certain character that is
very salient. Of almost any French
picture or statvie of any modern epoch
one's first thought is that it is French.
The national quite overshadows the
personal quality. In the field of the
tine arts, as in nearly ever}' other in

330

FRENCH ART.

Avliicli the Frciicli j^enius shows it-
self, the results are evident of an in-
tellectual co-oj^eration whicli insures
the develo2)nien t of a comnion standard
and tends to subordinate idiosyncrasy.
The tine arts, as well as every other de-
partment of mental activit}^ reveal the
effect of that social instinct whicli is so
much more powerful in France than it
is anywhere else, or has ever been else-
where, except possibly in the case of
the Athenian republic. Add to this in-
fluence that of the intellectual as dis-
tinguished from the sensuous instinct
and one has, I think, the key to this sa-
lient characteristic of French art which
strikes one so sharply and always as so
plainly French. As one w^alks through
the French rooms at the Louvre,
through the galleries of the Luxem-
bourg, through the unending rooms of
the 'Salon he is impressed by the
splendid competence everywhere dis-
played, the high standard of culture
universally attested, by the overAvhelm-
ing evidence that France stands at the
head of the modern world sesthetically —
but not less, I think, does one feel the
absence of imagination, opportunity, of
spirituality, of poetry in a word. The
French themselves feel something of
this. At the great Exj)osition of 1889
no pictures were so much admired by
them as the English, in which appeared,
even to an excessive degree, just the
qualities in which French art is lack-
ing, and which less than those -of any
other school showed traces of the now
all but universal influence of French
art. The most distinct and durable
impression left by any exhibition of
French pictures is that the French
aesthetic genius is at once admirably
artistic and extremely little poetic.

It is a corollary of the predominance
of the intellectual over the sensuous in-
stinct that the true should be preferred
to the beautiful, and some French
critics are so far from denying this
preference of French art that they ex-
press pride in it, and, indeed, defend it
in a w^ay which makes one feel slight-
ly amateurish and fanciful in thinking
of beauty apart from truth. A walk
through the Louvre, however, sufHces to
restore one's confidence in his own con-
victions. The French rooms, at least

until modern jx-riods arc reached, are
a demonstration that in the sphere
of {esthetics science does not produce
tiie greatest artists — that something
other than intelligent interest and
technical accomplishment are requisite
to that end, and that system is fatal to
spontaneity. M. Eugene Veron is the
mouthpiece of his countrymen in as-
serting absolute l)eauty to be an ab-
straction, but the practice of the mass
of French painters is, by comjDarison
with that of the great Italians and
Dutchmen, eloquent of the lack of
j)oetry that results from a scepticism
of abstractions. The French classic
jDainters — and the classic - spirit, in
spite of every force that the modern
w'orld brings to its destruction, persists
wonderfully^ in France — show little ab-
sorption, little delight in their subject.
Contrasted with the great names in
painting they are eclectic and tradi-
tional, too purely expert. They are
too cultivated to invent. Selection
has taken the place of discovery in
their inspiration. They are addicted to
the rational and the regulated. Their
substance is never sentimental and in-
communicable. Their works have a
distinctly professional air. They dis-
trust what cannot be expressed ; what
can only be suggested does not seem
to them worth the trouble of trying to
conceive. Beside the world of mystery
and the w^ealth of emotion forming an
imaginative penumbra around such a
design as Raphael's Vision of Ezekiel,
for instance, Poussin's treatment of es-
sentially the same subject is a diagram.
On the other hand, qualities inti-
mately associated with these defects are
quite as noticeable in the old French
rooms of the Louvre. Clearness, com-
pactness, measure, and balance are
evident in nearly every canvas. Every-
where is the air of reserve, of intellec-
tual good - breeding, of avoidance of
extravagance. That French 23ainting is
at the head of contemporary painting,
as far and away incontestably it is, is
due to the fact that it alone has kept
alive the traditions of art which, else-
where than in France, have given place
to other and more material ideals.
From the first its practitioners have
been artists rather than j)oets, have

332

FRENCH ART.

Le B^n^dicit^. — Chardin.

possessed, that is to say, tlie construc-
tive ratlier than the creative, the organ-
izing rather than the imaginative tem-
perament, but they have rarely been
perfunctory and never common.
French painting in its preference of
truth to beauty, of intelligence to the
beatific vision, of form to color, in a

word, has nevertheless, and perhaps d
fortiori, always been the exj)ression of
ideas. These ideas almost invariably
have been expressed in rigorous form
— form Avhich at times fringes the life-
lessness of symbolism. But even less
frequently, I think, than other peoples
have the French exhibited in their

FRENCH ART.

333

painting that contentment with paint-
ing in itself which is the dry rot of art.
With all their addiction to truth and
form they have followed this ideal so
systematically that they have never suf-
fered it to become mechanical, merely
formal — as elsewhere (in England and
among ourselves, everyone will have
remarked) in instances where form has
been mainly considered and where sen-
timent happens to be lacking, is so often
the case. Even when care for form is
so excessive as to imply an absence of
character, the form itself is apt to be so
distinguished as itself to supj)ly the
element of character, and character con-
sequently particularly refined and im-
material. And one quality is always
present : elegance is always evidently
aimed at and measurably achieved.
Native or foreign, real or factitious as
the inspiration of French classicism
may be, the sense of style and of that
perfection of style which we know as
elegance is invariably noticeable in its
productions. So that, we may say, from
Poussin to Puvis de Chavannes, from
Clouet to Meissonier, taste — a refined
and cultivated sense of what is sound,
estimable, competent, reserved, satis-
factory, up to the mark, and above all,
elegant and distinguished — has been at
once the arbiter and the stimulus of
excellence in French painting. It is
this which has made the France of the
past three centuries, and especially the
France of to-day — as we get farther and
farther away from the great art epochs
— both in amount and general excel-
lence of artistic activity, comparable
only with the Italy of the Renaissance
and the Greece of antiquity.

Moreover it is an error to assume
that because form in French painting
appeals to us more strikingly than sub-
stance that French painting is lacking
in substance. In its perfection form
appeals to every appreciation ; it is in
art, one may say, the one universal lan-
guage. But just in proportion as form
in a work of art approaches perfection,
or universality, just in that proportion
does the substance which it clothes,
which it expresses, seem unimj^ortant
to those to whom this substance is for-
eign. Some critics have even fancied,
for example, that Greek architecture
Vol. XII.— o6

and sculpture — the only Greek art we
know anything about — were chiefly con-
cerned with form, and that the ideas be-
hind their perfection of form were very
sim2)le and elementary ideas, not at all
comparable in comj)lexity and elabor-
ateness with those which confuse and
distinguish the modern world. When
one comes to French art it is still more
difficult for us to realize that the ideas
underlying its expression are ideas of
import, validity, and attachment. The
truth is largely that French ideas are
not our ideas ; not that the French who
— except possibly the ancient Greeks
and the modern Germans — of all peo-
ples in the world are, as one may say,
addicted to ideas, are lacking in them.
Technical excellence is simply the in-
separable accompaniment, the outward
expression of the kind of aesthetic ideas
the French are enamoured of. Their sub-
stance is not our substance, but while it
is perfectly legitimate for us to criticise
their substance it is idle to maintain that
they are lacking in substance. If we
call a painting by Poussin j)ure style, a
composition of David merely the j)er-
fection of convention, one of M. Roche-
grosse's dramatic canvases the rhet-
oric of technic and that only, we miss
something. We miss the idea, the sub-
stance, behind these varying expres-
sions. These are not the less real for
being foreign to us. They are less spir-
itual and more material, less poetic and
spontaneous, more schooled and tradi-
tional than we like to see associated
with such adequacy of expression, but
they are not for that reason more me-
chanical. They are ideas and substance
which lend themselves to technical ex-
pression a thousand times more readily
than do ours. They are, in fact, exquis-
itely adapted to technical expression.

The substance and ideas which we de-
sire fully expressed in color, form, or
words are, indeed, very exactly in pro-
portion to our esteem of them, inex-
pressible. We like hints of the unutter-
able, suggestions of significance that is
mysterious and import that is incalcula-
ble. The light that " never was on sea
or land" is the illumination we seek.
The "Heaven," not the atmosphere that
" lies about us " in our mature age as
"in our infancy," is what appeals most

334

FRENCH ART,

strongly to our subordination of the
intellect and the senses to the imagina-
tion and the soul. Nothing with us
very deeply impresses the mind if it
does not arouse the emotions. Natu-
rally, thus, we are predisposed insensi-
bly to infer from French articulateness
the absence of substance, to assume
from the triumphant facility and felic-
ity of French expression a certain in-
significance of what is expressed. In-
ferences and assumptions based on
temperament, however, almost invaria-
bly have the vice of superficiality, and
it takes no very prolonged study of
French art for candor and intelligence
to perceive that if its substance is weak
on the sentimental, the emotional, the
poetic, the spiritual side, it is excep-
tionally strong in rhetorical, artistic,
cultivated, sesthetically elevated ideas,
as well as in that technical excellence
which alone, owing to our own inex-
pertness, first strikes and longest im-
presses us.

When we have no ideas to express, in
a word, we rarely save our emptiness
by any appearance of clever expression.
When a Frenchman expresses ideas for
which we do not care, with which we
are temperamentally out of sympathy,
we assume that his expression is equal-
ly empty. Matthew Arnold cites a pas-
sage from Mr. Palgrave, and comments
significantly on it, in this sense. " The
style," exclaims Mr. Palgrave, " which
has filled London with the dead monot-
ony of Gower or Harley Streets, or the
pale commonplace of Belgravia, Tybur-
nia, and Kensington ; which has pierced
Paris and Madrid with the feeble frivol-
ities of the Rue Rivoli and the Strada
de Toledo." Upon which Arnold ob-
serves that " the architecture of the
Rue Rivoli expresses show, splendor,
pleasure, unworthy things, perhaps, to
express alone and for their own sakes,
but it expresses them ; whereas, the
architecture of Gower Street and Bel-
gravia merely expresses the impotence
of the architect to express anything."

And in characterizing the turn for
poetry in French painting as compara-
tively inferior, it will be understood at
once, I hope, that I am comparing it
with the imaginativeness of the great
Italians and Dutchmen, and with Ru-

bens and Holbein and Turner, and not
asserting the supremacy in elevated
sentiment over Claude and Corot, Char-
din and Cazin, of the Royal Academy,
or the New York Society of American
artists. And so far as an absolute
rather than a comparative standard
may be applied in matters so much too
vast for any hope of adequate treat-
ment according to either method, we
ought never to forget that in criticising
French painting, as well as other things
French, we are measuring it by an ideal
which now and then we may appreciate
better than Frenchmen, but rarely il-
lustrate as well.

Furthermore, the qualities and de-
fects of French painting — the predomi-
nance in it of national over individual
force and distinction, its turn for style,
the kind of ideas which inspire its sub-
stance, its classic spirit in fine — are
explained hardly less by its historic ori-
gin than by the character of the French
genius itself. French painting really
began in connoisseurship, one may say.
It arose in appreciation, that faculty in
which the French have always been, and
still are, unrivalled. Its sjoitheses were
based on elements already in combina-
tion. It originated nothing. It was
eclectic at the outset. Compared mth
the slow and suave evolution of Italian
art, in whose earliest dawn its borrowed
Byzantine painting served as a stim-
ulus and suggestion to original views
of natural material rather than as a
model for imitation and modification,
the painting that sprang into existence,
Minerva-like, in full armor, at Fon-
tainebleau under Francis I., was of the
essence of artificiality. The court of
France was far more splendid than, and
equally enlightened with, that of Flor-
ence. The monarch felt his title to
Maecenas- ship as justified as that of the
Medici. He created, accordingly, French
painting out of hand. He summoned
Leonardo, Andrea del Sarto, Rossi,
Primaticcio, and founded the famous
Fontainebleau school. Of necessity it
was Italianate. It had no Giotto, Ma-
saccio, Raphael behind it. Italian was
the best art going ; French apprecia-
tion was educated and keen ; its choice
between evolution and adoption was in-

FRENCH ART, 335

evitable. It was very much in the po- what may bo called the illustrated

sition in which American appreciation vers de societe of the Louis Quinze

finds itself to - day. Like our own painters — of Wattcau and Fragonard —

painters, the French artists of the Re- even Prudhon did little to change the

naissance found themselves, at the very prevailing color and tone. Claude's art

beginning of French artistic history — is, in manner, thoroughly classic. His

so far as painting is concerned — famil- personal influence was perhaps first

iar with masterpieces wholly beyond felt by Corot. He stands by himself,

their power to create, and produced by at any rate, quite apart. He was

a foreign people who had enjoyed the the first thoroughly original French

incomparable advantage of arriving at painter, if indeed one may not say he

their artistic apogee through natural was the first thoroughly original modern

stages of growth, beginning Avith im- painter. He has been assigned to both

pulse and culminating in expertness. the French and Italian schools — to the

The situation had its advantages as latter by Gallophobist critics, however,
well as its draAvbacks certainly. It through a partisanship) which in aestlie-
saved French painting an immense tic matters is ridiculous ; there was
amount of fumbling, of laborious ex- in his day no Italian school for him to
perimentation, of crudity, of failure, belong to. The truth is that he passed
But it stamped it with an essential ar- a large part of his life in Italy and
tificiality from which it did not fully that his landscape is Italianate. But
recover for over two hundred years, un- more conspicuously still, it is ideal —
til, insensibly, it had built up its own ideal in the sense intended by Goethe
traditions and gradually brought about in saying, " There are no landscapes
its ©wn inherent development. In a in nature like those of Claude." There
word, French painting had an intellect- are not indeed. Nature has been trans-
ual rather than an emotional origin, muted by Claude's alchemy with love-
Its first practitioners were men of cult- lier results than any other painter —
ure rather than of feeling ; they were in- save always Corot, shall I say ? — has
spired by the artistic, the constructive, ever achieved. Witness the pastorals at
the fashioning, rather than the poetic, Madrid, in the Doria Gallery at Rome,
spirit. And so evident is this incli- the " Dido and ^Eneas " at Dresden,
nation in even contemporary French the sweet and serene superiority of
painting — and indeed in all French ses- the National Gallery canvases over the
thetic expression — that it cannot be struggling competition manifest in the
ascribed wholly to the circumstances Turners juxtaposed to them through
mentioned. The circumstances them- the unlucky ambition of the great
selves need an explanation, and find it English painter. Mr. Ruskin says that
in the constitution itself of the French Claude could paint a small wave very
mind, which (owing, doubtless, to other well, and acknowledges that he effected
circumstances, but that is extraneous) a revolution in art, which revolution
is fundamentally less imaginative and "consisted mainly in setting the sun
creative than co-ordinating and con- in heavens." But Claude's excellence
structive. consists in his ability to paint visions

Naturally thus, when the Italian in- of loveliness, pictures of pure beauty,
fluence wore itself out, and the Fon- not in his skill in observing the draw-
tainebleau school gave way to a more ing of wavelets or his happy thought
purely national art ; when France had of painting sunlight. Mr. George
definitely entered into her Italian heri- Moore observes ironically of Mr. Rus-
tage and had learned the lessons that kin that his grotesque depreciation
Holland and Flanders had to teach her of Mr. Whistler — " the lot of critics "
as well ; when, in fine, the art of the being "to be remembered by what
modern world began, it was an art of they have failed to understand " — " will
grammar, of rhetoric. Certainly uj) to survive his finest prose passage." I
the time of Gericault painting in am not sure about Mr. Whistler. Con-
general held itself rather pedantically temporaries are too near for a perfect
aloof from jDoetry. Claude, Chardin, critical perspective. But assuredly Mr.

33G

FRENCH ART,

liuskin's failure to perceive Claude's
point of view — to perceive that Claude's
aim and Stanfield's, say, were quite
different ; that Claude, in fact, was at
the opposite pole from the botanist
and the geologist, whom Mr. Kuskin's
"reverence for nature " would make of
every landscape painter — is a failure in
appreciation than to have shown which
it would be better for him as a critic
never to have been born. It seems
hardly fanciful to say that the depre-
ciation of Claude by Mr. Ruskin, who, is
a landscape painter himself, using the
medium of words instead of pigments,
is, so to speak, professionally unjust.

" Go out, in the springtime, among
the meadows that slope from the shores
of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their
lower mountains. There, mingled with
the taller gentians and the white nar-
cissus, the grass grows deep and free ;
and as you follow the winding moun-
tain paths, beneath arching boughs all
veiled and dim with blossom — paths
that forever droop and rise over the
green banks and mounds sweeping
down in scented undulation, steep to
the blue water, studded here and there
with new-mown heaps, filling the air
with fainter sweetness — look up toward
the higher hills, where the waves of ever-
lasting green roll silently into their long
inlets among the shadows of the pines."

Claude's landscape is not Swiss, but
if it were it would awaken in the be-
holder a very similar sensation to that
aroused in the reader of this famous
passage. Claude indeed painted land-
scape in precisely this way. He was
perhaps the first — though priority in
such matters is trivial beside pre-
eminence— who painted effects instead
of things. Light and air were his
material, not ponds and rocks and
clouds and trees and stretches of plain
and mountain outlines. He first gen-
eralized the phenomena of inanimate
nature, and in this he remains still
unsurpassed. But, superficially, his
scheme wore the classic aspect, and
neither his contemporaries nor his suc-
cessors, for over two hundred j^ears,
. discovered the immense value of his
point of view, and the puissant charm
of his way of rendering nature.

Poussin, however, was the incarna-
tion of the classic spirit, and perhaps
the reason why a disinterested foreign-
er finds it difficult to appreciate the
French estimate of him is that no
foreigner, however disinterested, can
quite appreciate the French apprecia-
tion of the classic spirit in and for it-
self. But when one listens to expres-
sions of admiration for the one French
" old master," as one may call Poussin
without invidiousness, it is impossible
not to scent chauvinism, as one scents
it in the German panegyrics of Goe-
the, for example. He was a very great
painter, beyond doubt. And as there
were great men before Agamemnon
there have been great painters since
Raphael and Titian, even since Rem-
brandt and Velasquez. He had a stren-
uous personality, moreover. You know
a Poussin at once when you see it.
But to find the suggestion of the in-
finite, the Shakesperian touch in his
work seems to demand the imagin-
ativeness of M. Victor Cherbuliez.
When Mr. Matthew Arnold ventured
to remark to Sainte-Beuve that he
could not consider Lamartine as a very-
important poet, Sainte-Beuve replied :
"He was important to us." Many
critics, among them one severer than
Sainte-Beuve, the late Edmond Scherer,
have given excellent reasons for La-
martine's absolute as well as relative
importance, and perhaps it is a failure
in appreciation on our part that is
really responsible for our feeling that
Poussin is not quite the great master
the French deem him. Assuredly he
might justifiably apply to himself the
" Et - Ego - in - Arcadia " inscription in
one of his most famous paintings.
And the specific service he performed
for French painting and the relative
rank he occupies in it ought not to
obscure his purely personal qualities,
which, if not transcendent, are incon-
testably elevated and fine.

His qualities, however, are very thor-
oughly French qualities — poise, ration-
ality, science, the artistic dominating
the poetic faculty and style quite out-
shining significance and suggestion.
He learned all he knew of art he said
from the Bacchus Torso at Naples. But
he was eclectic rather than imitative, and

FRENCH ART.

337

certainly used the material he found in
the works of his artistic ancestors as
freely and personally as Raphael the
frescos of the Baths of Titus, or Dona-
tello the fragments of antique sculpture.
From his time on, indeed, French paint-
ing droj^ped its Italian leading-strings.
He might often suggest Raphael — and
any painter who suggests Raphael in-
evitably suffers for it — but always with
an individual, a native, a French differ-
ence, and he is as far removed in spirit
and essence from the Fontainebleau
school as the French genius itself is
from the Italian which j)resided there.
In Poussin, indeed, the French genius
first asserts itself in painting. And it
asserts itself splendidly in him.

We who ask to be moved as well as
impressed, who demand satisfaction of
the susceptibility as well as — shall w^e
say rather than ? — interest of the intelli-
gence, may feel that for the qualities
in which Poussin is lacking those in
which he is rich afford no compensation
whatever. But I confess that in the
presence of even that portion of Pous-
sin's magnificent accomplishment which
is spread before one in the Louvre, to
wish one's self in the Stanze of the Vati-
can or in the Sistine Chapel seems to
me an unintelligent sacrifice of one's
opportunities.

It is a sure mark of narrowmess and
defective powers of perception to fail to
discover the point of view even of what
one disesteems. We talk of Poussin,
of Louis Quatorze art — as of its revi-
val under David and its continuance in
Ingres — of, in general, modern classic
art as if it were an art of convention
merely ; whereas, conventional as it is,
its conventionality is — or was, certain-
ly, in the seventeenth century — very
far from being joure formulary. It was
genuinely expressive of a certain order
of ideas intelligently held, a certain set
of principles sincerely believed in, a
view of art as positive and genuine as
the revolt against the tyrannous sys-
tem into which it developed. We are
simply out of sympathy with its aim,
its ideal ; perhaps, too, for that most
frivolous of all reasons because we have
grown tired of it.

But the business of intelligent criti-

cism is to be in touch with everything.
" Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardon-
ner," as the French ethical maxim has
it, may be modified into the true motto
of aesthetic criticism, "Tout compren-
dre, c'est tout justifier." Of course by
" criticism " one does not mean peda-
gogy, as so many people constantly im-
agine, nor does justifying everything
include bad drawing. But as Lebrun,
for examj^le, is not nowadays held up
as a model to young painters, and is not
to be accused of bad drawing, why do
we so entirely dispense ourselves from
comprehending him at all ? Lebrun is,
perhaps, not a painter of enough per-
sonal importance to repay attentive
consideration, and historic importance
does not greatly concern criticism. But
we pass him by on the ground of his con-
ventionality without remembering that
what appears conventional to us was in
his case not only sincerity but aggres-
sive enthusiasm. If there ever was a
painter who exercised what creative
and imaginative faculty he had with an
absolute gusto, Lebrun did so. He in-
terested his contemporaries immensely ;
no painter ever ruled more unrivalled.
He fails to interest us because we have
another point of view. We believe in
our point of view and disbelieve in his
as a matter of course ; and it would be
self-contradictory to say, in the inter-
ests of critical catholicity, that in our
opinion his may be as sound as our
own. But to say that he has no point
of view whatever — to say, in general,
that modern classic art is perfunctory
and mere formulary — is to be guilty of
what has always been the inherent vice
of protestantism in all fields of mental
activit}^ •

Nowhere has protestantism exhibited
this defect more palpably than in the
course of evolution of schools of paint-
ing. Pre-Raphaelitism is perhaps the
only exception, and pre-Raphaelitism
was a violent and emotional counter-
revolution rather than a movement
characterized by catholicity of critical
appreciation. Literary criticism is cer-
tainly full of similar intolerance ; though
when Gautier talks about Racine, or
Zola about " Mes Haines," or Mr. How-
ells about Scott, the polemic temper, the
temper most opposed to the critical,

338

FRENCH ART.

is very generally recognized. And in
spite of their admirable acconiplislinient
in various branches of literature these
writers will never quite recover from
the misfortune of having preoccupied
themselves as critics with the defects in-
stead of the qualities of what is classic.
Yet the protestantism of the successive
schools of painting" against the errors
of their predecessors has something
even more crass about it. Contempor-
ary painters and critics thoroughly
alive, and fully in the contemporary
aesthetic current, so far from appreciat-
ing modern classic art sympathetical-
ly, are apt to admire the old masters
themselves mainly on technical grounds,
and not at all to enter into their general
aesthetic attitude. The feeling of con-
temporary painters and critics (except,
of course, historical critics) for Raph-
ael's genius is the opposite of cordial.
We are out of touch with the "Disputa,"
with angels and prophets seated on
clouds, with halos and wings, with such
inconsistencies as the " Doge praying "
in a picture of the marriage of St.
Catherine, with the mystic marriage it-
self. Raphael's grace of line and suave
space-filling shapes are mainly what we
think of ; the rest we call convention.
We are become literal and exacting,
addicted to the pedantry of the pre-
scriptive, if not of the prosaic.

Take such a picture as M. Edouard
Detaille's " Le Reve," which won him
so much applause a few years ago. M.
Detaille is an irreproachable realist, and
may do what he likes in the way of the
materially impossible with impunity.
Sleeping soldiers, without a gaiter-but-
ton lacking, bivouacking on the ground
amid stacked arms whose bayonets
would prick ; above them in the heav-
ens the clash of contending ghostly
armies — wraiths born of the sleepers'
dreams. That we are in touch with.
No one would object to it except under
penalty of being scouted as pitiably lit-
eral. Yet the scheme is as thoroughly
conventional — that is to say, it is as
closely based on h;^^othesis universally
assumed for the moment — as Lebrun's
" Triumph of Alexander." The latter
is as much a true expression of an
ideal as Detaille's picture. It is an
ideal now become more conventional,

undoubtedly, but it is as clearly an ideal
and as clearly genuine. The only point
I wish to make is, that Lebnin's painting
— Louis Quatorze painting — is not the
perfunctory thing we are apt to assume
it to be. That is not the same thing, I
hope, as maintaining that M. Bougue-
reau is significant rather than insipid.
Lebrun was assuredly not a strikingly
original painter. His crowds of war-
riors bear a much closer resemblance
to Raphael's "Battle of Constantine
and Maxentius " than the " Transfigura-
tion " of the Vatican does to Giotto's,
aside from the important circumstance
that the difference in the latter instance
shows development, while the former
illustrates mainly an enfeebled varia-
tion. But there is unquestionably
something of Lebrun in Lebrun's work
— something typical of the age whose ar-
tistic spirit he so completely expressed.
To perceive that Louis Quatorze art
is not all convention it is only neces-
sary to remember that Lesueur is to be
bracketed with Lebrun. All the sym-
pathy which the Anglo-Saxon tempera-
ment withholds from the histrionism of
Lebrun is instinctively accorded to his
gentle and graceful contemporary, who
has been called — -faute de mieux, of
course — the French Raphael. Really
Lesueur is as nearly conventional as
Lebrun. He has at any rate far less
force ; and even if we may maintain
that he had a more individual point of
view, his works are assuredly more
monotonous to the scrutinizing sense.
It is impossible to recall any one of the
famous San Bruno series with any par-
ticularity, or, except in subject, to dis-
tinguish these in the memory from the
sweet and soft " St. Scholastica " in the
Salon Carre. With more sapience and
less sensitiveness, Bouguereau is Le-
sueur's true successor, to say which is
certainly not to affirm a very salient
originality of the older painter. He
had a great deal of very exquisite feel-
ing for what is refined and elevated,
but clearly it is a moral rather than an
aesthetic delicacy that he exhibits, and
aesthetically he exercises his sweeter and
more sympathetic sensibility within the
same rigid limits which circumscribe
that of Lebrun. He has, indeed, less
invention, less imagination, less sense

FRENCH ART.

339

of composition, less wealth of detail, less
elaborateness, no greater concentration
or sense of effect ; and though his color
is more agreeable, perhaj^s, in hue, it
gets its tone through the absence of
variety rather than through juxta-
positions and balances. The truth is,
that both equally illustrate the classic
spirit, the spirit of their age par excel-
lence, and of French painting in gen-
eral, in a supreme degree, though the
conformability of the one is positive
and of the other passive, so to say ;
and that neither illustrates quite the
subserviency to the conventional which
we, who have undoubtedly just as many
conventions of our own, are wont to
ascribe to them, and to Lebrun in par-
ticular.

Fanciful as the Louis Quinze art
seems, by contrast with that of Louis
Quatorze, it, too, is essentially classic.
It is free enough — no one, I think, would
deny that — but it is very far from indi-
vidual in any important sense. It has,
to be sure, more personal feeling than
that of Lesueur or Lebrun. The ar-
tist's susceptibility seems to come to the
surface for the first time. Watteau,
Fragonard — Fragonard especially, the
exquisite and impudent — are as gay, as
spontaneous, as careless, as vivacious as
Boldini. Boucher's goddesses and cher-
ubs, disporting themselves in grace-
ful abandonment on happily disposed
clouds, outlined in cumulus masses
against unvarying azure, are as unre-
strained and independent of prescription
as Monticelli's figures. Lancret, Pater,
Nattier, and Van Loo — the very names
suggest not merely freedom but a
sportive and abandoned license. But
in what a narrow round they move !
How their imaginativeness is limited
by their artificiality ! What a talent,
what a genius, they have for artificial-
ity. It is the era par excellence of dil-
ettantism, and nothing is less romantic
than dilettantism. Their evident feel-
ing— and evidently genuine feeling — is
feeling for the fictitious, for the manu-
factured, for what the French call the
confectionne. Their romantic quality
is to that of the modern Fontainebleau
group as the exquisite vers de societe
of Mr. Austin Dobson, say, is to the

turbulent yet profound romanticism of
Heine or Burns. Every picture painted
by them would go as well on a fan as
in a frame. All their material is tradi-
tional. They simply handle it as en-
fan Is terribles. Intellectually speak-
ing, the}' are painters of a silver age.
Of ideas they have almost none. They
are as barren of invention in any large
sense as if they were imitators instead
of, in a sense, the originators of a new
phase. Their originality is arrived at
rather through exclusion than discov-
ery. They simply drop pedantry and
exult in irresponsibility. They are
hardly even a school.

Yet they have, one and all, in greater
or less degree, that distinct quality of
charm which is eternally incompatiule
with routine. They are as little con-
structive as the age itself, as anything
that we mean when we use the epithet
Louis Quinze. Of everything thus in-
dicated one predicates at once uncon-
sciousness, the momentum of antece-
dent thought modified by the ease born
of habit ; the carelessness due to having
one's thinking done for one and the
license of proceeding fancifully, whim-
sically, even freakishly, once the lines
and limits of one's action have been
settled by more laborious, more con-
scientious philosophy than in such cir-
cumstances one feels disposed to frame
for one's self. There is no break with
the Louis Quatorze things, not a symp-
tom of revolt ; only, after them the
deluge ! But out of this very condi-
tion of things, and out of this attitude
of mind arises a new art, or rather a
new phase of art, essentially classic
as I said, but nevertheless imbued
with a character of its own, and this
character distinctly charming. Where-
in does the charm consist ? In two
qualities, I think, one of which has not
hitherto appeared in French painting,
or, indeed, in any art whatever, namely,
what we understand by cleverness as
a distinct element in treatment — and
color. Color is very prominent nowa-
days in all writing about art, though re-
cently it has given place, in the fashion
of the day, to " values " and the realist-
ic representation of natural objects as
the painter's proper aim. What pre-
cisely is meant by color w^ould be dif-

340

FRENCH ART.

ficult, perhaps, to define. A warmer
general tone than is achieved by paint-
ers mainly occupied with line and mass
is possibly what is oftenest meant by
amateurs who profess themselves fond
of color. At all events, the Louis
Quinze painters, especially Watteau,
Fragonard, and Pater — and Boucher
has a great deal of the same feeling —
were sensitive to that vibration of at-
mosphere that blends local hues into
the ensemble which produces tone.
The ensemble of their tints is what we
mean by color. Since the Venetians
this note had not appeared. They con-
stitute, thus, a sort of romantic inter-
regnum— still very classic, from an in-
tellectual point of view — between the
classicism of Lebrun and the still great-
er severity of David. Nothing in the
evolution of French painting is more
interesting than this reverberation of
Tintoretto and Tiepolo.

By cleverness, as exhibited by the
Louis Quinze painters, I do not mean
mere technical ability, but something
more inclusive, something relating quite
as much to attitude of mind as to dex-
terity of treatment. They conceive as
cleverly as they execute. There is a
sense of confidence and capability in
the way they view, as well as in the way
they handle, their light material. They
know it thoroughly, and are thorough-
ly at one with it. And they exploit it
with a serene air of satisfaction, as if it
were the only material in the world
worth handling. Indeed it is exquisite-
ly adapted to their talent. So little sig-
nificance has it that one may say it ex-
ists merely to be cleverly dealt with, to
be represented, distributed, compared,
and generally utilized solely with refer-
ence to the display of the artist's jaun-
ty skill. It is, one may say, merely
the raw material for the production of
an effect, and an effect demanding
only what we mean by cleverness ; no
knowledge and love of nature, no pro-
longed study, no acquaintance with the
antique, for example, no philosophy
whatever — unless poco-curantism be
called a philosophy, which eminently it
is not. To be adequate to the require-
ments— rarely very exacting in any
case — made of one, never to show stu-
pidity, to have a great deal of taste and

an instinctive feeling for what is elegant
and refined, to abhor pedantry and take
gayety at once lightly and seriously, and
beyond this to take no thought, is to
be clever ; and in this sense the Louis
Quinze painters are the first, as they
certainly are the typical, clever artists.
In Louis Quinze art the subject is
more than effaced to give free swing to
technical cleverness ; it is itself contrib-
utor}^ to such cleverness, and really a
part of it. The artists evidently look
on life, as they paint their pictures, as
the web whereon to sketch exhibitions
of skill in the composition of sensa-
tion-provoking combinations — combi-
nations, thus, jDrovoking sensations of
the lightest and least substantial kind.
When you stand before one of Fragon-
ard's bewitching models, modishly mod-
ified into a great — or rather a little —
lady, you not only note the color — full
of tone on the one hand and of variety
on the other, besides exhibiting the hap-
piest selective quality in warm and yet
delicate hues and tints ; you not only,
furthermore, observe the clever touch
just poised between suggestion and ex-
pression, coquettishly suppressing a de-
tail here, and emphasizing a character-
istic there ; you feel, in addition, that
the entire object floats airily in an at-
mosphere of cleverness ; that it is but a
bit, an example, a miniature type of an
environment wholly attuned to the note
of cleverness — of competence, facility,
grace, elegance, and other abstract but
not at all abstruse qualities, quite un-
related to what, in any profound sense,
at least, is concrete and vitally signi-
ficant. Artificiality so permeated the
Louis Quinze ej)och, indeed, that one
may say that nature itself was artificial
— that is to say, all the nature Louis
Quinze painters had to paint ; at least
all they could have been called upon to
think of painting. What a distinction
is, after all, theirs ! To have created
out of nothing, or next to nothing,
something charming, and enduringly
charming ; something of a truly classic
inspiration without dependence at bot-
tom on the real and the actual ; some-
thing as little indebted to facts and
things as a fairy tale, and withal marked
by such qualities as color and clever-
ness in so eminent a degree.

FRENCH ART,

341

The Louis Quinze painters may be
said, indeed, to have had the romantic
temperament with the classic inspira-
tion. They have audacity rather than
freedom, license modified by strict lim-
itation to the lines within which it is
exercised. But there can be no doubt
that this limitation is more conspicu-
ous in their charmingly irresponsible
works than is, essentially speaking,
their irresponsibility itself. They never
give their imagination free play. Spor-
tive and spontaneous as it appears,
it is equally clear that its activities
are bounded by conservatory confines.
Watteau, born on the Flemish border,
is almost an exception. Temperament
in him seems constantly on the verge of
conquering tradition and environment.
Now and then he seems to be on the
point of emancipation, and one expects
to come upon some work in which he has
expressed himself and attested his ideal-
ity. But one is as constantly disappoint-
ed. His color and his cleverness are
always admirable and winning, but his
import is perversely — almost bewitch-
ingiy — slight. What was he thinking of ?
one asks, before his delightful canvases ;
and one's conclusion inevitably is, cer-
tainly as near nothing at all as can be
consistent with so much charm and so
much real power. As to Watteau, one's
last thought is of what he would have
been in a different aesthetic atmosphere,
in an atmosphere which would have
stimulated his really romantic tempera-
ment to extra-traditional flights instead
of confining it within the inexorable
boundaries of classic custom ; an at-
mosphere favorable to the free exercise
of his adorable fancy, instead of rigor-
ously insistent on conforming this, so
far as might be, to customary canons,
and, at any rate, restricting its exercise
to material d la mode. A little land-
scape in the La Gaze collection in the
Louvre, whose romantic and truly poetic
feeling agreeably pierces through its ele-
gance, is eloquent of such reflections.

With Greuze and Chardin we are
supposed to get into so different a
sphere of thought and feeling that the
change has been called a "return to
nature" — that "return to nature" of
which we hear so much in histories of
literature as well as of the plastic arts.

The notion is not quite sound. Char-
din is a painter who seems to me, at
least, to stand quite apart, quite alone,
in the development of French painting,
whereas there could not be a more
marked instance of the inherence of the
classic spirit in the French aesthetic
nature than is furnished by Greuze.
The first French painter of genre, in the
full modern sense of the term, the first
true interpreter of scenes from hum-
ble life — of lowly incident and familiar
situations, of broken jars and paternal
curses, and buxom girls and precocious
children — he certainly is. There is cer-
tainly nothing regence about him. But
the beginning and end of Greuze's art
is convention. He is less imaginative,
less romantic, less real than the paint-
ing his replaced. That was at least a
mirror of the ideals, the spirit, the so-
ciety, of the day. A Louis Quinze fan
is a genuine and spontaneous product
of a free and elastic £esthetic impulse
beside one of his stereotyped sentimen-
talities.

The truth is, Greuze is as senti-
mental as a bullfinch, but he has hardly
a natural note in his gamut. Nature
is not only never his model, she is
never his inspiration. He is distinc-
tively a literary painter ; but this de-
scription is not minute enough. His
conventions are those not merely of the
litterateur, but of the extremely con-
ventional litterateur. An artless plati-
tude is really more artificial than a
clever paradox ; it doesn't even cast a
side-light on the natural material with
which it deals. Greuze's genre is real-
ly a genre of his own — his own and
that of kindred spirits since. It is as
systematic and detached as the art
of Poussin. The forms it embodies
merely have more natural, more fa-
miliar associations. But compare one
of his compositions with those of the
little Dutch and Flemish masters, for
truth, feeling, nature handled after
her own suggestions, instead of within
limits and on lines imposed upon her
from without. By the side of Van Os-
tade or Brauer, for example, one of
Greuze's bits of humble life seems like
an academic composition, quite out of
touch with its subject, and, except for
its art, absolutely lifeless and insipid.

342

FRENCH ART.

In a word, his choice of subjects, of
genre, is rc^illy no disj^uise at all of his
essential classicality. Both ideally and
technically, in the way he conceives and
the way he handles his subject, he is
only superficially romantic or real.
His literature, so to speak, is as con-
ventional as his composition. One may
compare him to Hogarth, though both
as a moralist and a technician a longo
intervallo, of course. He is assuredly
not to be depreciated. His scheme of
color is clear if not rich, his handling
is frank if not unctuous or subtly in-
teresting, his composition is careful
and clever, and some of his heads are
admirably painted — painted witli^ a
genuine feeling for quality. But his
merits as well as his failings are de-
cidedly academic, and as a romanti-
cist he is really masquerading. He is
much nearer to Fragonard than he is to
Edouard Fr^re even.

Chardin, on the other hand, is the
one distinguished exception to the
general character of French art in the
artificial and intellectual eighteenth
century. He is as natural as a Dutch-
man, and as modern as VoUon. As you
walk through the French galleries of
the Louvre, of all the canvases ante-
dating our own era his are those to-
ward which one feels the most sym-
pathetic attraction, I think. You note
at once his individuality, his indepen-
dence of schools and traditions, his
personal point of view, his preoccupa-
tion with the object as he perceives it.
Nothing is more noteworthy in the his-
tory of French art, in the current of
which the subordination of the indi-
vidual genius to the general consensus
is so much the rule, than the occasional
exception — now of a single man, now
of a group of men, destined to become
in its turn a school — the occasional
accent or interruption of the smooth
course of slow development on the
lines of academic precedent. Tyran-
nical as academic precedent is (and
nowhere has it been more tyrannical
than in French painting) the general
interest in sesthetic subjects which a
general subscription to academic prece-
dent implies is certainly to be credit-
ed with the force and genuineness of
the occasional protestant against the

very system which has been powerful
enough to popularize indefinitely the
subject both of subscription and of re-
volt. Without some such systematic
propagandism of the aesthetic cultus as
from the first the French Institute has
been characterized by, it is very doubt-
ful if, in the complexity of modern
society, the interest in aesthetics can
ever be made wide enough, universal
enough, to spread beyond those im-
mediately and professionall}'^ concerned
with it. The immense impetus given
to this interest by a central organ of
authority, that dignifies the subject
with which it occupies itself and draws
attention to its value and its impor-
tance, has, a priori, the manifest effect
of leading persons to occupy themselves
with it, also, who otherwise would never
have had their attention drawn to it.
It would scarcely be an exaggeration
to say, in other words, that but for the
Institute there would not be a tithe
of the number of names now on the
roll of French artists. When art is in
the air — and nothing so much as an
academy produces this condition — the
chances of the production of even an
unacademic artist are immensely in-
creased.

So in the midst of the Mignardise of
Louis Quinze painting it is only super-
ficially surprising to find a painter of
the original force and flavor of Chardin.
His wholesome and yet subtle varia-
tions from the art d la mode of his
epoch. They might have been painted
in the Holland of his day, or in our day
anywhere that art so good as Chardin's
can be produced, so far as subject and
moral and technical attitude are con-
cerned. They are, in quite accentuated
contradistinction from the works of
Greuze, thoroughly in the spirit of sim-
plicity and directness. One notes in
them at once that moral simplicity which
predisposes everyone to sympathetic
appreciation. The special ideas of his
time seem to pass him by unmoved.
He has no community of interest with
them. While he was painting his still
life and domestic genre, the whole fan-
tastic whirl of Louis Quinze society,
with its aesthetic standards and ac-
complishments — accomplishments and
standards that imposed themselves ev-

FRENCH ART,

343

erjrwhere else — was in agitated move-
ment around him without in the least
affecting his serene tranquillity, his al-
most sturdy composure. There can
rarely have been such an instance as he
affords of an artist's selecting from his
environment just those things his own
genius needed, and rejecting just what
would have hampered or distracted him.
He is as sane, as unsentimental, as truth-
ful and unpretending as the most literal
and unimaginative Dutchman of his time
or before it ; but he has also that feeling
for style, and that instinct for avoiding
the common and unclean which always
seem to prevent French painters from
*' sinking with their subject," as Dutch
painters have been said to do. He
seems never to let himself go either in
the direction of Greuze's literary and
sentimental manipulation of his homely
material, or in the direction of supine
satisfaction with this material, unre-
lieved and unelevated by an individual
point of view, illustrated by the Brau-
ers and Steens and Ostades. One
perceives that what he cared for was
really art itself, for the aesthetic aspect
and significance of the life he painted.
Affectionate as his interest in it ^evi-
dently was, he as evidently thought of
its artistic potentialities, its capability
of being treated with refinement and
delicacy, and of being made to serve the
ends of beauty equally well with the
conventionally beautiful material of
his fan-painting contemporaries. He
looked at the world very originally
through and over those round, horn-
bowed spectacles of his, with a very
shrewd and very kindly and sympathe-
tic glance, too ; quite untinctured with
prejudice or even predisposition. One
can read his artistic isolation in his
countenance with a very little exercise
of fancy.

It, is the fashion to think of David as
the painter of the Revolution and the
Empire. Really he is Louis Seize. His-
torical critics say that he had no fewer
than four styles, but apart from obvi-
ous labels they would be puzzled to tell
to which of these styles any individual
picture of his belongs. He was from
the beginning extremely, perhaps ab-
surdly, enamoured of the antique, and

we usually associate addiction to the
antique with the Revolutionary period.
But perhaps j^olitics are slower than the
aesthetic movement ; David's view of art
and practice of painting were fixed un-
alterably under the reign of philosoph-
ism. Philosophism, as Carlyle calls it,
is the ruling spirit of his work. Long
before the Revolution — in 1774 — he
painted what is still his most char-
acteristic picture — "The Oath of the
Horatii." His art developed and grew
systematized under the Republic and
the Empire ; but Napoleon, whose ge-
nius crystallized the elements of every-
thing in all fields of intellectual activity
with which he occupied himself, did lit-
tle but formally " consecrate," in French
phrase, the art of the painter of " The
Oath of the Horatii " and the originator
and designer of the " Fete " of Robes-
pierre's " ^tre Supreme." Spite of Da-
vid's subserviency and that of others,
he left painting very much where he
found it. And he found it in a state
of reaction against the Louis Quinze
standards. The break with these, and
with everything regence, came with
Louis Seize, Chardin being a notable
exception and standing quite apart
from the general drift of the French
aesthetic movement ; and Greuze be-
ing only a pseudo-romanticist, and his
work a variant of, rather than reaction-
ary from, the artificiality of his day. Be-
fore painting could " return to nature,"
before the idea and inspiration of true
romanticism could be born, a reaction
in the direction of severity after the
artificial yet irresponsible riot of the
Louis Quinze painters was naturally
and logically inevitable. Painting was
modified in the same measure with
every other expression in the general
recueillement that followed the extrav-
agance in all social and intellectual
fields of the Louis Quinze epoch. But
in becoming more chaste it did not be-
come less classical. Indeed, so far as
severity is a trait of classicality — and it
is only an associated not an essential
trait of it — painting became more clas-
sical. It threw oft' its extravagances
without swerving from the artificial
character of its inspiration. Art in
general seemed content with substitut-
ing the straight line for the curve — a

344

FRENCH ART.

change from Louis Qiiinzo to Louis
Seize that is very familiar even to per-
sons who note the transitions between
the two epochs only in the respective
furniture of each ; a Louis Quinze
chair or mirror, for example, having
a flowing" outline, whereas a Louis
Seize equivalent is more rigid and rec-
tilinear.

David is artificial, it is to be pointed
out, only in his ensemble. In detail he
is real enough. And he always has an
ensemble. His compositions, as compo-
. sitions, are admirable. They make a
total impression, and with a vigor and
vividness that belong to few constructed
pictures. The canvas is always pene-
trated with David, illustrates as a whole,
and with completeness and compara-
tive flawlessness, his point of view, his
conception of the subject. This, of
course, is the academic point of view, the
academic conception. But, as I say, his
detail is surprisingly truthful and stud-
ied. His picture — which is always nev-
ertheless a picture — is as inconceiva-
ble, as traditional in its inspiration, as
factitious as you like ; his figures are al-
ways sapiently and often happily exact.
His portraits are absolutely vital char-
acterizations. And in general his sculpt-
ural sense, his self-control, his perfect
power of expressing what he deemed
worth expressing, are really what are
noteworthy in his pictures, far more
than their monotonous coloration and
the coldness and unreality of the pict-
ures themselves considered as moving,
real, or significant compositions. In
admiration of these it is impossible for
us nowadays to go as far as even the
romanticist, though extremely catholic,
Gautier. They leave us cold. We have
a wholly different ideal, which in order
to interest us powerfully painting must
illustrate — an ideal of more pertinence
and appositeness to our own moods and
manner of thought and feeling.

Ingres, a painter of considerably less
force, I think, comes much nearer to
doing this. He is more elastic, less de-
voted to system. Without being as
free, as sensitive to impressions as we
like to see an artist of his powers, he
escapes pedantry. His subject is not
"The Kape of the Sabines,"' but "The
Apotheosis of Homer," academic but not

academically f;ituitous. To follow the
inspiration of tlic Vatican Stanze in the
selection and treatment of id(ial subjects
is to be far more closely in touch with
contemporary feeling as to what is
legitimate and proper in imaginative
painting, than to pictorialize an actual
event with a systematic artificiality and
conformity to abstractions that would
surely have made the sculptor of the
Trajan column smile. Yet I would
rather have " The Kape of the Sabines "
within visiting distance than " The
Apotheosis of Homer." It is better,
at least solider, painting. The paint-
er, however dominated by his theory, is
more the master of its illustration than
Ingres is of the justification of his ad-
miration for Raphael, The " Homer "
attempts more, but it is naturally not
as successful in getting as effective a
unity out of its greater complexity. It
is in his less ambitious pictures that the
genius of Ingres is unmistakably evi-
dent— his heads, his single figures, his
exquisite drawings almost in outline.
His " Odalisque " of the Louvre is not
as forceful as David's portrait of Ma-
dame Recamier, but it is a finer thing. I
should like the tw^o to have changed sub-
jects in this instance. His " Source "
is beautifully drawn and modelled. In
everything he did distinction is appar-
ent. Inferior assuredly to David when
he attempted tha grand style, he had a
truer feeling for the subtler qualities of
style itself. All his works are linearly
beautiful demonstrations of his sincer-
ity— his sanity indeed — in proclaiming
that drawing is " the probity of art."

With a few contemporary painters
and critics, whose specific penetration is
sometimes in curious contrast with
their imperfect catholicity, he has re-
cently come into vogue again, after
having been greatly neglected since the
romantic outburst. But he belongs
completely to the classic epoch. Neither
he nor his refined and sympathetic pupil,
Flandrin, did aught to pave the way for
the modern movement. Intimations of
the shifting point of view are discover-
able rather in a painter of far deeper
poetic interest than either, spite of
Ingres's refinement and Flandrin's ele-
vation— in Prudhon. Prudhon is the
link between the last days of the classic

Vol. XIT.— 37

346

STOK/ES OF A WESTERN TOIVN.

supremacy and the rise of ronianticisni.
Like Claude, like Cliardiii, he stands
somewhat apart ; but he has distinctly
the romantic inspiration, constrained
and regularized by classic principles of
taste. He is the French Correggio in
far more precise parallelism than Le-
sueur is the French Ra2)liael. With a
grace and lambent color all his own — a
beautiful mother-of-pearl and opales-
cent tone underlying his exquisite vio-
lets and graver hues ; a color-scheme,
on the one hand, and a sense of design in
line and mass more suave and graceful
than anything since the great Italians,
on the other— he recalls the lovely chi-
aro-oscviro of the exquisite Parmesan as
it is recalled in no other modern painter.
Occupying, as incontestably he does,
his own niche in the j^antheon of paint-
ers, he nevertheless illustrates most

distinctly and unmistakably the sli])ping
away of French painting from classic
formulas as well as from classic ex-
travagance, and the tendency to new
ideals of wider reach and greater toler-
ance— of more freedom, spontaneity,
interest in "life and the world" — of a
definitive l)reak with the contracting
and constricting forces of classicism.
During its next period, and indeed down
to the present day, French painting will
preserve the essence of its classic tradi-
tions, variously modified from decade to
decade, but never losing the quality in
virtue of which what is French is ahvays
measurably the most classic thing go-
ing ; but of this next period certainly
Prudhon is the precursor, who, with all
his classic serenity, presages its passion
for " storms, clouds, effusion, and re-
lief."

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.
By Octave Thanet.

II.— THE FACE OF FAILURE.

AFTER the week's shower the low
Iowa hills looked vividly green.
At the base of the first range of
hills the Blackhawk road winds from
the city to the prairie. From its start-
ing-point, just outside the city limits,
the wayfarer may catch bird's - eye
glimpses of the city, the vast river that
the lowans love, and the three bridges
tying three towns to the island arsenal.
But at one's elbow spreads Cavendish's
melon farm. Cavendish's melon farm it
still is, in current phrase, although Cav-
endish, whose memory is honored by
lovers of the cantaloupe melon, long ago
departed to raise melons for larger mar-
kets ; and still a weather - beaten sign
creaks from a post announcing to the
world that " the celebrated Cavendish
Melons are for Sale here ! " To-day
the melon-vines were softl}- shaded by
rain-drops. A pleasant sight they
made, spreading for acres in front of
the green-houses where mushrooms and
early vegetables strove to outwit the

seasons, and before the brown cottage
in which Cavendish had begun a suc-
cessful career. The black roof-tree of
the cottage sagged in the middle, and
the weather-boarding was dingy with
the streaky dinginess of old paint that
has never had enough oil. The fences,
too, were unpainted and rudely patched.
Nevertheless a second glance told one
that there were no gaps in them, that
the farm machines kept their bright
colors well under cover, and that the
garden rows were beautifully straight
and clean. An old white horse switched
its sleek sides with its long tail and
drooped its untrammelled neck in front
of the gate. The wagon to which it was
harnessed was new and had just been
washed. Near the gate stood a girl
and boy who seemed to be mutually
studying each other's person. Decid-
edly the girl's slim, light figure in its
dainty frock repaid one's eyes for their
trouble ; and her face, with its brilliant
violet eyes, its full, soft chin, its curling

STORIES OF A IVES TERN TOIVN.

347

auburn hair and delicate tints, Avas every dealer in cheap ready-made cloth-
charming ; but her brother's look was in^^. It had been Tim Powell's best
anything but approving-. His lip curled attire for a year ; perhaps he had not

:#■"

" Is that your best suit? "

and his small gray eyes grew smaller
under his scowling brows.

" Is that your best suit ? " said the
girl.

" Yes, it is ; and it's going to be for
one while," said the boy.

It was a suit of the cotton ndxture
that looks like wool wdien it is new,
and cuts a figure on the counters of

been careful enough of it, and that was
why it no longer cared even to imitate
wool ; it was faded to the hue of a clay
bank, it was threadbare, the trousers
bagged at the knees, the jacket bagged
at the elbows, the pockets bulged flab-
bily from sheer force of habit, although
there was nothing in them.

"I thought 3'ou were to have a new

348

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

suit," said the ^irl. " Uncle told me
himself he was ^oin^ to buy you one
yesterday Avhen you went to town."

" I wouldn't have asked him to l)uy
me anything- yesterday for more'n a suit
of clothes."

he did let Uncle get behind with the in-
terest two times and never kicked.
But he died ; and now the woman, she
wants her money ! "

" I think it is mean and cruel of her
to turn us out ! Uncle says mortgages

" Why ? " The girl opened her eyes, are wicked anyhow, and I believe him ! "

Nelson knew how run-down everything was." — Page 350.

" Didn't he do anything with the law-
yer ? Is that why you are both so gium
this morning ? "

" No, he didn't. The lawyer says the
woman that owns the mortgage has got
to have the money. And it's due next
week."

The girl grew pale all over her pretty
rosy cheeks ; her eyes filled with tears
as she gasped, " Oh, how hateful of her,
when she promised "

" She never promised nothing, Eve ;
it ain't been hers for more than three
months. Sloan, that used to have it,
died, and left his property to be divided
up between his nieces ; and the mort-
gage is her share. See ? "

"I don't care, it's just as mean. Mr.
Sloan promised."

"No, he didn't ; he jest said if uncle
was behind he wouldn't press him ; and

"I guess he couldn't have bought
this place if he didn't give a mortgage
on it. And he'd have had enough to
pay cash, too, if Richards hadn't begged
him so to lend it to him."

"When is Richards going to pay
him ? "

" It come due three months ago ;
Richards ain't never paid up the inter-
est even, and now he says he's got to
have the mortgage extended for three
years ; anyhow for two."

" But don't he knoio we got to pay
our own mortgage ? How can we help
him ? I wish Uncle w^ould sell him
out ! "

The boy gave her the suj)erior smile
of the masculine creature. " I sup-
pose," he remarked w^ith elaborate
irony, " that he's like Uncle and you ;
he thinks mortgages are wicked."

STOR/ES OF A WESTERN TOIVN.

349

"And just as like as not Uncle won't
want to go to the carnival," Eve went
on, her eyes filling again.

Tim gazed at her, scowling and sneer-
ing ; but she was absorbed in dreams
and hopes with which as yet his boy-
ish mind had no jioint of contact.

" All the girls in the A class were go-
ing to go to see the fireworks together,
and George Dean and some of the boys
were going to take us, and we were go-
ing to have tea at May A.rlington's
house, and I was to stay all night ; "
this came in a half sob. " I think it is
just too mean ! I never have any good
times ! "

" Oh, yes, you do, sis, lots ! Uncle
always gets you everything you want.
And he feels terrible bad w^hen I — when
he knows he can't afford to git some-
thing you want "

" I know well enough who tells him
we can't afford things ! "

" Well, do you want us to get things
we can't afford ? I ain't never advised
him except the best I knew how. I
told him Richards was a blow-hard, and
I told him those Alliance grocery folks
he bought such a lot of truck of would
skin him, and they did ; those canned
things they sold him was all musty, and
they said there wasn't any freight on
'em, and he had to pay freight and a
fancy price besides ; and I don't be-
lieve they had any more to do with the
Alliance than our cow ! "

"Uncle always believes everything.
He always is so sure things are going
to turn out just splendid ; and they
don't — only just middling ; and then he
loses a lot of money."

" But he is a awful good man," said
the boy, musingly.

" I don't believe in being so good
you can't make money. I don't want
always to be poor and despised, and
have the other girls have prettier
clothes than me ! "

" I guess you can be pretty good
and yet make money, if you are sharp
enough. Of course you got to be
sharper to be good and make money
than you got to be mean and make
money."

" Well, I know one thing, that Un-
cle ain't ever going to make money.

He " The last word shrivelled on

Vol. XII. -38

her lips, which puckered into a con-
fused smile at the warning frown of
her brother. The man that they were
discussing had come round to them
past the hen-house. How much had he
overheard ?

He didn't seem angry, anyhow. He
called: "Well, Evy, ready?" and Eve
was glad to run into the house for her
hat without looking at him. It was a
relief that she must sit on the back
seat where she need not face Uncle
Nelson. Tim sat in front ; but Tim
was so stupid he wouldn't mind.

Nor did he ; it was Nelson Forrest
that stole furtive glances at the lad's
profile, the knitted brows, the freckled
cheeks, the undecided nose, and firm
mouth.

The boyish shoulders slouched for-
ward at the same angle as that of the
fifty-year-old shoulders beside him.
Nelson, through long following of the
plough, had lost the erect carriage
painfully acquired in the army. He
was a handsome man, whose fresh-
colored skin gave him a perpetual ap-
pearance of having just washed his
face. The features were long and deli-
cate. The brown eyes had a liquid
softness like the eyes of a woman. In
general the countenance was alertly in-
telligent ; he looked younger than his
years ; but this afternoon the lines
about his mouth and in his brows war-
ranted every gray hair in his pointed
short beard. There was a reason.
Nelson was having one of those sear-
ing flashes of insight that do come
occasionally to the most blindly hope-
ful souls. Nelson had hoped all his
life. He hoped for himself, he hoped
for the whole human race. He served
the abstraction that he called " Pro-
gress " with unflinching and unques-
tioning loyalty. Every new scheme of
increasing happiness by force found a
helper, a fighter, and a giver in him ;
by turns he had been an Abolitionist,
a Fourierist, a Socialist, a Greenbacker,
a Farmers' Alliance man. Disappoint-
ment always was followed hard on its
heels by a brand-new confidence. Prog-
ress ruled his farm as w^ell as his
politics ; he bought the newest im-
plements and subscribed trustfully to
four agricultural papers ; but being a

350

STORIFS OF A IVFSTFRN TOWN.

born lover of the p^round, a vein of
savinp^ doubt did assert itself some-
times in his work ; and, on the whole,
as a farmer he was successful. But
his success never ventured outside
his farm gates. At buying or selling,
a bargain in any form, the fourteen-
year-old Tim was better than Nelson
with his fifty years' experience of a
wicked and bargaining world.

Was that any part of the reason, he
wondered to-day, why at the end of
thirty years of unflinching toil and
honesty he found himself with a vast
budget of experience in the ruinous
loaning of money, with a mortgage on
the farm of a friend, and a mortgage
on his own farm likely to be foreclosed ?
Perhaps it might have been better to
stay in Henry County. He had paid
for his farm at last. He had known a
good moment, too, that day he drove
away from the lawyer's with the can-
celled mortgage in his pocket and Tim
hopping up and down on the seat for
joy. But the next day Richards — just
to give him the chance of a good thing
— had brought out that Maine man
who wanted to buy him out. He was
anxious to put the money down for the
new farm, to have no whip-lash of debt
forever whistling about his ears as he
ploughed, ready to sting if he stumbled
in the furrows ; and Tim was more
anxious than he ; but — there was
Richards ! Richards was a neighbor
who thought as he did about Henry
George and Spiritualism, and belonged
to the Farmers' Alliance, and had lent
Nelson all the works of Henry George
that he (Richards) could borrow. Rich-
ards was in deep trouble. He had lost
his wife ; he might lose his farm. He
appealed to Nelson, for the sake of old
friendship, to save him. And Nelson
could not resist ; so, two thousand of
the thirty-four hundred dollars that
the Maine man paid went to Richards,
the latter swearing by all that is holy
to pay his friend off in full at the end
of the year. There was money coming
to him from his dead wife's estate, but
it was tied up in the courts. Nelson
would not listen to Tim's prophesies
of evil. But he was a little dashed
when Richards paid neither interest
nor principal at the year's end, al-

though he gave reasons of weight ; and
he experienced veritaVjle consternation
when the renewed mortgage ran its
course and still Richards could not
pay. The money from his wife's estate
had been used to improve his farm
(Nelson knew how run-down every-
thing was), his new wife was sickly and
" didn't seem to take hold," there had
been a disastrous hail- storm — but why
rehearse the calamities ? they focussed
on one sentence : it was impossible to
pay.

Then Nelson, who had been restfully
counting on the money from Richards
for his own debt, bestirred himself,
only to find his patient creditor gone
and a woman in his stead who must
have her money. He wrote again —
sorely against his will — begging Rich-
ards to raise the money somehow.
Richards's answer was in his pocket,
for he wore the best black broadcloth
in which he had done honor to the law-
yer yesterda5^ Richards plainly was
wounded ; but he explained in detail
to Nelson how he (Nelson) could bor-
row money of the banks on his farm
and pay Miss Brown. There was no
bank where Richards could borrow
money ; and he begged Nelson not to
drive his wife and little children from
their cherished home. Nelson choked
over the pathos when he read the letter
to Tim ; but Tim only grunted a wish
that he had the handling of that fel-
ler. And the lawyer was as little
moved as Tim. Miss Brown needed
the money, he said. The banks were
not disposed to lend just at present ;
money, it appeared, was " tight ; " so,
in the end. Nelson drove home with
the face of Failure staring at him be-
tween his horses' ears.

There was only one way. Should he
make Richards suffer or suffer himself ?
Did a man have to grind other people
or be ground himself ? Meanwhile they
had reached the town. The stir of a
festival was in the air. On every side
bunting streamed in the breeze or was
draped across brick or wood. Arches
spanned some of the streets with in-
scriptions of welcome on them, and
swarms of colored lanterns glittered
against the sunlight almost as gayly as
they would show when they should be

STORIHS OF A WESTERN TOWN.

351

lighted at uijj^lit. Little children ran
about waving flags. Grocery wagons
and butchers' wagons trotted by with a
flash of flags dangling from the horses'
harness. The streets were filled with
people in their holiday clothes. Every-
body smiled. The shopkeepers answered
questions and went out on the side-
walks to direct strangers. From one
window hung a banner inviting visitors
to enter and get a list of hotels and
boarding-houses. The crowd was en-
tirely good-humored and waited outside
restaurants bandying jokes with true
Western philosophy. At times the
wagons made a temj^orary blockade in
the street, but no one grumbled. Bands
of music paraded past them, the escort
for visitors of especial consideration.
In a "window belonging, the sign above
declared, to the Business Men's As-
sociation, stood a huge doll clad in
blue satin, on which was painted a de-
vice of Neptune sailing down the Mis-
sissippi amid a storm of fireworks.
The doll stood in a boat arched about
with lantern-decked hoops, and while
Nelson halted, unable to proceed, he
could hear the voluble explanation of
the proud citizen who was interpreting
to strangers.

This, Nelson thought, was success.
Here were the successful men. The
man who had failed looked at them.
Eve roused him by a shrill cry, "There
they are. There's May and the girls.
Let me out quick. Uncle ! "

He stopped the horse and jumped
out himself to help her. It was the
first time since she came under his roof
that she had been away from it all
night. He cleared his throat for some
advice on behavior. "Mind and be
respectful to Mrs. Arlington. Say yes,

ma'am, and no, ma'am " He got no

further, for Eve gave him a hasty kiss
and the crowd brushed her away.

"All she thinks of is wearing fine
clothes and going with the fellers ! "
said her brother, disdainfully. "If I
had to be born a girl, I wouldn't be
born at all ! "

" Maybe if you despise girls so, you'll
be born a girl the next time," said Nel-
son. " Some folks thinks that's how it
happens with us."

" Do you. Uncle ? " asked Tim, run-

ning his mind forebodingly over the
possible business results of such a be-
lief. " S'posing he shouldn't be will-
ing to sell the pigs to be killed, 'cause
they might be some friends of his ! "
he reflected, with a rising tide of con-
sternation.

Nelson smiled rather sadly. He said,
in another tone : "Tim, I've thought so
many things, that now I've about
given up thinking. All I can do is to
live along the best way I know how
and help the world move the best I'm
able."

" You bet / ain't going to helj^ the
world move," said the boy ; " I'm going
to look out for myself ! "

" Then my training of you has
turned out pretty badly, if that's the
way you feel."

A little shiver passed over the lad's
sullen face ; he flushed until he lost his
freckles in the red veil, and burst out
l^assionately : " Well, I got eyes, ain't I ?
I ain't going to be bad, or drink, or
steal, or do things to git put in the
penitentiary ; but I ain't going to let
folks walk all over me like you do ; no,
sir ! "

Nelson did not answer ; in his heart
he thought that he had failed with the
children, too ; and he relapsed into that
dismal study of the face of Failure.

He had come to the city to show Tim
the sights, and, therefore, though like
a man in a dream, he drove conscien-
tiously about the gay streets, pointing
out whatever he thought might interest
the boy, and generally discovering that
Tim had the new information by heart
already. All the while a question
pounded itself like the beat of the
heart of an engine through the noise
and the talk : " Shall I give up Rich-
ards or be turned out myself ? "

When the afternoon sunlight waned
he put up the horse at a modest lit-
tle stable where farmers were allowed
to bring their own provender. The
charges were of the smallest and the
place neat and weather-tight, but it
had been a long time before Nelson
could be induced to use it, because
there was a higher-priced stable kept
by an ex-farmer and member of the
Farmers' Alliance. Only the fact that
the keeper of the low-priced stable was

352

STORIHS OF A IVESTEKN TOiVN.

a poor orphan ^irl, strug'gling to earn
an honest livelihood, had moved him.

They had supper at a restaurant of
Tim's discovery, small, sj)ecklessly tidy,
and as unexacting of the pocket as the
stable. It was an excellent supper.
But Nelson had no appetite ; in sj^ite
of an almost childish capacity for being
diverted, he could attend to nothing
but the question always in his ears :
" Richards or me — which ? "

Until it should be time for the spec-
tacle they walked down the hill, and
watched the crowds gradually blacken
every inch of the river-banks. Already
the swarms of lanterns were beginning
to bloom out in the dusk. Strains of
music throbbed through the air, adding
a poignant touch to the excitement vi-
brating in all the faces and voices about
them. Even the stolid Tim felt the
contagion. He walked with a jaunty
step and assaulted a tune himself. " I
tell you. Uncle," says Tim, " it's nice of
these folks to be getting up all this
show, and giving it for nothing ! "

"Do you think so?" says Nelson,
"You don't love your book as I wish
you did ; but I guess you remember
about the ancient Romans, and how
the great, rich Romans used to spend
enormous sums in games and shows
that they let the people in free to —
well, what for ? Was it to learn them
anything or to make them happy ? Oh,
no, it was to keep down the spirit of
liberty, son, it was to make them con-
tent to be slaves ! And so it is here.
These merchants and capitalists are
only looking out for themselves, try-
ing to keep labor down and not let it
know how oppressed it is, trying to
get people here from everywhere to
show what a fine city they have and get
their money."

" Well, 'tis a fine town," Tim bursts
in, " a boss town ! And they ain't
gouging folks a little bit. None of the
hotels or the restaurants have put up
their prices one cent. Look what a
dandy supper we got for twenty-five
cents ! And ain't the boy at Lumley's
grocery given me two tickets to set on
the steamboat ? There's nothing mean
about this town ! "

Nelson made no remark ; but he
thought, for the fiftieth time, that his

farm was too near the city. Tim was
picking up all the city boys' false pride
as well as their slang. Unconscious,
Tim resumed his tune. He knew that
it was " Annie Rooney " if no one else
did, and he mangled the notes with ap-
propriate exhilaration.

Now, the river was as busy as the
land, lights swimming hither and thith-
er ; steamboats with roj)es of tiny stars
bespangling their dark bulk and a
white electric glare in the bow, low
boats with lights that sent wavering
spear-heads into the shadow beneath.
The bridge was a blazing barbed fence
of fire, and beyond the bridge, at the
point of the island, lay a glittering
multitude of lights, a fairy fleet with
miniature sails outlined in fiame as if
by jewels.

Nelson followed Tim. The crowds,
the ceaseless clatter of tongues and
jar of wheels depressed the man, who
hardly knew which way to dodge the
multitudinous perils of the thorough-
fare ; but Tim used his elbows to such
good purpose that they were out of the
levee, on the steamboat, and settling
themselves in two comfortable chairs
in a coigne of vantage on deck, that
commanded the best obtainable view of
the pageant, before Nelson had gath-
ered his wits together enough to plan
a path out of the crush.

" I sized up this place from the
shore," Tim sighed complacently, draw-
ing a long breath of relief ; "only jest
two chairs, so we won't be crowded."

Obediently Nelson took his chair.
His head sank on his thin chest. Rich-
ards or himself, which should he sacri-
fice ? So the weary old question droned
through his brain. He felt a tap on his
shoulder. The man who roused him
was an acquaintance, and he stood
smiling in the attitude of a man about
to ask a favor, while the expectant
half- smile of the lady on his arm hint-
ed at the nature of the favor. Would
Mr. Forrest be so kind ? — there seemed
to be no more seats. Before Mr. For-
rest could be kind Tim had yielded his
own chair and was off, wriggling among
the crowd in search of another place.

"Smart boy, that youngster of
yours," said the man ; " he'll make his
way in the world, he can push. Well,

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

353

Miss Alma, let me make you acquainted
with Mr. Forrest. I know you will be
well entertained by him. So, if you
will excuse me, I'll get back and help
my wife wrestle with the kids. Tliey
have been trying to see which will fall
overboard first ever since we came on
deck ! "

Under the leeway of this pleasantry
he bowed and retired. Nelson turned
with determined politeness to the lady.
He was sorry that she had come, she
looking to him a very fine lady indeed,
with her black silk gown, her shining
black ornaments, and her bright black
eyes. She was not young, but hand-
some in Nelson's judgment, though of
a haughty bearing. " Maybe she is the
princi^Dal of the High School," thought
he. " Martin has her for a boarder, and
he said she was very particular about
her melons being cold ! "

But however formidable a personage,
the lady must be entertained.

" I expect you are a resident of the
city, ma'am ? " said Nelson.

" Yes, I was born here." She smiled,
a smile that revealed a little break in
the curve of her cheek, not exactly a
dimple, but like one.

" I don't know when I have seen such
a fine appearing lady," thought Nelson.
He responded : " Well, I wasn't born
here ; but I come when I was a little
shaver of ten and stayed till I was eigh-
teen, when I went to Kansas to help
fight the border rufiians. I went to
school here in the Warren Street school-
house."

"So did I, as long as I went any-
where to school. I had to go to work
when I was twelve."

Nelson's amazement took shape be-
fore his courtesy had a chance to con-
trol it. *'I didn't suppose you ever
did any work in your life ! " cried he.

"I guess I haven't done much else.
Father died when I was twelve and the
oldest of five, the next only eight —
Polly, that came between Eb and me,
died — naturally I had to work. I was
a nurse-girl by the day, first ; and I
never shall forget how kind the woman
was to me. She gave me so much din-
ner I never needed to eat any breakfast,
which was a help."

" You poor little thing ! I'm afraid

you went hungry sometimes." Im-
mediately he marvelled at liis famil-
iar speech, but she did not seem to re-
sent it.

"No, not so often," she said, mus-
ingly ; " but I used often and often to
wish I could carry some of the nice
things home to mother and the babies.
After a while she would give me a
cookey or a piece of bread and butter
for lunch ; that I could take home. I
don't suppose I'll often have more
pleasure than I used to have then, see-
ing little Eb waiting for sister ; and
the baby and mother — " She stopped
abruptly, to continue, in an instant,
with a kind of laugh. " I am never
likely to feel so important again as I
did then, either. It was great to have
mother consulting me, like I had been
grown up. I felt like I had the weight
of the nation on my shoulders, I assure
you."

" And have you always worked since ?
You are not working out now ? " with
a glance at her shining gown.

" Oh, no, not for a long time. I
learned to be a cook. I was a good
cook, too, if I say it myself. I worked
for the Lossings for four years. I am
not a bit ashamed of being a hired girl,
for I was as good a one as I knew how.
It was old Mrs. Lossing that first lent
me books ; and Harry Lossing, who is
head of the firm now, got Ebenezer into
the works. Ebenezer is shipping-clerk
with a good salary and stock in the con-
cern ; and Ralph is there, learning the
trade. I went to the business-college
and learned book-keeping, and after-
ward I learned typewriting and short-
hand. I have been working for the
firm for fourteen years. We have edu-
cated the girls. Milly is married and
Kitty goes to the boarding-school, here."

" Then you haven't been married
yourself ? "

"What time did I have to think of
being married? I had the family on
my mind, and looking after them."

" That was more fortunate for your
family than it was for my sex," said
Nelson, gallantly. He accompanied the
compliment by a glance of admiration
extinguished in an eye-flash, for the
white radiance that had bathed the
deck suddenly vanished.

354

STORIES OF A IVHSTHRN TOWN.

"Now you will sec a lovely si^lit,"
said the woman, deigning no rej^ly to
his tribute ; "listen ! That is the sig-
nal."

The air was shaken with the boom of
cannon. Once, twice, thrice. Directly
the boat-whistles took up the roar,
making a hideous din. The fleet had
moved. Spouting rockets and Roman
candles, which painted above it a ka-
leidoscopic archway of fire, Avelcomed
by answering javelins of light and by
red and orange and blue and green
flares from the shore, the fleet bom-
barded the bridge, escorted Neptune in
his car, manoeuvred and massed and
charged on the blazing city with a
many-hued shower of flame.

After the boats, silently, softly floated
the battalions of lanterns, so close to
the water that they seemed flaming
water-lilies, while the dusky mirror re-
peated and inverted their splendor.

"They're shingles, you know," ex-
plained Nelson's companion, " with lan-
terns on them ; but aren't they pretty ? "

" Yes, they are ! I wish you had not
told me. It is like a fairy story ! "

" Ain't it ? But we aren't through ;
there's more to come. Beautiful fire-
works ! "

The fireworks, however, were slow of
coming. They could see the barge
from which they were to be sent ; they
could watch the movements of the men
in white oil-cloth who moved in a ghostly
fashion about the barge ; they could
hear the tap of hammers ; but nothing
came of it all.

They sat in the darkness, waiting ;
and there came to Nelson a strange
sensation of being alone and apart from
all the breathing world with this wom-
an. He did not perceive that Tim had
quietly returned with a box which did
very well for a seat, and was sitting
with his knees against the chair-rungs.
He seemed to be somehow outside of
all the tumult and the spectacle. It
was the vainglorying triumph of this
world. He was the soul outside, the
soul that had missed its triumph. In
his perplexity and loneliness he felt an
overwhelming longing for sympathy ;
neither did it strike Nelson, who
believed in all sorts of occult influ-
ences, that his confidence in a stranger

was unwarranted. He would liave told
you that his " psychic instincts " never
played liim false, although really they
were traitors from their astral cradles
to their astral graves.

He said in a hesitating way : " You
must excuse me being kinder dull ;
I've got some serious business on my
mind and I can't helj^ thinking of it."

"Is that so? Well, I know how
that is ; I have often stayed awake
nights worrying about things. Lest I
shouldn't suit and all that— especially
after mother took sick."

"I s'pose you had to give up and
nurse her then ? "

" That was what Ebenezer and Ralph
were for having me do ; but mother —
my mother always had so much sense
— mother says, 'No, Alma, you've got
a good place and a chance in life, you
sha'n't give it up. We'll hire a girl.
I ain't never lonesome except evenings,
and then you will be home. I should
jest want to die,' she says, ' if I thought
I kept you in a kind of prison like by
my being sick — now, just when you
are getting on so well.' There never
was a woman like my mother ! " Her
voice shook a little and Nelson asked
gently, "Ain't your mother living
now ? "

"No, she died last year." She added,
after a little silence, " I somehow can't
git used to being lonesome."

"Itis hard," said Nelson. "I lost
my wife three years ago."

" That's hard, too."

" My goodness ! I guess it is. And
it's hardest when trouble comes on a
man and he can't go ijowhere for ad-
vice."

" Yes, that's so, too. But — have you
any children ? "

" Yes, ma'am ; that is, they ain't my
own children. Lizzie and I never had
any ; but these two we took and they
are most like my own. The girl is
eighteen and the boy rising of four-
teen."

" They must be a comfort to you ;
but they are considerable of a responsi-
bility, too."

"Yes, ma'am," he sighed softly to
himself. " Sometimes I feel I haven't
done the right way by them, though
I've tried. Not that they ain't good

STORIFS OF A WESTERN TOWN.

355

children, for they are — no better any-
where. Tim, he will work from morn-
ing till ni^ht, and never need to urge
him ; and he never gives me a promise
he don't keep it, no ma'am, never did
since he was a little mite of a lad. And
he is a kind boy, too, always good to
the beasts ; and Avliile he may speak up
a little short to his sister, he saves her
many a step. He doesn't take to his
studies like I would like to have him,
but he has a wonderful head for busi-
ness. There is splendid stuff in Tim
if it could only be worked right."

While Nelson spoke, Tim had been
hunching his shoulders forward in the
darkness, listening with the whole of
two sharp ears. His face worked in
spite of him, and he gave an inarticu-
late snort.

"Well," the woman was saying, "I
think that speaks well for Tim. Why
should you be worried about him ? "

"I am afraid he is getting to love
money and worldly success too well, and
that is what I fear for the girl, too.
You see, she is so pretty and the idols
of the tribe and the market, as Bacon
calls them, are strong with the young."

"Yes, that's so," the woman assent-
ed vaguely, not being sure what either
Bacon or his idols might be. " Are the
children relations of yours ? "

" No, ma'am ; it was like this : When
I was up in Henry County there came
a photographic artist to the village near
us, and pitched his tent and took tin-
types in his wagon. He had his wife
and his two children with him. The
poor woman fell ill and died ; so we
took the two children. My wife was
willing ; she was a wonderfully good
w^oman, member of the Methodist
church till she died. I — I am not
a church - member myself, ma'am ; I
passed through that stage of spiritual
development a long while ago." He
gave a wistful glance at his compan-
ion's dimly outlined profile. "But I
never tried to disturb her faith ; it
made her happy,"

" Oh, I don't think it is any good
fooling with other people's religions,"
said the woman, easily. "It is just like
trying to talk folks out of drinking ;
nobody knows what is right for any-
body else's soul any more than they do

what is good for anybody else's stom-
ach ! "

" Yes, ma'am. You put things very
clearly."

" I guess it is because you under-
stand so quickly. But you were say-
• J)

mg

" Tliat's all the story. We took the
children, and their father was killed by
the cars the next year, poor man ; and
so we have done the best we could ever
since by them."

"I should say you had done very
well by them."

" No, ma'am ; I haven't done very well
somehow by anyone, myself includ-
ed, though God knows I've tried hard
enough ! "

Then followed the silence natural
after such a confession when the lis-
tener does not know the speaker well
enough to parry abasement by denial.

" I am impressed," said Nelson, sim-
ply, " to talk with you frankly. It
isn't polite to bother strangers with
your troubles, but I am impressed that
you won't mind."

" Oh, no, I won't mind."

It was not extravagant sympathy ;
but Nelson thought how kind her voice
sounded, and what a musical voice it
was. Most people would have called it
rather sharp.

He told her — with surprisingly little
egotism, as the keen listener noted —
the story of his life ; the struggle of his
boyhood, his random self - education,
his years in the army (he had criticised
his superior officers, thereby losing the
promotion that was coming for bravery
in the field), his marriage (apparently
he had married his wife because an-
other man had jilted her), his wrestle
with nature (whose pranks included a
cyclone) on a frontier farm that he
eventually lost, having piit all his sav-
ings into a " Greenback " newspaper,
and being thus swamped with debt,
his final slow success in paying for
his Iowa farm, and his purchase of
the new farm, with its resulting disas-
ter. " I've farmed in Kansas," he said,
" in Nebraska, in Dakota, in Iowa. I
was willing to go wherever the land
promised. It always seemed like I was
going to succeed, but somehow I never
did. The world a,in't fixed right for

350

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

the workers, I take it. A man who has
spent thirty years in hard, honest toil
oug-htn't to be staring ruin in the face
as I am to-day. Tliey won't let it be
so when we have the single tax and
when we farmers send our own men in-
stead of city lawyers to the Legislature
and halls of Congress. Sometimes I
think it's the world that's wrong and
sometimes I think it's me ! "

The reply came in crisp and assured
accents, which were the strongest con-
trast to Nelson's soft, undecided pipes :
" Seems to me in this last case the one
most to blame is neither you nor the
world at large, but this man Richards,
who is asking you to pay for his farm.
And I notice you don't seem to consider
your creditor in this business. How
do you know she don't need the money ?
Look at me, for instance ; I'm in some
financial difficulty myself. I have a
mortgage for two thousand dollars, and
that mortgage — for which good value
was given, mind you — falls due this
month. I want the money. I want it
bad. I have a chance to put my money
into stock at the factory. I know all
about the investment ; I haven't worked
there all these years and not know how
the business stands. It is a chance to
make a fortune. I ain't likely to ever
have another like it ; and it won't wait
for me to make up my mind forever,
either. Isn't it hard on me, too ? "

"Lord knows it is, ma'am," said Nel-
son, despondently ; " it is hard on us
all ! Sometimes I don't see the end of
it all. A vast social revolution "

" Social fiddlesticks ! I beg your par-
don, Mr. Forrest, but it puts me out of
patience to have people expecting to be
allowed to make every mortal kind of
fools of themselves and then have ' a
social revolution ' jump in to slew off
the consequences. Let us understand
each other. Who do you suppose I
am?"

" Miss — Miss Aimer, ain't it ? "

"It's Alma Brown, Mr. Forrest. I
saw you coming on the boat and I made
Mr. Martin fetch me over to you. I
told him not to say my name, because
I wanted a good plain talk with you.
Well, I've had it. Things are just about
where I thought they were, and I told
Mr. Lpssing so. But I couldn't be

sure. You must have thought me a
funny kind of woman to be telling you
all those tilings al)out myself."

Nelson, wlio had (;hanged color half
a dozen times in the darkness, sighed
before he said : " No, ma'am ; I only
thought how good you were to tell me.
I hoped maybe you were impressed to
trust me as I was to trust you."

Being so dark Nelson could not see
the queer expression on her face as she
slowly shook her head. She was think-
ing : "If I ever saw a babe in arms
trying to do business ! How did he
ever pay for a farm ? " She said :
"Well, I did it on purpose; I wanted
you to know I wasn't a cruel aristocrat,
but a woman that had worked as hard
as yourself. Now, why shouldn't you
help me and yourself instead of helping
Richards. You have confidence in me,
you say. Well, show it. I'll give you
your mortgage for your mortgage on
Richards's farm. Come, can't 3^ou trust
Richards to me ? You think it over."

The hiss of a rocket hurled her words
into space. The firew^orks had begun.
Miss Brown looked at them and
watched Nelson at the same time. As
a good business woman who was also
a good citizen, having subscribed five
dollars to the carnival, she did not
propose to lose the worth of her
money ; neither did she intend to lose
a chance to do business. Perhaps there
was an obscurer and more complex
motive lurking in some stray corner
of that queer garret, a woman's mind.
Such motives — aimless softenings of
the heart, unprofitable diversions of
the fancy — will seep unconsciously
through the toughest business princi-
ples of woman.

She was puzzled by the look of exal-
tation on Nelson's features, illumined
as they were by the uncanny light. If
the fool man had not forgotten all his
troubles just to see a few fireworks !
No, he was not that kind of a fool ;
maybe — and she almost laughed aloud
in her pleasure over her own insight —
maybe it all made him think of the war,
where he had been so brave. "He was
a regular hero in the war," Miss Brown
concluded, " and he certainly is a jjer-
fect gentleman ; what a pity he hasn't
got any sense ! "

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

357

She had guessod aright, altliongh she
had not guessed deej) enough in reg^ard
to Nelson. He watclied
the great wheels of light,
he watched tlie river
aflame with Greek fire,
tlien, with a shiver, he
watched the bombs bvirst-
ing into myriads of flow-
ers, or fizzing snakes, or
fields of burning gold, or
showers of jewels that
made the night splendid
for a second and faded.
They were not fireworks
to him ; they were a mag-
ical jDhantasmagoria that
renewed the incoherent
and A'iolent emotions of
his youth ; again he was
in the chaos of the battle,
or he was dreaming by his
camp-fire, or he was pac-
ing his lonely round on
guard. His heart leaj^ed
again with the old glow,
the wonderfrd, beautiful
worship of Liberty that
can do no Avrong. He
seemed to hear a thou-
sand voices chantinir :

**ln the beauty of the lilies
Clirist was born across tlie
sea.

en don't understand business ; she
woiddn't make allowance for Ilichards."

As He died to make men
holy, let us die to make
men free ! "

His turbid thoughts
cleared — or they seemed
to him to clear — under
the strong reaction of his
imagination and his mem-
ories. It Avas all over, the
dream and the glory thereof. The
splendid young soldier was an elderly,
ruined man. But one thing was left :
he. could be true to his flag.

" A poor soldier, but enlisted for the
war," says Nelson, squaring his shoul-
ders, with a lump in his throat and his
eyes brimming. " I know by the w^ay
it hurts me to think of refusing her
that it's a temptation to wrong-doing.
No, I can't save myself by sacrificing a
brother soldier for humanity. She is
just as kind as she can be, but wom-
Von. XII.— 39

^^--s-^**'

Money, it appeared, was tight/' — Page 350.

He felt a hand on his shoulder ; it
was Martin apologizing for hurrying
Miss Brown ; but the l)aby was fretting
and

" I'm sorry — yes — well, I wish you
didn't have to go ! " Nelson began ; but
a lioarse treble rose from iiiider his el-
bows : " Say, jMr. Martin, Uncle and me
can take Miss Brown home."

" If you will allow me the pleasure,"
said Nelson, with the touch of court-
liness that showed through his home-
spun ways.

858

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

" Well, I icoiihl like to see the linii-
(Ired l)()iiil)s bursting' at once and Vul-
can at his forge ! " said Miss ]3r()wn.

Thus the matter arranged itself.
Tim waited with the ladv while Nelson

on to tin; melons 2)i'etty quick. We'll
do better next year, and I'll try to keej)
him from belonging to things and
s})ending money ; and if he won't lend
to anybody or start in raising a new

" Nelson had no appetite." — Page 352.

went for the horse, nor was it until
afterward that Miss Brown wondered
why the lad did not go instead of the
man. But Tim had his own reasons.
No sooner was Nelson out of earshot
than he began : " Say, Miss Brown, I
can tell a^ou something."

"Yes?"

" That Kichards is no good ; but you
can't get Uncle to see it. At least it
will take time. If you'll help me we
can get him round in time. Won't you
please not sell us out for six months
and give me a show. I'll see you get
your interest and your money, too."

" You ? " Miss Brown involuntarily
took a business attitude, with her arms
akimbo, and eyed the boy.

" Yes, ma'am, me. I ain't so very
old, but I know all about the business.
I got all the figures down — how much
we raise and what we got last year. I
can fetch them to you so you can see.
He is a good farmer, and he will catch

kind of crop just when we get the mel-
ons going, he will make money sure.
He is awful good and honest. All the
trouble with him is he needs somebody
to take care of him. If Aunt Lizzie
had been alive he never would have
lent that dead - beat Richards that
money. He ought to get married."

Miss Brown did not feel called on to
say anything. Tim continued in a
judicial way: "He is awful good and
kind, always gets up in the morning to
make the fire if I got something else to
do ; and he'd think everything his wife
did was the best in the world ; and if
he had somebody to take care of him
he'd make money. I don't suppose
you would think of it?" This last
in an insinuating tone, with evident
anxiety.

" Well, I never ! " said Miss Brown.

Whether she was more offended or
amused she couldn't tell ; and she stood
staring at him by the electric light.

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

359

To her amazement tlie liard little face
began to twitch. " I didn't mean to
mad you," Tim grunted, with a quiver
in his rough voice. " I've been listen-
ing to every word you said, and I
thought you were so sensible you'd
talk over things without nonsense. Of
course I kncAV he'd have to come and
see you Saturday nights, and take you
buggy riding, and take j^ou to the thea-
tre, and all such things — first. But I
thought we could sorter fix it up be-
tween ourselves. I've taken care of
him ever since Aunt Lizzie died, and I
did my best he shouldn't lend that
money, but I couldn't help it ; and I
did keep him from marrying a wddow
woman with eight children, who kept
telling him how much her poor father-
less children needed a man ; and I
never did see anybody I was willing —
before — and it's — it's so lonesome with-

Brown ; " you poor little sharp, inno-
cent chap ! " The hand she laid on his
shoulder patted it as she went on :
" Never mind, if I can't marry your un-
cle, I can help j-ou take care of him.
You're a real nice boy, and I'm not mad ;
don't you think it. There's your un-
cle now."

Nelson found her so gentle that he
began to have qualms lest his carefully
prejoared speech should hurt her feel-
ings. But there was no help for it
now. "I have thought over your kind
offer to me, ma'am," said he, humbly,
" and I got a proposition to make to
you. It is your honest due to have
your farm, yes, ma'am. Well, I know a
man w^ould like to buy it ; I'll sell it to
him, and pay you your money."
"But that wasn't my proposal."
" I know it, ma'am. I honor you
for your kindness ; but I can't risk

"There came a photographic artist to the village." — Page 355.

out Aunt Lizzie ! " He choked and
frowned. Poor Tim, who had sold so
many melons to women and seen so
much of back doors and kitchen hu-
mors that he held the sex very clieaj), he
did not realize how hard he would find
it to talk of the one woman w^ho had
been kind to him ! He turned red
with shame over his own weakness.
" You poor little chap ! " cried Miss

w^iat — what might be another person's
idea of duty about Richards. Our con-
sciences ain't all equally enlightened,
you know."

Miss Brown did not answer a word.

They drove along the streets where
the lanterns were fading. Tim grew
uneasy, she was silent so long. On the
brow of the hill she indicated a side
street and told them to stop the horse

3G0

INSOMNIA.

before a little brown house. One of
the windows was a dim square of red.

"It isn't quite so lonesome eoming-
home to a li^lit,"
said Miss Brown.

As Nelson
cramped the wheel
to jump out to help
her from the vehi-
cle, the light from
the electric arc fell
full on his hand-
some face and
s h o W' e d her the
look of comj^as-
sion and admira-
tion there.

" Wait one mo-
ment," she said,
detaining- him wdth
one firm hand.
" I've got some-
thing to say to
you. Let Rich-
ards go for the
present ; all I ask
of you about him
is that you will do
nothing until we
can find out if he
is so bad off. But,
Mr. Forrest, I can
do better for you
about that mort-
gage. Mr. Lossing wall take it for
three years for a relative of his and

pay me
story."
"And

the money. I told him the

you

will

all

Well, I never ! " said Miss Brown. — Pajre 35S

(jrei the money
right ? "

"Just the same.
I was only trying
to help you a lit-
tle by the other
way, and I failed.
Never mind."

" I can't tell you
how you make me
feel," said Nel-
son.

"Please let him
l)ring you some
melons to-morrow
and make a stag-
ger at it, though ? "
said Tim.

"Can I?" Nel-
son's eyes shone.

"If youw^antto,"
said Miss Brow^n.
She laughed ; but
in a moment she
smiled.

All the way home
Nelson saw the
same face of Fail-
ure betw^een the
old mare's white
ears ; but its grim
lineaments w^ e r e
softened by a smile, a smile like Miss
Brown's.

NSOMNIA.

By Edith M. Thomas.

A HOUSE of sleepers — I, alone unblest.

Am yet awake and empty vigil keep.
When these, who spend life's day with me. find rest.

Oh, let me not be last to fall asleep I

Interior of Pueblo Indian House.

THE INDIAN WHO IS NOT POOR.
By Charles F. Lummis,

HAD the hunclibacked sermouizer
in pentameter acquired residence
in the American Southwest the
language would be poorer by one phrase
which was once rather witty, and is still
staple. He would have found Indians
who built houses four stories taller than
did their Caucasian neighbors ; who had
as much land per Gii^\i% and tilled it as
effectiveh^ ; who wore upon the average
as good clothing, and, upon occasions of
state, better — among whom, in fact, pov-
erty is quite unknown — and Ave should
have heard nothing of "Lo, the poor In-
dian." For the Pueblo, the most strik-
ing ethnologic figure in our America to-
day, is emphatically an Indian who is
not poor from any point of view. Phys-
ically, mentally, morally, socially, polit
ically, he need not shun comparison with
the average of his lately acquired coun-
trymen ; and he even affords luxuries
to which the superior race has not yet

risen. As an Indian he is a paradox ;
as a human, he is unique in the whole
world. He is the one racial man who
enjoys two religions, irreconcilable yet
reconciled ; two currencies, millenniums
apart in the world's ripening ; two sets
of tools, as far asunder as the Stone Age
from the locomotive ; two sets of laws,
one coeval with Confucius, and the other
with the Supreme Court ; two languages
that preceded us ; and two names, where-
of the one we hear w^as ratified by the
sacrament of Christian baptism, while
the other, whereby he goes among his
own, w^as sealed upon his infant lips
with the spittle of a swart godfather at
a pagan feast. He is the sole aborigine
on earth who inhabits many-storied
buildings, and the only man who ever
achieved, in our land, such architecture
of unburnt clay. He is a hereditary
and immemorial farmer, who learned
neither architecture nor agriculture

362

THE INDIAN IV HO IS NOT POOR.

from us, but gave us our first lessons in
that which is a fundamental of farm-
ing in an area, equal to twenty-five per
cent, of our whole country — irrigation.
From whichsoever side we view him,

weighed and collated solely by men
who never saw the field, and therefore
without the necessary horizon. And
second, entire disregard of all the docu-
mentary and geographical accessories.

v''^7-

.?*.

The Oldest of the Quires.

he is worthy a comprehension which
has never been publicly had of him.

Our genuine understanding of the
Pueblo dates from the new school of
American archseologT, of which Bande-
lier (with the early guidance of Lewis
H. Morgan) was founder and is head.
I make this statement advisedly ; for
science is by little the richer for the
peckings of others at this field. The es-
sential errors of research in our South-
west were two : first, the employment
of students, or rather detectives, limited
severely to recording details which were

without which such research is abso-
lutely blind. There have been a few
genuine students, but they are unfor-
tunately as rare as genuine. As to the
armchair archaeologists, they do not
count.

The very traditions of history have
been rudely sent to the right-about face
in the last decade, for a new^ school in
history also has arisen. Bandelier has
been the first American historian to em-
ploy the three essential factors of his-
tory— record, physical geography, and
ethnology. That these are history, and

THE INDIAN JVHO IS NOT POOR.

363

that history cannot be without them,
has been long established ; but the the-
ory went long lonely.

To the uninitiated, the general mode
in which the history of Spanish Ameri-
ca has been " studied " is little short of
incredible. The student has seemed
actually afraid that he might be biased
by knowledge — by seeing the country
and the races which have made that his-
tory, or by consulting the vast mass of
reliable Spanish record, and has at all
events avoided both " dangers." As ex-
ample of this strange self-blinding, I
may mention the long current dispute
as to the resj)ective ages of Santa F6
(actually founded in 1605) and St. Au-
gustine (actually founded in 15G5). But
the closet historian has had his day. It
is now even deemed necessary
to consult the recorded facts,
though they are in another
language ; and to have at least
seen the races and the geog-
raphy, which are equally im-
portant factors.

Since Morgan so comjoletely
exploded the romantic school
of liistory, we hear no more
of the " emperorship" of Mon-
tezuma, nor of his vast " treas-
ures ; " of Cabeza de Vaca's
discovery of New Mexico ; of
Aztec and Toltec ruins within
the United States. Those shib-
boleths of an ignorance which
was too lazy or too lame to go
to walk and see, have been ex-
purgated from the vocabula-
ries of science, and remain
only to the unconscious hu-
morists who study ethnology
from a flying Pullman or an
Eastern closet.

It is a matter of knowledge,
at last, that Cabeza de Vaca
never saw New Mexico. The
tireless, fearless Franciscan
fraile, Marcos of Nizza, first
found the territory, and first
saw its distinctive aborigines.
That was in 1539. A year
later he brought face to face
with the Pueblos the first
Caucasian soldier they had ever seen
— the neglected Coronado. Thence on,
Spanish knowledge of the Pueblos was

practically continuous and progressive-
ly accurate ; and by the time the Saxon
had raised his first hut in the New
World, these Indians were vassals of
Spain and converts of Rome. Both in
justice to history, and for the compre-
hension of the jiresent, it is proj^er to
reiterate here that the Spanish never
enslaved the Pueblos ; never made them
vvork in mines ; found no mines in New
Mexico and made none ; never forced
the Indians to abandon their old relig-
ion and adopt the new. Spain's was the
most comprehensive, humane, and ef-
fective " Indian policy " ever framed. In
all three qualities it surpassed all the
Indian policies of all other European
nations and the later United States
rolled into one.

Young Indian Girl.

The sedentary population of the
Southwest was never great. The closet-
historian puts it at from two hundred

364

THE INDIAN JVHO IS NOT POOR.

thousand upward ; but it is now posi- onions indexed tlie will of The Trues,

tively est!il)lished that it never exceeded and forthwith the aborigine changed

thirty thousand, in liistoric times, if his town and his farm to a new j^lace,

ever. There are in New Mexico alone and left the bones of the old to befool

Tigua Girls.

the ruins of hundreds upon hundreds
of stone pueblos ; but the fact which
has been overlooked is that thej were
not all occupied at once. The}- were the
successive homes of a small race, which,
though " sedentary," moved and took
its seat along almost as readily as May-
day pilgrims change fiats in New York.
The circumambient savage became too
attentive ; or drouth prevailed ; or an
epidemic came ; or lightning befell the
estvfa ; or any one of a thousand other

undreamed - of theorizers. His num-
bers are practically the same as two
hundred years ago. Then he counted,
in New Mexico, about nine thousand,
and about nine thousand he counts to-
day. This is in keeping with a verj-
notable and seldom noted truth of his-
tory. "Wherever our ancestors, the
Earth - hungry, have touched America
for more than a century, the aborigine
is practically extinct. In the far greater
American area covered by Spain for

THE INDIAN fVHO IS NOT POOR,

365

three centuries and a half, the abori-
gine is practically as numerous as at the
Conquest, and much better off. When
this unquestionable fact becomes more
widely recognized, we shall hear less of
" Spanish atrocities " in the New World.

The Pueblo is neither Aztec nor Tol-
tec. No one who uses the latter word
can defensibly define it ; and as to the
Aztecs, they are merely the Nahuatl,
who still dwell about the lake of Mexi-
co. The Pueblo has no connection with
them, further than that he has learned
a few Aztec words brought to him by
the Spanish. All the ruins in our South-
west are purely Pueblo ruins, and there
is not an Aztec stone among them.

Racially the Pueblo is a palpable Mon-
gol. He even finds, often, the same in-
ter-slipperiness of / and ?\ It is not es-
sential, however, to infer his migration
from China via the Northwest — though
the Navajo, his nomad prodigal son,
speaks still the tongue of the great
Tin-neh tribe of Alaska, and is himself
called Tin-neh by the Pueblos. But mi-
gration has ceased to be our only eth-
nologic alternative since " equivalent
development " was thought out.

When history found the Pueblo he
dwelt in houses like his own of to-day,
tilled his farms by irrigation as now,
and lived in general by most of his pres-
ent rules. Of him we have far fuller
and more accurate historic record than
of any other aborigine within our bor-
ders ; and as he changed slowly, where-
in he changed at all, the picture holds
largely good for the remoter past. At
the Conquest he had no brute servants.
Neither beast of burden, watch -beast,
milker, nor meat-giver had he. In this
the Apache of the Plains was ahead of
him, for he had vehicle and pack-animal
— the sledge and the Eskimo dog. The
only domestic animal of the Pueblo was
the turkey ; and it was kept rather for
its feathers than for its meat. The
Pueblo crops were corn, squashes, beans,
and, in places, cotton. Spain gave him,
and America at large, the horse, cow,
sheep, goat, ass, cat, and dog. These
he assimilated with an industry propor-
tionate to their value to him ; and of
them all he now has enough. Every
male Pueblo, in effect, has a horse, and
most have burros. Sheep have sup-
VoL. XII.— 40

planted cotton, and the processes of the
farm are carried on with modern imple-
ments. An Indian of Isleta has recent-
ly purchased even a threshing-machine,
and several principales in various jjue-
blos own buggies, while nearly every
family has a good farm-wagon.

The first effect of the Spanish Con-
quest was a unique racial stride. The
Pueblo, who never knew any metal be-
fore, despite the fables of his gold,
passed at one step from the stone age
to the age of iron, copper, and silver;
from sole man to man with the beasts in
his employ. He was given and prompt-
ly adopted wheat and fruits, which have
since become an integral part of his
economy. Grapes he was given about
1630, and in 1891 he made a round
thousand barrels of wine in the one
pueblo of Isleta, besides selling thou-
sands of dollars' worth of fruit. Wine
is made also in the pueblos of Jemez and
Sandia ; but practically in none of the
rest.

In 1540 the Pueblo dressed in gar-
ments of cotton, buckskin, robes of
twisted rabbit - hides, tunics of yucca
fibre, and mantles of feathers. He al-
ready knew how to tan, spin, and weave,
to make handsome baskets, and an excel-
lent semi-glazed pottery, without the pot-
ter's wheel. With no tools but stone he
worked, broadly speaking, as well as we
with steel, because time was nothing.
That most of these things are not so
well done by him to-day is not a sign
of decadence, but rather of evolution.
He has found more profitable outlets
for his time. He taught the Navajo to
weave, and now the Navajo is his weaver,
while he takes that leisure for his im-
proved and more exacting farm. Blank-
ets are no more made by the Pueblos ;
and they of Moqui alone continue to
weave the women's dresses, with which
they supply all the other pueblos, as
they do also with baskets. The only
weaving still common to all the towns
is that of the fajas, or bright-hued gir-
dles, and their smaller counterparts for
garters and queue-fastenings. These
are woven exclusively by the women
now ; and nothing is left, save at Moqui,
of the ancient custom under which the
whole textile art pertained exclusively
to the men. Isleta makes hardly any

366

THE INDIAN WHO IS NOT POOR.

pottery, havinf^ found it better to buy
the iiulisi:)ens!.ible water-jars from vil-
lages which have smaller agricultural
cares. The Pueblo is not entirely dull
in such matters. He was a prehistoric
trader. He had an established com-
merce in salt (from his several extensive
salines), tanned buffalo-hides and buck-
skin, turquoise, mineral paint, and cot-
ton mantles. He traded not only with
his brethren, but with Apache, Coman-
che, Navajo, and Ute ; with tribes from
eastern Kansas to northern Mexico.
None was too savage to be customer ;
and having traded with his visitors by
day, he shut them out by night and
slept with his hand on his scalp and
every house-top patrolled. His com-
mercial instinct was not repressed by
the Conquest, which rather gave him a
new market and greater safety in the
old ones. To-day his income from the
towns of the Hlah-fah-deh amounts to
tens of thousands of dollars annually.
He meanders by express-train or burro-
train from Santa Fe to California with
his fruit and other staples, and is a
godsend in a thirsty land. And while
changing his modern fruit into mod-
ern dollars, he still trudges three hun-
dred miles to Mo qui to pay turquoise
or shell currency for mantas. He some-
times carries the paradox even further,
and acquires a quiet revenue by manu-
facturing fetiches for the Bureau of
Ethnology and other seekers after truth.
The most important ethnological ef-
fect of the coming of Spain, was to make
the Pueblo from a sedentary to a Jixed
Indian. Instead of continuing to play
chess with his cities across a three-hun-
dred-mile board, he now was limited.
To each of his communities was given a
generous grant of land, and upon that
grant he must stay. Thenceforth there
were no town-migrations, and the liv-
ing pueblos are essentially where they
were when Plymouth Rock came into
history. These grants have since been
confirmed by our Government ; and the
Pueblo is an Indian who lives not upon
a reservation but upon a United States
patent. The total amount of land owned
by the Pueblos is 893,130 acres. Zuiii
has 215,040 ; Isleta, 110,080 ; Acoma,
95,791 ; and the smaller towns in pro-
portion. Of course the vast majority

of this land is fit for nothing but graz-
ing ; the average tillage of the Pueblo,
according to the guesses of the Census
Bureau, is four and a half acres per
capita. Furthermore, the Pueblos are
citizens of the United States, a political
fact which seems to have escaped the
notice of the Interior Department as
completely as has the fact that they are
members of a Christian church. Their
autonomy and their full rights of citi-
zenship have been established in the
highest tribunals of the land ; and yet
we continue to " educate " them by force,
and to send missionaries to them !

Pei'manency thus secured b}^ the grant
policy, a further Spanish measure for
the benefit of the Pueblos was cen-
tralization, which was effected, as usual,
by suasion and not by force. At the
Conquest there were seventy-six inhab-
ited pueblos. One of the first steps of the
missionaries was to induce the Indians
to concentrate in their chief to-^Tis, for
greater safety from their savage neigh-
bors ; and the result has been the
twenty-four present pueblos. The eth-
nologic effect upon the Indian of this
twofold change has been very striking.
It made him more secure ; therefore
more adaptive. It enabled his whole-
sale conversion to Christianity — his is
the only race of Indian church-mem-
bers in our history — and his general
material advance. With greater fixity
of abode he has still further increased
the distance between himself and the
nomad. His perceptions have grown
less acute than those of the hunted
hunter — though stiU far ahead of the
Caucasian — but he has reflected more,
acquired more, and preserved more.
His traditions have accumulated to a
huge volume ; his laws are well formulat-
ed ; his internal religion has become
bewilderingly complex. It is fortunate
for archaeology that the Spaniard was
his brother's keeper. Had the Pueblo
enjoyed sixteenth-century acquaintance
with the Saxon, we should be limited
now to unearthing and articulating his
bones.

The Pueblo has, more than any of our
other aborigines, a home-life ; but this
also is a gift of Spain. At the Conquest
he maintained rigid separation of the
sexes. Connecticut laws were a mild

THE INDIAN WHO IS NOT POOR.

367

blue to his indigo. The meil and youth
slei3t, ate, and lived in the estufa ; the
women and children were relegated to
the small rooms of the huge honey-
combed pyramid of the terraced house.
The Spanish changed all this ; and to-
day the Pueblo lives at home and takes
as much joy thereof as we of ours.

Popular institutions were before us,
even in our own land. Before history
was, this peculiar people had solved the
problem in its own peculiar way ; and
there were hundreds of American " re-
publics" ahead of Columbus. Every
Pueblo town was an autonomic com-
monwealth, and is so still — oases of ap-
proximate civilization in a continental
desert of savagery. The Pueblo social
organization is essentially democratic.
It is too complex to enter here — a vol-
ume could scarce contain it — but it may
be briefly defined as a military democ-
racy, guided by a democratic theocra-
cy. " Church and State " in the Indian
sense are distinct yet inseparable. Mo-
ses the captain, and Aaron the high-
priest, are here Siamese twins — two, yet
indivisible. The commander-in-chief of
the army has no hampering by Con-
gress ; but he would not think of mov-
ing without his chaplain. There is no
absolute head, and a bewildering amount
of body in this remarkable economy.
The actual Captain of War, Kah-bay-
deh, is the highest single man, and
within limits is supreme ; but neither
is he independent of the Shamans of
War, the Cacique, and other officials.
He, like all the most potent authorities,
holds a life-office ; but there is also a
figure-head War-Captain who is elect-
ed annually, as is the civil governor,
both being Spanish innovations dat-
ing from 1620. It is a curious fact
that the first republican institution in
the United States, an annual election of
governors, should have come directly
from the Spanish Crown. There is no
such thing as chiefship. With the Pue-
blo heredity counts for nothing. All
dignities are reached by election, or — in
their inner cults — by selection. There
is constant watchfulness against any dy-
nastic tendency. More than anywhere
in civilization, the official is server of
the people, and he is never recreant to
his trust.

There is a congress, called the Junta
of Principales, which is the civil law-
making body, but cannot touch matters
of religion. The Governor is chairman
of its sessions. The Cacique selects its
members ; but it retains or impeaches,
and ousts them at will. Around these
factors of government, and including
some of them, cluster the four great
orders — the Mothers (three Caciques
and the Shamans of War), the Warriors,
the Hunters, and the Medicine-men —
and again intertangled with these, but
below them, a dizzy array of still potent
groups which figure in the political econ-
omy.

The laws of the pueblo are simple
but admirable, and are thoroughly en-
forced. Crime is practically unknown ;
and for occasional minor lapses the of-
fender is induced to jail by a handcuff
more civilized than our own, since it
fits about the neck, and the culprit can
neither be tortured by it, nor reach
nor pull back upon his captors. The
gentleness of officials and laymen is
always notable. A resister is never
clubbed nor choked into acquiescence,
but is overpowered without a scratch. A
drunken vagabond once shot a woman
in Isleta and fled. A posse with rifles
pursued and soon overtook him' He
intrenched himself and was ready to
shoot the first who should come nearer.
Instead of silencing him with a bullet,
as there was perfect justice in doing,
the Alguazil ordered him dislodged with
stones. A deft throw stunned him, and
he was captured with one unimportant
bruise. This is a typical case.

The social corner-stone is not the
family, but the clan. Husband and wife
must belong to different gentes, and
the children follow her clan. In other
words, descent is from the mother,
and not from the father. The Pueblo
had invented Woman's Eights before
any Caucasian acquired that social in-
somnia, and it remains one of his fun-
daments. He has never used his wife
as a pack-beast. He is not henpecked,
but just ; and even finds no shame in
" toting " the baby upon his back all day
when he has no more essential duty.
The spheres of the sexes are clearly
defined, but manfully. The woman is
complete owner of the house and all

368

THE INDIAN IV HO IS NOT POOR.

it contains save his personal trinkets ;
and she has no other work to do than
housework, at which she is no sloven.
Should her husband ill-treat her, she
could permanently evict him from home,
and would be upheld in so doing. The
man tills the fields, and they are his ;
but after the crops are housed she has
an equal voice in their disposition. The
live-stock is of course his ; but he will
seldom sell an animal without consult-
ing his wife. The family relations are
very beautiful. Here are children never
spoiled, never disobedient, almost never
quarrelsome ; parents never neglectful
and never harsh ; and none who fail of
respect to seniority — even as between
boy and elder boy. Conjugal fidelity is
as general as with us — the Pueblo was a
prehistoric monogam, and punished un-
faithfulness with death ; and it is doubt-
ful if any American community can show
a less percentage of loose women.

The theology of the Pueblos is as
democratic as their sociology, and as
complex. Duality is an integral part of
their elder religion as of their govern-
ment. We have seen the idea even in
architecture, where the houses once had
gender. The very creation is based on
sex. There is no one God — the Sun-
Father and the Moon-Mother were the
equal First Causes. Their sons, the
Hero Twins, seem to come next in im-
portance ; and behind the aboriginal
Castor and Pollux marches a countless
host of minor deities — spirits of every
attribute and forms of every shape. The
compass has six cardinal points — East,
North, West, South, Up, and Down-and-
around, in that sacred and inviolable
order — and each is the Olympus of a
community of The Trues. The forces
of the universe, the processes of nature,
the very animals of use or danger — all
are deified. And with this astoundingly
complicated mythology of infinite detail
the Pueblo has also his Christian Tata
Dios. He is as sincerely Catholic as pa-
gan, though the pagan is naturally in-
nermost ; and woe to them that would
profane his church, for which he will
give his life. He is baptized, confessed,
married, and buried in that church ; and
for all has another set of secret cere-
monies of his own. It is another phase
of this racial contradiction, this human

hyphen between the present and the ut-
most past, who lights his pleasure-cigar-
ette with an Ohio match, and his medi-
cine-smoke from the prehistoric fire-
drill ; who hunts with the Winchester
and executes with the obsidian-tipped
arrow ; who goes to mass in the great
adobe church his patient fathers build-
ed for the new faith, and thence to his
feathered prayer-sticks in a mountain
cave. He has his Christian priest, and
then an army of semi-religious ofiicials
to meet every minutest exigency of
life — even to the propagation of the
race ! Life is one endless religious cere-
mony. The Indian (and I mean here
any Indian) does nothing " for fun."
His hunts, his dances, his races, his
very smoking, have all a deep inner sig-
nificance. And yet he seems second-
arily to enjoy it all. He is an admira-
ble athlete, and his sjDorts are thrilling,
while his endurance is marvellous. In
his ceremonial spring foot-races he runs
a three-hundred-and-twenty yard course
at a sprinting gait twenty to thirty
times in an afternoon. His sedentary
games are few but good ; and one is
fully equal to chess. He is not a gam-
bler like the Navajo ; and though he
sometimes bets, it is seldom on a game
of simple chance. Nor is he a poli-
tician. Here in very truth the office
seeks the man. Not uncommonly a
governor has to be thrown for a few
days into the calaboz before he will ac-
cept the high office to which he has
just been elected. This election is by
the Junta ; but there is already a grow-
ing sentiment toward universal suffrage.
The present Governor of the large pue-
blo of Isleta belongs to the radical
" Gophers," who favor this change,
while the conservative "Black -Eyes"
oppose it. The two parties are about
equal in numbers. The office of Ca-
cique is still more difficult to be forced
upon the appointee. He is not a ruler,
as popularly imagined, but the tribal
penitent, whose life of incessant seK-
mortification and hardship is not to be
coveted, despite his great influence.

They were never more mistaken who
deem the Pueblo dull. He has even a
poetic imagination. His folk-lore is not
only vastly voluminous, but full of fan-
cy— at times, of striking beauty. It is

THE INDIAN WHO IS NOT POOR.

369

poetry in body as well as in spirit ; for
it is told down from father to son in
fixed metrical form, thouoli not in rhyme.
He is also a deep humorist ; and in the
pro23er time and place a very genial one.
He is an aboriginal Uncle Eemus, full
of (piaint fables wherein the coyote is
the butt of all jokes and is bur-
lado by ever}' other animal. He
is himself a joker upon occa-
sion, and as an ofiicial clown in
certain ceremonies is a real ge-
nius. Above all, he recognizes
the humor of self - containing.
We find a joke or a sensation,
and forthwith itch to set some-
one else agajDe. The Indian
finds it more humorous to laugh
himself and keep the world in
the dark, which is a double plii-
losoj^hy. But when he conde-
scends to be funny he is no fail-
ure. His very nicknames are
not those of the stupid. He
calls the Navajo — who never
knows w^ater as a means of grace
— " Dried-up-and-cracked Skin."
The Caucasian is Hlah-fah-deh,
" Hair-mouth ; " and the Mexi-
can, specifically, Pee-j^eed-deh,
the " Wet-Heaci " (in allusion, of
course, to baptism). The people
of Zuili are official^ known in
Tigua as the " Scratchers," and
Zuni as " Scratch-town " — an ill-
compliment which is too true
of Zufii as compared with the
cleanlier other pueblos. There
is even sarcasm sometimes in
the nomenclature of animals ;
and the duck is " Old -Man -
Afraid-of-the- Water."

Folk-songs are as popular as
folk-stories, but never humor-
ous, save in occasional improvi-
sation. The Pueblo is almost
always a singer ; and bitter in-
deed must be the night when
you shall not find, upon every broom-
built hillock in the village, knots of
young men chanting in unison, with
strong, clear voices, their

Hdy-nah en-neh hdy-nah.

Even " bees " prevail. The corn-husk-
ing is done thus Avith the aid of young
Vol. XII.— 41

men who go from house to house to strip
the blue ears, and roll their cigarros in
the rustling husks, and sing loudly as
they work. The women used to join
also for their winter's grinding. Each
brought to an appointed house her
metate and sack of corn. And as the

'4 ^^'f\ ^' \'\'

Indian Girl.

kernels fell to blue meal l)etween the
lava slabs, there rose a poetic song of
the birth of corn, swelled by the men,
who kept time with tap of the hammer
as they shaped rawhide soles for their
teguas.

With all this gregariousness the vil-
lages even of the same tribal stock are
entirely independent and aloof from

370

THE INDIAN IV HO IS NOT POOR.

each other. Tlierc are six Pueblo stoc^ks,
each with an entirely distinct lanj^uaj^e
of its own, and understanding the oth-
ers only throuf^li the diplomatic Spanish
— and yet they are racially one. The
Qiu'res are by far the most numerous,
counting over three thousand souls, and
with seven towns. Next come the Ti-
guas and the Moquis, with less than
two thousand people each, and four and
six towns respectively ; the Tehuas, with
about one thousand five hundred in five
villages ; the Zuiiis, wdth one town of
one thousand five hundred inhabitants ;
and Jemez one with a third as many.

civilization. His astonishing communal
house has altog(ither disappeared in sev-
eral villages. Taos is the most strik-
ing example left of the one-house' town ;
and its two villages, one on either side
the rippling trout-brook, are, as Coro-
nado found them, each of a huge, six-
story pyramid house. In Zuni the five-
story pyramidal honeycomb is still po-
tent, though clustered upon by detached
blocks. Acoma, the peerless cliff-built
citadel of the Queres, is in three blocks
of three terraces each. The pyramid,
the block, the once still commoner rec-
tangle— with sheer walls without, and

Type of House.

The towns of the same tribe are not
even always adjacent. Isleta and Taos
are the southern and northern extremes
of present Pueblo range ; and between
these chief Tigua towns are eleven vil-
lages of the Tehuas and the Queres.

The characteristic architecture which
the Pueblo had evolved before history
has been influenced only downward by

the terraces and doors facing only the
safe plaza — and the invariable defensive
site are eloquent witnesses to the dan-
gers of old, wdien every first thought
must be for safety from the crowding-
savage. Convenience, even to water,
was a secondary consideration. Of this,
Acoma is the most striking type. No
other town on earth is so nobly perched.

THE INDIAN IV HO IS NOT POOR.

371

The only foreign hints of it are the Ko-
nigstein, in Saxony ; and (perhaps) the
Gwahor, in the Deccan. And these are
not so Kke it as are the Moqui
towns, which are still far less no-
ble than Acoma.

Along the Rio (irrande, how-
ever, the connnunal building has
largely given way to separate
homes of one or two stories, but
larger rooms. Even here the
Pueblo architecture is distin-
guishable from the Mexican, and
in artistic effect superior to it.

With a background so invari-
ably striking that the stranger
to his history might well deem
his choice of sites to have been
dominated by the scenery — for
he has chosen always the most
picturesque points of a pictu-
resque land — the Pueblo is per-
sonally in accord. He is the
most — almost the only — pictu-
resque figure in our convention-
alized land. Of medium but ro-
bust stature, admirable neck and
trunk, never consumptive, scarce-
ly ever too fat, with magnificent
black hair, which is not coarse
and never leaves him unthatched,
he is physically above the aver-
age of his new neighbors, and
lives to a vast age. His face is
very far from our idea of an Indian
physiognomy, and is a creditable in-
dex to his contents. His national
costume, when unspoiled by " civil-
ized" perversions, is an artistic joy.
There is no name for the " policy "
which forcibly changes the Pueblo girl
at school (a citizen, remember) from her
own modest, artistic, oriental dress to
a gingham horror, not worth a tenth
as much in money or taste ; and the
sin is scarce smaller toward the boys.
The home dress of both sexes is far
ahead of ours hygienically and in con-
venience.

The garb of a Pueblo woman at home
is worth twenty-five dollars or more ;
and her feast-day array several times
that. To this the aboriginal jewelry
largely contributes. Gold has never
been used ; but of silver, coral, and tur-
quoise ornaments, the Pueblos own
much over |100,000 worth. The silver

rosaries, bracelets, rings, ear-rings, but-
tons, etc., are made l)y their own silver-
smiths, who achieve remarkable results

y X

Tigua Youth, Isleta.

with a mud forge, a hammer, a file, a
punch, and a little solder, resin, and
acid. The turquoise is also worked
into beads by their own artisans.

Money, of course, is less commonly
accumulated ; yet I know Pueblos who
have great chests full of gold and silver
coin ; and the largest business con-
trolled by any woman in New Mexico
is that of Dona Marcelina Abeita, of
Isleta, an uneducated Indian woman.
She keeps, as all her people keep, her
ledger in her head, and with never a
mistake of overcharge or omission. A
Pueblo sometimes takes temporar}' ser-
vice as a laborer for the superior race.
Quite as often he hires Mexicans to as-
sist in his own work.

These are but hints of the Pueblo.
Actual description of him is for not a
book but a library. I have meant here
merely to graze the angles of his entity,
sketchily but truthfully, in the light of

872

HER LAST WORD.

£ >*

A Tigua War Captain.

present science, whereby he has not yet body and mind, heart and pocket, which
been popularly viewed ; and even that, entitle him to foremost rank as the Ind-
with chief reference to the qualities of ian who is not "Poor."

HER LAST WORD.

By Liiette IVoodworth Reese.

Remember or forget me as you will !

Keep me in mind as one on the June's edge.

Keeps the sole bloom that starred the sad March sedge.

Because it was the first, and hours were chill.

Or, else, let me be naught of good or ill ;

The snow that one time whirled within the hedge ;

Some fair, forgotten thing, too slight for pledge,

Vanished too long to make your j^ulses thrill.

When you do weep, my tears are salt as yours ;

You laugh, and all my loads are light to bear ;

Back of my sweetest thought a sweeter yet.

You bide with me, and will, while life endures.

Let me remember — but, if aught of care

Pricks you through me — then do you, love, forget I

THE EDUCATION OF THE BLIND.

By Mary Cadwalader Jones.

ON E afternoon during the month
of September, 1771, the fair of
St. Ovide was, as usual, filling
what is now the Place Vendome with a
gay and idle crowd, which strolled from
booth to booth, applauding or chaffing
the jugglers, dancers, and acrobats who
were toiling to make a Parisian holiday,
and in the throng was a young fellow of
twenty- six, named Valentin Haiiy, the
son of a poor linen- weaver of Picardy,
and himself employed as a translating
clerk and interpreter in the Foreign
Office.

It is easy now to sneer at the hu-
manitarianism of the last century, but
it was the first sentiment which had aj^-
pealed to all classes alike since the Cru-
sades, and Hatiy was a fervent disciple of
the new philosophy, being one of those
generous and optimistic souls who, in
all ages, are called enthusiasts or vision-
aries, according to the point of view of
the speaker. As he loitered along on
the day which was to be the turning-
point of his life, he noticed that the
crowd was thickest before a booth
where a certain Valindrin had had the
ingenious idea of forming a band of ten
men, chosen among the blind beggars
who were accustomed to sing and play
various instruments in the streets. The
lookers-on were shouting with laugh-
ter, and pressing so close around the
frail stage that it ran great risk of de-
struction. Haiiy shall describe what he
saw in his own words :

*'The players were tricked out in
grotesque robes, with high, pointed
caps, and wore large goggles of card-
board without glasses. Placed before a
desk on which were music and lights,
they executed a monotonous chant —
singers, violins, and basses being in
unison. It was doubtless because of
their ignorance of music that it was
possible to justify the insult done to
these unfortunate beings by surround-
ing them with emblems of stupidity, as
in placing, for instance, a peacock's tail,
full - spread behind their leader, and
Vol. XII.— 42

crowning him with the head - dress of
Midas. How was it credible that a
scene so dishonoring to humanity
should not have perished at the very
instant of its conception ? May it not
have been in order that the picture be-
fore my eyes should profoundly afflict
my heart and kindle my spirit ? Yes, I
exclaimed to myself, seized with a great
enthusiasm, I will substitute truth for
this ridiculous fable, I will make the
blind read, I will place in their hands
volumes printed by themselves, they
shall trace letters and be able to read
their own writing, and I will even make
them execute harmonious music." Val-
entin Haiiy had found his life-work, and
the blind their apostle.

Before his time there had been no
systematic attempt to educate them, al-
though here and there one of their
number had distinguished himself in
spite of his misfortune ; one of the most
brilliant examples being Nicholas Saun-
derson, who, although blind almost
from birth, was Lucasian Professor of
Mathematics at Cambridge, holding the
chair after Whiston, who was Sir Isaac
NeT\i:on's successor. He lectured in
1707 on Newton's "Theory of Optics,"
invented an arithmetical slate for the
blind, published several treatises on
the higher algebra, and was, moreover,
an expert numismatist, to the point of
detecting by touch the counterfeits in
the collection of Roman coins at Cam-
bridge.

The earliest asylum for the blind of
which there is any definite record was
founded at Paris by St. Louis in 1254,
and has been known ever since by the
quaint name of the Hotel des Quinze-
Vingts. According to tradition, it was
meant as a shelter for three hundred
knights whose eyes had been put out
by the Saracens, and whom the king
brought back with him from the First
Crusade ; but history is silent as to the
place where this act of wholesale cruelty
was committed, or the way in which St.
Louis managed to get the helpless little

374

THE EDUCATION OF THE BLIND.

working miracles, healing the sick and
casting out devils. The pair were terri-
fied ; "Heavens," said they, "supj^ose
the saint were to cure us and thus take
the bread out of our mouths — let us

army home again. As time went on
the Hotel came to harbor women as
well as men, and gained various rights
and privileges, but its inmates were ex-
pected to contribute toward their sup-
port by begging in the streets and at decamp." So fhe blind man hoisted
church-doors, and it was from among the cripple on his back and off they
them that Yalindrin collected his band, started for the nearest tavern. But
According to present statistics, about they were too late, the funeral overtook
one in every thousand of the population them, and as the cofiin passed they
of Western countries is blind, and dur- were made whole. When the cripple
ing the Middle Ages the proportion was felt his legs sound under him, he cursed
probably greater, as it is now in the and swore, but his companion could not
East. It therefore followed that those help being overjoyed. "Ah," he cried,

"I did not know how
goodly was the light of
day ! I can see Burgundy,
France, and Savoy, and I
thank God humbly."
Clearly, the saint did not
do miracles by halves.

For more than ten years
Haiiy patiently studied the
different processes by
which individual blind peo-
ple had contrived to gain
some instruction. He vis-
ited the distiller of Puy-
seaux, who was the subject
of Diderot's "Lettre sur
les Aveugies ; " he corre-
sponded with Weissem-
burg, of Mannheim, who
invented relief maps ; and
he was an intimate friend
of Mile. Paradies, a blind
pianist from Vienna, who
played publicly in concerts
at Paris, and was altogeth-
er a remarkably intelligent
woman. At last, in the spring of 1784,
the enthusiast took for his first pupil a
boy named Fran9ois Lesueur, whose
post as a beggar was in the church-porch
of St. Germain - des - Pres. It was ar-
ranged that Frangois should beg in the

CBo^^-^J^die IIL

(De La jJecbare
I'aJade 3eJ eAveaqleJ

a

JSa
fno\|e

hectare

3

a

oraer

la

t I

e V r a I

aae nvaaiere

nrte nrvotire

e

J'ac L I
prorapte SC metkoStdae

Fig. 1.

in France who could

fleur-de-lis given by

as a distinguishing
badge to the Quinze-Vingts were con-
sidered as aristocrats by the less fortu-
nate majority that helped to swell the
ranks of the vast army of prowling vag- morning, and come to Haiiy in the after-

among the blind
show the copper
Philippe - le - Bel

abonds and ruffians which then infested
Europe. In the fifteenth century, one
of the plays known as " Moralities " gives
a characteristic sketch. A cripple and
a blind man were comrades, living well
and joyously together on the charity of
the pious, until one day they heard the
bad news that the funeral of a great
saint, wiio had lately died, was to pass
their way. Already his corpse was

noon ; but as his parents could not af-
ford to spare any of his earnings, and
his teacher wanted all of his time, it
ended in the teacher's paying the pu2:)il
by making up to him what he would
have received from charity.

Lesueur learned to read by passing
his fingers over movable letters in re-
lief, grouped into words ; but one day

while

arranging

his master's desk, he

THE EDUCATION OF THE BLIND.

375

found a notice which had been pressed he had seen a letter printed by Mile,

so hard that some of the printed letters Paradies from type made for her by

stood out on the paper, an O especially one Kempellen, but certainly no one

being distinctly legible, or rather tangi- before Haiiy had ever tried seriously to

ble, to his eager fingers. Proud of his make printing available for the blind,
discoverv, he called Haiiy,

with
pen-

who forthwith traced
the handle of a small
knife more letters on the
same paper, and when Le-
sueur read those also by
touch, his teacher's quick
brain had seized the idea of
printing from types cast in
high relief.

One pupil was not enough
for Haiiy, who wished to es-
tablish a school rather than
to astonish the world by a
single prodigy, and, fortu-
nately for him, the Philan-
thropic Society, which had
been recently founded, in-
cluded among its beneficia-
ries twelve blind children.
These he obtained permis-
sion to take into his own
home

gle lasting through the twenty stormy
years which made modern Europe. He
could not afford to give up his place in

A ^k

AAiAt

^

<1A4 *k4

. ^A4 *k

m4 W4S W'

Fig. 2.

and then began for him a strug-

He is convinced that they may be prac-
tical printers of books, not only for
their own manual reading, but from
ordinary type, and he gives elaborate

the Foreign Office, but every hour out- descriptions of the "cases " most suita-

side of it was claimed by the real work ble for them, and suggests modifications

of his life. To make this better known, of the presses then in use. He acknowl-

on the 26th of December, 1786, his edges that the cost of books printed in

scholars, who then numbered twenty- relief must necessarily be great, and

four, gave an exhibition before the King their number consequently limited, but

at Versailles, where, after going through adds that, as the tendency of knowledge

various exercises and singing a loyal ode is toward selection, the library of the

composed by one of them, they pre- blind man may come in time to corre-

sented his Majesty with the first book spond with that of the man of good lit-

printed from the new relief type, which erary taste. That this prediction was

had been set up and struck off by them- true is shown by the catalogue of books

selves. The title was "Essai sur I'Edu- for the blind, now printed in this coun-

cation des Aveugles," and Haiiy was nat- try, in which we find not only the Bi-

urally the author. The style of type ble and Shakespeare, but other English

chosen by him, of which a specimen is classics, such as Bunyan, Defoe, Scott,

given (Fig. 1, page 374), is almost like
the beautiful legal manuscript of the
time, and the letters are in slight relief,
printed on one side of the paper only.

Thackeray, and Hawthorne.

Haiiy suggests that his discovery
may be of use to such learned men as
shall wear out their sight in scientific

two pages being gummed together back pursuits, and regrets, with naive sim-
to back. Outside of its value as a typo- plicity, that Homer, Belisarius, and Mil-
graphical curiosity, the book is most ton should have been unable to i^rofit
interesting, because the earnest and by it. He extols the Abbe de I'^fipee,
kindly nature of the writer reveals it- who had begun to teach the deaf and
self throughout. He says honestly that dumb in 1750, and ends by declaring

37G THE EDUCATION OF THE BLIND.

that more than all else his pupils shall risk of beggary. In June, 1794, at the
be taught to rejoice that they are born celebrated Fete of the Supreme Being,
Frenchmen and destined to live under one car in the procession was filled

with his blind children, and
in 1795, the Convention de-
creed that the school was

Tff^i'©'©SlP[EL f"" ''Institution Nationale,"

^ to be supported by a cer-

<Sl€©@1f8ilf^O t© tain sum from each depart-

. ment throughout France.

Sa(i,nl.MA!RKa The Treasury either over-

, looked the allowance alto-

FtimdCd, f©!- Ihf %^4€ m ike tion was no better off, and

FafiU®1f"lkt Pemia^^lV^. Sents:Ss°kepVreHt

mi a Im^Uly lli©ia f©np Iki lm= tie group from starving to-

«^ „ * n II This could not go on tor-

l©€€li€d) iia Urit Clt^ ©f Fl\il=> ever, and in I8OI, by order

Cldttf^kia, E^tal^il^kfS ^^^^^ ^^^^* Consul, Haiiys

«„ „ ^ 1 ^rf5k <^ -^ school was absorbed into

F€li>l.(Um*|-y 21dllJ®33o the Hotel des Quinze-

Vingts, and he forced to re-
tire on a yearly pension of
two thousand francs. It al-
^'S' 3. most broke his heart. His

biographer says : "By an in-
the beneficent rule of a monarch whose credible effort of industry and patience,
millions of subjects regard him with and self-sacrifice, he had managed to
the respectful tenderness of a family carry through the Revolution the work
for the father who is the source of their in which his soul was absorbed, only
happiness. to see it destroyed when all else around

Making all due allowance for the loy- him began to be reorganized." As there
alty of an official and the expectations was no system of education in the
of a philanthropist, these words sound Quinze - Vingts, the pupils whom he
strangely when one remembers that six had hoped to make useful and happy
months earlier the Queen had been in- men and women were compelled to sit
suited in the streets because of the idle, or drudge all daj'" at spinning wool.
Diamond Necklace, and that within the while he was shelved on a pension at
year the Parliament of Paris refused the age of fifty-six.

to authorize the taxes imposed by the With stubborn patience he gathered
King. around him the next year a few children

As a result of the entertainment be- whose parents could afford to pay for
fore the Court, Louis XVI. ordered their teaching, and started what he
that the school, already known as the called the " Musee des Aveugies." Men
" Institution des Jeunes Aveugies," ahead of their time seldom have the
should be supported by the state, and knack of making money, so the affairs
promised its teacher the cross of St. of the school went from bad to worse,
Michael ; but neither the money nor the until 1806 when he accepted the re-
order was ever forthcoming, and Hatiy peated invitations of the Czar Alexander
struggled on through the Revolution I., and started for Russia with his vrde
and the Terror, working at his desk in and a pet pupil named Fournier, making
the Foreign Office for his bread, and a sort of triumphal progress through
sharing it to the last crust with the the domains of the various princes who
pupils whom he kept together at the were then amusing themselves with

THE EDUCATION OF THE BUND.

371

Fig. 4.

philanthropy. The King of Prussia,
Frederick William III., who was the
husband of the beautiful Queen
Louisa, and father of the Em-
peror William I., "UTote with
his own hand inviting him to
Charlottenburg, and employed
him to found the first public
institution for the blind in Ger-
many, which was conducted by John
Augustus Zeune. The Count of Pro-
vence was at that time in exile at Mit-
tau, where Fournier wrote for him the
following sentence, which turned out
a prophecy, and was decidedly politic
under the circumstances : "During the
reign of Louis XVIIL the Institution
des Aveugles will attain perfection."
At first all went well at St. Petersburg.
Haily was the fashion and society made
much of him, but his day was soon
over, and eleven weary years followed,
full of disappointment and failure, un-
til, in 1817, he dragged himself back
to France, an old and broken man, to
find that, by an irony of fate, the Count
of Provence, become Louis XVIIL, had
reorganized, by a decree of February
8, 1815, the "Institution Royale des
Jeunes Aveugles." Haiiy's former pu-
pils welcomed him, but the new di-
rector was naturally averse to being
ousted by a man whom he accused of
having been " an active Revolutionary,"
so the latter, who had brought back
for all riches the order of St. Vladimir
of the fourth class, withdrew to the
lodging of his brother. Abbe Hatty
the mineralogist, near the Jardin des
Plantes, and there he died quietly, in
1822, aged seventy-seven years.

The year before his death he had at
least one fully happy day. The direc-
tor then in charge of the Institution
des Aveugles was liberal enough to feel
that Hatty had been treated with gross
injustice, and a festival was given in
his honor, in which all the scholars
took part. The orchestra and chorus
gave a cantata composed for the first
feast-day of St. Valentine, celebrated at
the school in 1788, one verse of which
praised him as its benefactor. At its
end the old man, who was paralyzed
and failing fast, said simply : " My dear
children, you owe everything to God."
He was always modest, and when any-

one compared him to the Abb' de
I'Epee, he would protest, saying, "I
only fit spectacles, while he bestows a
soul."*

Although all honor is due to the man
who first gave the blind communication
other than speech with their fellow-
men, Hatty's discovery was not practi-
cally successful. The relief of his let-
ters was too low, and their forms too
complicated to be read by any but a
few scholars with an exquisitely sensi-
tive touch, so that most of the editions
of the few books printed from his type
were sold for waste paper, and the pu-
pils of the Institution which he founded
were chiefly taught orally.

The school for the Indigent Blind,
which was opened at Liverpool in 1791,
was the first establishment of the kind
in Great Britain, and although it was
followed within a few years by others
in Bristol, Edinburgh, and London, no
definite plan of education was developed
until, in 1826, James Gall, a printer
and publisher of Edinburgh, saw some
specimens of Hatty's printing, and ob-
tained a box of his type. His practi-
cal knowledge led him to see its de-
fects, and he set himself to improve the
alphabet, in order to make it more eas-
ily felt, being induced to enter into the
work by Lady Jane Erskine, sister of
the Earl of Mar, who was herself blind.
Gall rejected the French script, choos-
ing the " lower-case " or small letters,
making no use of capitals and further

pari s

f\ 9~i ?~i ^~^ ^r^

r ] \ I P cWo Wo s

Fig. 5.

modifying the outlines of the letters into
angles, as they are more easily recog-
nized by the finger. In Fig. 2, on page
375, is shown the first line of his great
work, the Gospel of St. John, which was
published in 1834. This is often sj^oken
of as the first book of the Bible ever
printed for the blind in any language,
but we give a fac-simile of the title-page
of the Gospel of St. Mark (Fig. 3, page

* The foregoing account of Haiiy has been taken from
an interesting book published last year, called Lea
Aveugles par Un Aveugle, by M. Maurice de la Sizer-
anne, a pupil of the Institution des Jeunes Aveugles,
which is still the leading school in France.

378

THE EDUCATION OF THE BUND.

370), published in Philadelphia, in Feb-
ruary, 1833. The type of the latter,
which resembles Haiiy's, was designed

Fig. 6.

by Jacob Snyder, Jr., Recording Secre-
tary of the Pennsylvania Institution,
but it had the defects of its model, and
after a few volumes had been printed
it ceased to be used.

Experiments were made with no less
than twenty different styles of printing
in relief in the ten years between 1828
and 1838, and of these five obtained re-
cognition. Three of them, Haiiy's script,
Gall's angular "lower-case," and the Al-
ston plain " upper-case," using only cap-
itals, were Roman ; one, that of Moon,
was an extreme modification of these
forms, made especially for those whose
touch w^as dull from age or hard work,
while Frere's was phonetic, having arbi-
trary signs to represent sounds. The
defect of them all lay in their failure
to recognize the fact that the sense of
touch has no quality by which it can

take the place of sight, and is in no
way quickened l)y the memory of what
has been seen ; some of the blind
could certainly read,
but the alphabet of
the seeing, even if
modified, was only to
be traced by them
with difficulty and
hesitation.

The next step for-
ward was again in
France. An artillery
officer named Charles
Barbier, who had been
a surveyor here dur-
ing our Revolution,
and who had some
fortune, became much
interested in the
blind. In 1819 he
had the happy idea of
making points or dots
with a blunt stylus on
thick paper, to be
variously placed so
that they should rep-
resent the thirty- six
principal sounds of
the French language.
They were arranged
vertically within a
frame or "cell," in
two lines, with room
for six points on a
side, as shown in Fig.
4, page 377, and it is easy to see that
the idea may have been suggested to
him by the popular game of dominoes.
Barbier meant his invention for the use
of the blind who had grown up with-
out learning to read, but its principal
drawback lay in the amount of space
wiiich it w^asted. As the cell was of
fixed size, if a sound was represented
by a point in one corner, all the rest
was left blank, a great disadvantage in
printing. As Haiiy's script gave Gall
his first idea of letters in high relief,
which are the basis of the line system,
Barbier's invention, although unpracti-
cal, was the foundation of the point
system, which is destined to supersede
line altogether.

In 1809 Louis Braille was born, who
became blind at four years old, and was
sent to the Institution des Jeunes

THE EDUCATION OF THE BUND,

379

Aveugles. As he grew up there he
studied Barbier's method until he saw
a way to simplify it, and this he did,
when twenty- six years old, by abandon-
ing phonetics, leaving out the lower half
of the cell (Fig. 5, page 377), and vary-

this is the only method by which they
can not only write, but read by them-
selves whatever may be written to them.
In this countr}^ schools for the blind
were opened at New York, Boston, and
Philadelphia, in the order named, in

mm m^m^i grait feote @iF (^nMi m^U ^u'S Wm^ tat
f ©Ci ^^^ ilVii? mm ^ tiif^^iG^ m M'Umm^ @^ <iM^i M%^
^n^ ¥M Q^^^mu%%f^ %% ^mt <F<^ct@ C^w. ©? ^ms ImMlf-
fio^fj tk% ©felof ^ti@iin @f coc^tMsfg^. w f ra^t ^h"^ fotlli ©f

Fig. 7. — Part of Section 10 of the Constitution of the United States in Boston line letter.

ing the combinations of the remaining
six points so that they should repre-
sent the letters of the French alphabet.
These six points can be combined to
give sixty-three different signs, includ-
ing accents, punctuation, figures, alge-
braic signs, and musical notation. This
system was soon introduced into the In-
stitution, and is now generally used in
Europe. It was, however, still defective
in that the cell was of fixed size, so that
space was lost unless there were points
enough to fill it. One of the greatest
merits of " Braille Point " was that it
could be easily written, and to this end
he devised an ingenious slate which is
still in use (Fig. 6, page 378). The bed is
of metal, crossed horizontally by shallow
grooves about one-tenth of an inch apart,
which give it somewhat the look of a
miniature wash - board. The wooden
frame is hinged at the top, so that it may
close down and keep a thick sheet of pa-
per in place on the bed. The writing
instrument, or stylus, is a short piece
of wire, rounded at the point in order
not to pierce the paper, and fixed in
a wooden handle. A narrow strip of
brass, divided into rectangular cells,
stretches across the slate, and has a peg
at each end which fits into holes in the
frame. This is the guide, and is mova-
ble up and down the slate. Through it
the pupil pricks the letters, working
from right to left, and when the paper
is taken out, it is reversed and read like
an ordinary page, from left to right.

Before and since Braille's time vari-
ous writing frames and contrivances
have been invented for the blind, but

1832 and 1833, and that of Boston at-
tracted especial attention because of
the devotion and talent of its first prin-
cipal, Dr. S. G. Howe. He went to Eu-
rope in 1830, on purpose to master the
various methods of instruction followed
there ; but at Paris Braille's system was
in its infancy and does not seem to have
attracted his attention, for in an ex-
tended account of his visit no mention
is made of the new idea.

As it was important to avoid such a
diversity of tangible type as existed in
Europe, there was at first a desire for
united action between the three Ameri-
can schools, and there is reason to be-
lieve that Dr. Howe and Mr. Fried-
lander, who was the principal at Phila-
delphia, and had been a teacher of the
blind in Europe, proposed that each
should select the style of tangible let-
ter which seemed best to him, and that
in case of disagreement the decision
should rest with Dr. Buss, the head of
the New York school. Friedlander
chose the Roman capital, advocating
the Alston letter with slight changes,
but as he was about preparing his re-
sults to send to Dr. Howe he received
a book printed in angular lower - case
type, in the style of Gall, as the expres-
sion of Dr. Howe's views, and as he did
not regard the publication of books as
coming within the understanding, it
amounted to nothing, and each school
adopted the t;^^e chosen by its prin-
cipal. Dr. Howe's fame will probably
chiefly rest on his successful rescue of
Laura Bridgeman, who came under his
care in 1837, from the terrible isolation

380

THE EDUCATION OF THE BUND.

ill which she was placed by being deaf
and dumb as well as blind, but it is
impossible to over-estimate his ser-
vices to the Boston school, and to the
cause of the blind in general. A potent
factor in establishing the Boston type
(Fig. 7, page 379), and that which more
than all else enabled it to supersede the
Philadelphia letter, was the printing in
it of the w^hole Bible, which was dis-
tributed free of cost bv the Ameri-
can Bible Society in 1842. • • t

As time went on Howe became Fig. 8.
more and more convinced that his
system was the right one, and did not
turn his attention to that of Braille, al-
though it was gaining ground steadily
wherever it had been adopted. In 1846,
after another visit to Europe, he pub-
lished a valuable paper on "Printing for
the Blind," in which mention is made of
the efforts of Haiiy, Gall, Fry, Alston,
Lucas, and Frere, but Braille is not in-
cluded, and in 1852 and 1869, in ex-
tended notices of music, no allusion is
made to the Braille musical notation,
which was then the only practical sys-
tem known. Dr. Howe was not only
excellent, but the cause of excellence in
others ; and it was his good fortune, as
well as his due, to inspire enthusiasm
for himself as well as for his work.
When the Massachusetts Asylum for
the Blind was first started, money for
it came in but slowly, until Thomas
Handasyd Perkins made the noble do-
nation which has linked his name en-
duringiy with the work. Throughout
his life Howe had a host of friends, and
it was but natural that, at his death, in
1876, his son-in-law, Mr. Michael Anag-
nos, should have been chosen to suc-
ceed him, while, as a further expression
of affectionate admiration, the Howe
Memorial Press was endowed by sub-
scription to continue printing books
in the type with which he was identi-
fied.

The New York Institution for the
Blind had early adopted the Boston
line letter, and for some years had used
printed books in no other form, when
Mr. "William B. Wait became its princi-
pal in 1863. Educated for the bar, he
had already entered upon practice,
when his health broke down from over-
work, and he took a position as teacher

in the Institution, intending to give it
up so soon as he should be well again.
But with renewed health came keener
interest in what he saw were problems
to be solved, and on the retirement of
Mr. R G. Rankin, he took the place
which he has since filled with entire
singleness of purpose and marked abil-
ity. He was at once struck by the fact
that many of the children did not read,
and that text-books w^ere not employed
in class work. The published litera-
ture was considerable, but it was of no
use unless the pupils could read well.
The entire school was therefore ar-
ranged in graded classes, new alphabet
cards were procured, and much extra
time was given to the slower pupils,
while the class grading was rearranged
from week to week. At the end of two
years it was found that twenty per
cent, could read with facility ; forty-
eight per cent, moderately well, and
thirty-two per cent, were unable to
read at all. Statistics collected from
other large schools showed that of their
pupils from twenty-two to forty-eight
per cent, could read with facility ; eigh-
teen to thirty-nine per cent, moderately
well, while fifty-eight to fourteen per
cent, could not read at all. These fig-
ures do not include the Boston school,
which did not furnish any statistics.

Mr. Wait's standard of facility was
the average number of words read aloud
in one minute, by several seeing teach-
ers, from different authors, and includ-
ing easy and difficult compositions.
This number was one hundred and
sixty, but " facility " and " moderately "
are elastic terms, and, as most of the
figures returned from institutions where
no special effort at classification had
been made seemed to indicate a different
standard or better methods, Mr. Wait
visited several schools, including that
of Boston, and found that while the
pupils were about alike as to age and
ability, there w^as no standard of classi-
fication in reading. The group of non-
readers included some of the most in-
telligent, w^hile the capacity for touch-
reading was no test of mental capacity.
The books were generally in Boston
type, but text-books w^ere nowhere used
in the classes, while the Braille system,
although known to a few — chiefly teach-

THE EDUCATION OF THE BUND.

381

ers — was not recognized in the course
of study in any school. Mr. Wait found
himself reluctantly forced to the con-
clusion that the line-letter systems were
no longer adequate, as they failed to
fulfil the requisite conditions of touch
perception, and could not be written.

About 1860 Braille Point had been
taught in the St. Louis school, with
the result that out of sixty-nine pu-
pils forty-five were able to read with fa-
cility and twenty-four moderately well.
In New York a test was made with

it, with one of Braille (Fig. 9, below).
With the aid of some type and a small
press, the new method was critically and
thoroughly tested, and in 18G8 Mr. Wait
published it and made an effort to se-
cure the adhesion of Boston and Phila-
delphia to a point system, though not
necessarily to his own. He gave his
reasons for thinking his code better
than that of Braille, but offered to give
up further effort to improve it if Dr.
Howe and Mr. Chapin, the principal
of the Philadelphia school, would adopt

T

K

e

a

a vr n i s

a

t

K

a

n

a.

o

©o

0€ O O O

New York Point.

CO

Q

CO

«Q

GO

CO

o

T ^

e

d a

"w n IS

a

t

K

a

G © QO
00 O

€)

©o ©
©

o ©© ©© ©
©o © ©o o
© © ©

Braille Point.

Fig. 9.

©

©

©Q

o

o

eight pupils, who, after long and pa-
tient effort, had utterly failed to dis-
tinguish the Boston letters one from
another. From five to tliirty lessons
were given with the point letters, and
in each case they succeeded well, while
in eleven lessons given to the entire
school the tangible efficiency of the
point system was proved with every
pupil. Further study of Braille con-
vinced Mr. Wait that the vertical cell,
which had been derived from Barbier,
and which allotted a fixed and unvary-
ing space to all signs alike, whether they
had many points or few, did not follow
the most correct principle of construc-
tion, besides wasting space, which meant
in a book increase of bulk and conse-
quently of cost. The finger, also, like
the eye, ran more easily across the
paper than up and down. He therefore
placed his points so that they read hori-
zontally instead of vertically, and did
away with the fixed cell (Fig. 8, page
380), the result being that a letter made
up of two points occupied one-third as
much room as one composed of six
points, the same space remaining be-
tween the letters as before. The great
advantage of this method will be seen
at a glance by comparing a sentence of
"New York Point," as he modestly called

©o oo
_ o ©

Braille and co-operate to provide books
printed in that system. At that time
the whole country was almost entirely
dependent on the Boston press for
embossed books, and the proj)osal to
change was not accepted. Among oth-
er teachers, however, the New York
Point steadily grew in favor, and at the
first meeting of the American Associ-
ation of Instructors of the Blind, held
at Indianapolis in 1871, the superintend-
ent of the St. Louis school, which had
been the pioneer of Braille in this coun-
try, gave his reasons for preferring Mr.
Wait's system, and after full discussion
a resolution was adopted recommend-
ing that the New York Point should be
taught in all institutions for the edu-
cation of the blind. An important im-
provement in the new system was the
adoption of the principle of recurrence,
as used in shorthand and telegraphy, by
which letters most frequently needed
have the simplest forms. Capitals had
never been used in either of the line
systems, but about that time their ne-
cessity was urged and some publications
were brought out in Philadelphia in
which capitals and small letters ap-
peared in their usual relations. The
combination was certainly not easier to
read than the "lower-case" alone had

382

THE EDUCATION OF THE BLIND.

been, but it was considered an improve-
ment, and in 1878, after Dr. Howe's
death, it was adopted in the Boston
school. It is still used in Philadelphia,
but in 1885 New York Point was also
introduced there and is growing in favor.

Objection having been made to the
New York Point in some quarters, be-
cause it had no capitals nor musical no-
tation, Mr. Wait set himself to provide
both, and in response to a resolution
adopted at the Teachers' Convention
held at Boston in 1872, he produced, the
next year, an effective and rational code
of musical signs, which was at once
placed among the regular branches of
study in a number of the schools. On
page 384 (Fig. 11) is shown a line of
music translated into signs. The nota-
tion includes all the signs necessary for
the transcription of the most difficult
music, and the study of harmony and
counterpoint. It is impossible in such
limited space to give a full and clear
account of a system which has cost so
much time and labor, but the more it
is studied the better suited to its pur-
pose it appears.

Although Braille's written point was
employed by Dr. Howe during his life
to a limited extent, no notice was taken
of the New York Point, nor was it
ever mentioned in his annual reports.
Soon after his death, however, experi-
ments were made in the new direction
by several of his teachers. As the adop-
tion of a method which had not been
endorsed by him would possibly have
seemed to them disloyal to his memory,
they could not profit by the New York
system, and they therefore reverted to
the vertical fixed cell, although modify-
ing the construction of the letters on
the principle of recurrence. That, how-
ever, cannot prevent waste of space if
one dot must have as large a cell as
six, so in the Modified Braille, as it
was called, recourse was had to abbre-
viations. These had purposely been
avoided in New York Point, in order to
limit the number of signs to be learnt,
and in the primary books intended for
children only ten are used — the, and,
of, that, ing, ch, ou, st, th, and wh. In
the published alphabet of Modified
Braille we find forty-nine signs for ab-
breviations, and yet with all their aid

a word may take up more room than if
every letter is written out in New York
Point, because of the Braille cell. We
give an example (Fig. 12, page 385).

As far back as 1858 the Legislature
of Kentucky had established the Amer-
ican Printing House for the Blind, at
Louisville, the object being to have a
central press to which each State should
contribute funds, in order to furnish
books for the various asylums. Some
States responded, but others did not,
and the work dragged along until 1879,
when all the great schools, excej^t Bos-
ton, which had its own press, united in
urging Congress to grant a subsidy for
the maintenance of the Printing House
on an efficient footing. The sum of
$10,000 a year was appropriated for
the purpose, and now nearly all the
printing for the blind throughout the
country is done there. The Printing
House is a curious combination of bus-
iness and charity. It sells as well as
gives away its books, but is forbidden
to make any profit on them. Although
a private corporation, it is subsidized
by the Government, and each superin-
tendent of a public institution for the
education of the blind is by right of his
office one of its trustees. The principals
of institutions form an advisory council,
and decide what books shall be printed
each year, which are divided among the
schools according to the number of their
pupils. At present all the printing is
either in the line system, ^dth capitals
and small letters (the combination start-
ed by Philadelphia in 1871), or else in
New York Point, w^hich was first printed
there in 1874 (Fig. 10, page 383). The
demand for the latter has steadily in-
creased, and in 1882 the superinten-
dents of the various schools voted that,
for the future, fifty per cent, of the
books prmted should be in New York
Point, since which time $50,000 has
been spent in stereotyping plates. An
interesting part of the work of the
Printing House is the weekly issue of
"Internationpl Sunday-school Lessons,"
in duplicate editions of line and point
print, by w^hich two thousand blind chil-
dren in Sunday - schools scattered all
over the country receive their lessons
with text and comment specially edited
for them. It is the expressed opinion

THE EDUCATION OF THE BUND, 383

of Mr. Huntoon, who has been at the neighborhood, as there is another State

head of the Printing House for more School for the BHnd at Batavia. Only

than twenty years, and has therefore had within the walls of the institution can

ample opportunity for study and com- its methods be readil}^ studied. If the

parison, that point is steadil}^ gaining visit is made during a "recess" in

THE ALPHABET.

CAPITAL

LETTERS.

A

B

C

D

E

F

• •
• •

• ••

• •

• • •

•

• •••

•

•
• • •

• • •

•

G

H

I

J

K

L

• •
• ••

• ••
• ••

• •••

•

• ••

• •

• •••

•

• • •

• •

M

N

0

P

Q

R

• •

• ••

• •
• •

•
• ••

• •
• •

• •
•••

• ••

• •

S

T

u

V

w

X

• ••

•

• ••

•

•

• ••

Y

• •

• •

• •

• •

z

• •••

• •

•
•• •

• ••

• ••

SMALL

LETTERS.

a

b

c

d

e

f

gr

h

••

•••

•

••
•

• •
•

•

• ••

•
•••

••
• ••

•

1

J

k

I

m

n

o

P

•
•

• ••

•

• ••

•

•
• •

••
•

••

•
•

•
• •

q

r

s

t

u

V

w

X

•
•••

•
• •

•
•

•

y

•
• •

• ••

z

• ••

• •

• •
•

•
• •

• •

• ••

Fig. 10.—

The

Alphabet

in New York Point.

ground, being bound in time to super- school hours, the long halls are apt to
sede line letters altogether. He regrets, be filled with a crowd of children, chat-
as a trained observer must, that there tering away with the proverbial cheer-
should be any tendency to multiply sys- fulness of the blind, and walking or
tems of point when that of New York, running almost as firmly and freely as
which he considers the simplest, and though they could see. When two or
therefore the best, is already firmly es- three together come straight along, it
fcablished. is instinctive to draw back against a
Anyone who goes about on the west wall or into a doorway, and as they pass
side of New York knows the large and mthin a foot unheeding, it is impossible
somewhat stern gray building which not to have an uncanny feeling that " we
stands back in its grounds at the cor- have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk in-
ner of Thirty-fourth Street and Ninth visible." In the central court-yards, on
Avenue. It is the New York Institu- the boys' side, leap-frog or wrestling are
tion for the Blind, supported by pri- going on ; while in a corner of the girls'
vate endowment and also by the State, play-ground, two of them are turning
which allows $250 a year for each child the rope vigorously, while the third
sent by it, usually from the city or its steps back and forth, waiting to " run

384

THE EDUCATION OF THE BUND.

in " and jump, just as lier luckier sister This is a mistake, for not more than

who can see may be doing in any street five per cent, are born blind, and even

or square outside. Bells take the place that percentage is probably too large,

of clocks in marking time for this dark- as there are several diseases of the eye

ling world, and as they sound the chil- which may destroy the sight within the

dren go to their different class-rooms, first month. It is true, however, that

There are now two hundred and ten the other senses develop highly w^th

pupils in the Institution, the average practice. When all is dark around us

ao'e being about fourteen. They are it is usually also quiet, and our per-

not admitted younger than eight, in ceptions are slackened ; but if anyone

will tie a thick bandage

9 P

9

No.

• • •

• • •

No.

• • •

• • •

8 4th Oct. A

J"

3rd int. 3rd int.

• • •

• • •

0 rep. B A Bar. 3rd Oct, E J. 5th int.

5th int. E

^

rep. rep. 3rd int. dis. 5th int, dis. Bar.

Pig. n. — Passage from Mendelssohn's "Songs without Words," No.
New York Point Musical Notation.

order not to lessen the responsibility
which their parents should always feel
for them, and which is a])t to be lost if
the State takes charge of them too
early. When a child comes, it is put
into the kindergarten, and the first
thing to be done is to teach it to use
its hands and feet properly. The cases
where a blind child is abused at home
are happily rare, and it is more likely
to have been treated as if it could not
possibly do anything for itself. All
movements where balance and equilib-
rium are concerned are hard for it, as
anyone may see who watches the shuf-
fling gait and awkward motions of a
blind person who has grown up un-
taught. To correct this, calisthenics
are largely employed, to the evident de-
light of the children, and for quieter oc-
cupations they weave paper-mats, stitch
outlines of rabbits on card-board, and
follow generally the course of instruc-
tive play which has carried Froebel's
name over the world. People in gen-
eral have a comfortable impression that,
while blindness is a great misfortune,
those afflicted with it have the rest of
their senses so acute from birth that
the loss is almost made up to them.

over his eyes during the
day, when life and move-
ment are going on about
him, he will soon be con-
scious of listening with
painful intentness, and the
other senses, when called
upon, will quicken in their
turn. Many children with
sound eyes shut them
when studying intently,
and the fact that a blind
boy, for instance, is quicker
at arithmetic than one who
can see, does not, in most
cases, mean that he is more
gifted, but that he has less to distract
his attention. The first time that an
outsider sees a large class of blind chil-
dren together he will perhaps be struck
by certain peculiarities of expression.
It is not only that the sightless eyes or
closed lids give the face a blank look,
like a house with the shades drawn
down, but that there may be a dropping
of the jaw, or a wrinkling of the brow,
which does not mean any lack of intel-
ligence, but only that a human being
is forever de23rived of the friendly mir-
ror and monition of other eyes. Good
teachers are always on the alert to cor-
rect these involuntary facial tricks. The
studies and exercises are carefully adapt-
ed to the needs of the pupils. GjTXinas-
tics have an important place, because
physical health and equable muscular
development are especially necessary to
the blind, whose affliction, when not
caused by accident, is often due to inher-
ited disease or constitutional weakness.
Mr. Stephen Babcock, himself blind
from boyhood, has been a highly valued
and valuable teacher of geography and
mathematics in the Institution for the
past thirty years. Formerly pupils
studied geography by passing their fin-

THE EDUCATION OF THE BUND.

385

gers over relief maps hung on the wall,
but the result attained was unsatisfac-
tory, and in 1856 Mr. T. C. Cooper,
who was then superintendent, gave Mr.
Babcock the pieces of an ordinary dis-
sected map, such as children play with,

In music there are seven graded
classes, which are under the general
supervision of Miss Hannah Babcock,
a thorough musician who has been of
the greatest use to Mr. Wait in devel-
oping his system of musical notation.

and asked him to put it together again. The children begin with class singing

This he did readily, and new maps were by ear, and afterward the study of ele-

thereupon made, dissected as well as in mentary harmony and that of the New

relief, and placed on tables, so that each York Point musical notation, which has

country. State, or even county, can be about one hundred and fifty distinct

taken uj) and studied separately. Coast signs, are carried on together. If pu-

lines are raised above the water, river pils show talent they are taught to play

courses are depressed, mountains indi- the piano or the organ, and are also

cated by slight elevations, while screws further instructed in harmony and in

or tacks, with heads of various sizes counterpoint.

and shapes, serve for capitals and other
cities of importance. If it were only
not so pathetic it would be amusing to
see a child sitting in a corner feeling
and stroking Rhode Island or Texas
over and over, as a little girl strokes the
face of her favorite doll. As a result,

The American College of Music is an
incorporated body, counting among its
members some of the foremost musi-
cians and teachers in the country.
There are three degrees, that of Asso-
ciate, Fellow, and Master, which are
conferred in order upon anyone who is

t t h

O OQ O
O©

o ©oo

r e

Q O
OO

b e

OGO O

1

h t

o o

o ©o

© o©o coo o

New York Point unabbreviated.

OO ©

tK er e

o ©

o

o o
o

I

gr

h t

o oo o
o oo ©(

Boston modified Braille with abbreviations.

t tk

1

h t

the children come to know every part able to pass the rigid examinations pre-
of a map by touch, and when it is all scribed. Henry Tschudi, a boy of sev-
jumbled up they can sort
and fit it together again
with wonderful quickness.
The distribution of land
and water, and the politi-
cal divisions of the eastern
and western hemispheres
are shown upon plani-
sphere maps five feet in
diameter, which revolve on
a vertical axis, while the
earth is represented by
large globes with brass
meridians and raised equa-
tors marked off in degrees.
Mental arithmetic is
much employed, although
there are text-books in the
classes ; and for the solu-
tion of problems in advanced arithmetic enteen, blind from birth and educated
or algebra, which are too long and com- in the Institution, passed his examina-
plicated to be carried in the memory, tion in June, 1891, in harmonj^, coun-
• types are used. On each end of the type terpoint, the history of music, musical
cube is a number, letter, or other aritli- form, terminology, acoustics, and the
metical symbol. The numerals are shown theory and practice of the organ. It
in Fig. 13, page 386. These, with the was necessary for the candidate to play
point letters of the New York system, at command compositions by Bach,
furnish the means for algebraic work. Handel, Mendelssohn, and other com-
The types are adjusted in a frame or slate posers, in polyphonic sonata, and free
of metal filled with square holes, which is forms, also to transpose, to harmonize
almost the same as that invented nearly a figured bass, improvise upon a given
two hundred years ago by Saunderson. theme, and to determine the pitch of

'Q OO'O
OQ O

OO O

©O ©©

©CO OO

oo o ©oo OOO o

New York Point with abbreviations.

Fig. 12.

386

THE EDUCATION OF THE BUND.

tones by ear. The demonstrative ex-
amination at the organ was conducted
by ]\Ir. S. P. Warren, Mr. George E.
Whiting, and Mr. J. B. Whitney, and
Tschudi received 92.80 per cent., being
the first blind person to pass this ex-
amination. Except in acoustics, his
teacher in all these branches was Miss
Babcock, and his case may be regarded
not only as a proof of signal ability,
but as a triumj^h of scientific teaching.
Another pupil of whom the Institu-
tion is justly proud is Mr. Lewis B.
Carll, also born blind, who was prepared
for Columbia College in the English
branches within its walls. On leaving
it, he studied the classics at Fairchild's
Institute at Flushing, Long Island,
near his home. A fellow-pupil dictated
to him Latin or Greek, and he printed

and after leaving it he found great dif-
ficulty in procuring anything which
would settle the matter in his mind.
Having collected all the available in-
formation, he decided that there was
need for a new treatise on the sul)ject,
but the necessary material was widely
scattered through mathematical jour-
nals, many of them being in French or
German. These he had translated to
him, and he worked out the equations
by himself, taking nothing for granted.
With infinite pains and patience he
succeeded in -^Titing an exhaustive
treatise, for which, after some difficulty,
he found a publisher, on condition that
a certain number of subscribers were
guaranteed. These he secured himself,
going about the cit}' for the purpose,
sometimes with a companion, but often

a

6

8 O

Fig. 13.

o

T l-±H V>A< LD

the text in New York Point. In writ-
ing Latin he, of course, used English
letters, but for Greek he invented his
own symbols. He could print about
twenty-five lines of Virgil in an hour,
and almost as much Greek, and dvir-
ing his college course he printed more
than three thousand sheets. His math-
ematics were also read to him, and in
geometry his diagrams were made in
point b}^ a brother who could see, and
Carll then learnt them by touch. With
a firm mind and steady enthusiasm he
worked on and brought to college with
him his point - printed classics and
mathematics. He rarely needed a dia-
gram for a proposition in geometr}^,
for so accurate was his understanding
of the theorem to be proved, and so
precise his mental perception of the fig-
ure in all its parts, that he could make
the whole demonstration orally with
perfecty3learness.

Mr. Carll graduated from Columbia
in 1870, being a classmate of the pres-
ent President, Mr. Low, and was brack-
eted for second place in a class of
thirty. He also delivered the class ora-
tion. While in college he became cu-
rious about the Calculus of Variations,

alone. It was a fitting reward for so
much pluck and perseverance that the
book should have been well received,
and another edition already issued, of
which the larger part has been sent to
England. Mr. Carll now lectures at
Columbia College twice a week, to grad-
uates, on the Calculus of Variations,
and suj^ports himself by giving lessons
in mathematics. He lives in New Jer-
sey, and comes to New York every day
alone, going sometimes as far as Har-
lem.

It seems as though it were only in a
few such cases of brilliant talent that
there can be any real competition be-
tween the blind and the seeing ; but a
blind child, like one who has lost an
arm or leg, may learn to make the most
of what is left to him, and to that end
the work-rooms of the Institution claim
their full share of each da}^ The boys
are taught to make mattrasses, to cane
chairs, and if they have ear and brain
enough to be tuners there are models
by which they may become familiar
with the anatomy of the piano. The
girls learn to knit and sew by hand and
on machines ; they embroider and make
coarse lace, and are also taught cooking

DEATH AT DAYBREAK.

387

on little gas-stoves. Not long ago one
of them had to go home because her
mother was ill, and on her return she
was heard to say, half in joke and half
in earnest : " It was a bad day for me
when I learnt to cook, for I was kept
at it all the time."

The list which is kept of the occupa-
tions followed by pupils after they leave
the school gives some curious reading.
One of the tuners in Steinway's ware-
rooms is a graduate, and another was
for years the organist of Dr. Howard
Crosby's church. An insurance broker,
a prosj^erous news-vender who owns
three stalls, a horse-dealer, a tax-col-

lector, a real-estate agent, a florist, are
all duly recorded ; but the most aston-
ishing entries are those of a lumberman,
a sailor and cook, and a switch-tender.
Once outside the walls of the Institu-
tion the puj^ils find their own level
according to their ability ; but wherever
they may go they always keep a friendly
feeling for the teachers who have liter-
ally led them forth, so far as may be,
from the shadow of a great darkness,
and these in their turn are repaid for
hours of patient drudgery by the knowl-
edge that they have helped to turn a
useless creature into a man or woman
for whom there is a place in the world.

DEATH AT DAYBREAK.

By Anne Reeve Aldrich.

I SHALL go out when the light comes in,
There lie my cast-off form and face ;

I shall pass Dawn on her way to earth
As I seek for a path through space.

I shall go out when the light comes in,
Would I might take one ray with me ;

It is blackest night between the worlds,
And how is a soul to see?

♦*» Miss Anne Eeeve Aldrich, (some of whose poems it has been the privilege of this Magazine to publish during
the last three years, and the beauty, promise, and even gen: us of whose more ambitious verse will need no added tes-
timony as her earlier and her now forthcoming volumes become more widelv known, died on June 2S. 1892. at the
age of twenty-six. The poem here printed was dictated during her brief illness, and when she was unable to write.
iShe died just before daybreak.

HISTORIC moments:

THE ATTAINMENT OF THE HIGHEST NORTH.

By D. L. Brainard, Lieutenant, U. S. Army,

" Their energy accomplished the Farthest Nohth ;
Their fidelity wrought out success ;
Their courage faced death undauntedly."

— Dedication of ''Three Years of Arctic Service."

IGHT years ago
two telegrams sped
from the foggy
coast of Newfound-
land, under sea and
over land, to Wash-
ington. Terse and
brief as are all offi-
cial messages, the
substance of these
moved the entire civilized world. In or-
der of sending. Lieutenant (now Gen-
eral) Greely showed his soldierly in-
stincts. The first, the psean of victory,
recited that for the first time in three
centuries another nation than England
claimed the honor of the "Farthest
North ; " that the designated set of sci-
entific observations had been made, the
interior of Grinnell Land explored, the
Western Polar Sea reached, the known
coast of Greenland extended many
scores of miles northward, that Lock-
wood and Brainard had reached 83°
24' N., and that all records and impor-
tant instruments were safely returned.
The second— a record of determina-
tion, death, and sorrow — outlined the
fate of the expedition which, when safe-
ly arrived at the appointed rendezvous,
learned that one vessel had been ship-
wrecked and its consort had fled south-
ward without landing supplies. With
travel-worn clothing, without shelter,
with a month's food only, and without
fuel, the party built huts of stone and
snow, scoured the ice-covered land and
dredged the barren sea for possible
food, and fought unrelenting fate to
such avail that death waited five months
for its first victim, and when, on mid-
summer day, Schley's squadron came,
with the Scotch whalers at its heels, six
men yet lived.

Amazement at the extreme sufferings

endured, regret for the dead, and com-
passion for the living, were then the
dominant sentiments of the world.
Only later and slowly has grown the
realization that the Lady Franklin Bay,
or, as it is popularly known, the Greely
Expedition, was the most successful,
scientifically and geographically, of all
modern Arctic efforts.

Its five thousand square miles of
unknow^n land added to the surveyed
world ; its continuous sledging during
every month excepting December and
January ; its two years' healthy life
through winters of unprecedented se-
verity at the coldest known spot of the
globe ; its endurance of two terrible
polar nights, each of more than four
months of continuous darkness, and its
boat retreat of over four hundred miles
through a moving ice-pack, were accom-
plished without scurvy or other malady,
without death, and even without the
disabling of an individual.

Time moves so fast ! To-day, judg-
ing from the demand of Scribner's Ma-
gazine, these events have become his-
tory ; and as the only living survivor
I record the details of one episode, that
of the "Highest North."

To do this intelligently requires pre-
liminary remarks. The Greely Expe-
dition, organized under an Act of
Congress, rendezvoused at St. John's,
Newfoundland, w^hence it sailed July 7,
1881, in the steamer Proteus. Touch-
ing for dogs and native drivers at the
Greenland ports, the party landed, Au-
gust 12th, on the shores of Discovery
Bay, wdthin five hundred and twenty-
four miles of the North Pole.

The stores landed, according to pro-
gramme the Proteus returned to New-
foundland, leaving the party of twenty-
five selected officers and men to do

THE ATTAINMENT OF THE HIGHEST NORTH.

389

their scientific work and await a visit-
ing vessel in 1882.

Small parties were despatched in va-
rious directions in order to ascertain
the resources of the country, and by
dint of hard continuous labor, involv-
ing great physical suffering, provisions
were cached at several points, so as to
facilitate the work of exploration the
following spring. The return of the
sun, after four months' absence, found
us already in the field. During the
long period of darkness Lieutenant
Greely formulated a comprehensive
scheme of exploration, covering three
different directions. To Lieutenant
Lockwood was assigned the northwest
coast of Greenland, and that officer was
directed to assume complete charge of
the field work, utilizing the caches al-
ready established, and having at his
disposal nearly every available man of
the command. In February and March
preliminary journeys were made during
unprecedented cold, from which were
derived experiences in practical field
work which later proved invaluable.

On April 3, 1882, as Lieutenant Lock-
wood's second in command, I started
from the home station. Fort Conger,
dragging, with nine men, the main
sledges. The party consisted of Bie-
derbick, Connell, Frederick, Henry,
Elison, Linn, Ralston, Salor, and Whis-
ler. Lieutenant Lockwood, with the
dog sledge, followed next day, with
Jewell and the Eskimo driver, Thorlip
Christiansen. Henry, Connell, Whis-
ler, and Biederbick, in the order named,
disabled in various ways, were soon
ordered to return to the home camp,
which they did safely, Connell, and
Biederbick lamenting and protesting
against their relief.

By April 29th, largely aided to this
point by the magnificent work of our
English predecessors under Lieutenant
Beaumont, R. N., the members of our
party were at Cape Bryant, looking
across the frozen sea to the yet untrod-
den land of Cape Britannia. Our jour-
ney hither had been marked by terrible
sufferings attendant on very low tem-
peratures (sometimes from seventy to
ninety degrees below freezing), high
winds, frequent snow-storms, almost
impassable ice, which conditions were
Vol. XII.— 43

aggravated by fireless camps, stinted
water, and a field ration calculated to
barely sustain us.

Lieutenant Lockwood decided that
the party must divide ; two, Thorlip
and I, to go with him, and the rest re-
turn to Polaris Boat Camp and await
our coming. We struck northward ;
while, envious and disconsolate, the
unhappy five turned southward.

But we carried them northward in
our hearts, knowing that to their ardu-
ous labors, almost superhuman efforts,
cheerful sufferings, enthusiasm, and
ingenious shifts, were to be attributed
our prospective successes. Only Lock-
wood, Thorlip, and I trod the ground
of the " Highest North," and gazed en-
raptured on its mystery ; but none the
less, the " Farthest North " was made
through the uncomplaining labors of
the Frenchman, Salor, the German, Eli-
son, and the Americans, Frederick,
Jewell, and Linn.

Lieutenant Greely, as a matter of
course, by his many excellent directions
touching the health and conduct of the
men in the field, and by his carefully
considered plan for the work of explo-
ration, embracing as it did innumerable
minor details, contributed primarily to
the success of our undertaking.

I pass by Cape Britannia, wdth its
mountain cliffs, whence radiate occa-
sional glaciers, and enormous fiords ;
Cape Benet, with its plenteous animal
life, and Low Point, equal in latitude
to the highest land ever before trod —
Cape Columbia, 83° 7' N., by Aldrich,
R. N., 1876. Onward we pushed, hav-
ing the most northerly land under our
feet, but seeking yet highest of land or
sea.

Fatigue, thirst, hunger, cold, and even
heat at times, beset us. Each camp
found us physically exhausted, and as-
tronomical observations broke up and
denied recuperating sleep. We scanted
our food, and with envious regretful
eyes saw each bit disappear, since it
shortened the length of our possible
journey northward.

Finally the coveted honor was in
sight, and almost within our grasp,
when an unexpected Arctic gale set in,
just as we were to reach out and take
it, and detained us sixty long and

390

THE ATTAINMENT OF THE HIGHEST NORTH,

weary hours. It was a wretcliod tiny
island, quite out in the Polar Ocean,
where the fury of the gale fell on us.

Lieutenant Lockwood named this
island after a sister, Mary Murray. In
shape it resembled a lady's French shoe.
The land was a narrow, rocky ridge,
rising only a few hundred feet above
the frozen Polar Ocean, over which it
had held guard these centuries ; while
its northern shore, with precipitous
cliffs, showed how constantly and suc-
cessfully the paleocrystic ice was grind-
ing awa}^ its rocky face. In every cranny
of the half-bare vales were signs of
scanty herbage, plentiful enough to at-
tract hares, snow - buntings, and lem-
ming, very much to the gratification of
one of our dogs, which swallowed a
fleeing lemming quite alive and whole
before I could rescue him as a specimen.

The starved condition of our dogs at
this time will be more fully appreciated
by the following incident, reproduced
from Lieutenant Lockwood's journal in
" Three Years of Arctic Service : " "As
I awoke, a small piece of pemmican (our
only remaining dog-food) was slowly but
surely moving out of the tent. The phe-
nomenon astonished me, and, rubbing
my eyes, I looked more carefully, and
saw Ritenbenk's head without his body,
and found that his teeth, fixed in one
corner of the sack, were the motive
power. His eyes were fixed steadily on
me, but head, eyes, and teeth vanished
as I looked. He had burrowed a hole
through the snow and had inserted his
head just far enough into the tent to
lay hold of a corner of the sack. The
whole pack are ravenous, and eat any-
thing and everything, which means sub-
stantially nothing in this case."

Ritenbenk was a wonderful fellow.
Having by reason of his great strength
and superior intelligence gained the
supremacy of the team, he became king-
dog and the leader in all schemes hav-
ing for their object the stealing of our
provisions. One day having stolen a
ptarmigan, which had been placed for
safety on the ridge-pole of the tent,
he lay down, apparently without any
qualms of conscience, and began com-
placently to eat it. I rushed at him,
having in my hand a spade, with which
I expected to drive him from our pro-

spective dinner, l)ut he was not the ab-
ject coward I had pictured. With a
growl of defiance he stood immovable,
his sturdy legs spread wide apart, and
his great bold eyes looking squarely
into mine. I could have crushed his
skull with a blow, but my admiration
for his courage overcame all other feel-
ings, and throwing aside the spade I
called him by his familiar name, " Rit,"
when he trotted vq) and rubbed his
head confidingly against my knee.

Imagine, if you can, our j^hysical and
mental strain during this storm -stress
camp of sixty hours. A high wind,
with a temperature twenty-four degrees
below freezing reduced our feet to a
condition not unlike a piece of ice.
We frequently changed our foot-gear,
and rubbed our feet briskly with our
warm hands, but to no purpose. The
loss of time meant many miles of travel.
How could we meet it ? We must
either fast ourselves, or kill one of our
faithful team. We decided to fast first
and spare them for a greater emer-
gency.^

Again and again the face of the sky
was scanned with ill success. Again and
again we ate with mental anguish, and
at intervals of fifteen, twenty-four, and
then later, nineteen hours, just as we
started. It was not travelling weath-
er when camp was broken. The mid-
night sun (it was 12.30 a.m., May 13th)
could just be seen as a dim grease- spot
through the snow-filled gusts of the dy-
ing storm, but anything was preferable
to longer delay.

The trend of the land was still to
the northeast, and our goal a bold,
lofty promontory some sixteen miles
distant. Deep snow and rubble-ice
caused almost constant struggles of
dogs and men till we paused a moment
almost exhausted at Caj^e Neumayer.
Here, as usual, the sheer, bold face of
the out jutting headland was covered
with immense quantities of heavy,
broken ice-floes, pushed up many feet
high. Time v^ as too precious to make
a detour seaward, so we tried the direct
way, only to find ourselves on the edge
of a precipitous ice-cliff, too high for
safe descent. Dogs were freed from
the toggles, and the sled, by main
strength of us all, was with great diffi-

THE ATTAINMENT OF THE HIGHEST NORTH.

391

culty lowered to the main ice - floe.
Had the load been heavy it would have
been impossible, but the few rations
rendered it otherwise. A bewildering
tangle of rubble-ice drove us hither
and thither, and in endeavoring to ex-
tricate the sledge therefrom a new
danger beset us, the tidal-crack, which
had appeared at several points farther
south, now wound in and out along the
shore. Cross it we must again and
again, and once, but for the shrill call of
the Eskimo and the crack of the whip,
dogs, sledge, and men would have been
engulfed through the thin ice at the
rising margin of the further side.

On entering Weyprecht Inlet, a bold,
magnificent mountain (Mount Schley)
rose on its northern side some four
thousand feet, making it seem like a
giant dominating a group of lesser
peaks. Toward the ocean this fringe
of mountains fell away in gradual
slopes, terminating in a splendid head-
land, which was destined to be the end
of our northern journey. The deep
intervening snow made the way seem
endless, but finally and exhausted we
reached the caj)e at 11.35 a.m., May
13th. Our provisions were nearly ex-
hausted, and we knew that our feet now
pressed a more northerly land than
had ever before been touched by the
foot of man ; indeed more northern
land than was even sujDposed to exist.
Two days were at our disposal ; should
we go yet another day to the north-
ward, or should we tarry here as our
orders demanded ?

Lieutenant Lockwood, as always loyal
to his chief, decided most regretfully
that it was our duty to remain at this
point long enough to make physical
observations, obtain specimens, and to
determine, in a most satisfactory man-
ner, our astronomical position. The
order of Lieutenant Greely, that "at
least one day will be spent in determin-
ing accurately your position," was im-
perative upon this point, and while
sorely tempted to question it then, yet
events subsequent to our return justi-
fied the wisdom of this order as of
others. But for this we would have
pushed forward another day and could
then have determined our latitude, as
all our predecessors had done, by a

meridian altitude, a method whereb}'
the resulting latitude depends on the
skill, and, it may be added, on the con-
science, of the observer at the moment.
Such observations have been more than
once questioned^ but our own j)Osition,
dependent on more than a score of sep-
arate observations, stands undoubted.

Realizing that this was indeed the
" Farthest North," we unfurled the flag
of our country, tlie glorious Stars and
Stripes, with a feeling of pride and ex-
ultation impossible to describe. Lieu-
tenant Lockwood and I seized each
other's hands again and again for very
joy, and hugged the Eskimo Thorlijj,
who, gaping at us, wondered what it
all meant. The physical hardshij) from
many days travel through heavy gales
and blinding snow over jagged rub-
ble-ice and across dangerous tidal-
cracks was all behind us, and the men-
tal strain which marked our groping
journey along an unknown rugged
coast, showing itself to us only in mo-
mentary glimpses, had also passed.
Could it be wondered that our spirits
rose to a point beyond the j)ower of
words? Again and again we looked
about us, so as to fully realize that the
coveted honor had been won by our
little party. Was it possible that we
had indeed surpassed all their efforts,
the efforts of all our English brothers
who for three hundred years, by dint of
energy, courage, and perseverance had
held the supremacy of the " Farthest
North ? "

Nature soon called for rest, and such
was our elation that the little tent
seemed commodious, and the howling
storm, now recommenced, almost sang a
sweet strain. Thorlip w^aked first, and
delighted called our attention to a little
snow-bunting which jDaid us a brief
visit in the driving storm, fluttering
about the tent and uttering its cheerful
chirp for our delight.

Fortunately the storm j^assed, and
by 2 P.M. of May 15th the final observa-
tion was made which determined our
position to be in latitude 83° 24' N.,
longitude 40° 4G' W.

Our visit must leave behind it some
trace and record of our presence. It
stands — a massive cairn of rocks com-
mensurate in size to its importance —

392

THE ATTAINMENT OF THE HIGHEST NORTH.

built on a narrow shelf, directly under
the frowninj^^ face of the overhanging
cape. It contains a record of our jour-
ney, and a niininium thermometer.
While it looks out over the eternal
silence of the Polar Ocean, it is so
placed that no future traveller can fail
to observe it.

But if the foot of man had never
before trodden this northern land, it
was yet a habitat of birds and beasts.
Too early for the sea-fowl, ptarmigan
and snow-bunting were seen, and the
freshly fallen snow was here and there
dotted with numerous traces of the
arctic fox, the snowy lemming, and the
polar hare.

While Thorlip remained in camp to
prevent the starving dogs from devour-
ing our equipments, Lieutenant Lock-
wood and I climbed with difficulty to
the very summit of the cape, whence
we hoped to obtain a more extended
and definite view to the east and south,
and, who can tell, perchance to see far
northward in the Polar Ocean a new
and unknown land. The top of the
cape was a very narrow plateau about
two thousand six hundred feet above
the sea. Mount Schley concealed the
mountains behind it, but in other quar-
ters the scene was most magnificent and
impressive. First of all we turned our
gaze toward the direction our hearts
had gone, toward the north. Here was
the Polar Ocean, a vast unbroken ex-
panse of heavy ice, unmarked, how-
ever, by any bergs, flat-topped or
otherwise. Immovable under the do-
minion of frost it impressed us only
by its gloomy solitude. The ice was
apparently rubble, and the absence of
paleocrystic floes particularly noticea-
ble. Full sixty miles to the northward
the horizon stood out clearly, but to
our disappointment neither signs of the
hoped-for land nor traces of an open
Polar Sea were visible.

Eight miles to the northeast a point
(Cape Kane) was visible, with an inter-
vening fiord, which probably joining
Weyprecht Inlet made our land an
island. This land Lieutenant Greely
later named, in honor of its discoverer,
Lockwood Island. Beyond Cape Kane
another point (Cape Washington), some
fifteen miles distant, and separated by

another fiord, projected yet more to
the north. Looking beyond these two
capes, in the extreme northeast, ap-
peared a low, faint, blue line stretching
to the north. At first it gave the im-
pression of land, but the light haze in
that quarter forbade its certainty, and
we decided to chart no such legend as
" signs of land here."

Southward the interior was the em-
bodiment of icy desolation, a confused
mass of snow-capped peaks separated
by entering fiords. To the southwest
our travelled route lay clear before us,
the dark outlines of Mary Murray Isl-
and and the bold capes of Neumayer
and Christiansen being particularly
conspicuous.

A small cairn was hastily erected, in
which a tin case containing our record
was placed by Lieutenant Lockwood ;
then, as a light fog sj^rung up in the
northeast, we took our last lingering
glance at the northern horizon, and
sighed to think it was only some three
hundred and thirty - six geographical
miles from the North Pole.

In closing this sketch I cannot re-
frain from briefly commenting on my
companions. Lieutenant Lockwood,
the leader to the "Farthest North," was
a noble man. In character he was as
gentle as a woman, but whatever there
is of bravery, truth, and steadfastness,
these all pertain to him. His ambition
is shown by his own words : " My great
wish is to accomplish something on the
north coast of Greenland that will re-
flect credit on myself and on the ex-
pedition." He never separated himseK
from the expedition even in thought, and
he sought not for honors that should
inure to his benefit onl}^ His zeal and
devotion are beyond description. They
had their just reward in a success far
beyond his brightest dreams, so that his
geographical work stands as an imper-
ishable monument to his memor3^

The skill and endurance of our Eski-
mo dog-driver, Frederik Thorlip Chris-
tiansen, were important aids to our
success. He understood and appre-
ciated not the import of the " Farthest
North," but none the less he did what
he had pledged his word to, his best for
the Americans. Loyalty, fidelity, truth-
fulness, these w^ere his characteristics.

imn

THE POINT OF VIEW.

PoPDiiARiTY as a test of merit in a work
of art — or of nature for that matter — is vari-
ously estimated. I think that of late years
there has been a decided tendency to con-
sider it as a legitimate talisman in indicat-
ing the worth of whatever is weighed by it,
from human character to the last new farce
or juvenile book. On the part of catholic-
minded observers, certainly, there has been
a growing resentment at the tyranny of the
critical " remnant " — a growing impatience
at the intolerant sniffing of the fastidious
raffine to whom popularity is, ipso facto, a
witness of inferiority. Intelligent people
— particularly in our own democratic envi-
ronment— are impatient with the dilettante
spirit that disesteems a " magnetic" states-
man because he is " magnetic," a picture of
instant and universal appeal for the reason
that it is immediately and widely popular,
a play, a book, a building, or an opera in
proportion to its success with the mul-
titude. Something of value, it is felt,
must be possessed by whatever unites in its
favor the spontaneous suffrages of the un-
biassed though inexpert, the sensitive
though not professional public. There
may be such a thing as bad, but there can
be no such thing as good, luck. And it is
caustically noted that the dilettanti who are
constantly lauding the succes d'estime of
others, would always be willing to see their
own supplemented, and as speedily as possi-
ble, by a succes populaire. To the student
who observed to President Wayland — if I
remember rightly — that he didn't think the
manufacture of proverbs such as those of
Vol. XIL— 44

Solomon a very difficult matter, his in-
structor replied, Make a few.

The truth, I imagine, lies, where Aristotle
placed all virtue, in a mean between the
two extremes. If a thing is not bad be-
cause it is popular, neither because it is
popular is it necessarily good. And for this
reason : true critical appreciation of any-
thing demands almost as much effort as the
creation of the thing itself. Of course the
idea of effort is absolutely incongruous with
purely popular appreciation. Purely popu-
lar appreciation is wholly governed by feel-
ing, and by feeling in a state of complete
relaxation. It not only never occurs to it
to apply any critical standard^ in the mak-
ing up of its impressions, but its impres-
sions themselves are sketched on a back-
ground of the most absolute irresponsibility.
According to Spinoza, the two chief banes
of humanity are conceit and consequent in-
dolence ; and, in the nature of things, if pop-
ular appreciation is distinguished by any-
thing more than the self-conceit which it
shares with the dilettanti, it is distinguished
by laziness. Criticism is very likely the
least of the exact sciences, and indeed un-
worthy to be reckoned of their family ; but
any expression of opinion whatever is criti-
cism, and the criticism that is based on
culture, on reflection, on comparison, on
intellectual effort in a word, is obviously
superior to that which is purely instinctive.
The public says in its consecrated jargon,
** I know nothing about this or that, but I
know what I like," suppressing the pre-
mise, very consciously held, nevertheless,

394

THE POINT OF VIEW.

that whatever a lot of people like must
be good. The answer to this is, imitating
Johnson, ** \Yliat you like may be good, but
it is impossible that you should know it,"
for you have never taken any pains to find
out whether what you like is good or not,
and that is a discovery that requires very
great pains indeed. Reasoning inductively
and citing instances in which the critics
were wrong and the public right is an in-
terminable process. But a priori, at all
events, either criticism is absolutely value-
less, or else the criticism that involves men-
tal effort is more trustworthy than that
which merely " knows what it likes." And,
indeed, I fancy that the crying fault of ex-
pert criticism — its narrowness, namely — is
a still more integral defect of the criticism
of ignorance and indolence ; by which, of
course, I don't mean that a pedant is a bet-
ter critic than an intelligent amateur.

Theke is one change in our political cus-
toms that I am inclined to think is about to
take place, if it may not be said already to
have begun, the completing of which every-
body who cares for the rational working of
our system will ardently desire, and possi-
bly labor to promote. This is the exclu-
sion from the meeting-places of our great
political conventions of the noisy crowd in
the galleries. It has become, of late years,
an intolerable evil, of which the ordinary
citizen, who takes his ticket as it is pre-
sented to him and sincerely supports it as
embodying the principles or the policy that
he desires, has little conception. Perhaps
I may venture here — where partisan impli-
cation even is forbidden — to give an in-
stance of the influence of the gallery that
is old enough to awaken no passions, and
in which, as the event proved, the influence
was not evil. Colonel McClure, in his very
interesting reminiscences of Lincoln, as-
cribes the nomination of the great Presi-
dent to the fact that while Mr. Seward's
friends were engaged in an imposing street
parade on the morning the balloting was to
begin, Mr. Lincoln's friends quietly filled
the vast wigwam with a crowd who "raised
the roof" whenever the name of the " rail-
splitter " was mentioned. Now there is much
evidence that a like stratagem was employed
this year in at least one of the great party
conventions. But it failed. The candidate

against whom the sh outers were shouting
was nominated. The fact is interesting, not
so much for any efi'ect upon the X)ending
campaign as for its value as an indication
of the evolution of popular government in
the American Republic — a matter infinitely
of more importance than the immediate re-
sult of the electoral contest. It shows, I
am persuaded, the progress of what I may
call responsible methods of party action,
and responsibility in these methods is the
condition precedent to an intelligent and
intelligible expression of the popular pur-
pose. Certainly the party *' machines" are
arbitrary enough, and enough exposed to
abuse, but they are a stage higher than the
howling mob in the gallery.

With this change, and along the same
lines, must be considered on the one hand
the steady withdrawal of the subordinate
public offices from among the prizes of
party success, and on the other the steady
advance of the really secret ballot, by which
every voter not only can but must express
— however it is reached — his personal pref-
erence. These things seem to me worth
noting as evidence that the American peo-
ple do fairly adapt their institutions, de-
spite great difficulties, to changing condi-
tions.

A NOTION undoubtedly is abroad that the
creative artist to-day talks overmuch of his
own afi'airs. He would do better, it begins
to be thought, to mind more closely his
proper work, and leave the codification of
the laws of artistic creation, and the framing
of subtle commentaries thereon, to work-
men of another sort. In his zeal to enforce
a theory, it is felt he forgets himself, and,
subordinating creation to dogma, sets his
art upon some raw-boned, headstrong hob-
by, that too often canters the poor maid
into a sorry heap of tatters and dishevelled
locks.

And out of this notion, no doubt, visions
begin to arise of a perfect day gone by,
when the creative artist was not subject to
this modern foible, and maintained his cre-
ative faculty in such unfailing supremacy
that it wrought only its true and excellent
work. Given the notion, one may safely
assume the visions ; for under what sense
of present deficiency does there not lurk a
fancy, stronger or weaker, of perfection in

THE POINT OF VIEW.

395

the past? But, after all, the difference be-
tween present and past is much nari-ower,
in most particulars, than we are wont to
think ; and very likely it is so in this one.

Of course, the dogmatizing artist, when
his art is letters and of the English branch,
can be confronted with Shakespeare — al-
ways our first witness in literary contro-
versies. Certainly Shakespeare did not
waste time discoursing in reviews, or chat-
ting through interviewers, on the peculi-
arities of his way of writing plays and the
superiority of his over the ways of other
men. But, then, who knows that this in
Shakespeare was wholly moral strength,
and that, had he lived under the temptation
of editorial checks in three figures for a
few pages over a great name, even he would
have preserved his admirable reserve on
questions of " shop ? " Without this temp-
tation, a number of his '* esteemed contem-
poraries," very considerable creators too,
did not scruple to publish strict theories
by all the means open to them, and to
make the play a sort of tract for popular-
izing the dogma.

Really the difference here in question is
not of times at all, but of individuals. The
creative faculty works effectively only in
alliance with the critical. Every artist is
endowed somewhat with both, and none but
must have his theories, his set of princi-
ples. Whether his theories, his set of prin-
ciples, shall become a dogma with him, a
thing of itself to proclaim and fight for, will
depend on the relative strength of the two
faculties in each individual. If the pre-
dominant faculty be the creative, the crit-
ical serving it as a humble and scarcely no-
ticed guide, you shall have few or no words
from the artist as to method. If, on the
other hand, the critical be the predominant
one, method will acquire in the artist's
esteem a corresponding predominance.

Sometimes, where the intellectual force
is pretty evenly apportioned between the
two faculties, they set up a sort of rotation
of the sovereignty, each holding supremacy
by turns. It is by the grace of some such
accommodation as this that we have in-
stances of artists who hold and urge theo-
ries to the point of mania, and yet achieve
creation of the very highest order. Field-
ing, for example, turned to writing novels
under the supremacy, not of the creative.

but of the critical faculty, intending at first
nothing but criticism on Richardson. Un-
der the returning sway of the other faculty,
the creative, this criticism took the form
of fable, and Fielding set out to make in
"Joseph Andrews" a simple burlesque of
** Pamela." But the creative faculty com-
ing, with the progress of the work, into
almost exclusive dominion, criticism of
Richardson was quite lost sight of, and
** Joseph Andrews" became, instead of a
joke and a gibe, an independent and orig-
inal creation. But it still bears traces, and
others of Fielding's novels bear traces, of
the conflict of the two faculties in him.
He obtruded discourses on method that,
while interesting, are strictly a blemish in
artistic portrayals.

A yet more striking example is Words-
worth. Under the full supremacy of the
creative faculty, he produced poetry of such
excellence that he is ranked among the first
five or six poets of modern times. But this
is scarcely a fourth of the whole body of
his production ; and the rest is so tainted
by theory run mad as to be almost valueless
and in parts positively ludicrous.

With such instances as these to keep us
in heart, we need not grow hopeless before
any present disposition of the creative ar-
tist to air his notions. It is clear that he
may be very much of a dogmatist, and still
remain capable of supreme creation ; though
his being a dogmatist must, as far as it
goes, be always a hinderance to him.

Three hundred years ago, on the 25th of
next November, a bill passed the Legislature
of Massachusetts providing that a repre-
sentative must reside in the place he repre-
sented. Speaking of this bill in his recent
"Life of Cotton Mather," Professor Bar-
rett Wendell says :

* ' To all appearances a mere political de-
vice for strengthening the power of the
government at a given moment, it has
proved the most mischievous measure in
the whole madcap history of American leg-
islation. ... It has been followed in
practice throughout America ; as a conse-
quence, no American constituency is able
to-day to elect a competent representative
unless, by the blessing of providence, a
competent person happens to reside among
them. And as, in the nature of things, the

396

THE POINT OF VIEW.

most able men generally congregate in large
cities, the greater part of every American
legislature is composed of men personally
insignificant."

It would seem, if Professor Wendell's
animadversions are well founded, that the
cities, having the most able men, ought to
be better governed in their local affairs than
the country. On the contrary, we have
grown accustomed to the assurance that
defective administration of municipal affairs
is the most vociferous flaw in our system of
government. So far as this is true, it is
partly due to the ability of the country dis-
tricts to get along with very much less
local government than the cities, but all
the reformers are agreed that it is also at-
tributable to the difficulty in getting the
most competent and desirable city men to
take a practical interest in politics.

But if city men cannot be induced to do
their share in their own local government,
is it reasonably supposable that they would
exert themselves as representatives in State
or national legislatures of country districts
about which they were not personally con-
cerned ?

There is not so much mischief in the res-
idential qualification that Professor Wen-
dell condemns as he supposes. The rule
would have given way long ago if there
had been reason enough to abolish it.
When there is a visible surplus of available
city men who are willing to help govern,
and give practical evidence of their willing-
ness and their capacity to be useful, it will
be time enough to stir in the matter of find-
ing them constituencies. At present the
trouble is rather that the most competent
city men are too busy, either with business
or pleasure, to give even a small share of
their time to politics. Others who are
competent and might be willing complain
that the chance to be useful in the public
service is too small to be worth the sacrifice
it would make necessary. Public life in
this country must grow much more attrac-
tive to first-rate men, before the residential
qualification works any serious damage.

It is a question that depends a good deal
upon the point of view, whether considera-
tion for women in public places be not van-
ishing as a characteristic of American men.

There are those who insist that it is not,
but I fear that their point of view is not
that of the passenger in the conveyances or
on the streets of our large cities. To one
who is daily forced to observation in this
extensive field there is little chance for
doubt. It is not that women do not re-
ceive the prompt and unfailing courtesy
that was formerly accorded to them, but
they are treated with a cool and impudent
rudeness, with a lack, not merely of gentle-
ness, but of respect, that I believe would
have been impossible to our fathers. They
are not only allowed to stand in public
vehicles when men are seated, but they are
subjected, in ways that it is as needless as
it would be offensive to describe, to annoy-
ance, and, not to put too fine a point on it,
to insult. '' Time beyond which the mem-
ory of man runneth not " is not required to
bridge the interval between the present and
the days when these things were impossi-
ble. We do not need to go back to the anie-
bellum period to recall a state of public
opinion, for instance, that would have made
drunkenness and foul language in the pres-
ence of women impossible. They are not
impossible now. They are frequent. It is
hiM'dly too much to say that in New York
they are common.

It is easier — and safer — to speculate on
the cause of this humiliating change than
to find — and apply — a remedy. The great
increase in the proportion of persons of
foreign birth or descent, and of the unedu-
cated classes, has something to do with it.
The immensely greater volume of humanity
in motion on public thoroughfares and on
the passenger lines, and the corresponding
greater difficulty in enforcing the standard
of conduct held by the minority, is another
cause. The fact that the beha\dor of em-
ployees and the officials of corporations, as
of the municipality, reflects the "average "
impulses and ideas of the mass, counts for
much. But the disagreeable fact remains.
I recall the remark of the Italian officer
who received rudeness in such circum-
stances that he could not resent it, from
the son of the great German chancellor,
accompanied by the loud announcement,
" I am Count Herbert von Bismarck " :
' ' The explanation is sufficient, the apology
is not."

DRAWN BY W. T. SMEDLEY.

m THE WORLD'S FAIR GROUNDS AT CHICAGO— THE ELECTRICAL BUILDING FROM THE LAKE.
[See " The Making of the White City," page 415.]

SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XII.

OCTOBER, 1892.

No. 4.

THE MAKING OF THE WHITE CITY.
By H. C. Bunner.

TnE Illustrations by W. T. Smedley.

On the shore of a wide, blue-
gray lake, uuder a northern sky,
veiled over half its horizon with a
dim, smoky mist, there spread, two
years ago, a waste and desolate
sand plain with a streak of marshy
j)ools in the heart of it. Here and
there were trunks of scrubby trees
and patches of starveling under-
brush ; but it had none of the
pleasant loneliness of the country-
side : the bleak desolation of a
great city's waste outskirts brood-
ed over the whole tract. On the
west the space was bounded by
the flat broad road-bed of a sub-
urban railroad ; eastward a strong
wall of ponderous masonry stood
between it and the sullen swash of
the inland sea. To the south it w^«~..
went out of sight in loneliness ; on ' '"
the north it narrowed to a point
where a great town had begun a
fight with nature for a few acres of
pleasure-ground, stubbornly pushing a
green covering of young trees and grass
across the unwilling sand. Beyond this
patch of verdure trailed out the city's
myriad streets, sparsely settled here,
for the town proper lay eight miles

A Bit of Decoration.

working men all over the country —
day - laborers, like himself ; iron -for-
gers, architects, truckmen, carpenters,
painters, surveyors, glaziers, designers,
moulders, joiners, masons, gardeners —
men of every trade and art and handi-

away in the heart of the smoky haze craft, of every nationality, of every class
that floated along the sky-line. and kind of humanity, Avorking together
In the month of June, 1891, a man in widely separate places for the ac-
stuck the nose of a plough into the sand complishment of one common purpose,
of this plain, by way of beginning an To-day, in the prosecution of this under-
undertaking which lay before him, and taking, the surface of that waste plain
before some scores of thousands of has become the scene of one of the most

Copyright, 1892, by Charles Scribner's Sons. All rights reserved.

400

THE MAKING OF THE IVHITE CITY.

marvellous manifestations of mechanical
achievement which the world has to
offer ; it is the site of such a group of
buildings as has never before been as-
sembled for such a purpose, on such a
scale, within such a time, and in such
conditions. It sounds like an extrava-
gance to say that within this space of
half a thousand acres is concentrated
the energy, the skill, the intelligence, the
activity, equipped with every material

quite inadequate to suggest the breadtli
and range of design which make the
construction of the World's Fair Build-
ings at Chicago remarkable among the
great things done by modern engineers,
architects, and constructors ; for the
scale of the work forces us to new
standards of admeasurement. It is a
scale so unusual that the physical eye
is tricked until it finds for itself new
and specially applicable points of com-

The Exhibition Ground as it was in June, 1891.

requisite, that would suffice to build up
a large city in the space of three years ;
but to this plain statement of fact must
be added this other : that the city is
built. He who goes to that lake-side
desert a year from now will see, rising
from a gracious and well-ordered gar-
den, a white city of glass and iron, a
system of structures gigantic in plan
and scope beyond anything that science
has hitherto held feasible or desirable
for the sheltering of a multitude of
pleasure-seekers.

If you accept this statement literally,
it may convey to the mind a notion of
colossal achievement, and yet it may be

parison and appreciation. We may
know that the great central span of the
main building is the largest arched roof
in the world ; but the eye notes little
difference between the impression of
that huge arc and the picttu'e that
memory reproduces of similar mighty
curves. Nor yet does the eye see more
understandingly when it compares the
monstrous bow wdth one of the insig-
nificant men who are making it. But
turn and look at the man on the top of
the next huge building ; establish a
scale of proportion between that man
and that building, and then another be-
tween the two buildings, and then you

THE MAKING OF THE WHITE CITY.

401

m

I

Up Among the Great Iron Arches of the Hall of Manufactures.

obtain some idea of tlie magnitude of
the wonderful edifice whicli, rising
above and dominating all its fellows,
still leaves them individually huge and
imposing. Even so the mind must
grasp that idea by a scheme of com-
parison that seems strained, almost
whimsical and fantastic, forming men-
tal projections of such statistics as
these : The largest building hitherto
made for purpose of public exhibition,
namely, the Machinery Hall at Paris in
1889 could be placed under that span,
and, if provision were made for its sup-
port a few feet from the ground, the
entire population of the city of Mil-
waukee, which is over two hundred

thousand people, could be seated com-
fortably beneath it — and there would
still be plenty of space to spare under
the arc of that main building that dom-
inates without dwarfing its fellows.

Of course, that such a great feat has
been accompHshed in architectural con-
struction does not necessarily mean that
a good thing has been done as well as a
big thing. If it were the production of
an older civilization, it might involve or
impW some such guarantee of worth,
but in this country to talk thus of a
public work is sure to suggest the ac-
cusation of measurino- art with a vard-
stick and architecture by the acre. It
would be easy enough to put our liberal

402

THE MAKING OF THE JVHITE CITY.

Jackson Park — now a Part of the Exhibition Grounds.

resources of technical skill, enterprise,
organization, and wealth into so stupen-
dous a work for no higher aim than to
gratify an ignorant vanity, and to no
happier end than our ultimate humilia-
tion and discouragement. Such things
have happened before in the history of
our progress, and a country like this
would be marked for premature decay
if such things did not happen in the
first two or three centuries of its lusty
youth.

When the conduct of the World's
Fair was allotted by Congress to the
city of Chicago, it cannot be denied
that there was a general fear, and that
there was generally good ground for
that fear, that Chicago's conception of
the housing of the World's Fair might
be more interesting for material breadth
than for sesthetic height ; and the fear
has certainly not been lessened by the
report of Chicago's adoption of the
Brobdingnagian scale.

Eighteen hundred and ninety-three
and the opening of the World's Fair
will come soon enough to show us
how well this country, represented by

her second greatest city, has assumed
the burden w^hich the performance of
such a task imposes upon her loyalty to
art, her good taste and her catholicity
of interest, and those who form the
judgment of the world in such matters
will, if we may judge by experience, be
neither stinting in censure nor extrava-
gant in praise. It is not in any way
the object of this paper to forerun ma-
ture judgment or to forecast the value
of the finished work. It aims simply to
give some portrayal of a most interest-
ing phase and of a great and singular
activity, to sketch an imposing and be-
wildering w^ork at its most significant
stage, and to show^ the lines on which
the men who have been chosen for the
mighty task are endeavoring to carry
out the behest of the state, and turn in
less than fortv months a barren wilder-
ness into a garden of palaces — to let the
work that is being done at Chicago
speak for itself.

It is necessary to turn first to one
page of the history' of the Fair — not the
page that tells of the extraordinary ex-
hibition of indecorum made at one time

THE MAKING OF THE IVH/TE CITY.

403

by two great cities, each for itself, as
well as in their relations with each
other. No, the page we would turn to
bears pleasanter reading. It tells of
the doing of the biggest and best thing
that has vet been done in the whole

upon American civilization, in that it
was carried on wdth the l)rutal acrimony
of an English parliamentary campaign
and the sputtering hysteria of an inter-
pellation in the French Chamber of
Deputies. On the one side w^as an old

No smoking ! No cameras allowed on the grounds

business of the World's Fair — of a big-
ger and better thing than the building
of the biggest and best temple of pleas-
ure that ever reared a white forehead
against a smoky sky. It is something,
too, that could only have been done in
America.

The quarrel which resulted in the
World's Fair going to Chicago was a
credit to neither of the two principal
contestants. It reflected unpleasantly

city — old as age goes in this new world
— with every facility for handling such
an affair, with experience in managing
and providing for crowds, and for fur-
nishing comfort and amusement, sj^ht
into two furious factions of anxious
citizens. Both factions wanted the
privilege of having the Fair ; what they
disagreed about was the propriety of
buying that privilege wdth the ruin of
an irreplaceable and perhaps an incom-

404

THE MAKING OF THE WHITE CITY.

parable jiark. On tlie other hand was
Chicago — new, energetic, enthusiastic,
untrammelled — with a unanimity of
opinion among her citizens that evoked
the 2^i*''^i«6 and wonder of the world.
Such unanimity deserved the prize, and
won it.

But, face to face at last with the re-
sponsibility and the task, Chicago sat
down to consider coldly some of the lim-
itations of the usefulness of unanimity,
and to discern, perhaps, a certain spir-
itual significance in the difference of
opinion which had seemed almost in-
comprehensible when she saw it vexing
the disunited Eastern mind. There is
a unanimity that comes from the or-
dered training of many intellects to
work for a single end. There is also
the unanimity which hails the ascending
rocket with the imitative hiss of admira-
tion. The course of that unanimity
during the further career of the rocket
has often been noted.

The undertaking she had in hand
necessarily brought with it the neces-
sity of considering certain problems
that could not but be new to a new civ-
ilization. Perhaps, more than any other
town, Chicago has made it her boast
that her equipment of energy, material,
and resource was always kept equal
to her demand ujDon it. Other cities
might have to wait for men, time, or
money to bring about a realization of
their dreams ; Chicago kept her force
of realizers always on duty and ready
for every emergency. Whatever she
wanted she had, and as soon as she
made up her mind that she wanted it —
whether it was the tallest hotel in the
world or the system of express passen-
ger elevators needed to make fourteenth
story offices as accessible as those on
the third floor.

No doubt she made good her boast.
But her new obligation introduced her
to several wants which she had never
before had to consider, and which she
was wholly unprepared to meet. The
satisfaction of utilitarian requirements,
with a reasonable desire to give beauty a
fair show at the same time, had hitherto
been the formula of Chicago's artistic
growth. Even in the laying out of her
great parks she had attempted little more
than the forcing of an existent flatness

and monoton}' into a more agreeable
diversity of form and feature, yet while
this coaxing of a smile ujjon the dull
face of nature must be admired as a
clever performance under most trying
conditions, it cannot be held more than
a compromise with abstract beauty — a
plucky attempt to wrest from an unwill-
ing soil the public ^playground's natural
birthright. The little artificial hills and
dales of Lincoln Park were, however,
Chicago's boldest essay for the sake,
primarily, of the aesthetic rather than
the useful. That is to saj^ for the
special work she had taken upon herself
she lacked not only the necessary special
preparation, but the situation she faced
was one unforeseen in her plan of life
and alien to the essential idea of her
self-education. Two courses lay open
to her ; to degrade the work to the level
of her own aptitude at the moment, or
to carry out her trust in the highest
spirit of loyalty and faithfulness, at
whatever cost to a local j^ride, that must
have been most sensitive, exacting, and
sanguine in the flush of recent victory.
Chicago probably has not as yei realized
the size of her achievement in adopting
the latter alternative ; it is not meas-
urable in stone-perches, but it is the
biggest thing in Chicago's list all the
same.

It must, however, be recorded with
regret that the recognition of the neces-
sity of outside help came as an after-
thought ; it was demonstrated, indeed,
by injudicious and unsuccessful at-
tempt. The valuable aid that was in-
voked came too late to deal with the
scheme of construction as a complete,
perfect, and independent whole. When
Chicago called the best architects and
landscape-gardeners to her aid they
found that a part of the task before
them was the co-ordination with their
own plans of certain features not of
their own origination. But it seems as
if the very difficulty of doing this had
added something to the enthusiasm and
determination wdth which they under-
took the work. Let us add that it was
the only important drawback they had
to encounter. The work that was
handed over was handed over without
reservation or restriction, and with their
authority they received the fullest pos-

40G

THE MAKING OF THE WHITE CITY,

'^-v\

Y 4.*':s>v.«a. ^isj'

In Process of Construction (an Entrance of the Hall of Mines).

sible means of accomplishment and the
heartiest encouragement and assistance.

Perhaps the first thing that would
strike a stranger entering the World's
Fair grounds in the summer of 1892
would be the silence of the place, the
next the almost theatrical unreality of
the impression by the sight of an as-

semblage of buildings so startlingiy out
of the common in size and form.

When I spoak of the silence I mean
the effect of silence. There are seven
thousand and odd men at work, and
they are hammering and hauling and
sawing and filing as noisily as any other
workmen, but their noise is hardly no-
ticeable among these vast spaces. The

THE MAKING OF THE IVHITE CITY.

407

disproportion between tlie men and the
structures is so great that this army of
laborers looks like a mere random scat-
tering of human beings. Insensibly the
beholder gauges the amount of noise he
expects by the size of the work before
him, and is surprised at the insignifi-
cant effect of what he does hear. All
of this is part of that first impression
of unreality which I have spoken of as
almost theatrical. I might call it posi-

tivel}' theatrical if I could at the same
time convey some sense of the effect of
certain daylight views of a great stage
decked with ambitious scenery. It is
not only the grouj^ing of the huge white
and pale-yellow buildings that gives
this imi)ression, although it is hard
enough to believe in that at first sight ;
for it cannot l)ut suggest the exti'ava-
gant fancy that a dozen or so palaces
from distant lands — some unmistakably

H.l.in.m^

Before the Agricultural Building.

408

THE MAKING OF THE WHITE CITY.

out of the Amhinn Nipflits — lifive taken
a sudden fancy to licrd together. There
are certain grotesque figures of the
metliod of construciion that strikingly
heighten the general effect of strange-
ness. You watch two or three workmen
moving apparently aimlessly upon the
face of what seems a stupendous wall of

marhle. Suddenly a pillar as tall as a
house rises in the air, dangling at the
end of a thin rope of wire. The three
little figures seize this monstrous show}-
shaft and set it in place as though it
were a fence-post. Then a man with a
hand-saw saws a yard or two off it, and
you see that it is only a thin shell of

^^ "-^nV.

Near the Hall of Mines. — The Great Arches of the Main Building (Hail of Manufactures) in the Distance.

THE MAKING OF THE JVHITE CITY.

409

The Administration Building.

stucco. As you adjust your perceptive
faculties you see, two hundred feet
above your head, the two halves of a
large arch of veritable iron come to-
gether, moved by vmseen engines, as
noiselessly as though they were shadows
against the sky.

This is the first impression, and it is
one that comes back most readily to the
memory in after hours. But on the
spot it is shortly displaced by an
amazed perception of the vast activity
which informs the whole scene ; and an
unspeakable fascination seizes you as
you watch the working out of a great
fundamental idea,

" The whole thing is a sketch," said
one of its projectors ; and in a certain

sense it is a sketch, in lines of iron and
wash of plaster. This is not an acci-
dent ; it is the aspect, which, in the
opinion of the builders of the fair, a
group of buildings of this character
should present. All, or almost all, of
the structures must necessarily be tem-
porary and removable or convertible to
other uses. All must be of great size ;
all must be put up in a very limited
space of time. This involves the adop-
tion of the iron-frame system of con-
struction, and practically makes elabo-
rate internal decoration an impossibil-
ity. This situation has been frankly
accepted by the architects. They have
left it to the exhibits and their accesso-
ries to decorate the inside ; their own

THE MAKING OF THE WHITE CITY.

411

task has been to make of walls and roofs
a picture pleasing- in o-eneral composi-
tion and harmonious in detail. An iron
frame generally means an iron casing,
but to carry out a scheme like this it
was necessary to find some material less
obdurate, more easily handled and more
susceptible of artistic treatment. This
material was found in a combination of
plaster and jute fibre, called Majf, which
combines adaptability to all forms of
plastic handling with a stiifness and
toughness almost like wood. This stuff
has made possible effects of construc-
tion which could never have been at-
tempted under the same conditions with
any other material. It is prepared as
quickly as water and plaster and fibre
can be mixed together ; it may be made
coarse or fine, rough or smooth in sur-
face as may be desired ; it may be cast
or molded ; it may be colored ; and
when it is dry and ready for use it is
handled almost exactly like wood —
bored, sawed, and nailed. This, then, is
the wash in which the great sketch of the
White City is executed. It takes every
form that is necessary to clothe and or-
nament the iron skeletons ; it suggests
rather than simulates stone, and, consid-
ered for itself as a building material, it
has certain agreeable qualities of bright-
ness and softness.

It is of this material that all the mural
decorations of the Fair Buildings are
moulded, even to the statues, and it
lends itself with equal readiness to em-
bodying the graceful and somewhat
stern classicism of Mr. Philip Martiny's
slim, long - winged goddesses, or the
amazing and somewhat unaccountable
vehemence of the strange allegorical
family with which Mr. Karl Bitter is
decorating the finials of the Administra-
tion Building.

There is a strong contrast between
the clothing and the framework of the
building. The iron and woodwork em-
ployed are of unusual strength ; and
the iron castings are in some instances
wonders of scientific manufacture. For
instance, in setting up the preposter-
ously huge trusses of the main building
it had not, up to June, 1892, been found
necessary to re-drill a single rivet-hole
— which testifies to a miracle of con-
structive calculation at the distant foun-

dries where these great masses of iron
were shaped.

The whole business of construction
has been reduced to a system original in

Model for Statue of the Republic, by Daniel C. French.

many respects, and peculiar!}- applica-
ble to the needs of the time and place,
the main idea being to make of the con-
struction an art by itself, leaving to the
architect only the responsibility of ar-
tistic design. As Mr. Frank D. Millet,
the right-hand man of Chief-Constiiictor
Burnham, terseh'puts it : " We give our
constructors a picture and the dimen-
sions, and say, ' Make that ! ' " And
even to Mr. Millet, who has helped in
almost every World's Fair for the last

DRAWN BY W. T. SMEDLEY.

Lunch Time.

THE MAKING OF THE WHITE CITY,

413

twenty years, this is a new step in the
progress of architecture.

With this possibility of quickly and
inexpensively modelling the exteriors of
the buildings at will, it became also pos-
sible to the designers to attempt a bold
effect of harmony and balance in the
grouping of the structures, and to make
the individuaUty of each building fit
in with one underlying design which
should at once appeal to the eye and to
the memory, so that the thought of any
part at once brings to mind its position
and significance in the whole scheme.
To some extent, of course, those feat-
ures which they found themselves
obliged to accept at the inception of
their task have interfered with the
carrying out of this plan in its absolute
completeness ; but the interference has
been far less than might have been ex-
pected.

It may certainly be said that the least
observant of visitors can hardly fail to
grasp and retain some conception of
the simple and effective ground-plan
which unites this impressive collection
of buildings, in the course of a single
progress through the grounds. If he
comes in by the main entrance, the idea
of order and system is presented to him
at the very outset. All the entering
railroads converge here to a single per-
ron, or platform, in front of which
stands a square building, surmounted
by a gilded dome. This is the Admin-
istration Building, designed by Richard
M. Hunt, of New York. It is placed
here to serve a double purpose, to form
a vestibule to the Fair of impressive
and symmetrical dignity and beauty,
and to show the new-comer on his ar-
rival the headquarters of control and
management. Under this shining dome
he passes to what may be called the
grand court of the Exhibition, a mighty
quadrangle, flanked on either side by
towering white fa9ades, and bounded at
its farther end by a majestic peristyle
raising its long array of columns against
the clear background of an enclosed
harbor. An artificial lake or basin of
water occupies the greater part of this
quadrangle, at its head stretching out
into a long transept of canals, the north-
erly arm connecting with a long, irregu-
larly-shaped lagoon at whose farthest
Vol. Xn.— 46

end the pillared front of a classic tem-
ple rises from the water's very edge. In
the angle formed by these two water-
vistas stands the mammoth among
buildings, the Hall of Manufactures and
Liberal Arts, stretching a third of a
mile along the water side.

It is the southwestern — or perhaps it
would be more accurate to say the
southern — corner of this stupendous
pile that centres the whole ground plan
and fixes in the mind the relation of its
principal parts. The southern fayade,
covering the whole stretch from the
canal to the lake, forms the most im-
portant boundary of the central plaza,
while its longer frontage looks west-
ward over canal and lagoon upon the
broad park-land where lie, irregularly
disposed, the buildings not included in
the main group. Thus he who stands
in front of this corner, at the point
where canal and basin join, sees to his
right and to his left the two essential
divisions of the general design — the
court scheme and the champaign
scheme — and the thought must strike
him that in their combination, in a pro-
portion suggested on the one hand by
the breadth and on the other by the
length of the grounds, the possibilities
of the site have been practically ex-
hausted.

We must not forget the peculiar char-
acter of that site. Almost triangular
in shape, it was, save for a few marshy
hollows, as flat as a parade-ground. It
lacked utterly the relief of rock or hill
or woodland grove, or even of gracious
slopes and terraces. The city lent it
no architectural background. Whatever
was to be done with it had to be done
with the materials at hand. Under
such conditions the best thing to be
tried for was to make the landscape an
attractive and appropriate setting for
the buildings, whose size and impor-
tance could not but be exaggerated by
the character of their surroundings.
Here came in the idea of employing
water as the effective feature of this
setting, and in so broad and liberal a
manner as not only to heighten the
charm of the architect's work, but to
afford a positive novelty in stretching
throughout the ground a sj^stem of
canals and channels navigable for pleas-

414

THE MAKING OF THE U^HITE CITY.

lire-boats — of making, in fact, a water-
show in the very heart of the land-show.
Through the greater part of the triangu-
lar 2)lain the body of water created to
this end wanders in graceful and natural
curves, doubling on itself, stretching
out in pleasant reaches, pushing an arm
here, a bay there, sweeping around
islands large and small ; fringed its
whole length in every bend and inlet
with the simple and ever lovely flora of
the inland water-side — iris, pond-lily,
hellebore, sedge-grass, arrowhead, sweet
flag, and bulrush — and set around with
clustering thickets, and long lines of
those lowly and grateful willows that
ask only a plenteous draught of water
to show their pearly gray-greens from
the first stirring of the sap till the com-
ing of the Fall.

This has been the work of Mr. Henry
Sargent Codman, the partner of Mr.
F. L. Olmstead, and it is easier to ad-
mire his success than to realize the dif-
ficulties under which he has labored.
He has laid under contribution all the
lakeside country within many miles of
Chicago, ransacking ponds and marshes
for suitable stock for transplantation,
and making his selections with rare
skill and judgment. But the setting
out of plants and shrubs by the scores
of thousands has been only one part
of Mr. Codman's arduous duties. He
found for his field of usefulness a flat
sand-plain with some three or four
inches of superficial soil — light, friable
loam, excellent for quick growth and
not on any account to be wasted. He
removed this top-coating of soil, piled
it up temporarily in convenient places,
dug his lagoons and canals out of the
sand-plain, and then spread his stored-
up loam back in the places where he
wanted lawns and terraces and thickets
and bosky islands. That is to say, he
skinned his subject, remodelled its
contours, and put the skin back.

As it comes before the mighty front
of the Main Building, this wander-
ing stream is caught and held with-
in bounds, until, submissively gliding
amid the confines of artificiality, curved
and arched and trimmed to line and
angle, it plays its part in the great pa-
rade of the court square.

The picture of which it forms a part —

the picture of the great quadrangle — is
one not easily forgotten, even when it is
seen in the crude bareness of its un-
finished line ; when only the superb and
well-balanced lines of the half-sheathed
buildings bound its broad spaces and
spread their long roof-lines against the
cold sky. It will be more striking, per-
haps, when it gets on its holiday drapery
of flags and awnings, of splashing foun-
tains and green parterres made gay
with flowers ; or seen at night, in the
wonderful dress of electric light that is
being woven for it, an astounding
tracery of fire that is to outline every
niche and corner and pillar, every balus-
trade and terrace-edge, down to the
water-line, where a triplicate row of
lights, mirrored in the shining depths,
will map out the margin of the basin ;
while from time to time the startUng,
all-revealing glare of the lake-side
search-lights travels across the whole
enclosure — the bull's-eye lantern of our
familiar electrical giant. And yet, fine
as is the theatre it presents for splendid
pageantry of this sort, to those who
have seen it in the last stage of its
growth the trappings may only cost the
great square something of the simple
dignity it derives from the architectural
strength and just proportions of the
buildings which wall it in. Properly
speaking, the whole space is one broad
avenue from the railroad terminus to
the Lake, for two-thirds of its length
practically a w^ater-w^aj^, with the Ad-
ministration Building planted squarely
midway of the remaining third ; but to
view it from a point in the water-way
is inevitably to pick out three buildings
as salient boundaries — the main build-
ing, known as the Manufactures and
Liberal Arts Building, the Administra-
tion Building, and the Agricultural
Hall. In the first case it is pre-emi-
nently the aggressive size that attracts
the eje, in the second it is the applica-
tion of a striking form to a peculiarly
appropriate situation ; in the third what
captivates the attention is simply the
charm of a beautiful design ideally well
displaj^ed. Seen, as it must first be
seen, across the water ; in an unbroken
perspective against the clearest quarter
of the sky, so disposed as to be free
from the dwarfing influences of any

THE MAKING OF THE WHITE CITY,

415

other building or group of buildings,
its candid classicism receives every ad-
vantage that situation can give it, and
the eye turns from the effect of breadth
and mass in the main building opposite
to the calm beauty of its graceful detail
with a sense of grateful and natural
transition, recognizing a certain com-
plementary relation between the differ-
ent kinds of dignity expressed in the
huge structures.

But if these three buildings offer the
most characteristic and unforgettable
fayades of the square, it is not to be
supposed that the rest of the group of
giants fail in effectiveness or adequacy
in the matter of external appearance.
On the contrary, they carry out admi-
rably the idea of restriction to healthy
classical lines, which, by mutual con-
sent, has governed the designers of the
whole group ; while they offer, individ-
ually, an ample diversity of thought and
treatment. But their position, at the
inland end of the court, presenting their
main entrances to the Administration
Building, has been governed in some
measure by the exigencies of their use.

On the southerly side stands, with its
annex, the Machinery Hall, designed by
Messrs. Peabody & Stearns of Boston,
covering in all a space of ground some
fourteen hundred by five hundred feet.
On the northerly side are the Hall of
Mines, and Mining, and the Electrical
Building, so called ; buildings almost
twins in size (about seven hundred by
three hundred and fifty feet each), but
sharply differing in design — the Hall of
Mines, with its massiveness of design
and detail, and the Palace of Electricity,
raising on high its almost fantastically
broken sky-line. The one is the work
of Mr. S. S. Beman, the other of Messrs.
Van Brunt & Howe, of Kansas City.
Outside of these, or rather, around the
corner from them is the Transportation
Building, a vast hall running nearly five
hundred feet each way from the impos-
ing Roman arch, with its florid half-
oriental decoration, which forms its main
entrance. This edifice stands as a sort
of connecting link between the serried
ranks of the quadrangle buildings, and
those which are ranged in " open order "
around the water space, in the middle
of the champaign or park-like portion of

the grounds. These are, in the order of
their position : The Horticultural Hall,
the Women's Pavilion, the Illinois State
Building, the permanent Building of the
Institute of Art (around and beyond
which are the smaller headquarters of
the various States and foreign nations),
and then, returning on the lakeward
side of the lagoon, the Fisheries Build-
ing and the United States Government
Exhibition Quarters, which comprise a
large building, and at the lake shore an
enclosed harbor for the naval exhibit.
Here the long ellipse reaches the north-
erly end of the main building, and thus
connects with the base of construction
formed by the great court, and that
coign of vantage at the confluence of
basin and canal from which the eye first
takes in the whole broad and varied
scheme.

It is from this point that a compre-
hensive view must be taken of the ar-
rangement as a whole, and of the har-
mony or discordance of its several parts.
Of the quadrangle it may be said that
from the layman's point of view criti-
cism would be hypercriticism. What-
ever individual taste or scholarship may
find to question or reject in the details
of this marvellous plaza, with its throng-
ing fa9ades, its spacious water-ways, its
treasures of columns and fountains ;
the people who go out to see a great
and beautiful sight would be mean and
ungracious if they sought to weaken by
ungenerous analysis the satisfying im-
pression of grandeur and beauty, and
of eminent fitness and good taste, pro-
duced by the whole picture. It is a
noble design, broadly conceived, and
carried out with an amazing amount of
patient skill and conscientious thought.

To turn to the other and longer vista
of the water parkway is to see how sad-
ly the interference of lower standards
can mar the complete execution of an
exquisite, artistic design. For almost
a mile the eye travels the delightfully
diversified length of the beautiful water-
way which Messrs. Olmsted & Codman
have laid out, to rest at last upon the
almost sacredly classic front of the great
Art Building, calm and pure in its
beauty as the waters of the lake from
which it rises. It is a beauty of line
and proportion rather than of decora-

416

THE MAKING OF THE WHITE CITY,

tion, a beauty of balance and modula-
tion, a beauty which must be seen in
its completeness, undisturbed by any
other spectacle, if you would feel the
full delight of its serenity. And right
here, across full half of the western end,
the Illinois State Building thrusts an
unseemly and ill-bred shoulder into the
view, like a drygoods emporium affront-
ing a Greek temple.

There is another building in the way
on the eastern side, but it neither
aflronts nor offends. This is the Fish-
eries Building, designed by Mr. Henry
Ives Cobb, and its delicate pavilions,
with their clean, significant lines, and
their airy, skyward lift, take gracefully
a subordinate part in the picture and
relieve a severity with which they are
in no wise out of keeping. Joyousness
is the keynote of Mr. Cobb's design ;
his is a happy concept for a people's
summer pleasure-house, and he per-
mits himself something like an approach
to architectural humor in his grotesque
decorations of conventionalized forms
of fishes and crustaceans. It may be
objected that the primary purpose of
the building is scientific, but to this it
should be urged that ichthyology is a
science which it is hard to disconnect
from a certain fantastic curiosity, and
that, in spite of what the learned have
said, the humor-loving human being
will never take fish quite seriously — and
moreover, that the man who conceives a
design so wholly delightful in spirit as
Mr. Cobb's, need make no more apology
for the lightsomeness of his art than he
does for the gracefulness of it.

Across a lake from the Fisheries
Building is the Building of the United
States Government, which promises to
be one of the most valuable and impor-
tant exhibits in the whole Fair. It
ought to illuminate the soul of even a
Congressman from Darkest Kansas with
new lights on the selection and compen-
sation of government architects.

The Horticultural Hall, which is the
largest building of the park group, is
sufficiently imposing in point of size, but
disappointing in its heavy and earth-
bound lines, the ponderous effect of
which is accented by the unnecessarily
broad frieze which swathes the building
like a wide bandage. It is, however, only

fair to say for Mr. Jenny's building that
considerations of interior effect have had
more weight than in the case of any
other edifice (except, perhaps, the Admin-
istration Building) ; his highly colored
courts being made a characteristic feat-
ure.

It is impossible to avoid speaking of
certain unsatisfactoiy points in this part
of the exhibition — impossible because
the very high standard of achievement
established elsewhere provokes the un-
complimentary comparison. Yet it must
not be forgotten that such criticism is,
after all, only comparative. It is mainly
because so much has been done thor-
oughly well, that the element of dissat-
isfaction seems unduly irntant. To use
the consoling axiom of Charles Beade's
humble publicist, " Where there's a mul-
titude there's a mixture ; " and it was
inevitable that in a work so vast some
parts should be on a lower plane than
others, both in conception and execu-
tion. The thing to be wondered at is
that this undertaking could have gone
so far as it has without developing more
positive evidence of bad taste or lack of
skill. Every World's Fair, I suppose,
must have its "lolanthe in Butter," and
perhaps lolanthe has her place in the
art-education of a people. If she has,
it may be incidentally remarked that
ample provision has been made for fill-
ing her place in this instance. There
is a modern and realistic rilievo at the
base of the great entrance of the Trans-
portation Building, which does the com-
pletest justice to the Pullman-car end of
our civilization.

I have endeavored to give some idea
of what shape and form the World's
Fair enterprise had taken to the appre-
hension of the physical eye in the
month of June, 1892, without attempt-
ing to discount the future, or to do more
than lay before my readers a very brief
and untechnical description of a sight
that moved me, as I think it must have
moved any American who saw it as I
did, to a deep interest and honest en-
thusiasm. It has been a pleasant but
a trying task, and how full it has been
of temptations to error and to exagger-
ation can only, I think, be understood
by the man, who, as a boy, has peered

THE MAKING OF THE IVHITE CITY.

417

tlirougli a hole in the circus tent, and
whispei-ed to his wide-e3'ed companions
a fragmentary and hurried account of
the dazzhng show in process of prepa-
ration. He, I know, will forgive me, if
I have shown more earnestness than art
in striving to picture to him the effect
produced by this strange assemblage
of beautiful, gracious, and inspiriting
architectui-al forms — at the first sight
of the unfinished White City of Pal-
aces.

It has been difficult to convey the ef-
fect of what has been done : it would
be impossible to convey the effect of the
doing of it. It is a great exhibition in
itself — the concentration of human en-
ergy and intelligence which has made
this work possible. The men who are
doing it are gathered together from dis-
tant cities, and for the months or years
that their task may require of them,
they have given themselves up as abso-
lutely as soldiers give themselves to
their duty. It is, in fact, an army of
laborers with a staff of artists and archi-
tects that is under the command of Mr.
D. H. Burnham, the Chief of Construc-
tion, a man born for generalship, strong
in executive ability and in the capacity

for inspiring loyalty and devotion. It
is through his constructive and execu-
tive genius that the admirably able
corps of architects and designers gath-
ered together at Chicago are enabled to
realize their splendid fancies in all the
strength of their ambition. Within
the walls of the great enclosure these
men lead, for months at a time, the life
of military officers in the conduct of
a campaign, living in barracks, their
days' work beginning with their waking
and ending only with too long deferred
sleep.

They have worked so hard and so
long together, at home and on this sandy
plain, that, like all old comrades of war,
they have a talk of their own, and
among themselves they sometimes speak
of a certain "microbe," the germ of
something which, with soldierlike lev-
ity, they figure as a disease — the enthu-
siasm— the uncontrollable, action-im-
pelling enthusiasm for their great en-
terprise which sustains them through
this long strain on body and mind ; the
enthusiasm which seizes upon all who
watch them at their grand toil, and
which I wish were mine to communi-
cate in telling of what they are doing.

STATISTICAL NOTES OF THE WOKLD'S FAIR BUILDINGS AT CHICAGO.

(These figures are approximately correct, within a foot or so ; fractions are suppressed for the sake
of simplicity ; and allowance must be made for slight alterations in plan.)

The Grounds are a little less than a mile-and-a-half in length. In width they are
about a third of a mile at the narrow end, and about four-fifths of a mile at the broad or
south end. Speaking roughly, this is about equivalent to as much of the lower end of
New York City as would be separated from the upper portion by a line drawn from the
foot of Canal Street and North River to the foot of Rutgers Street and East River.
They contain more than half a thousand acres, exclusive of the Midway Plaisance, an an-
nex running eastward behind the Women's Pavilion.

The Main Court, Plaza or Cour d'Honneur is a quadrangle 2,000 by 700 feet. It con-
tains the Great Basin, 1,100 by 350 feet ; the MacMonnies Fountain, the centre-piece of a
basin 150 feet in diameter ; and terminates at the lake end in the Peristyle designed by
Mr. C. B. Atwood, which is 60 feet high and is composed of four rows of pillars.

The Manufactures anb Liberal Arts Building is 1,687 by 787 feet in size. It
covers about thirty-one acres. The great main roof covers an area 1,400 by 385 feet, and
has an extreme height of 210 feet. This is between 55 and 60 feet higher than the Great
Arch of the Machinery Building in the recent Paris Exj^osition. It is only 10 feet less
in height than the great chimney of the New York Steam-Heating Company. It is just 6
feet lower than the top of the spire of Grace Church, New York. It is 11 feet lower
than the Bunker Hill shaft at Boston. It would hold the Vendome column mounted on
a 74 foot pedestal. The seating capacity of the building is estimated at over 200,000
people. St. Peter's at Rome holds about 54,000, St. Paul's in London less than 26,000,
and the Metropolitan Opera House in New York has a capacity of 5,000 people. The
entrances to this building are 40 feet wide by 80 feet high. Its ground plan is much more

418

THE MAKING OF THE IVHITE CITY.

than twice the size of that of the Pyramid of Cheops. It is the better part of a hundred
feet longer than the main span of the Brooklyn Bridge. It is nearly two and one-half
times as long and more than two and ono-half times as wide as the Capitol at Washington.
The architect is Mr. George B. Post, of New York.

The Agi4IouijTU1{al. Building is 800 by 500 feet. Its central dome is 130 feet in
heiglit and 100 in diameter. The corner domes are between 90 and 100 feet high. The
cornice-line is 65 feet high,* Messrs. McKim, Meade & White are the architects.
The statuary adornments of the building are designed by Mr. Philip Martiny. The
annex to this building is 550 by 300 feet.

The Machineky Hall is 846 by 492 feet. Its annex 550 by 490 feet. These dimen-
sions do not include boiler house, machine house, etc. The architects are Messrs. Pea-
body & Stearns, of Boston.

The Administration Building is 260 feet square. The dome is 275 feet high exter-
nally ; the internal dome is 190 feet in height. That is, it is about as high on the out-
side as Trinity Church spire in New York. The dome of the Capitol at Washington is
287 feet in height, and internally considerably smaller than that of this building. Mr.
Eichard M. Hunt, of New York, is the architect ; Mr. Karl Bitter, the statuary.

The Hall or Mines and Mining is 700 by 300 feet, and the architect is Mr. S. S. Be-
man, of Chicago.

The Electrical Building is 690 by 345 feet. The four corner towers are 169 feet
high. The longitudinal nave is 115 feet wide by 114 feet high. Messrs. Van Brunt &
Howe, of Kansas City, are the architects.

The Transportation Building is 960 by 256 feet, with a one-story annex covering
about 9 acres. The cupola is 165 feet in height. Messrs. Adler & Sullivan, of Chicago,
are the architects.

The Horticultural Building is 998 by 250 feet. The dome is 187 feet in diameter
and 113 feet high. Mr. W. L. B. Jenny, of Chicago, is the architect.

The Woman's Pavilion is 388 by 199 feet. The architect is Miss Sophia G. Hayden,
of Chicago.

The Building of the Institute of Fine Arts (permanent) is 500 by 320 feet, with a
dome 125 feet high. The architect is Mr. C. B. Atwood.

The Fisheries Building is over 1,000 feet in extreme length, the main building-
being 365 by 165 feet, flanked by two circular pavilions, each 135 feet in diameter, con-
nected by arcades. Its water capacity is 140,000 gallons, exclusive of reservoirs. The
architect is Mr. Henry Ives Cobb.

Other Buildings are the Dairy Building, 200 by 95 feet ; the Government Building,
415 by 345 feet ; the Forestry Building, 500 by 200 feet ; the Stock Pavilion, 440 by 280
feet, and the Illinois Building, 450 by 160.

* By general agreement among the architects, 65 feet is accepted as the standard height of the main f ajade in
most of the buildmgs.

;j^r»**'»*w ■w*'

X*^

Going Home from Work.

SALEM* KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

HIS SECULAR EXCUliSION.

By Bliss Perry.

PART I.

T always seemed to
Salem Kit tr edge
that his heels clicked
more noisily than
other men's ujDon the
floor of a hotel office,
and this uncomfort-
able impression was
renewed as he stepj)ed up to the desk
of the Parker House.

"If Mr. Pitman should call for me,
will you tell him that I am here ? "

" What name ? " said the clerk, with-
out looking up.

"Pitman; J. Howard Pitman. Oh,
you mean my name ? Mr. Kittredge —
Salem Kittredge. It's rather sultry,
isn't it ? "

" Excuse me ? "
" I said it was hot."
The clerk's only reply to this tenta-
tive friendliness was to push back his
skull-cap, wipe his forehead, and yawn
assentingly. The tall young man in
black turned awkwardly away, and
walked over to one of the big leather
chairs by the window. As he seated
himself, he pulled out a silver watch,
for the tenth time in the last hour, and
found that he still had seven or eight
minutes to wait. With a nervously
directed handkerchief he flapped the
dust of Andover and the B. & M. Road
from off his shoes, and then he drew a
telegram from his pocket. Once more
he read, " Meet me at Parker House
ten o'clock Thursday without fail," and
wondered again who J. Howard Pitman
was, and what he could want of a post-
graduate student of theology. In ab-
sently folding the telegram, his eye
wandered to a newspaper lying on the
window-sill. There in the advertising
columns was the name that had per-
plexed him. He had seen it a thousand
times : Pitman's Primitive Pellets, in aai-
dacious type, and underneath it the

familiar face — bald, hard-eyed, heavy-
mustached — and the scrawled signa-
ture.

He was still examining the trade-
mark when the proprietor of the pellets
hurried in, crossed the office straight
toward Kittredge, and put out his hand.

" And you're Salem Kittredge," he
said. "Look just like your father,
don't you ? Your father 'n I used to go
to school together up in Burridge ; lit-
tle red schoolhouse, just above the
Forks. There yet, ain't it? Le' me
see, how long is it since your father
died?"

" Six years," replied Salem, who was
still standing, holding Mr. Pitman's
hand, and conscious that the clerk was
looking at him.

" Well, well ! Now I shouldn't have
heard of j^ou at all, if it hadn't been for
Professor Bibb — sit down, sit down.
Nehemiah Bibb says that you're the
young man I'm looking for, he thinks."

Salem smiled intelligently.

"Bibb came from up in Burridge,
too. Knew your father well ; and the
other day I was telling him what I had
in mind and he said he was sure you'd
be just the man." Pitman pushed his
chair closer and lowered his voice as he
went on. " You see, it's about my boy
Freddie — the only boy I've got. He's
twenty-three years old next month, but
he ain't much of a comfort to me, nor to
his mother. He ain't a bad boy — not
really a bad boy ; but he has a little —
difficulty — Freddie has, and about six or
eight times a year he has it rough, I tell
you ! He's a nice, pleasant-spoken fel-
low, and he's keen ; he can run the Works
— the Pellet Works, you've heard of 'em ?
— as well as I can, when he's straight,
and he was alw^ays a good scholar when
he'd a mind to be. Freddie's all right,
when he is all right."

"Did he go through college?" in-
quired Salem, sympathetically. "You
spoke of his being a good student."

420

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

" One year — almost a year, anyway —
and then lie had to leave. They didn't
want him at Cambridge, they said ;
they were very polite about it, but they
didn't want him."

" It was his scholarship ? " ventured
Kittredge.

" No, it was a cock-fight ; " and a
smile quavered a moment under the
great mustache. "That was over in
Somerville, and that boy — he wa'n't but
nineteen — took seven hundred dollars
out of Boston men that ought to have
known better, and I tell you it went
against the grain — just a little against
the grain — for me to make him send it
back. I don't suppose the fight was
any worse — between you 'n me — than
one we had once up in Burridge, in
your grandfather's barn, when your
father and Nehemiah Bibb had their
jackknives up on it ; but that's neither
here nor there.

" So I had to take him out, and he
wanted to go on the road," continued
Mr. Pitman, "and he doubled our
Southern trade in six months. That
boy got it into his head that the Pel-
lets would cure fever 'n ague " — here J.
Howard Pitman hesitated, with a whim-
sical droop of the ej^elid and a trium-
phant twist of his iron- gray mustache
— " and they do cure fever and ague !
There's no doubt about it. They 're a
specific, and that boy found it out. He
has more 'n thirteen hundred signed
testimonials from sufferers, up at the
"Works to-day. He's a hustler, I tell you,

when he wants to hustle, but " The

enthusiasm dropped out of his voice,
and his eyes fell to the floor.

Salem was silent, wondering what all
this had to do with himself.

"But just about once in so often,"
the patent medicine man went on slow-
ly, " about once in two months, Freddie
has to take three or four days oif, and
lets the Pellets roll to Ballyhack, till he
gets ready to go on again. I had to go
down to Tampa last winter to bring
him home, and he came pretty near
slipping me in New York as it was. If
he'd keep straight and settle down, I'd
, give him half the business in a minute ;
but he don't want to settle yet, he says,
and he'll keep on the road, or nothing.
I can't get along without him — or with

him, and there we are. His mother,
she talks to ftim, but she don't seem
to understand Freddie very well — she
never did ; and our minister's talked
to him, and he's just as polite as a boy
can be, and just as straight as a boy
can be, till the time comes round again,
and then everything goes kerflummux.
And here's where you come in. I've
had a talk with the doctor about Fred-
die ; the doctor saw him after that Tam-
pa business last winter, and again in
May, and he says there's just about one
chance for him. 'Your boy,' says he,
' is a confirmed inebriate, or straight on
the road to it. It isn't that he wants
to drink all the time ; he doesn't ; he's
got the convulsive form of acute alco-
holism. You must get a good, steady
young fellow to go to Europe with him,
or round the world, or somewhere, and
watch him night and day when these
turns are coming on. If he gets by one
or two of them, he may be all right.
Then let him come back and settle
down at the Works and never go on the
road again. It's the only way.' Now,
I happened to run across Nehemiah
Bibb that very afternoon, and he said
that you were through your fourth year,
and hadn't any particular church in view
— kind o' staying on in Andover, ain't
you? — and he didn't know but you'd
like the chance to go around the world,"

"I see," said Salem, trying to think
fast.

The father watched him keenly.
" You 'd find Freddie a pleasant fellow
to be with," he ventured, persuasively,
fancying he saw a refusal upon Salem's
face. "And I ought to say this," he
continued, " I'll make it worth your
while, if you want to go. I know the
captain of a brig that sails in August
for Australia ; expects to touch almost
ever;y^vhere, either coming or going.
How would this do : I to pay all ex-
penses, and two hundred dollars a
month, beginning now ? "

Kittredge hesitated. It was in many
ways the very thing he would like ; and
the money tempted him, and the op-
portunity to win back a young man's
life. " But we might not get along to-
gether," he suggested. " I am three or
four years older, and a licensed minis-
ter, and " He could scarcely give

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE,

421

an exact phrase to what he felt to be a
certain unfitness in the proposed rela-
tionship.

" Exactly ; you want to ^o slow and
sure. Just like your father. That's
all right. But see here : the Richard
H. Gulick don't sail till the 16th of
August, and to-day's only the 2d of
July. Freddie's vacation began yes-
terday. We're running light at the
Works, and his next trip wouldn't be
till September anyway. He j^roposes
to go up to Bar Harbor for awhile ;
thinks the air is better there than it is
down on the North Shore where his
mother is. Now you go up on the Oli-
vette to-night with him, spend a few
weeks together, and get a little ac-
quainted. What do you say ? "

" But what would your son say ? "

" Oh, that's fixed, nice as you please.
I talked it over with him last night ;
told him all about the way your father
and I used to hook off from school to-
gether up in Burridge — guess, though,
he'd heard me tell that before — and he
says, 'All right, send Kittredge along.
I've never seen the man yet I couldn't
stand if I had to ! '"

Salem reflected upon the young
man's cordial way of putting it. " I
don't know," he said, doubtfully, " sup-
pose we found we couldn't get on
smoothly ? It must be unpleasant for
him to know he is watched. It wouldn't
be very agreeable for two men at
swords' points to go around the world
together."

"To be sure," interrupted Pitman,
eagerly, " and that's the beauty of the
Bar Harbor idea. Try it for awhile.
If it don't work, we won't say anything
about the Richard H. Gulick. But I
kind o' think it will work, and it does
seem as if it was about the only thing
there was left to try. There's a good
stiff Maine law, you know ; that might
help you some."

A sense of pity smote Kittredge
suddenly, for the simple-hearted father,
for the mother who did not understand
her only boy, for the boy himself, an
inebriate at twenty-three.

" I will undertake it," he said, " and
I'll do my best, but I'm sure I don't
know "

Pitman sprang to his feet. " The

Lord bless you ! Nohemiah Bibb said
you would do it. I'll telephone Fred-
die that you'll meet him at the boat to-
night. You know where it is — Lewis
Wharf. Sails at six, don't she ? Look
it up in that Globe." And while Salem
picked \x]) the newspaper, and found
the Primitive Pellets staring him in the
face again before he could turn to the
steamboat column, Mr. Pitman stepped
to a table and wrote a check for the
first six weeks' salar3^ He would not
listen to Salem's ineffective protest
against receiving it, and they left the
Parker House together. Pitman held
up his finger for a herdic, and shook the
younger man's hand with some emo-
tion, looking at his watch meanwhile
and giving directions to the driver.
He already had one foot in the herdic
when he turned, and pulled a big Pel-
let catalogue from his inside pocket.

"By the way," he said, with a pride
not quite disguised by his offhand
tone, " perhaps you'd like to look over
one of our new catalogues. It tells all
about the Works, and some of those
testimonials Freddie got down South
are in there. Freddie's picture is on
the back page, but he don't know it
yet. Good-by ! " The herdic disaj)-
peared into Washington Street, leaving
Salem Kittredge standing on the pave-
ment, his cheeks hot with an embar-
rassed, unformulated pity, and a colored
patent medicine pamphlet in his hand.

II.

The absurdity of the situation came
over him in a moment, and he hurried-
ly pocketed the catalogue and began to
grin. But there was no time to lose
in humorous reflection upon his new
occupation, if he was to be ready for
the Bar Harbor trip that afternoon,
and it grew clear to him that the check
in his possession was a providential
dispensation. AVithout it, he had bare-
ly money enough to get back to An-
dover ; with it, he could purchase a few
things that seemed absolutely neces-
sary, if young Pitman were not to be
made ashamed of his travelling com-
panion. Exactly what these purchases
must be, he tried to decide in the

422

SALEM KITTRBDGE, THEOLOGUE.

course of — it would be hardly accurate
to say between the coursers of — a forty-
five cent dinner at a Brattle Street res-
taurant.

It was plain that he must procure
some clothes, for the black frock suit
he had worn into Boston that morn-
ing, the only really presentable thing
he had, was shiny with the Sunday
preaching trips of two winters and a
long summer in South Dakota. For
the various exigencies of Bar Harbor
life, Salem knew that this garb was
quite inappropriate. After a miserable
hour of indecision, he took the bit in
his teeth, and bought a white flannel
tennis suit, as something unministerial
and sure to be useful. He had a sort
of feeling, too, sufficiently definite to
make him uncomfortable, that a man
going to Mount Desert ought to have
a dress-suit, but he was not sure. If
young Pitman and he were to start on
a voyage around the world in a sailing
vessel, a swallow-tail coat would be an
impertinence, but the intervening weeks
loomed large upon his imagination, and
finally, in his honest way, he made a
confidant of the salesman who had per-
suaded him into taking the ready-
made tennis suit. The fertile mind of
this young gentleman suggested that
it might be better to rent the evening
dress for the time required, and while
directing Kittredge to an establishment
that made a specialty of such transac-
tions, he assured him that it would be
advisable to buy, then and there, what-
ever else might be needed to complete
his evening toilet. The result was that
the perplexed theologue gave the sales-
man permission to pick out what was
necessary — a commission which the
latter cordially executed, and the af-
fair ended by his escorting Salem to
the basement and helping him to select
a dress-suit case, extraordinarily heavy
and expensive, but absolutely correct in
design.

It was with this case in one hand
and two big paper parcels in the other —
he had telegraphed his Andover land-
lady to forward his trunk to Mount Des-
ert by express — that Salem w^alked up
the gang-plank of the Olivette shortly
after five that afternoon. He was hot
and tired and nervous, and the first

passenger on board. The purser in-
formed him that a Mr. Pitman had tel-
egraphed for two state-rooms, and in
one of these Kittredge deposited his be-
longings. Then, after puzzling over
the Spanish notices posted around the
cabin — memorials of the winter trips of
the little vessel — he went out upon the
big covered wharf and sat down upon a
box of freight, folding the tails of his
frock-coat over into his lap and fanning
himself with his black Derby hat, while
he kept an eye out for Frederic Pit-
man.

The Olivette had already taken on
most of her freight, but the wharf re-
verberated with the rolling of hand-
trucks and the shouts of the deck-hands
as the last consignments were disposed
of. Baggage-wagons clattered up to
the open side of the building, and de-
posited piles of trunks, which were
checked and put aboard as fast as
the owners arrived to identify them.
Kittredge kept his seat until he was
hustled out of the way by an Italian
stevedore, and then he began to walk
around among the baggage and won-
der whether he could recognize young
Pitman when he saw him. The con-
fusion increased momentarily, and
amid the throng of clamorous children,
jauntily-dressed young women, youths
in white flannel, jaded mammas, hur-
rying papas, and Scandinavians and
Celts of every condition of servitude,
Salem looked in vain for his Confirmed
Inebriate. The trunks disappeared
gradually within the hold, and the
upper deck of the Olivette was filling
with passengers. Ten minutes before
the time of sailing the wharf was nearly
empty once more, and still Salem paced
back and forth, pausing to examine
the initials upon the late -arriving bag-
gage.

Once • his heart beat fast, as he read a
big P. upon a steamer trunk, two va-
lises, and a hat-box, and he stepped for-
ward to meet the owner, a stalwart
blond fellow in a checked suit and hel-
met hat. But the dissimilarity between
this figure and J. Howard Pitman made
him hesitate, and when the stranger,
after staring at him an instant, ordered
the first officer of the Olivette to book
his luggage, it dawned gratefully upon

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE,

423

Kittredge that P. might also stand for
Plantagenet.

The first officer gravely beckoned to
the baggage-niaster, and continued to
converse soothingly with the elder of
two ladies, who had been hovering anx-
iously over the trunks for several min-
utes. She was a stout little rosy-
cheeked personage of fifty-five, and
her acute eyes were sparkling behind
her gold-rimmed glasses.

" Such an irresponsible system ! "
she exclaimed.

The first officer shrugged his shoul-
ders.

"Auntie," said the younger woman,
*' are you quite sure the trunk was not
put aboard while I was buying the
tickets ? "

" Certaiidy, my child. I was watch-
ing every moment. To think that all
the plans should be in that particular
trunk ! Would your deck-hands, sir,
dare to put a trunk on board before it
had been claimed — while I held the
transfer-check in my hand ? "

*' I should scarcely think so, madam,"
replied the first officer, who had been
summoned from the deck to meet this
emergency. " But I will have another
search made in the hold at once ; " and
bowing to the older lady while look-
ing at the younger one, he shameless-
ly retreated under fire, leaving Kitt-
redge and the ladies standing near
together.

" It may come yet, Auntie. There are
five minutes left — and then you have
the check, in any case, you know."

" Yes, but, my dear child Wait !

We must telephone the transfer com-
pany. Is there a telephone here ? "

This demand was not addressed to
any one in particular, but Kittredge
glanced toward her as he heard it, and
she made a rapid advance upon him.
"Excuse me," she said, "but possibly
you can help us. Can you tell me if
there is a telephone here ? "

Kittredge glanced vaguely along the
floor of the huge building, down the
sides, over to the Olivette, up to the raf-
ters ; whence his gaze fell to the sharp
bronze feathers of the younger woman's
bonnet, and her fine brown hair, and
the grave blue eyes.

"I — don't see any," he ejaculated.

"I'm very sorry." And then he took off
his hat.

"There's a tellyphown in the offus,
mum," volunteered an interested cab-
man, with a jerk of his thumb toward
the upper end of the wharf.

" All, thank you. Then will you
please telephone the transfer company
that they must trace Check 38 instantly,
and that we have only five minutes to
spare, and that if the trunk does not
reach here in time they must express
it to me at the Hotel Occidental, at
their expense, and that "

" Wouldn't it be better to give your
name, Auntie ? " suggested the niece.

" Of course. Sign it Mrs. Atterbury,
please."

" Sign it? " inquired Kittredge.

" How very stupid in me ! You know
what I mean," exclaimed Mrs. Atter-
bury, and as the perplexed theologue
started on an undignified run for the
office, she added to her niece : "Rachel,
I do believe that in my old age I am
growing a trifle nervous ! "

As Salem reached the office door, the
clerk in charge was hurrying out to the
Olivette.

" I beg your pardon ; have you a
telephone here ! "

"Right inside. Help yourself."

Kittredge groaned. He had counted
on getting the clerk to do the talking.
It was only once or twice a year that he
had occasion to use a telephone, and
then he rarely succeeded in making the
thing work. But there was not a mo-
ment to lose. He laid his hat in a
chair, and grasping the handle of the
instrument, turned it loud and long.
Then he put the receiver to his ear and
waited. Outside, there was the hum
and rattle of the streets ; down the har-
bor somewhere, a tug-boat was blowing
her whistle ; out on the wharf there
was a scraping sound as if the}^ were
hauling up the gang-plank. Salem put
the receiver to his other ear, and rang
again ; but still the mysterious ma-
chine was dumb. It occurred to him
that perhaps he was expected to speak
first.

" Hullo ! " His voice was shaky.

"Hullo, Central!" It was slightly
louder now, and it seemed to him sten-
torian.

424

SALFM KITTRRDGE, THBOLOGUE.

" Say, Central ! Oli-li. Ceii-tr-a-l ! ! "
Never had he closed a puli)it discourse
with a purer pathos.

Then a cold sweat broke out all over
him. He had forgotten to press the
button. With a trembling- hand he
began again, and was greeted with a
prompt " Hullo ! "

"Is that the Central?"

" Yes."

" Well, I am trying to find Mrs. At-
terbury's trunk. It's lost, and she
wanted me to telephone to the transfer
company "

"Hold on a minute."

"What did you say?"

" Go ahead. Whom did you wish to
call up ? "

" The transfer company. I'm trying
to find Mrs. Atterbury's trunk, and she
wanted me to telephone "

" Yes, yes. But what number ? "

" Number thirty-eight. I think it
was a sole-leather trunk, and the Oli-
vette is just starting now, and she
says-

" Wait a minute ! " There was a con-
versation at the other end of the ma-
chine, and a confusion of sentences :
"Lewis wharf" — "some one there" —
" can't make out what he wants " — " no
such call as thirty-eight in the book."

Then came a new voice.

"Who is it that's talking?"

" Mr. Kittredge, Salem Kittredge. I
am trying to find Mrs. Atterbury's
trunk ; Mis-ses At-ter-bur-y. She
wanted me to telephone to the transfer
company "

"All right. Now hold on. Stand
up closer to the telephone. What
transfer company ? "

Salem's heart came up in his throat.
He did not have the remotest idea.
" I think it was from the Old Colony
Depot," he stammered desperately.
" But it may have been the Albany De-
pot, or perhaps it was the New Eng-
land. Can't you try them all ? " he
went on, penitently but hopelessly.
"The fact is, she didn't tell me,
and "

There was a quick rustle of skirts
behind him, and Kittredge turned. In
the narrow doorway of the dingy of-
fice stood Rachel Atterbury, slender,
alert as a bird just alighting, one gray-

gloved hand resting on the door-jamb
and the other supported by the handle
of her parasol. She leaned toward
him, a flush of color in her cheeks, her
lips parted with her quick breathing.

" Auntie's trunk is found ! " she
panted. "It was in the hold all the
time ! We were so afraid you would
be left. It was so very kind of you to
take this trouble."

Salem stared at her an instant in ab-
ject, speechless gratitude ; then he let
the telephone receiver swing dangling
back against the wall and stammered,
with admirable sincerity, "You're wel-
come. You are very welcome."

They hurried toward the Olivette
side by side. The deck-hands had al-
ready laid hold of the ropes of the
gang-plank, and the boat was quivering
with the slow turning of her screw.
Frederic Pitman had gone utterly out
of Kittredge's mind. But as they
reached the boat, they encountered a
spectacle which recalled to the theo-
logue the aim of his excursion to Mount
Desert. A red-faced, pot-bellied hack-
man bore down upon them, staggering
under the weight of a huge, commercial
traveller's trunk ; and in the rear of
this combination appeared the Con-
firmed Inebriate, a smallish young man
with a pert nose and demure eyes, im-
maculately dressed in blue serge, rus-
set shoes, and yachting cap, carrying
his head thrown forward, his elbows
very slightly outward, and his knees
very daintily bent as he walked, and
with a bundle of silver-headed sticks
and umbrellas in his hand. It was with
this bundle that he politely touched the
hackman's elbow, and indicated where
the trunk should be thrown on board ;
then he caught sight of Miss Atter-
bury. She recognized him, with a
somewhat formal inclination, and
passed swiftly up the plank. His lips
murmured her name respectfully ; his
bow was the perfection of good form.

"This is Mr. Pitman?" said Kit-
tredge, w^ondering how Mrs. Atterbury's
niece could happen to know an Inebri-
ate, but feeling instinctively sure of his
man.

" Yes ; Mr. Kittredge, I believe ? I
am very glad to meet you. After
you."

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

425

Aiid in that order they mounted to
the deck of the Olivette.

III.

The experience of Salem Kittredge
as a student of theology and even as a
frontier preacher for a space of some
four months had scarcely accustomed
him to such prompt action and swift
transitions as had marked that after-
noon. It was difficult for him to keep
more than one thing in his head at a
time, and from the moment the Atter-
bury ladies had appealed to him in
their anxiety until he spied his Inebri-
ate, he had quite forgotten the real
reason of his journey to Bar Harbor.
But his memory was sharply jogged
before he had been a minute upon the
deck of the steamer. Young Mr. Pit-
man excused himself in order to look
u}) his state-room, leaving Kittredge
leaning over the rail of the boat watch-
ing her work her way out of the slip.
The quartermaster was close beside
him, lowering a rope buffer between
the steamer and the black piles of the
wharf, and conversing respectfully with
the second officer.

" D' ye remember that little feller
who just come aboard ? "

" No. I don't know as I do," replied
the second officer.

" Why, he was that feller that wanted
to charter the Olivette to carry a cargo
of pills from Tam]3a to Havana, last
winter."

" Is that so ? Well, he was lively for
a little one, wa'nt he ? "

" I guess he was ! " And, bending
still farther over, he swung the buffer
just in time to catch the whole w^eight
of the straining boat, and as it creaked
and flattened with the pressure, he
added, judicially: " There ain't any bi-
chloride of gold in his blood ! "

Salem turned away, with a sudden
sinking at his heart. He was there to
watch over a drunkard ; such was the
service to which he owed his salary ;
he had drawn that salary in advance,
and he must earn it somehow. Rest-
lessly he made his way to the upper
deck, and there ran across Mrs. Atter-
bury, who had thriftily taken posses-
sion of a chair and had scattered her

wraps over two or three others. She
scrutinized him through the gold-
rimmed eye-glasses an instant, and
then stopped him as he was passing
her.

" You must let me thank you for
your kindness," she said, in a clear,
rapid voice. *' It was very obliging of
you to telephone for me. I have no
doubt it did some good, even if those
stupid porters had put the trunk
aboard already. You see the company
ought to be reprimanded constantly for
its carelessness, on general principles.
I am glad they had a man to talk to
them. But we feared the boat might
start without you ; we were very grate-
ful."

"Oh, I— I really did very little,"
said Kittredge, blushing.

" That is for us to decide," graciously
replied Mrs. Atterbury, "and no one
knows how much good it may have
done the transfer company."

The theologue had the appearance
of deferentially waiving this question,
but he could not think of anything to
say, and the pause in the conversation
indicated that his brief acquaintance
with Mrs. Atterbury had already
reached its limit. As he hesitated, on
the point of leaving her, the Inebriate
brushed past his elbow, and was
greeted by the lady with a smile of
recognition and an outstretched hand.

" Why, how do you do, Mr. Pitman !
I remember meeting you at Magnolia.
Is your mother on board ? "

" Mother is not here," responded Mr.
Pitman, with a slightly husk}^ voice,
into wiiich he succeeded in pouring a
most unctuous regret, and with a look
of bland resignation in his brow^n eyes.
" Mother has felt obliged to remain in
Magnolia this summer. It would have
given her great pleasure to meet you
again. I see you know Mr. Kittredge,"
he added, turning to Salem.

"Yes, indeed! Mr. Kittredge has
been of the greatest service to us ; he
must have telephoned all over the city
in search of a trunk that contained the
plans for our cottage. We couldn't
have lost it, jou. know. Tell me, Mr.
Pitman, is not a transfer company
liable under the circumstances to the
full extent of the law ? "

426

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

The Inebriate nodded ofravely.

" Won't you take these chairs ? "
she went on. *' It will be impossible
to find one in a few minutes, the boat
is so crowded ; " and with hospitable
zeal she piled her travelling-- rugs upon
the deck and insisted that the young
men should sit down. The fleet Oli-
vette had already left the docks far be-
hind her and was headed down the
channel. Young Pitman and Mrs. At-
terbury were still deep in the discus-
sion of the trunk question — broken by
occasional comments upon the speed
of the steamer or the familiar beauty of
the harbor — when Salem caught sight
of Rachel Atterbury picking her way
toward them through the crowded
chairs. She had exchanged the bronze-
feathered bonnet for a blue Tarn O'
Shanter, and the collar of her tight-fit-
ting jacket was turned up around her
throat, making her figure seem even
slenderer than before. Just as she
reached the group, the wash from a
passing schooner struck the Olivette's
quarter ; and the girl, with a little gasp,
threw up her hands to balance herself,
and was poised for a single instant in
the very attitude in which she had ap-
peared to Salem at the dingy office door
upon the wharf. He sprang to his feet,
followed by the Inebriate.

" My niece, Miss Atterbury — Mr. Pit-
man. Oh, of course ! You have met
at Magnolia ; I should have remem-
bered it. And Mr. Kittredge."

Again Salem noticed that her bow
to Frederic Pitman, though perfectly
pleasant, was formal, far more so than
her recognition of himself ; and of the
chairs Vv^hich the two gentlemen offered
her, she accepted Kittredge's. A keen
sense of pleasure thrilled him. He
talked eagerly, gayly, cutting short her
reiteration of gratitude about that
wretched telephone ; and young Pit-
man, glancing shrewdly at them in the
pauses of his own conversation with
the aunt, decided that his new compan-
ion was more of a ladies' man than he
looked.

When the steamer had made Minot's
Light, and was headed away for the
darkening northeast, the cooler wdnd
and increasing motion drove most of
the passengers from the upper deck.

But in the west there was a gorgeous
sunset, and off the port quarter the
flash of first one and then another dis-
tant light, and the Atterbury ladies,
wrapped in their rugs, sat watching it all
until the dusk fell close around the
sharp black bow of the Olivette, and
there was a scent in the air like that of
a coming fog. Then they went down
to supper, leaving the two young men,
for the first time, alone together.

Salem felt that the moment had come
for them to reach an understanding of
the peculiar relation into which they
were about to enter ; and Freddie Pit-
man seemed to realize his companion's
thought, for he turned up the collar of
his overcoat, stretched his feet irrever-
ently upon the chair which Miss At-
terbury had abandoned, and sat eying
Kittredge as if waiting for him to be-
gin. But it was exceedingly difficult
for the theologue to invent an intro-
duction to his discourse, and he had a
decidedly vague idea of what the dis-
course itself ought to be.

" Well," he said, '"here we are."

"Yes," assented Pitman, politely,
"here we are." The fact, indeed, was
indubitable. Salem was shaking with
the cold, and dizzy with the rise and
fall of the steamer's bow.

" I suppose," he ventured, " we ought
to have something of a talk."

" Yes ? " was the response. " What
do you say to a smoke ? " Freddie
Pitman unbuttoned his coat and held
out a plethoric cigar-case.

" No, I thank you," said Salem, hur-
riedly, his teeth chattering as he spoke,
and the bare idea of smoking or seeing
any one else smoke seemed suddenly to
augment by ten or fifteen degrees that
upward and downward pitch of the
bow.

" Look here, aren't you cold ? Hadn't
you better get your overcoat ? "

" I — I left it in Andover. I am a little
cold. Perhaps I ought to eat some
supper," he added, weakly, as he caught
the first whiff of Pitman's cigar.

" Of course. That will make you feel
better — warmer, I mean " — he correct-
ed himself instantly — "and I will wait
here for you if you like. I had a five
o'clock dinner, and nearly lost the boat
by it, so I think I won't go down."

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

427

Salem rose unsteadily and made his
way aft, while the wind lifted his shiny
coat-tails and forced him to keep tight
hold of his stiff hat. Down the com-
panion-way he stumbled, and into the
dining-saloon, but a single look at the
tables convinced him that supper was
not what he needed. Slowly, dizzily,
he dragged himself to the fresh air of
the upper deck once more, and stood
there a moment watching the red tip of
Pitman's cigar, as the young fellow
paced nonchalantly back and forth
upon the deserted deck ; but just then
the tricky Olivette began to roll a little,
Freddie Pitman's cigar-tip seemed to
circle up — up — up, and to whirl down —
down — down, and Salem Kittredge
suddenly remembered that he had a
state-room.

Two hours later there was a gentle
knock at that state-room door, and Pit-
man entered quietly. The theologue
was stretched face downward in his
berth, his coat off, shivering, but too
wretched to stir.

" Hullo ! " said Freddie, " I've been
wondering where you were. Couldn't
imagine what had become of you. But
it's sensible to turn in early ; this looks
like a bad night and I'm going to fol-
low suit. Allow me, Mr. Kittredge, it
will make you more comfortable." As
he spoke, he covered Salem dexterously
with the blankets from both berths.
" Nonsense, let me pull your shoes off —
there ! And now, my dear fellow, your
teeth are chattering so that I can't go
to sleep in the next state-room. You
must let me prescribe ; w^ait a second —
here, swallow this ; no, I'll hold it ; don't
try to sit up ; just open your mouth
and shut your eyes — so-o — there ! "

But when Salem had stopped choking,
and the fiery liquid had begun to dif-
fuse a delicious warmth throughout his
vitals, he opened his eyes sufficiently
to behold a friendly and extraordinarily
infectious smile upon the features of
the Inebriate, who was carefully screw-
ing down the top of a brandy-flask.

IV.

At five the next morning the Olivette
changed her course and slackened
speed, cautiously feeling her way in the

fog toward a certain bell-buoy. The
altered rhythm of her engines woke
Kittredge from a sleep which even the
Olivette's fog-whistle, blowing for the
past two hours, had not disturV)ed. He
raised himself upon one elbow and
stared sleepily around the state-room.
There were his new dress suit case
and the paper parcels, just as he had
left them ; but his long black coat,
which he indistinctly remembered drop-
ping upon the floor, was now suspended
neatly from a hook, and his shoes were
placed carefully beneath it. His shoes ?
He recalled that when he went to bed he
had decided, all at once, not to take off
his shoes. Gracious ! There flashed over
him the quiet kindness of Pitman — and
the blankets — and that scorching spirit-
uous draught. He flung himself out
of the berth and looked in the mirror.
His ej^es were not bloodshot, nor were his
features haggard ; his hair was mussed,
certainly, but his head was clear as a
bell ; he glanced out of the porthole at
the glassy water and the luminous fog
through which the boat seemed scarce-
ly more than drifting ; then he counted
his pulse, and decided he had never
felt better in his life.

In half an hour he had bathed, ar-
rayed himself, after some hesitation, in
his new white suit, and was knocking
at Pitman's state-room. As there was
no answer, and the door was slight-
ly ajar, Kittredge thrust his head in,
and beheld the Inebriate slumbering
peacefully in the lower berth. For a
moment Salem watched him. It was a
very young face, and scarcely seemed a
bad one : the collar of the silk night-
robe was drawn close up to the chin,
whose lines were delicate and almost
firm ; the mouth was winning, the sau-
cy nose lent a certain gayness to the
countenance, the brown hair was tum-
bled in boyish fashion ; and while Kit-
tredge was still looking, the demure
eyes opened wide and smiled a morn-
ing greeting.

*' How do you do," said Salem ; "I
thought I'd see if you were awake."

''That's all riglit. Come in. What
time is it ? "

" It's moving along toward six," re-
plied Kittredge, " and I didn't know
but we should be getting in soon."

428

SALEM KITTKEDGE, THEOLOGUE.

"Exactly," yawned Pitman, directing
his brown eyes inquiringly at the theo-
logue's flannel suit. But he made no
comment, and announced an intention
of arising in a very few minutes and
annihilating the Olivette's fog-whistle.
In this work of destruction Salem was
cordially invited to join, and he as-
sented to the extent of agreeing to
wait for Pitman upon the upper deck,
that they might begin operations to-
gether. Thither, accordingly, Salem
betook himself, fairly satisfied with the
pleasantry he had exchanged with his
protege, and feeling himself to be quite
a different person from the man who
had retreated down those slippery sa-
loon stairs the night before.

The morning was delicious. The Oli-
vette was still enwrapped with fog, so
thick that with a double lookout at
the bow, she did not dare to steam
ahead at full speed ; yet in her wake it
was all translucent in the sun, gleam-
ing with a hundred tints of mother-of-
pearl and clouded opal, and around her
keel it slowly rose like drifting smoke
from the dull-green water. Kittredge
threw back his shoulders, and took a
deep breath of the salt air. Then he
observed Miss Atterbury, who was lean-
ing over the rail to watch a floating
jelly-fish, and in the buoyancy of that
moment he stepped promptly to her
side. She started as she caught sight
of his big hand upon the rail, so close
to her own, and for an instant she
failed to recognize him in his utterly
changed attire.

" Good - morning ! " he exclaimed.
" Did you sleep well ? "

" Oh, good- morning, Mr. — Mr. Kit-
tredge," she said, straightening up. " I
beg your pardon ? "

" Did the fog - whistle keep you
awake ? " He beamed at her with be-
nevolent gray eyes.

"Yes, indeed, for the longest time.
Was it not dreadful ! "

"Well, I didn't hear it myself," he
admitted. " I must have been very
sound asleep. But Mr. Pitman says
that it was the — that it w^as very annoy-
ing. He proposes to smash it when he
comes up, and wants me to help him."

" Ah ? Mr. Pitman must be very vin-
dictive," she said, smilingly. "Don't

you think one ought to be more forgiv-
ing on a perfect morning like this ? "

" I ? Oh, I could forgive anything or
anybody to-day, I am sure. And per-
haps Mr. Pitman didn't mean it. I
don't know him very welL"

" No ? "

" No, not really. In fact, I met him
only yesterday. You see I have been a
theological student, and "

He hesitated, and she helped him out
a little, in feminine fashion.

" Yes, I think you told me you had
been studying at Andover. What a
lovely old place Andover is, isn't it ! "

" You have been there, then ? "

" I have only driven through, with
Auntie and a coaching party. But I
interrupted you, did I not ? "

" No," he said, bluntly, his feeling of
loyalty to the young fellow keeping him
from the explanation he had started to
give, "Pitman and I are just travelling
together."

She nodded silently, looking him in
the eyes. Kittredge remembered her
coolness toward Pitman the night be-
fore, and was sure she had guessed the
relationship between himself and the
Inebriate. But she changed the sub-
ject. "I was just watching the fun-
niest jelly-fish ! " she remarked, looking
down at the water again. "I wonder if
you can tell me its name ; there were
so many of them here a few moments
ago. Do you study jelly-fishes at the
theological seminary, Mr. Kittredge ? "

"No, " he replied ; "we have them
there, but we don't study them, except
incidentally. "

She glanced at him with a delightful
smile of comprehension. " I have met
some of the men in our own theological
school at Cambridge, and — yes, they
are queer. But many of them are very
nice — really, not jelly-fishy at all."

"I don't suppose we can help it — to
a certain extent," said Kittredge, fear-
ing that he had slandered his brethren,
and at the same time offering a guilty
apology for himself ; " it's the nature
of the life we lead — the defect of our
qualities, if you like."

"No," she insisted, "I don't admit
it. The Church — the ministry, I mean
— is a noble profession ; it is quite the
noblest. And some of the men are

SALEM KITTKEDGE, THEOLOGUE.

429

cliarming. We have had several of
tliem in some informal dances this
last winter ; they were so clever, too."

" Indeed ? I am afraid we are not
all clever at Andover. But we have
some sterling men."

She interrujoted him, pointing eager-
ly down to the water. " Quick ! " she
ciied, " isn't it a nautilus ? A real
Chambered Nautilus ? "

Kittredge looked critically at the tiny
floating object. " I'm sure I don't
know. Is he sailing away from his low-
vaulted past or does he take it with
him ? "

" Oh, he leaves it behind ! " she
laughed. " Don't you remember ?
' Leave thy low- vaulted past ' — it comes
just after ' Build thou more stately
mansions, O my soul.' That last is the
line I've been teasing Auntie with all
the spring. I maintain that her house
at Newton, built by old Colonel Atter-
bury himself, is ever so much nicer
than this new cottage at Bar Harbor.
Did she offer to show you the plans ? "

"No," said Kittredge, "but I believe
she discussed them with Mr. Pitman."

" Those plans are a perfect mania
with Auntie ; you should hear her talk
them over with the coachman ! If the
trunk had veritably been lost, Mr. Kit-
tredge, I'm sure I can't imagine what
we should have done. The architect
has just sailed for Europe. Auntie will
never forget your kindness ; but I am
certain that you cannot escape looking
over the plans."

" But I shall enjoy it ! " he exclaimed.
" I think house-building is very delight-
ful. And until it is finished ? "

" We shall remain at the Occidental."

The theologue flushed with pleasure.
"We are going there too," he cried.
" Perhaps you will let me — let us — see
something of you ? " The thought of
the Inebriate made him hesitate ; he
wondered whether he should find him-
self under a social ban because of his
companion, and he had an uncomfort-
able minute or two while he pretended
to watch the nautilus drift away into
the lifting fog.

" I do not really know Mr. Pitman,"
she began, after a little, as if she were
thinking of the very same thing as Kit-
tredge. " I heard some talk about him
Vol. xn.— 47

at Magnolia last summer. His father
is the patent-medicine man, is he not ? "

Salem nodded with a queer expres-
sion in his face. " ' Si monumentum
quseris,' " said he, " just look at that ! "

The fog had been swept apart by a
sudden breeze, and all around there
were tiny islands, covered with tliick
clumps of spruce, where blue jays and
crows were calling to each other. On
a huge bowlder just off the bow of the
Olivette, still glistening from the fall-
ing tide, was the following legend, in
white letters upon an azure field : C/ise
Pitman's Primitive Pellets,

" What horrid vandalism ! " she cried,
indignantly. " Should you not think
that "

Salem heard a step behind them, and
turning, hurriedly touched her arm.
She smothered an exclamation and faced
around, a charming color in her cheeks.
The Inebriate advanced unconsciously,
his mouth quirked into the most agree-
able of smiles. Kittredge tried to
throw his broad shoulders between Pit-
man and that staring sign, but it was
Miss Atterbury who saved the day.

" Mr. Pitman," she said, " we've been
talking of your threatened assault uj)-
on the steam-whistle, and I don't even
know where the thing is. Won't you
please show me ? "

The flattered Inebriate extended his
elbow with a bow. She took his arm
instantly, and off they marched, with
their backs turned upon the bowlder
and Mr. Kittredge, who stood there
somewhat vacantly by the rail. Miss
Atterbury and her companion were in
perfect step, and she kept turning
cosily toward him as they promenaded,
but Salem could not help thinking that
she was quite too tall for his ijrotege.
Possibly Mrs. Atterbury, who joined
Kittredge at the instant when his re-
flections upon this point were in danger
of growing a trifle sombre, may have
shared his feeling that there was a cer-
tain incongruity in that sudden friend-
liness, for she lifted her eye - glasses
and regarded her niece steadily, while
Kittredge murmured something about
getting Pitman away from a Pellet ad-
vertisement that might have been awk-
ward for him.

" For him ? " laughed the widow.

430

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

" Scarcely ; I fancy he is not easily em-
l)arrassed ; but for my niece and your-
self, very possibly. And you were
really just lookin^j;- at it when he came
up ! " She laughed again ; a light, res-
onant laugh for a woman of hfty-five.
" But my niece can make up her mind
very quickly on occasion, Mr. Kit-
tredge. She can extricate herself, when
necessary, as well as most people."

" I should judge so," said the theo-
logue, with as much admiration as he
dared express. " She tells me you are
going to build here."

" Yes, the revised plans were in that
trunk you so kindly traced for us yes-
terday. You must let me show them
to you some day."

" Certainly," assented Kittredge,
promptly. "I shall be most pleased."

"Very good ; perhaps you will be the
one to assure me whether my architect
has made a trium^^h of the stairs. No
one seems sufficiently positive about it.
We shall be at the Occidental," she
added.

"I am to be there too," Salem ex-
claimed ; " that is — Mr. Pitman and
myself."

" Oh ! " said Mrs. Atterbury, slowly.

And just then the Olivette leaped
forward under full pressure of her
steam, glided past the vessels of the

White Squadron lying lazily at anchor
in the channel, and in five minutes was
made fast to the little wooden wharf at
Bar Harbor. Salem took one compre-
hensive glance at the flotilla of Indian
canoes and steam yachts, the crowd of
truckmen and hotel runners on the
w^harf, the Kebo Valley Club House, the
big hotels looming through the mist ;
then he started for his state-room in
search of the two brown pai3er parcels
and his dress-suit case.

Upon the saloon stairs he met Miss
Atterbury. She was hastening up to
the deck, buttoning her gloves as she
went, but she stoj^ped Salem as they
were passing each other.

" Could he have heard ? " she w^his-
pered, her eyes looking straight into
his. " I was never so frightened in my
life. Do you think he heard ? "

" I hardly think so. You were very
quick-witted ; and, if you will allow me,"
he added, bluntly, " you made him am-
ple amends, even if he did hear." He
was jealous of the w^ay she had taken
the Inebriate's arm.

Miss Atterbury fastened her last
glove-button deliberately ; then she
raised her eyebrov/s ever so slightly,
and made him a mock courtesy. " Yes ? "
she said, and the crowd upon the stairs
swept them apart.

(To be continued.)

™

FRENCH ART.

II. ROMANTIC PAINTING.
By ]V. C. BrownelL

I.

ground."
mirable

HEN we come to Scott
after Fielding, says
Mr. Stevenson, " we
become suddenly con-
scious of the back-
Tlie remark contains an ad-
cliaracterization of romanti-
cism ; as distinguished from classicism,
romanticism is consciousness of the
background. With Gericault, Paul
Huet, Michel, Delacroix, French paint-
ing ceased to be abstract and imj)er-
sonal. Instead of continuing the clas-
sic detachment, it became interested, cu-
rious, and catholic. It broadened its
range immensely, and created its effect
by observing the relations of its objects
to their environment, of its figures to
the landscape, of its subjects to their
suggestions even in other spheres of
thought ; Delacroix, Marilhat, Decamps,
From en tin, in painting the aspect of
Orientalism, suggested, one may almost
say, its sociology. For the abstractions
of classicism, its formula, its fastidious
system of arriving at perfection by ex-
clusions and sacrifices, it substituted an
enthusiasm for the concrete and the act-
ual ; it revelled in natural phenomena.
Gautier was never more definitely the
exponent of romanticism than in say-
in i^;- " I am a man for whom the visible
world exists." To lines and curves and
masses and their relations in composi-
tion, succeeds as material for inspira-
tion and reproduction the varied spec-
tacle of the external world. With the
early romanticists it may be said that
for the first time the external world
" swims into " the painter's " ken."
But, above all, in them the element of
personality first appears in French
painting with anything like general ac-
ceptance and as the characteristic of a
group, a school, rather than as an iso-
lated and individual exception here and
there, such as Claude or Chardin. The

" point of view " takes the place of con-
formity to a standard. The j^ainter ex-
presses himself instead of endeavoring
to realize an extraneous and imperson-
al ideal. What he himself personally
thinks, how he himself personally feels,
is what we read in his works.

It is true that, rightly understood,
the romantic epoch is a period of evolu-
tion, and orderly evolution at that, if
we look below the surface, rather than of
systematic defiance and revolt. It is true
that it recast rather than repudiated its
inheritance of tradition ; nevertheless
there has never been a time when the
individual felt himself so free, when
every man of any original genius felt
so keenly the exhilaration of independ-
ence, when the " schools " of painting
exercised less tyranny and, indeed,
counted for so little. If it be exact to
speak of the " romantic school " at all,
it should be borne in mind that its ad-
herents were men of the most marked
and diverse individualities ever grouped
under one standard. The impression-
ists, perhaps, apart, individuality is of-
ten spoken of as the essential charac-
teristic of the painters of the present
day. But beside the outburst of indi-
viduality at the beginning of the ro-
mantic epoch much of the painting of
the present day seems both monoton-
ous and eccentric — the variation of its
essential monotony, that is to say, being
somewhat labored and express in com-
parison with the spontaneous multifari-
ousness of the epoch of Delacroix and
Decamps. In the decade between 1820
and 1830, at all events, notwithstanding
the strength of the academic tradition,
painting was free from the thraldom of
system, and the imagination of its prac-
titioners was not challenged and circum-
scribed by the criticism that is based
upon science. Not only in the painter's
freedom in his choice of subject, but in
his way of treating it, in the way in
which he " takes it," is the revolution —

432

FRENCH AKT— ROMANTIC FAINTING.

or, as I should he inc-lincd to say, rather,
the evohitioii — shown. And as what we
mean by ijersonality is, in general, made
u]^ far more of emotion than of mind —
there being room for infinitely more
variety in feeling than in mental pro-
cesses among intelligent agents — it is
natural to find the French romantic
painters giving, by contrast with their
predecessors, such free swing to per-
sonal feeling that we may almost sum
up the origin of the romantic move-
ment in French painting in saying that
it was an ebullition of emancipated
emotion. And, to go a step farther, we
may say that, as nothing is so essential
to poetry as feeling, we meet now for
the first time wdth the poetic element
as an inspiring motive and controlling
force.

The romantic painters were, how-
ever, by no means merely emotional.
They were mainly imaginative. And
in painting, as in literature, the great
change wrought by romanticism con-
sisted in stimulating the imagination
instead of merely satisfying the sense
and the intellect. The main idea ceased
to be as obviously accentuated, and its
natural surroundings were given their
natural place ; there was less direct
statement and more suggestion ; the
artist's effort was expended rather upon
perfecting the ensemble, noting rela-
tions, taking in a larger circle ; a sug-
gested complexity of moral elements
took the place of the old simplicity,
whose multifariousness was almost
wholly pictorial. Instead of a land-
scape as a tapestry background to a
Hol}^ Family, and having no pertinence
but an artistic one, we have Corot's
"Orpheus."

II.

G^KiCAULT and Delacroix are the
great names inscribed at the head of
the romantic roll. They will remain
there. And the distinction is theirs
not as awarded by the historical esti-
mate ; it is personal. In the case of
Gericault perhaps one thinks a little of
" the man and the moment " theory.
He was, it is true, the first romantic
painter — at any rate the first notable
romantic painter. His struggles, his

steadfastness, his success — pathetically
posthumous — have given him an honor-
able eminence. His example of force
and freedom exerted an influence
which has been traced not only in the
work of Delacroix, his immediate in-
heritor, but in that of the sculptor
Rude, and even as far as that of Millet
— to all outward appearance so differ-
ent in inspiration from that of his own
tumultuous and dramatic genius. And
as of late years we look on the stages
of any evolution as less dependent on
individuals than w^e used to, doubtless
just as Luther w^as confirmed and sup-
ported on his way to the Council at
Worms b}^ the people calling on him
from the house-tops not to deny the
truth, Gericault was sustained and
stimulated in the face of official oblo-
quy by a more or less considerable
aesthetic movement of which he was
really but the leader and exponent.
But his fame is not dependent upon
his revolt against the Institute, his in-
fluence upon his successors, or his in-
carnation of an aesthetic movement. It
rests on his individual accomplishment,
his personal value, the abiding interest
of his pictures. " The Raft of the Me-
dusa" will remain an admirable and
moving creation, a masterpiece of dra-
matic vigor and vivid characterization,
of wide and deep human interest and
truly panoramic grandeur, long after
its contemporary and historic impor-
tance have ceased to be thought of ex-
cept by the aesthetic antiquarian. " The
Wounded Cuirassier" and the "Chas-
seur of the Guard " are not documents
of aesthetic history, but noble expres-
sions of artistic sapience and personal
feeling.

What, I think, is the notable thing
about both Gericault and Delacroix,
however, as exponents, as the initia-
tors, of romanticism, is the way in which
they restrained the impetuous temper-
ament they share within the confines
of a truly classic reserve. Closely con-
sidered, they are not the revolutionists
which they seemed to the official classi-
cism of their day. Not only do they
not base their true claims to enduring
fame upon a spirit of revolt against of-
ficial and academic art — a spirit essen-
tially negative and nugatory, and never

(5

Vol. XII.— 48

434

FRENCH ART— ROMANTIC PAINTING.

the inspiration of nnythin^iierm.inently
puissant and attractive — but, compared
with their successors of the present day,
in whose works individual preference
and predilection seem to have a swing
whose very freedom and irresponsible
audacity extort admiration — compared
with the confident temerariousness of
what is known as modernite, their self-
possession and sobriety seem their
most noteworthy characteristics. Com-
pared with the " Bar at the Folies-Ber-
gere," either the " Eaft of the Medusa "
or the " Convulsionists of Tangiers "
is a classic production. And the differ-
ence is not at all due to the forty years'
accretion of Protestantism which Manet
represents as compared with the early
romanticists. It is due to a complete
difference in attitude. Gericault im-
bued himself with the inspiration of
the Louvre. Delacroix is said always
to have made a sketch from the old mas-
ters or the antique a preliminary to his
own daily work. So far from flaunt-
ing tradition, they may be said to have,
in their own view, restored it ; so far
from posing as apostles of innovation,
they may almost be accused of " hark-
ing back " — of steeping themselves in
what to them seemed best and finest
and most authoritative in art, instead
of giving a free rein to their own unre-
gulated emotions and conceptions.

Gericault died early and left but a
meagre product. Delacroix is par ex-
cellence the rej^resentative of the ro-
mantic epoch. And both by the mass
and the quality of his work he is the
true connecting link between the clas-
sic epoch and the modern. He repre-
sents culture — he knows art as well as
he loves nature. He has a feeling for
what is beautiful as well as a knowledge
of Avhat is true. He is pre-eminently
and primarily a colorist — he is, in fact,
the introducer of color as a distinct
element in French painting after the
pale and bleak reaction from the Louis
Quinze decorativeness. His color, too,
is not merely the prismatic coloration
of what had theretofore been mere
chiaroscuro ; it is original and personal
to such a degree that it has never been
successfully imitated since his day.
Withal, it is apparently simplicity it-
self. Its hues are apparently the prim-

ary ones, in the main. It depends upon
no subtleties and refinements of tints
for its effectiveness. It is significant
that the absorbed and affected Rossetti
did not like it ; it is too frank and clear
and oj^en, and shows too little evidence
of the morbid brooding and hysterical
forcing of an arbitrary and esoteric
note dear to the English pre-Raphael-
ites. It attests a delight in color, not
a fondness for certain colors, hues,
tints — a difference perfectly apprecia-
ble to either an unsophisticated or an
educated sense. It has a solidity and
strength of range and vibration com-
bined with a subtle sensitiveness, and,
as a result of the fusion of the two, a
certain splendor that recalls Saracenic
decoration. And mth this mastery of
color is united a combined fii'mness
and expressiveness of design, that
makes Delacroix unique by emphasiz-
ing his truly classic subordination of
informing enthusiasm to a severe and
clearly perceived ideal — an ideal in a
sense exterior to his purely personal ex-
pression. In a word, his chief charac-
teristic— and it is a supremely signifi-
cant trait in the representative painter
of romanticism — is a poetic imagination
tempered and trained by culture and
refinement. AVlien his audacities and
enthusiasms are thought of, the direc-
tions in his wiU for his tomb should be
remembered too : " H n'y sera place ni
embleme, ni buste, ni statue ; mon
tombeau sera copie tres exactement
sur I'antique, ou Yignoles ou Palla-
dio, avec des saillies tres prononcees,
contrairement a tout ce qui se fait
aujourd'hui en architecture." "There
must be neither emblem, bust, nor
statue on my tomb, which shall be
copied very scrupulously after the an-
tique, either Vignola or Palladio, with
prominent projections, contrary to
everything done to - day in architect-
ure." In a sense all Delacroix is in
these words.

III.

Delacroix's color deejDens into an al-
most musical intensity occasionally in
Decamps, whose oriental landscapes and
figures, far less important intellectually,
far less magistrales in conception, have

FRENCH ART— ROMANTIC PAINTING.

435

Day-D reams. — Couture.
(By permission of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

at .times, one may say perhaps without
being too fanciful, a truly symphonic
quality that renders them unique.
" The Suicide " is like a chord on a
violin. But it is when we come to
speak of the " Fontainebleau Group," in
especial, I think, that the aesthetic sus-
ceptibility characteristic of the latter
half of the nineteenth century feels, to
borrow M. Taine's introduction to his
lectures on " The Ideal in Art," that

the subject is one only to be treated in
poetry.

Of the noblest of all so-called
" schools," Millet is perhaps the most
popular member. His popularity is
in great part, certainly, due to his lit-
erary side, to the sentiment which per-
vades, which drenches, one may say, all
his later work — his work after he had,
on overhearing himself characterized
as a painter of naked women, betaken

436

FRENCH AKT— ROMANTIC PAINTING.

himself to his true Kubject, the French
peasant. A literary, and a very ])ower-
I'ul literary side, Millet undoul)t(?dly
has ; and instead of bein*^ a weakness
in him it is a ])ower. His sentimental
ai)peal is far from being surplusage,
but, as is not I think 2)Oi)ularly appre-
ciated, it is subordinate, and the fact
of its subordination gives it what po-
tency it has. It is idle to deny this j)o-
tency, for his portrayal of the French
peasant in his varied aspects has prob-
ably been as efficient a characterization
as that of George Sand herself. But, if
a moral instead of an aesthetic effect
had been Millet's chief intention, we
may be sure that it would have been
made far less incisively than it has been.
Compare, for example, his peasant pict-
ures with those of the almost purely
literary painter Jules Breton, who has
evidently chosen his field for its senti-
mental rather than its pictorial value,
and Avhose work is, perhaps according-
ly, by contrast with Millet's, noticeably
external and superficial even on the
literary side. When Millet ceased to
deal in the Correggio manner with Cor-
reggiesque subjects, and devoted him-
self to the material that was really
native to him, to his own peasant gen-
ius — whatever he may have thought
about it himself, he did so because he
could treat this m^iievml pictorially with
more freedom and less artificiality, with
more zest and enthusiasm, with a deeper
sympathy and a more intimate knowl-
edge of its artistic characteristics, its
pictorial potentialities. He is, I think,
as a painter, a shade too much pre-
occupied with this material, he is a lit-
tle too philosophical in regard to it, his
pathetic struggle for existence exagger-
ated his sentimental affiliations with it
somewhat, he made it too exclusively
his subject, perhaps. We gain, it may
be, at his expense. With his artistic
gifts he might have been more fortun-
ate, had his range been broader. But
in the main it is his pictorial handling
of this material, with which he was in
such acute sympathy, that distinguishes
his work, and that will preserve its fame
long after its humanitarian and senti-
mental appeal has ceased to be as potent
as it now is — at the same time that it
has itself enforced this appeal in the sub-

ordinating manner I have suggested.
When he was asked his intention, in
his picture of a maimed calf borne away
on a litter by two men, he said it was
simply to indicate the sense of weight
in the muscular movement and attitude
of the bearers' arms.

His great distinction, in fine, is artis-
tic. His early painting of conventional
subjects is not Avithout significance in
its witness to the quality of his talent.
Another ma}" paint French peasants all
his life and never make them perma-
nently interesting, because he has not
Millet's admirable instinct and equip-
ment as a painter. He is a superb col-
orist, at times — always an enthusiastic
one ; there is something almost unreg-
ulated in his delight in color, in his
fondness for glowing and resplendent
tone. No one gets farther away from
the academic grayness, the colorless
chiaroscuro of the conventional paint-
ers. He runs his key up and loads his
canvas, occasionally, in what one may
call not so much barbaric as unculti-
vated and elementary fashion. He cares
so much for color that sometimes, when
his effect is intended to be purely atmos-
pheric, as in the " Angelus," he misses
its justness and fitness, and so, in in-
sisting on color, obtains from the color
point of view itself an infelicitous — a
colored — result. Occasionally he bathes
a scene in yellow mist that obscures
all accentuations and play of values.
But always his feeling for color betrays
him a painter rather than a moralist.
And in comj^osition he is, I should say,
even more distinguished. His compo-
sition is almost always distinctly ele-
gant. Even in so simple a scheme as
that of " The Sower," the lines are as
fine as those of a Raphael. And the
way in which balance is preserved,
masses are distributed, and an organic
play of parts related to each other and
each to the sum of them is secured, is
in all of his large works so salient an
element of their admirable excellence,
that, to those who appreciate it, the de-
pendence of his popularity upon the
sentimental suggestion of the raw ma-
terial with which he dealt seems almost
grotesque. In his line and mass and
the relations of these in composition,
there is a severity, a restraint, a conform-

Orpheus. — Corot.
(By permission of Messrs. Cottier & Co.)

488

FRENCH ART— ROMANTIC FAINTING.

ity to tradition, liowovor personally felt
and individually modified, that evince
a strono- classic strain in this most un-
acadeniic of painters. Millet was cer-
tainly an original genius, if there ever
was one. In spite of, and in open hos-
tility to, the popular and convention-
al painting of his day, he followed his
own bent and went his own way. Bet-
ter, perhaps, than any other painter, he
represents absolute emancipation from
the prescribed, from routine and for-
mulary. But it would be a signal mis-
take to fail to see, in the most charac-
teristic works of this most personal
representative of romanticism, that sub-
ordination of the individual whim and
isolated point of view to what is ac-
cepted, proven, and universal, which is
essentially what we mean by the classic
attitude. One may almost go so far as
to say, considering its reserve, its re-
straint and poise, its sobriety and meas-
ure, its quiet and composure, its sub-
ordination of individual feeling to a
high sense of artistic decorum, that,
romantic as it is, unacademic as it is,
its most incontestable claim to perma-
nence is the truly classic spirit which,
however modified, inspires and infil-
trates it. Beside some of the later
manifestations of individual genius in
French painting, it is almost academic.
In Corot, anyone, I suppose, can see
this note, and it would be surplusage
to insist upon it. He is the ideal clas-
sic-romantic painter, both in temper-
ament and practice. Millet's subject,
not, I think, his treatment — possibly
his wider range — makes him seem more
deeply serious than Corot, but he is
not essentially as nearly unique. His
is unrivalled in his way, but Corot is
unparalleled. Corot inherits the tradi-
tion of Claude ; his motive, like Claude's,
is always an eftect, and, like Claude's,
his means are light and air. But his
effect is a shade more impalpable, and
his means are at once simpler and more
subtle. He gets farther away from the
phenomena w^iich are the elements of
his ensemble, farther than Claude, far-
ther than anyone. His touch is as
light as the zephyr that stirs the diaph-
anous drapery of his trees. Beside it
Claude's has a suspicion, at least, of
unctuousness. It has a pure, crisp,

vibrant accent, quite without analogue
in the technic of landscajje painting.
Taking technic in its widest sense, one
may speak of Corot's shortcomings —
not, I think, of his failures. It would
be difficult to mention a modern painter
more uniformly successful in attaining
his aim, in expressing what he wishes
to express, in conveying his impres-
sion, communicating his sensations.

That a painter of his power, a man
of the very first rank, should have been
content — even placidly content — to ex-
ercise it within a range by no means
narrow, but j)laiiily circumscribed, is
certainly witness of limitation. " Dela-
croix is an eagle, I am only a skylark,"
he remarked once, with his characteris-
tic cheeriness. His range is not, it is
true, as circumscribed as is generally
supposed outside of France. Outside
of France his figure-painting, for exam-
ple, is almost unknown. We see chiefly
variations of his green and gray arbored
pastoral — now idyllic, now heroic, now
full of freshness, the skylark quality,
now of grave and deep harmonies and
wild, sweet notes of transitory sugges-
tion. Of his figures w^e only know
those shifting shapes that blend in
such classic and charming manner with
the glades and groves of his landscapes.
Of his " Hagar in the Wilderness," his
"St. Jerome," his "Flight into Egypt,"
his " Democritus," his " Baptism of
Christ," with its nine life-size figures,
who, outside of France, has even heard ?
How many foreigners know that he
painted what are called architectural
subjects delightfully, and even genre
with zest ?

But compared wdth his landscape, in
which he is unique, it is plain that he
excels nowhere else. The splendid dis-
play of his works in the Centenaire
Exposition of the great World's Fair
of 1889, was a revelation of his range
of interest rather than of his range of
power. It was impossible not to per-
ceive that, surprising as were his essays
in other fields, to those w^ho only knew
him as a landscape painter, he was es-
sentially and integrally a painter of
landscape, though a painter of land-
scaj^e who had taken his subject in a
w^ay and treated it in a manner so per-
sonal as to be really unparalleled. Out-

FRENCH ART— ROMANTIC PAINTING.

439

side of landscape his interest was clearly
not real. In his other works one notes
a certain dfbonnaire irresponsibility.
He pursued nothino- seriously but out-
of-doors, its vaporous atmosphere, its

crisp

twigs

and graceful branches, its

he poetizes, so to speak, the simplest
stretches of sward and clumps of trees,
and long clear vistas across still ponds,
with distances whose accents are pricked
out with white houses and ^-ellow cows
and placid fishers and ferrymen in red

Medea. — Delacroix.

misty distances and piquant accents,
w^hat Thoreau calls its inaudible j^^nt-
ing. His true theme, lightly as he
took it, absorbed him ; and no one of
any sensitiveness can ever regret it.
His powers, following the indication of
his true temperament, his most genu-
ine inspiration, are concentrated upon
the very finest thing imaginable in land-
scape painting ; as, indeed, to produce
as they have done the finest landscape
in the history of art, they must have
been.

There are, how^ever, two things w^orth
noting in Corot's landscape, beyond the
mere fact that better even than Rous-
seau he expresses the essence of land-
scape, dwells habitually among its in-
spirations, and is its master rather than
its servant. One is the way in which

caps, seen in glimpses through curtains
of sparse, feathery leafage — or peoj)les
woodland openings with nymphs and
fawns, silhouetted against the sunset
glow, or dancing in the cool gray of
dusk. A man of no reading, having
only the elements of an education in
the general sense of the term, his in-
stinctive sense for w hat is refined was
so delicate that we may say of his land-
scapes, that had the Greeks left any
they w^ould have been like Corot's. And
this classic and cultivated effect he se-
cured not at all, or only very incident-
ally, through the force of association,
by dotting his hillsides and vaporous
distances with bits of classic architec-
ture, or by summing up his feeling for
the Dawn in a graceful figure of Or-
pheus greeting with extended gesture

Autumn. — Diaz.
(By permission of Messrs. Cottier & Co.)

FRENCH ART— ROMANTIC PAINTING.

441

the growint^ daylight, but by a subtle
interj^enetratiou of sensuousness and
severity resulting in precisely the sen-
timent fitly characterized by the epithet
classic. The other trait 2^^<^uliar to
Corots representation of nature and
expression of himself is his color. No
painter ever exhibited, I think, quite
such a sense of refinement in so narrow
a gamut. Green and gray, of course,
predominate and set the key, but he
has an interestingly varied palette on
the hither side of splendor Avhose sub-
tleties are capable of giving exquisite
pleasure. Never did anyone use tints
with such positive force. Tints with
Corot have the vigor and vibration of
positive colors — his lilacs, violets, straw-
colored hues, his almost Quakerish co-
quetry with drabs and slates and pure
clear browns, the freshness and bloom
he imparted to his tones, the sweet and
shrinking Avild flowers with which as a
spray he sprinkled his humid dells and
brook margins. But Corot's true dis-
tinction— what gives him his unique
position at the very head of landscape
art, is neither his color, delicate and in-
teresting as his color is, nor his clas-
sic serenity harmonizing with, instead
of depending upon, the chance associa-
tions of architecture and allegory with
which now^ and then he decorates his
landscapes ; it is the blithe, the airy, the
truly spiritual way in Avhich he gets far-
ther away than anyone, from both the
actual pigment that is his instrument,
and from the phenomena that are the
objects of his expression — his ethere-
ality, in a w^ord. He has communicated
his sentiment almost without material,
one may say, so ethereally independent
of their actual analogues is the interest
of his trees and sky and stretch of
sward. This sentiment, thus m^^steri-
ously triumphant over color or form,
or other sensuous charm, which never-
theless are only subtly subordinated,
and by no manner of means treated
lightly or inadequately, is as exalted as
any that has in our day been expressed
in any manner. Indeed, where, outside
of the very highest poetrj^ of the cen-
tury, can one get the same sense of ela-
tion, of aspiring delight, of joy unmixed
with regret — since "the splendor of
truth " which Plato defined beauty to

be, is more animating and consoling
than the " weary weight of all this un-
intelligible world," is depressing to a
spirit of lofty seriousness and sanity ?

Dupro and Diaz are the decorative
l^ainters of the Fontainebleau group.
They are, of modern painters, perliaps
the nearest in spirit to the old masters,
pictorially speaking. They are rarely
in the grand style, though sometimes
Dupre is restrained enough to emulate
if not to achieve its sobriety. But they
have the hel air, and belong to the aris-
tocracy of the painting world. Diaz es-
pecially, has almost invariably the pa-
trician touch. It lacks the exquisite-
ness of Monticelli's, in which there is
that curiously elevated del^achment from
the material and the real that the Ital-
ians— and the Provencal painter's in-
spiration and method, as well as his
name and lineage, suggest an Italian
rather than a French association — ex-
hibit far oftener than the French. But
Diaz has a larger sweep, a saner meth-
od. He is never eccentric, and he has
a dignity that is Iberian, though he is
French rather than Spanish on his aes-
thetic side, and at times is as conserva-
tive as Rousseau — Avithout, however,
reaching Rousseau's lofty simj^licity
except in an occasional happy stroke.
Both he and Dupre are primarily color-
ists. Dupre sees nature through a
prism. Diaz's groups of dames and
gallants have a jewel-like aspect. They
leave the same impression as a tangle
of ribbons, a bunch of exotic flowers, a
heap of gems flung together with the
felicity of haj^hazard. In general, and
when they are in most completely char-
acteristic mood, it is not the sentiment
of nature that one gets from their works.
It is not even their sentiment of nature
— the emotion, aroused in their suscep-
tibilities by natural phenomena. What
one gets is their personal feeling for col-
or and design — their decorative quality,
in a word.

The decorative painter is he to whom
what is called " subject," even in its least
restricted sense and with its least sub-
stantial suggestions, is comparatively
indifferent. Nature supplies him with
objects ; she is not in any intimate de-
gree his subject. She is the medium

FRENCH AKT— ROMANTIC PAINTING, 443

throuo-h which, rather than the material in juxtaposing his soft corals and car-
of which, he creates his effects. It is nations and ^.-learning topaz, ametliyst,
her potentialities of color and design and sapphire hues. The most exacting
that he seeks, or at any rate, of all her literalist can hardly accuse them of
infinitely numerous traits, it is her hues solecism in their rendering of nature,
and arabesques that strike him most true as it is that their decorative sense
forcibly. He is incurious as to her is so strong as to lead them to impose
secrets and calls upon her aid to inter- on nature their own sentiment instead
pret his own, but he is so independent of yielding themselves to absorption in
of her, if he be a decorative painter of hers, and thus, in harmonious and sym-
the first rank — a Diaz or a Dupre — pathetic concert with her, like Claude
that his rendering of her, his picture, and Corot, Rousseau and Daubigny, in-
would have an agreeable effect, owing to terpreting her subtle and suj)reme sig-
its design or color or both, if it were nificance.
turned upside down. Decorative paint-
ing in this sense may easily be carried Rousseau carried the fundamental
so far as to seem incongruous and inept, principle of the school farther than the
in spite of its superficial attractiveness, others — with him interest, delight in.
The peril that threatens it is whim and enthusiasm for nature became absorj)-
freak. Some of Monticelli's, some of tion in her. Whereas other men have
Matthew Maris's pictures, illustrate the loved nature, it has been acutely re-
exaggeration of the decorative impulse, marked, Rousseau was in love with her.
After all, a painter must get his effect, It was felicitously of him, rather than
whatever it be and however it may of Dupre or Corot, that the naif peasant
shun the literal and the exact, by render- inquired, " Why do you paint the tree ;
ing things with pigments. And some the tree is there, is it not ? " And
of the decorative painters only escape never did nature more royally reward
things by obtruding pigments, just as allegiance to her than in the sustenance
the trompe-Voeil or optical illusion paint- and inspiration she furnished for Rous-
ers get away from pigments by obtrud- seau's genius. You feel the point of
ing things. It is the distinction of Diaz view in his j^icture, but it is aj^parently
and Dupre that they avoid this danger that of nature herself as well as his
in most triumphant fashion. On the own. It is not the less personal for
contrary, they help one to see the decor- this. On the contrary, it is extremely
ative element in nature, in " things," to personal, and few pictures are as indi-
a degree hardly attained elsewhere since vidual, as characteristic. Occasionally
the da^^s of the great Venetians. Their Diaz approaches him, as I have said, but
predilection for the decorative element only in the very happiest and exceptional
is held in leash by the classic tradition moments, when the dignity of nature as
with its reserve, its measure, its incul- well as her charm seems specially to im-
cation of sobriety and its sense of secur- press and impose itself upon the less
ity. Dupre paints Seine sunsets and serious painter. But Rousseau's selec-
the edge of the forest at Fontainebleau, tion seems instinctive and not sought
its "long mysterious reaches fed with out. He knows the secret of nature's
moonlight," in a way that conveys the pictorial element. He is at one with
golden glow, the silvery gleam, the her, adoj)ts her suggestions so cordially
suave outline of spreading leafage, and and works them out with such intimate
the massive density of mysterious bos- s^-mpathy and harmoniousness, that the
cage with the force of an almost ab- two forces seem reciprocally to rein-
stract acuteness. Does nature look like force each other, and the result gains
this ? Who knows ? But in this sem- many fold in power from their subtle
blance, surely, she appeared to Dupre's co-ox^eration. His landscapes have in
imagination. And doubtless Diaz saw this way a Wordsworthian directness,
the mother-of-j^earl tints in the com- simplicity, and severity. They are not
plexion of his models, and is not to be troubled^ and dramatic like Turner's,
accused of artificiality, but to be cred- They are not decorative like Dupre's,
ited with a true sincerity of selection they have not the solemn sentiment of

Woman and Child.— Millet.

FRENCH ART— ROMANTIC PAINTING.

445

Daubiofiiy's, or the airy aspiration and
fairy-like blitheness of Corot's. But
there is in them " all breathing human
passion ; " and at times, as in " Le
Givre," they rise to majesty and real
grandeur because they are impregnated
with the sentiment, as well as are rec-
ords of the phenomena, of nature, and
one may say of Rousseau, paraphrasing
Mr. Arnold's remark about Words-
worth, that nature seems herself to
take the brush out of his hand and to
paint for him " with her own bare,
sheer, penetrating power." Rousseau,
however, is French, and in virtue of his
nativit}^ exhibits always what Words-
worth's treatment of nature exhibits
only occasionally, namely the Gallic
gift of style. It is rarely as felicitous
as in Corot, in every detail of whose
every work, one may almost say, its in-
forming, co-ordinating, elevating influ-
ence is distinctly to be perceived ; but it
is always present as a factor, as a force
dignifying and relieving from all touch,
all taint of the commonness that is so
often inseparably associated with art
whose absorption in nature is listless-
ly unthinking instead of enthusiastic
and alert. In Rousseau, too, in a word,
we have the classic strain, as at least a
psychological element, and note as one
source of his power his reserve and re-
straint, his perfect self-possession.

In Daubigny a similar attitude to-
ward nature is obvious, but with a sen-
sible difference. Affection for, rather
than absorption in her, is his inspi-
ration. Daubigny stands somewhat
apart from the Fontainebleau grovip,
with whom nevertheless he is popularly
and properly associated, for though he
painted Normandy mainly, he was spir-
itually of the Barbizon kindred. He
stands, however, somewhat apart from
French j)ainting in general, I think.
There is less style, more sentiment,
more poetry in his landscapes than in
those of his countrymen who are to be
compared with him. Beyond what is
admirable in them there is something
attaching as w^ell. He drew and en-
graved a good deal as well as painted.
He did not concentrate his powers
enough, perhaps, to make as signal and
definite a mark as otherwise he might
have done. He is a shade desultory',
Vol. XII.— 49

and too spontaneous to be systematic.
One must be systematic to reach the
highest pomt, even in the least material
spheres. But never have the grave and
solemn aspects of landscape found a
sweeter and serener spirit to interpret
them. In some of his pictures there is
a truly religious feeling. His frank-
ness recalls Constable's, but it is more
distinguished, in being more spiritual.
He has not Diaz's elegance, nor Corot's
witchery, nor Rousseau's power, but
nature is more mysteriously, more mys-
tically significant to him, and sets a
deeper chord vibrating within him.
He is a sensitive instrument on which
she plays, rather than a magician who
wins her secrets, or an observer whose
generalizing imagination she sets in
motion. The design of some of his im-
portant works, notably that of his last
Salon picture, is very distinguished,
and in one of his large canvases repre-
senting a road like that from Barbizon
through the level plain to Chailly, there
is the spirit and sentiment of all the
summer evenings that ever were. But
he has distinctly less power than the
strict Fontainebleau group. He has, in
force, less affinity with them than Troy-
on has, whose force is often magnifi-
cent, and whose landscape is so sweet,
often, and often so strong as well, that
one wonders a little at his fondness
for cattle — in spite of the way in which
he justifies it by being the first of cat-
tle painters. And neither Daubigny
nor Troyon, nor, indeed, Rousseau him-
self, often reaches in dramatic gran-
deur the lofty landscape of Michel, who
with Paul Huet (the latter in a more
strictly historical sense) were so truly
the forerunners and initiators of the
romantic landscape movement, both in
sentiment and chronology, in spite of
their Dutch tradition, as to make the
common ascription of its debt to Con-
stable, whose aid was so cordially wel-
comed in the famous Salon, of 1824, a
little strained.

IV.

But quite aside from the group of
poetic painters which stamped its im-
press so deeply upon the romantic
movement at the outset, that to this
day it is Delacroix and Millet, Decamps

446

FRENCH ART-ROMANTIC PAINTING.

and Corot whom we think of when we
tliink of the movement itself, the clas-
sic tradition was j^reserved all through
the period of greatest stress and least
conformity by painters of great distinc-
tion, who, working under the romantic
inspiration and more or less according
to what may be called romantic meth-
ods, nevertheless possessed the classic
temperament in so eminent a degree
that to us their work hardly seems less
academic than that of the Revolution
and the Empire. Not only Ingres, but
Delaroche and Ary Scheffer, j)ainted
beside Gericault and Delacroix. Ary
Scheffer was an eloquent partisan of ro-
manticism, yet his "Dante and Beatrice "
and his " Temptation of Christ " are ad-
mirable only from the academic point
of view. Delaroche's "Hemicycle" and
his many historical tableaux are surely
in the classic vein, how^ever free they
may seem in subject and treatment by
contrast with the works of David and
Ingres. They leave us equally cold, at
all events, and in the same way — for
the same reason. They betray the
painter's preoccupation with art rather
than with nature. They do, in truth,
differ widely from the works which
they succeeded, but the difference is
not temperamental. They suggest the
French phrase, pZws pa change, plus c'est
la meme chose. Gerome, for example,
feels the exhilaration of the free air of
romanticism fanning his enthusiasm.
He does not confine himself, as, born
a decade or two earlier, certainly he
would have done, to classic subject.
He follows Decamps and Marilhat to
the Orient, which he paints with the
utmost freedom, so far as the choice of
theme is concerned — descending even
to the danse du ventre of a Turkish
cafe. He paints historical pictures with
a realism unknown before his day. He
is almost equally famous in the higher
class of genre subjects. But through-
out everything he does it is easy to per-
ceive the academic point of view, the
classic temperament. David assuredly
would never have chosen one of Ge-
rome's themes ; but had he chosen it,
he would have treated it in much the
same w^ay. Allowance made for the
difference in time, in the general feel-
ing of the aesthetic environment, the

change in ideas as to what was fit sub-
ject for representation and fitting man-
ner of treating the same subject, it is
hardly an exaggeration to say that In-
gres would have sincerely applauded
Gerome's " Cleopatra " issuing from the
carpet roll before Csesar. And if he
failed to perceive the noble dramatic
power in such a work as the " Ave, Cee-
sar, morituri te salutant," his failure
would nowadays, at least among intelli-
gent amateurs, be ascribed to an intol-
erance which it is one of the chief mer-
its of the romantic movement to have
adjudged absurd.

It is a source of really aesthetic satis-
faction to see everything that is at-
tempted as well done as it is in the
works of such painters as Bouguereau
and Cabanel. Of course the feeling
that denies them large importance is a
legitimate one. The very excellence of
their technic, its perfect adaptedness
to the motive it expresses, is, consider-
ing the insignificance of the motive,
subject for criticism ; inevitably it
partakes of the futility of its subject-
matter. Of course the personal value
of the man, the mind, behind any plas-
tic expression is, in a sense, the meas-
ure of the expression itself. If it be
a mind interested in " pouncet-box"
covers, in the pictorial setting forth
of themes whose illustration most in-
timately appeals to the less cultivated
and more rudimentary appreciation of
fine art — as indisputably the Madonnas
and Charities and Oresteses and Bac-
chus Triumphs of M. Bouguereau do —
one may very well dispense himself
from the duty of admiring its produc-
tions. Life is short, and more important
things, things of more significant im-
port, demand attention. The grounds
on which the w^orks of Bouguereau
and Cabanel are admired are certainly
insufficient. But they are experts in
their sphere. What they do could hard-
ly be better done. If they aj)peal to a
bourgeois, a philistine ideal of beauty,
of interest, they do it with a perfec-
tion that is pleasing in itself. No one
else does it half so w'ell. To minds to
whom they appeal at all, they appeal
with the force of finality ; for these they
create as well as illustrate the type
of what is admirable and lovely. It is

FRENCH ART— ROMANTIC PAINTING.

447

as easy to account for their popularity
as it is to perceive its transitory qual-
ity. But not only is it a mark of lim-
itation to refuse all interest to such
a work as, for example, M. Cabanel's
" Birth of Venus," in the painting of
which a vast deal of technical expert-
ness is enjoyably evident, and Avhich
in every respect of motive and execu-
tion is far above similar things done
elsewhere than in France ; it is a still
greater error to confound such paint-
ers as M. Cabanel and M. Bouguereau
with other painters whose classic tem-
perament has been subjected to the uni-
versal romantic influence equally with
theirs, but whose production is as differ-
ent from theirs as is that of the thor-
ough and pure romanticists, the truly
poetic painters.

The instinct of simplification is an in-
telligent and sound one. Its satisfac-
tion is a necessary preliminary to effi-
cient action of any kind, and indeed the
basis of all fruitful philosophy. But
in criticism this instinct can only be
satisfied intelligently and soundly by
a consideration of everything appeal-
ing to consideration, and not at all by
heated and wilful, or superior and super-
cilious, exclusions. Catholicity of ap-
preciation is the secret of critical fe-
licity. To follow the line of least re-
sistance, not to take into account those
elements of a problem, those character-
istics of a subject, to which, superfi-
cially and at first thought, one is in-
sensitive, is to dispense one's self from
a great deal of particularly disagree-
able industry, but the result is only
transitorily agreeable to the sincere in-
telligence. It is in criticism, I think,
though no doubt in criticism alone,
preferable to lose one's self in a maze of
perplexity — distressing as this is to the
critic who appreciates the indispensabil-
ity of clairvoyance in criticism — rather
than to reach swiftly and simply a con-
clusion which candor would have fore-
seen as the inevitable and unjudicial
result of following one's own likes and
whims, and one's contentment with
which must be alloyed with a haunting-
sense of insecurity. In criticism it is
perhaps better to keep balancing coun-
ter-considerations than to determine
brutally by excluding a whole set of

them because of the difficulty of assign-
ing them their true weight. In this
way, at least, one preserves the atti-
tude of poise, and poise is perhaps the
one essential element of criticism. In
a word, that catholicity of sensitiveness
which may be called mere impression-
ism, behind which there is no body of
doctrine at all, is more truly critical
than intolerant depreciation or unre-
flecting enthusiasm. " The main thing
to do," says Mr. Arnold, in a significant
passage, "is to get one's self out of the
way and let humanity judge."

It is temptingly simple to deny all
importance to painters who are not
poetic painters. And the temptation
is especially seductive when the prosaic
painters are paralleled by such a dis-
tinguished succession of their truly
poetic brethren as are the painters of
the romantic epoch who are possessed
of the classic temperament. But real
criticism immediately suggests that
prose has its place in painting as in
literature. In literature we do not
insist even that the poets be poetic.
Poetic is not the epithet that would be
applied, for instance, to French classic
verse or the English verse of the eigh-
teenth century, compared with the po-
etry, French or English, which we mean
when we speak of poetry. Yet no one
would think of denying the value of
Dryden or even of Boileau. No one
would even insist that, distinctly pro-
saic as are the qualities of Boileau —
and I should say his was a crucial in-
stance— he would have done better to
abjure verse. And painting, in a wide
sense, is just as legitimately the expres-
sion of ideas in form and color as lit-
erature is the expression of ideas in
words. It is perfectly plain that Meis-
sonier was not especially enamoured of
beauty, as Corot, as Troyon, as De-
camps was. But nothing could be less
critical than to deny Meissonier's im-
portance and the legitimate interest he
has for every educated and intelligent
person, in spite of his literalness and his
insensitiveness to the element of beauty,
and indeed to any truly pictorial signifi-
cance whatever in the wide range of sub-
jects that he essayed, with, in an honor-
able sense, such distinguished success.

Especially in America, I think, where

448

FRENCH ART— ROMANTIC PAINTING.

of recent years we have shown an Athe-
nian sensitivonoss to new impressions,
the direct descendants of the classic pe-
riod of French i^ainting- have suffered
from the i-)02:)idarity of the Fontaine-
bleau group. Their legitimate attach-
ment to art, instead of the Fontaine-
bleau absorption in nature, has given
them a false reputation of artificiality.
But the prose element in art has its
justification as well as the poetic, and
it is witness of a narrow culture to fail
in appreciation of its admirable accom-
plishment. The academic wing of the
French romantic painting is marked
precisely by a breadth of culture that
is itself a source of agreeable and ele-
vated interest. The neo-Grec painters
are thoroughly educated. They lack
the picturesque and unexpected note
of their poetic brethren — they lack the
moving and interpreting, the elevat-
ing and exquisite touch of these, nay,
they lack the penetrating distinction
that radiates even from rusticity itself
when it is inspired and transfigured as
it appears in such works as those of
Millet and Rousseau. But their dis-
tinction is not less real for being the
distinction of cultivation rather than
altogether native and absolute. It is
perhaps even more marked, more per-
vasive, more directly associated with
the painter's aim and effect. One feels
that they are familiar with the philos-
ophy of art, its history and practice,
that they are articulate and eclectic,
that for being less personal and power-
ful their horizon is less limited, their
purely intellectual range, at all events,
and in many cases their aesthetic inter-
est, wider. They have more the culti-
vated man's bent for experimentation,
for variety. They care more scrupu-
lously for perfection, for form. With
a far inferior sense of reality and far less
felicity in dealing with it, their sapient
skill in dealing with the abstractions
of art is more salient. To be blind to
their successful handling of line and
mass and movement, is to neglect a
source of refined pleasure. To lament
their lack of poetry is to miss their ad-
mirable rhetoric ; to regret their im-
perfect feeling for decorativeness is to
miss their delightful decorum.

It is, however, interesting to note

that in France, where in every field of
intellectual effort the influence of
schools and groups and movements is
so great that almost every individual-
ity, no matter how strenuous, falls nat-
urally and intimately into association
with some one of them, there is every^
now and then an excej^tion that es-
capes these categories aud stands quite
by itself. In painting such exceptions,
and widely different from each other
as the poles, are Couture and Puvis
de Chavannes. Better than in eitjier
the true romanticists with the classic
strain, .or the academic romanticists
with the classic temj^erament, the blend-
ing of the classic and romantic inspira-
tions is illustrated in Couture. The
two are in him, indeed, actually fusefl.
In Puvis de Chavannes they appear in
a wholly novel combination ; his class-
icism is absolutely unacademic, his ro-
manticism unreal beyond the verge of
mysticism, and so preoccupied with
visions that he may almost be called a
man for whom the actual world does
not exist — in the converse of Gau tier's
phrase. Puvis de Chavannes is, per-
haps, the most interesting figure in
French painting to-day. Couture is
little more than a name. It is curious
to consider why. Twenty years ago he
was still an important figure. He had
been an unusually successful teacher.
Many American painters of distinction,
especially, were at one time his pujDils
— Hunt, La Farge, George Butler. He
theorized as much, as well — perhaps
even better than — he painted. His
" Entretiens d'Atelier " are as good in
their way as his "Baptism of the
Prince Imperial." He had a very dis-
tinguished talent, but he was too dis-
tinctly clever — clever to the point of
sophistication. In this respect he was
distinctly a man of the nineteenth cen-
tury ; "born," in Musset's words, " too
late into a world too old." His great
work, " Grandeur et Decadence des
Romains," created as fine an effect at
the Centenary Exhibition of the Paris
World's Fair in 1889 as it does in the
Louvre, whence it was then trans-
ferred, but it was distinctly a decora-
tive effect — the effect of a fine panel in
the general mass of color and design ;
it made a fine centre. It remains his

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

449

greatest 2)erformance, the performance
upon wliicli cliiefly liis fame Avill de-
pend, tliou<^li as painting it lacks the
quality and breadth of the " i)ay-
Dreams " of the New York Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Its permanent inter-
est perha2)s will be the historical one,
due to the detiniteness with which it as-
signs Couture his position in the evo-
lution of French painting. It shows, as

everything of Couture shows, the ab-
sence of any j^ictorial feeling so profound
and 2)ersonal as to make an impression
strong enough to endure indcHiiitely.
And it has not, on the other hand, the
interest of reality — that faitliful and
enthusiastic rendering of the external
world which gives importance to and
fixes the character of the French paint-
ing of the j^resent day.

«-.]j.lW^|i[|i»llWIIJHiMWJ

" Three Kickapoo Indians, splendid in paint and feathers, peacefully vending the ' Fanaous Kickapoo Sagwa.' "

—Page 450.

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

By Octave Thanet.

Ill— TOMMY AND THOMAS.

IT was while Harry Lossing was at the
High School that Mrs. Carriswood
first saw Tommy Fitzmaurice. He
"was not much to see, a long lad of six-
teen who had outgrown his jackets and
not yet grown to his ears. At this peri-
od Mrs. Fitzmaurice was his barber, and
she, having been too rash with the shears
in one place, had snipped off the rest of
his curly black locks "to match;" until
he showed a perfect convict's poll, giv-
ing his ears all the better chance, a.nd
bringing out the rather square contour
of his jaws to advantage. He had the
true Irish-Norman face ; a skin of fine
texture, fair and freckled, high cheek-
bones, straight nose, and wide blue
eyes that looked to be drawn with ink,
because of their sharply pencilled brows
and long, thick, black lashes. But the
feature that Mrs. Carriswood noticed
Vol. XII.— 50

was Tommy's mouth, a flexible and del-
icately cut mouth, of which the lips
moved lightly in speaking and seldom
were quite in repose.

" The genuine Irish orator's mouth,"
thought Mrs. Carriswood.

Tommy, however, was not a finished
orator, and Mrs. Carriswood herself
deigned to helji him with his graduat-
ing oration ; Tommy delivering the
aforesaid oration from memory, on the
stage of the Bailey Grand Opera House,
to a warm-hearted and persj^iriiig audi-
ence of his towns-peoi:)le, amid tremen-
dous applause and not the slightest
proddings of conscience.

Really the speech deserved the ap-
plause ; Mrs. Carriswood, who had heard
half the eloquence of the world, spent
three evenings on it ; and she has a
good memory.

450

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

Her part in the affair always amused
her ; thouf^h, in fact, it came to pass
easily. She had the <2:reat fortune of
the family. Bein^^ a widow with no chil-
dren, and the time uot being come when
philanthropy beckoned on the right
hand and on the left to free-handed
women, Mrs. Carriswood travelled. As
she expressed it, she was searching the
globe for a perfect climate. " Not that
I in the least expect to find it," said
she, cheerfully, " but I like to vary my

''At this period Mrs. Fitzmaurice was his barber." — Page 449

disappointments ; when I get w^orn out
being frozen, winters, I go somewhere
to be soaked." She was on her way to
California this time, with her English
maid, who gave the Lossing domestics
many a jolly moment by an inex-
tinguishable panic about red Indians.
Mrs. Derry supposed these savages to
be lurking on the prairie outside every
Western town ; and almost fainted
when she did chance to turn the corner
upon three Kickapoo Indians, splendid

in paint and feathers, and peacefully
vending the "Famous Kickapoo Sagwa."
She had others of the artless notions
of the travelling English, and I fear
that they were encouraged not only Ijy
the cook, the " second girl," and the
man-of-all-work, but by Harry and his
chum, Tommy ; I know she used to
tell how she saw tame buffalo " roost-
ing " on the streets, " w'ich they do look
that like common cow^s a body couldn't
tell 'em hapart ! "

She had a great opinion of
Tommy, a mystery to her mis-
tress for a long time, until one
day it leaked out that Tommy
" and Master Harry, too," had
told her that Tommy's great-
grandfather was a lord in the
old countr}'.

" The famil}' seem to have sunk
in the world since, Derry," was
Mrs. Carrisw^ood's single remark,
as she smiled to herself. After
Derry w^as dismissed she picked
up a letter, w^ritten that day to a
great friend of hers, and read
some passages about Harry and
Tommy, smiling again.

" Harry " — one may look over
her pretty shoulder without im-
pertinence, in a story — "Harry,"
she wrote, " is a boy that I long
to steal. Just the kind of boy we
have both wanted, Sarah — frank,
happy, affectionate. I must tell
you something about him. It
came out by accident. He has
the Western business instincts,
and w^hat do you suppose he did ?
He actually started a wee shop of
his own in the corner of the yard
(really it is a surprisingly pretty
place, and they are quite civilized
in the house, gas, hot water, steam
heat, all most comfortable), and sold
' pop ' and candy and cakes to the boys.
He made so much money that he pro-
posed a partnership to the cook and the
setting up a little booth in the ' countj^
fair,' which is like our rural cattle
show^s, you know. The cook (a superior
person who borrows books from Mrs.
Lossing, but seems very decent and
resj)ectful notwithstanding, and broils
game to perfection. And such game as
we have here, Sarah !) — well, the cook

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

451

made him cream -cakes, sandwiches,
tarts, and candy, and Harry honorably
bought all the provisions with his prof-
its from the first venture. You will open
your eyes at his father permitting such
a thing, but Henry Lossing
is a thorough Westerner in
some ways, and he looks on
it all as a joke. ' Might
show the boy how to do busi-
ness,' he says.

" Well, they had a ravish-
ing display, so Alma, the
cook, and William, the man,
assured me — per Derry. All
the sadder its fate ; for alas !
a gang of rowdy boys fell
upon Harry, and while he
was busy fighting half of
them — he is as plucky as his
uncle, the general — the oth-
er half looted the beautiful
stock in trade ! They would
have despoiled our poor lit-
tle merchant entirely but for
the opportune arrival of a
schoolmate who is mighti-
ly respected by the rowdies.
He knocked one of them
down and shouted after the
others that he would give
every one of them a good
thrashing if they did not
bring the plunder back ; and as he was
known to be a lad of his word for good
or evil, actually the scamps did return
most of the booty, which the two
boys brushed off and sold, as far as it
went (!) The consequence of the fray
has been that Harry is unboundedly
grateful to this Tommy Fitzmaurice,
and is at present coaching him on his
graduating oration. Fitzmaurice has
studied hard and won honors, and
wants to make a show with his oration,
to please his father. ' You see,' says Har-
ry, 'Tommy's father has saved money
and is spending it all on Tommy, so's
he can be educated. He needs Tom-
my in the business real bad, but he
won't let him come in ; he keeps him at
school, and he thinks everything of his
getting the valedictory, and Tommy he
worked nights studying to get it.' When
I asked what was his father's business,
Harry grew a bit confused. 'Well, he
kept a saloon ; but ' — Harry hastened to

explain — 'it was a very nice saloon,,
never any trouble with the i)olice there ;
why. Tommy knew every man on the-
force. And they keep good liquors^
too,' said Harr}^ earnestly ; ' throw away

Tommy's Valedictory. — Page 452.

all the beer left in the glasses.' 'What
else w^ould they do with it ? ' asked in-
nocent I. ' Wlw, keep it in a bucket,'
said Harry, solemnly, ' and then slip the
glass under the counter and half fiU out
of the bucket, then hold it under the
keg low, so's the foam will come ; that's
a trick of the trade, you know. Tommy
says his father would sro?-« that ! ' There
is a vista opened, isn't it ? I was rather
shocked at such associates for Harry, and
told his mother ; did she think it a good
idea to have such a boy coming to the
house? a saloon-keeper's son? She did
not laugh, as I half expected, but an-
swered quite seriously that she had been
looking up Tommy, that he was very
much attached to Harry, and that she
did not think he would teach him any-
thing bad. He has, I find myself, no-
tions of honor, though they are rather
the code of the street. And he picks up
things quickly. Once he came to tea.
It was amusing to see how he glued his

452

STORIES OF A IVESTERN TOJVN.

eyes on Harry and kei)t time with liis
motions. He used his fork quite prop-
erly, only as Harry is a left-handed lit-
tle fellow, the ri^ht-handed Thomas had
the more difficulty.

" He is takin<>- such vast pains with
his 'oration ' that I felt moved to help
him. The subject is 'The Triumph
of Democracy,' and Tommy civilly ex-
plained that ' democracy ' did not mean
the Democratic party, l)ut 'just only a
government where all the poor folks
can get their rights and can vote.'

" The oration was the kind of spread-
eagle thing you might expect ; I can see
that Tommy has formed himself on the
orators of his father's respectable saloon.
What he said in comment interested me
more. ' Sure, I guess it is the best gov-
ernment, ma'am, though, of course, I
got to make it out that way, anyhow.
But we come from Ireland, and there
they got the other kind, and me granny
she starved in the famine time, she did
that — with the fever. Me father walked
twenty mile to the Sackville's place,
where they gave him some meal, though
he wasn't one of their tenants ; yes, and
the lady told him how he would be cook-
ing it. I never will forget that lady ! '

" I saw a dramatic opportunity, would
Tommy be willing to tell that story in
his speech ? He looked at me with an
odd look — or so I imagined it ! ' Why
not ? ' says he ; ' I'd as soon as not tell
it to anyone of them, and why not to
them all together ? ' Well, why not, w^hen
you come to think of it ? So we have
got it into the speech ; and I, I my-
self, Sarah, am drilling young Demos-
thenes, and he is so apt a scholar that I
find myself rather pleasantly employed."
Having read her letter, Mrs. Carriswood
hesitated a second and then added Der-
ry's information at the bottom of the
page. " I suppose the lordly ancestor
was one of King James's creation — see
Macaulay, somewhere in the second vol-
ume. I dare say there is a drop or two
of good blood in the boy. He has the
manners of a gentleman — but I don't
know that I ever saw an Irishman, no
matter how low in the social scale, who
hadn't."

Thus it happened that Tommy's val-
edictory scored a success that is a tra-
dition of the High School, and came

to be printed in both the city papers ;
copies of which journals Tommy's moth-
er has preserved sacredly to this day ; and
I have no doubt, could one find them,
they would be found wrapped around a
yellow jihotograph of the "A Class" of
1870 : eight pretty girls in white, smiling
among five solemn boys in black, and
Tommy himself, as the valedictorian,
occupying the centre of the j^icture in
his new suit of broadcloth, with a rose
in his buttonhole and his hair cut by a
professional barber for the occasion.

It w^as the story of the famine that
really captured the audience ; and Tom-
my told it well, with the true Irish fire,
in a beautiful voice.

In the front seat of the parquette a lit-
tle old man in a wrinkled, black broad-
cloth, with a bald head and a fringe of
whisker under his long chin, and a meek
little woman, in a red Paisley shaw^l,
wept and laughed by turns. They had
taken the deepest interest in every essay
and every speech. The old man clapped
his large hands (which w^ere encased in
loose black kid gloves) with unflagging
vigor. He wore a pair of heavy boots,
the soles of which made a noble thud
on the floor.

" Ain't it wonderful the like of them
young craters can talk like that ! " he
cried ; " shure, Molly, that young lady
who'd the essay — w^here is it ? " — a huge
black forefinger travelled down the page
— " ' Ilusic, TJie Turkish Patrol,' No—
though that's grand, that piece ; I'll be
spakin' wid Professor Von Keinmitz to
bring it when we've the opening. Here
'tis, Molly, ' Tin, Essay. The Darkest
Night Brings Out the Stars, 3Iiss Mamie
Odenheimer.' Thrue for you, mavour-
neen ! And the sintiments, wasn't they
illigant ? and the langwidge was as foine
as Pat Ronan's speeches or Father —
w^hist ! will ye look at the flowers that
shlip of a gvirl's gifting ! Count 'em,
will ye?"

"Fourteen bouquets and w^an bas-
ket," says the little woman, " and Mamie
Odenheimer, she got seventeen bouquets
and tw^o baskets and a sign. Well," she
looked anxious, but smiled, " I know of
siven bouquets Tommy wdll git for sure.
And that's not countin' what Harry
Lossing will do for him. Hiven bless
the good heart of him ! "

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

453

" Well, I kiu count four for him on
wan seat," says the man, with a nod of
his head toward tlie <^ay heap in the
woman's lap, " barrin' I ain't onvaygled
into flinging some of thim to the young
ladies ! "

Harry Lossing, in the seat behind

on the asparagus-bed, into the bargain,
and Mrs. Lossing and Alma and Mrs.
Carriswood and Derry and Susy Loss-
ing had made bouquets and baskets
and wreaths, and Harry had distributed
them among friends in different parts
of the house. I say Harry, but, compli-

" It was Tommy Fitzmaurice, grown into a handsome young man." — Page 455.

with his mother and Mrs. Carriswood,
giggled at this and whispered in the lat-
ter lady's ear, " That's Tommy's father
and mother. My, aren't they excited,
though ! And Tommy's white's a sheet
— for fear he'll disappoint them, you
know. He has said his piece over twice
to me, to-day, he's so scared lest he'll
forget. I've got it in my pocket, and
I'm going behind when it's his turn, to
prompt him. Did you see me winking
at him ? it sort of cheers him up."

He was almost as keen over the floral
procession as the Fitzmaurices them-
selves. The Lossing garden had been
stripped to the last bud, and levies made

mented by Mrs. Carriswood, he admitted
ingenuously that it was Tommy's idea.

"Tommy thought they would make
more show that way," says Harry, "and
they are all on the middle aisle, so his
father and mother can see them ; Tim
O'Halloran has got one for him, too, and
Mrs. Macillarney, and she's got some
splendid pinies. Picked every last one.
They'll make a show ! "

But Harry knew nothing of the most
magnificent of his friend's trophies until
it undulated gloriously down the aisle
above the heads of two men, white satin
ribbons flying, tin foil shining — an enor-
mous horseshoe of roses and mignonette !

454

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

The parents were both on their feet
to craue their necks after it, as it passed
them amid the plaudits.

" Oh, it was ijon, Cousin Margaret; I
know it was you," cried Harry.

He took tiie ladies over to the Fitz-
maurices the minute that the diplo-
mas were given ; and, directly, Tommy
joined them, attended by two admiring
followers laden with the trophies. Mrs.
O'Halloran and Mrs. Macillarney and
divers of the friends, both male and fe-
male, joined the circle. Tommy held
quite a little court. He shook hands
with all the ladies, beginning with Mrs.
Carriswood (who certainly never had
found herself before in such a company,
jammed between Alderman McGinnis's
resplendent new tweeds and Mrs. Mac-
illarney's calico) ; he affectionately em-
braced his mother, and he allowed
himself to be embraced by Mrs. Macil-
larney and Mrs. O'Halloran, while Pat-
rick Fitzmaurice shook hands with the
alderman.

" Here's the lady that helped me on
me piece, father ; she's the lady that
sent me the horseshoe, mother. Like to
make you acquainted with me father and
me mother. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzmaurice,
Mrs. Carriswood."

In these words, Tommy, blushing and
happy, presented his happy parents.

"Sure, I'm proud to meet jou,
ma'am," said Fitzmaurice, bowing,
while his wife courtesied and wiped her
eyes.

They were very grateful, but they
were more grateful for the flowers than
for the oratorical drilling. No doubt
they thought that their Tommy could
have done as well in any case ; but the
splendid horseshoe was another matter !

Ten years passed before Mrs. Carris-
wood saw her pupil again. During
those years the town had increased and
prospered ; so had the Lossing Art Fur-
niture Works. It was after Harry Loss-
ing had disappointed his father. This
is not saying that he had done anything
out of the way ; he had simply declined
to be the fourth Harry Lossing on the
rolls of Harvard College. Instead, he
proposed to enter the business and to
begin by learning his own trade. He
was so industrious, he kept at it with
such energy that his first convert was

his father— no, I am wrong, Mrs. Car-
riswood was the first ; Mrs. Lossing was
not a convert, ^Iw had believed in Harry
from the beginning. But all this was
years before Mrs. Carriswood 's visit.

Another of Master Harry's notions
was his belief in the necessity of his
" meddling " — so his father put it — in
the affairs of the town, the state, and
the nation, as well as those of the Loss-
ing furniture company. But, though
he was pleased to make rather cynical
fun of his son's political enthusiasm,
esteeming it in a sense a diverting and
therefore reprehensible pursuit for a
business man, the elder Lossing had a
sneaking pride in it all the same. He
liked to bring out Harry's political
shrewdness.

" Fancy, Margaret," says he, " whom
do you think Harry has brought over
to our side now ? The shrewdest ward
politician in the town — why, you saw
him when he was a boy — Tommy Fitz-
maurice."

Then Mrs. Carriswood remembered ;
she asked, amused, how was Tommy
and where was he ?

" Tommy ? Oh, he went to the State
university ; the old man was bound to
send him, and he was more dutiful than
some sons. He was graduated with
honors, and came back to a large, ready-
made justice court's practice. Of course
he drifted into criminal practice ; but
he has made a fine income out of that,
and is the shrewdest, some folks say the
least scrupulous, political manager in
the county. And so, Harry, you have
persuaded him to cast in his lot with
the party of principle, have you ? and
he is packing the primaries ? "

" I see nothing dishonest in our try-
ing to get our friends out to vote at the
primaries, sir."

" Of course not, but he may not stop
there. However, I want Bailey elected,
and I am glad he will w^ork for us ;
what s his price ? "

Harry blushed a little. " I believe
he would I'ke to be city attorney, sir,"
said he ; and Mr. Lossing laughed.

" Would he make a bad one ? " asked
Mrs. Carrisw^ood.

" He would make the best kind of a
one," replied Harry, with youthful fer-
vor ; " he's a ward politician and all

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

455

that, I know ; but lie has it in him to
be an uncommon deal more ! And I
say, sir, do you know that he and the
old man will take twenty-five thousand
of the stock at par if we turn ourselves
into a corporation ? "

" How about this new license meas-

appointments in climates, and was back,
as she told Mrs. Lossin^y, " with a real
sense of relief in a climate that was too
bad to make any pretensions."

She had brought Miss Van Harlem to
see the shops. It may be that she would
not have been averse to Harry Lossing's

" She has visiting card?, now, and pays visits once a year." — Page 457,

ure ? won't that bear a little bit hard
on the old man ? " This from Mr. Loss-
ing, who was biting his cigar in deep
thought.

" That will not prevent his doing his
duty ; wh}^, the old man for very pride
will be the first to obey the law. You'll
see / "

Six months later they did see, since
it was mostly due to Fitzmaurice's ef-
forts that the reform candidate w^as
elected ; as a consequence, Tommy be-
came prosecuting attorney ; and, to the
amazement of the critics, made the best
prosecuting attorney that the city had
ever known.

It w^as during the campaign that Mrs.
Carriswood met him. Her goddaugh-
ter, daughter of the friend to whom
years ago she described Tommy, was
with her. This time Mrs. Carriswood
had recently added Florida to her dis-

growing interested in young Margaret.
She had seen a great deal of Harry
while he was East at school, and he re-
mained her first favorite, while Margaret
was as good as she was pretty, and had
half a million of dollars in her own
right. They had seen Harry, and he
was showing them through the different
buildings or " shops," when a man en-
tered who greeted him cordially, and
whom he presented to Mrs. Carriswood.
It was Tommy Fitzmaurice, grown into
a handsome young man. He brought
his heels together and made the ladies
a solemn bow. " Pleased to meet you,
ladies ; how do you like the West ? "
said Tommy.

His black locks curled about his ears,
which seemed rather small now ; he had
a good nose and a mobile, clean-shaven
face. His hands were very white and
soft, and the rim of linen above them

456

STORIES OF A IVHSTERN TOIVN.

was dazzling. Hin blac-k frock-coat was
buttoned snugly about liis slim waist.
He brushed his face wdth a fine silk
handkerchief, and thereby diffused the
fragrance of the best imported cologne
among the odors of wood and turpen-
tine. A diamond pin sparkled from his
neckscarf. The truth is, he knew that
the visitors were coming and had made
a state toilet. " He looks half like an

" How could I, when you have not
changed at all."

"But you have," says Mrs. Carris-
wood, hardly knowing whether to show
the young man his place or not.

" Yes, ma'am, naturally. But I have
not learned how to make a speech
yet."

" Ah, but you make very good ones,
Harrv tells me."

Tommy's funny picture." — Page 459.

actor and half like a clergyman, and he
is all a politician," thought Mrs. Carris-
wood ; " I don't think I shall like him
any more." While she thought, she was
inclining her slender neck toward him,
and the gentlest interest and pleas-
ure beamed out of her beautiful, dark
eyes.

"We like the West, but / have liked
it for ten years ; this is not my first
visit," said Mrs. Carriswood.

" I have reason to be glad for that,
madam. I never made another speech
so good."

He had remembered her ; she laughed.
" I had thought that you would forget."

" Much obliged, Harry. No, ma'am,
Harry is a nice boy ; but he doesn't
know. I know there is a lot to learn,
and I guess a lot to unlearn ; and I feel
all outside ; I don't even know how to
get at it. I have wished a thousand
times that I could talk with the lady
who taught me to sj)eak in the first
place." He walked on b}^ her side,
talking eagerly. "You don't know
how many times I have felt I w^ould
give most anything for the opportunity
of just seeing you and talking w^ith
you ; those things you said to me I al-
ways remembered." He had a hundred
questions evidently stinging his tongue.

STORIES OF A [VESTERN TOIVN.

457

And some of them seemed to Mrs. Car-
riswood very apposite.

" I'm on the outside of such a lot of
things," says he. " When I first began
to suspect that I was on the outside was
when I went to the High School, and
sometimes I was invited to Harry's ;
that was my first acquaintance with cul-
tivated society. You can't learn man-
ners from books, ma'am. I learned
them at Harry's. That is," he colored
and laughed, " I learned some. There's
plenty left, I know. Then, I went to
the University. Some of the boys came
from homes like Harry's, and some of
the professors there used to ask us to
their houses ; and I saw engravings and
oil paintings, and heard the conversa-
tion of persons of culture. All this
only makes me know enough to knoiu I
am outside. I can see the same thing
with the lawyers, too. There is a set of
them that are after another kind of
things ; that think themselves above me
and my sort of fellows. You know all
the talk about this being a free and
equal country. That's the tallest kind
of humbug, madam ! It is that. There
are sets, one above another, everywhere ;
big bugs and little bugs, if you will ex-
cuse the expression. And 3'ou can't in-
fluence the big ones without knowing
how they feel. A fellow can't be poking
in the dark in a speech or anywhere
else. Now, these fellows here, they go
into politics, sometimes ; and there, I tell
3'ou, we come the nearest to a fair field
and no favor ! It is the best fellow gets
the prize there — the sharpest-witted, the
nerviest, and stanchest. Oh, talk of
machine politics ! all the soft chaps who
ain't willing to get up early in the morn-
ing, or to go out in the w^et, they howl
about the primaries and corruption ;
let them get up and clean the primaries
instead of holding their noses ! Those
fellows, I'm not nice enough for them,
but I can beat them every time. They
make a monstrous racket in the news-
papers, but when election comes on they
can't touch side, edge, or bottom ! "

Discoursing in this fashion, with di-
gressions to Harry in regard to the ma-
chines, the furniture, and. the sales, that
showed Mrs. Carriswood that he meant
to keep an eye on his twenty odd thou-
sand dollars, he strolled at her side. To
Vol. XII.— 51

Miss Van Harlem he scarcely said three
words. In fact, he said exactly three
words, uttered as Miss Margaret's silken
skirts swung too near a pot of varnish.
They were "Look out, miss!" and at
the same second, Tommy, who was in
advance (with really no call to know of
the danger), turned on his heel and
whisked the skirts away, turning back
to pick up the sentence he had dropped.

Tommy told Harry that Miss Van
Harlem was a very handsome lady, but
haughty-looking. Then he talked for
half an hour about the cleverness of
Mrs. Carriswood.

" I am inclined to think Tommy will
rise." (Mrs. Carriswood was describing
the interview to her cousin, the next
day.) " What do you think he said to
me last of all ? ' How,' said he, ' does a
man, a gentleman ' — it had a touch of
the pathetic, don't you know, the little
hesitation he made on the word — ' how
does he show his gratitude to a lady
who has done him a great service ? '
* Young or old?' I said. 'Oh, a mar-
ried lady,' he said, ' very much admired,
who has been everywhere.' Wasn't that
clever of him ? I told him that a man
usually sent a few flowers. You saw the
basket to-day — evidently regardless of
expense. And fancy, there was a card,
a card with a gilt edge and his name
written on it.

*'The card was his mother's. She
has visiting cards, now, and pa^^s visits
once a year in a livery carriage. Poor
Mrs. Fitzmaurice, she is always so
scared ; and she is such a good soul !
Tommy is very good to her."

" How about the father ? Does he
still keep that ' nice ' saloon ? "

" Yes ; but he talks of retiring. They
are not poor at all, and Tommy is their
only child ; the others died. It is hard
on the old man to retire, for he isn't so
very old in fact, but if he once is con-
vinced that his calling stands in the
way of Tommy's career, he won't hesi-
tate a second."

" Poor people," said Mrs. Carriswood ;
" do you know, Grace, I can see Tommy's
future ; he wall grow to be a boss, a
political boss. He will become rich by
keeping your streets always cleaned —
which means never clean — and giving
3'ou the worst fire department and po-

458

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN,

lice to be obtained for money ; and, by
and by, a grateful machine will make
him mayor, or send him to the Legislat-
ure, very likely to Congress, where he
will misrepresent the honest State of
Iowa. Then he will bloom out in a so-
cial w^ay, and marry a gentlewoman, and
they will snub the old people who are
so proud of him."

" Well, we shall see," said Mrs. Loss-
ing ; " I think better things of Tommy.
So does Harry."

Part of the prophecy was to be speed-
ily fulfilled. Two years later, the Hon-
orable Thomas Fitzmaurice was elected
mayor of his city, elected by the reform
party, on account of his eminent ser-
vices— and because he was the only
man in sight who had the ghost of a
chance of winning. Harry's version
was : " Tommy jests at his new princi-
ples, but that is simply because he
doesn't comprehend what they are. He
laughs at reform in the abstract ; but
every concrete, practical reform he is as
anxious as I or anybody to bring about.
And he will get them here, too."

He was as good as his word ; he gave
the city an admirable administration,
with neither fear nor favor. Some of
the " boys " still clung to him ; these,
according to Harry, were the better
" boys," who had the seeds of good in
them and only needed opportunity and
a leader. Tommy did not flag in zeal ;
rather, as the time went on. and he
soared out of the criminal courts into
big civil cases involving propertj^ he
grew up to the level of his admirers'
praises. "Tommy," wrote Mr. Loss-
ing, presently, "is beginning to take
himself seriously. He has been told so
often that he is a young lion of reform,
that he begins to study the role in dead
earnest. I don't talk this way to Harry,
who believes in him and is training him
for the representative for our district.
What harm ? Verily, his is the faith that
will move mountains. Besides, Tom-
my is now rich ; he must be worth a
hundred thousand dollars, which makes
a man of wealth in these parts. It is
time for him to be respectable."

Notwithstanding this preparation,
Mrs. Carriswood (then giving Washing-
ton the benefit of her doubts of all cli-
mates) was surprised one day to receive

a perfectly correct visiting card whereon
was engraved, " Mr. Thomas Sackville
Fitzmaurice, M.C."

The young lady who was with her
lifted her brilliant hazel eyes and half
smiled. " Is it the funny man we met
once at Mrs. Lossing's ? Pray see him.
Aunt Margaret," said Miss Van Harlem.

Mrs. Carriswood shrugged her shoul-
ders and ordered the man to show him
up.

There entered, in the wake of the but-
ler, a distinguished-looking personage
who held out his hand with a perfect
copy of the bow that she saw forty times
a day. " He is taking himself very se-
riously," she sighed ; " he is precisely
like anybody else ! " And she felt her
interest snuffed out by Tommy's correct-
ness. But directly she changed her
mind ; the unfailing charm of his race
asserted itself in Tommy ; she decid-
ed that he was a delightful, original
young man, and in ten minutes they
were talking in the same droll confi-
dence that had always marked their re-
lation.

"How perfectly you are gotten up!
Are you inside, now ? "

"Ah, do you remember that?" said
he ; "that's awfully good of you. Which
is so fortunate as to please you, my
clothes or my deportment ? "

"Both. They are veiy good. W^here
did you get them, Tommy? I shall
take the privilege of my age and call
you Tommy."

"Thank you. The clothes? Oh, I
asked Harry for the proper thing, and
he recommended a tailor, I think Har-
ry gave me the manners too."

" And your new principles ? " She
could not resist this little fling.

" I owe a great deal in that way to
Harry also," answered he, with gravity.

Gone were the days of sarcastic ridi-
cule, of visionary politics. Tommy talked
of the civil service in the tone of Har-
ry himself. He was actually eloquent.

""Why, Aunt Margaret, he is a remark-
able young man," exclaimed Miss Van
Harlem ; " his honesty and enthusiasm
are refreshing in this pessimist place. I
hope he will come again. Did you no-
tice what lovely eyes he has ? "

Before long it was not pure good
nature that caused Mrs. Ca:rriswpod tp

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

459

ask Fitzmaurice to her house. He was
known as a rising young man. One
met him at the best houses ; j^et he was
a prodigious worker, and had made his
mark in committees, before the cele-
brated speech that sent him into all the
newspaper columns, or that stubborn
and infinitely versatile fight against odds
which inspired the artist of Fuck.

Tommy bore the cartoon to Mrs. Car-
riswood, beaming. She had not seen
that light in his face since the memora-
ble June afternoon in the Opera-house.
He sent the paper to his mother, who
vowed the picture "did not favor Tom-
my at all at all. Sure Tommy never
had such a red nose ! " The old man,
however, went to his ex-saloon, and sat
in state all the morning, showing Tom-
my's funny picture.

It was about this time that Mrs. Car-
riswood observed something that took
her breath away : Tommy Fitzmaurice
had the presumption to be attentive to my
lady's goddaughter. Miss Van Harlem.
Nor was this the worst ; there were in-
dications that Miss Van Harlem, who
had refused the noble names and titles
of two or three continental nobles, and
the noble name unaccompanied by a
title of the younger son of an English
earl, without mentioning the half-dozen
" nice " American claimants — Miss Van
Harlem was not angry.

The day this staggering blow fell on
her, Mrs. Carriswood was in her dress-
ing-room, peacefully watching Derry un-
pack a box from Paris, in anticipation
of a state dinner. And Miss Van Har-
lem, in a bewitching wrapper, sat on the
lounge and admired. On this scene of
feminine peace and happiness enter the
Destroyer, in the shape of a note from
Tommy Fitzmaurice. Were they going
on Beatoun's little excursion to Alex-
andria ? If they were, he would move
heaven and earth to put off a commit-
tee meeting, in order to join them.
By the way, he was to get the floor for
his speech that afternoon. "Wouldn't
Mrs. Carriswood come to inspire him ?
Perhaps Miss Van Harlem would not be
bored by a little of it.

It was a well- worded note ; as Mrs.
Carriswood read it she realized for the
first time how completely Tommy was
acclimated in society. She remembered

his plaint years ago, and his awe of "oil
paintings " and " people of culture ; "
and she laughed half -sadly as she passed
the note over to Miss Van Harlem.

"I presume it is the Alexandria ex-
cursion that the Beatouns were talking
about yesterday," she said, languidly.
" He wants to show that young Irishman
that we have a mild flavor of antiquity,
ourselves. We are to see Alexandria
and have a real old Virginian dinner,
including one of the famous Beatoun
hams and some of the '69 Chateau
Yquem and the sacred '47 port. I sup-
pose he will have the four-in-hand buck-
board. ' A small party ' — that will mean
the Honorable Basil Sackville, Mrs. Bea-
toun, Lilly Denning, probably one of
the Cabinet girls. Colonel Turner, and
that young Russian Beatoun is so fond
of. Tommy Fitzmaurice "

" Why do you always call Mr. Fitz-
maurice Tommy ? " — this interruption
comes with a slight rise of color from
young Margaret.

" Everybody calls him Tommy in his
own town ; a politician as popular as he
with the bo3^s is naturally Tommy or
Jerry or Billy. They slap him on the
back or sit with an arm around his neck
and concoct the ways to rule us."

"I don't think anyone slaps Mr.
Fitzmaurice on the back and calls him
Tommy, now,"' says Margaret, with a lit-
tle access of dignity.

" I dare say his poor old father and
mother don't venture on that liberty ; I
wish you had seen them "

"He has told me about them," says
Margaret.

And Mrs. Carriswood's dismay was
such that for a second she simply gasped.
Were things so far along that such con-
fessions were made? Tommy must be
very confident to venture ; it was shrewd,
very shrewd, to forestall Mrs. Carris-
wood's sure revelations — oh, Tommy
was not a politician for nothing !

" Besides," Margaret went on, with
the same note of repressed feeling in
her voice, " his is a good family, if they
have decayed ; his ancestor was Lord
Fitzmaurice in King James's time."

" She takes him seriously too ! "
thought Mrs. Carriswood, with inex-
pressible consternation ; " what shall I
say to her mother ? "

460

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

Strange to say, perhaps, considering
that she was so frankly a woman of the
world, her stubbornest objection to
Tommy was not an objection of expedi-
ency. She had insensibly grown to take
his success for granted, like the rest of
the Washington world ; he would be a
governor, a senator, he might be — any-
thing ! And he was perfectly presenta-
ble, now ; no, it would be on the whole
an investment in the future that would
pay well enough ; his parents would be
awkward, but they were old people, not
likely to be too much en emdence.

Mrs. Carriswood, w^hile not overjoyed,
would not feel crushed by such a match,
but she did view what she regarded as
Tommy's moral instability with a du-
bious and fearful eye. He was earnest
enough for his new principles now ; but
what warrant was there of his sincer-
ity? Margaret and her mother were
high-minded women. It was the gallant
knight of her party and her political
faith that the girl admired, the valiant
light, not the triumph ! No mere sol-
dier of fortune, no matter how success-
ful or how brilliant, could win her ; if
Tommy were the mercenary, not the
knight, no worldly glory could compen-
sate his wife.

Wherefore, after a bad quarter of an
hour reflecting on these things, Mrs. Car-
riswood went to the Capitol, resolved
to take her goddaughter away. She
would not withdraw her acceptance of
the Beatouns's invitation, no ; let the
Iowa congressman have every opportu-
nity to display his social shortcomings
in the contrast with the accomplished
Russian, and Jack Turner, the most ele-
gant man in the army ; the next day
would be time enough for a telegram
and a sudden flitting. Yet in the midst
of her plans for Tommy's discomfiture
she was assailed by a queer regret and
reluctance. Tommy's fascination had
affected even a professional critic of
life ; he had been so amusing, so will-
ing, so trusting, so useful, that her chill
interest had warmed into liking. She
felt a moving of the heart as the hand-
some black head arose, and the first
notes of that resonant, thrilling voice
sw^elled above the din on the floor.

It was the day of his great speech,
the speech that made him, it was said.

As Mrs. Carriswood sank back, turn-
ing a little in an instinctive effort to re-
pulse her own sympathy, she was aware
of the presence near her of an elderly
man and woman. The old man wore a
shining silk hat and shining new black
clothes. His expansive shirt-bosom was
very white, but not glossy, and rumpled
in places ; and his collar was of the
spiked and antique pattern known as a
" dickey." His wrinkled, red face was
edged by a white fringe of whisker. He
wore large gold -bowed spectacles, and
his jaws worked incessantly.

The woman was a little, mild, wrink-
led creature, with an anxious blue eye
and snowy hair, smoothed down over
her ears, under her fine bonnet. She
was richly dressed, but her silks and vel-
vets ill suited the season. Had she seen
them anywhere else, Mrs. Carriswood
might not have recognized them ; but
there, with Tommy before them, both
of them feverishly absorbed in Tommy,
she recognized them at a glance. She
had a twinge of pity, watching the old
faces pale and kindle. With the first
rustle of applause, she saw the old
father slip his hand into the old moth-
er's. They sat well behind a pillar ; and
however excited they became, they never
so lost themselves as to lean in front of
their shield. This, also, she noticed.
The speech over, the woman wiped her
eyes. The old man joined in the tumult
of applause that swept over the galler-
ies, but the old woman pulled his arm,
evidently feeling that it was not decent
for them to applaud. She sat rigid,
with red cheeks and her eyes brim-
ming ; he was swaying and clapping and
laughing in a roar of delight. But it
was he that drew her away, finally, while
she fain would have lingered to look at
Tommy receiving congratulations be-
low^

" Poor things," said Mrs. Carriswood,
" I do believe they haven't let him know
that they are here." And she remembered
how she had pitied them for this very
possibility of humiliation years before.
But she did not pursue the adventure,
and some obscure motive prevented her
speaking of it to Miss Van Harlem.

Did Tommy's parents tell Tommy ?
If they did, Tommy made no sign. The
morning found him with the others, in

STOKIES OF A IVES TERN TOIVN.

461

a beautiful white flannel suit, with a
silk shirt and a red silk sash, looking
handsomer than any man of the par-
ty. He took the congratulations of the
company modestly. Either he was not
much pufi'ed up, or he had the art of
concealment.

They saw Alexandria in a conscien-
tious fashion, for the benefit of the
guest of the day. He was a modest
young fellow with a nose rather too
large for his face, a long upper lip, and
frank blue eyes. He made himself
agreeable to one of the Cabinet girls, on
the front seat, while Tommy, just be-
hind him, had Miss Van Harlem and
bliss for his portion.

The old streets, the toppling roofs,
the musty warehouses, the uneven pave-
ment, all pleased the young creatures
out in the sunshine. They made merry
over the ancient ball-room, where Wash-
ington had asked a far-away ancestress
of Beatoun to dance ; and they decor-
ously walked through the old church.

It happened in the church. Mrs.
Carriswood was behind the others ; so
she saw them come in, the same little
old couple of the Capitol.

In the chancel, Beatoun was explain-
ing ; beside Beatoun shone a curly black
head that they knew.

Mrs. Carriswood sat in one of the
high old pews. Through a crack she
could look into the next pew ; and there
they stood. She heard the old man :
" Whist, MoUy, let's be getting out of
this ! He is here with all his grand
friends. Don't let us be interrupting
him."

The old woman's voice was so like
Tommy's that it made Mrs. Carriswood
start. Very softly she spoke : "I only
want to look at him a minute, Pat, jest
a minute. I ain't seen him for so
long."

'' And is it any longer for you than
for me?" retorted the husband. "Ye
know what ye promised if I'd be taking
you here, unbeknownst. Don't look his
way ! Look like ye was a stranger to
him. Don't let us be mortifying him
wid our country ways. Like as not 'tis
the prisidint, himself, he is colloguein'
wid, this blessed minute. Shtep back
and be a stranger to him, woman ! "

A stranger to him, his own mother !

But she stepped back ; she turned her
patient face. Then — Tommy saw her.

A wave of red flushed all over his
face. He took two steps down the aisle,
and caught the little iigure in his arms.

"Why, mother?" he cried, "w^hy,
mother, where did you drop from ? "

And before Mrs. Carriswood could
speak she saw him step back and push
young Sackville forward, crying, " This
is my father, this is the boy that knew
your grandmother."

He did it so easily ; he was so en-
tirely unaffected, so perfectly uncon-
scious, that there was nothing at all
embarrassing for anyone. Even the
Cabinet girl with a grandmother in
very humble life, who must be kept in
the background, could not feel discon-
certed.

For this happy result, Mrs. Carris-
wood owns a share of the credit. She
advanced on the first pause, and claimed
acquaintanceship with the Fitzmaurices.
The story of their last meeting and Tom-
my's first triumph in oratory came, of
course ; the famous horseshoe received
due mention ; and Tommy described
with much humor his terror of the stage.
From the speech to its most effective pas-
sage was a natural transition ; equally
natural the transition to Tommy's grand-
mother, the Irish famine, and the benev-
olence of Lady Sackville.

Everybody was interested, and it was
Sackville, himself, who brought the Fitz-
maurices's noble ancestors, the apocry-
phal Viscounts Fitzmaurice of King
James's creation, on to the carpet.

He was entirely serious. " My grand-
mother told me of your great-grand-
father. Lord Fitzmaurice ; she saw him
ride to hounds once, when she was a
little girl. They say he was the boldest
rider in Ireland, and a renowned duel-
list too. King James gave the title to
his grandfather, didn't he ? and the
countryside kept it, if it was given
rather too late in the day to be useful.
I am glad you have restored the family
fortunes, Mr. Fitzmaurice."

The Cabinet girl looked on Tommy
with respect, and Miss Van Harlem
blushed like an angel.

"All is lost," said Mrs. Carriswood to
herself ; yet she smiled. Going home,
she found a word for Tommy's ear.

462

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN,

The old Virginian dinner had been most
successful. The Fitzmaurices (who had
been almost forced into the banquet by
Beatoun's imperious hospitality) were
not a wet blanket in the least. Patrick
Fitzmaurice, brogue and all, was an
Irish gentleman without a flaw. He
blossomed out into a modest wag ; and
told two or three comic stories as ac-
ceptably as he was used to tell them to
a very different circle — only, carrying a
fresher flavor of wit to this circle, per-
haps, it enjoyed them more. Mrs.
Fitzmaurice looked scared and ate
almost nothing, with the greatest pro-
priety, and her fork in her left hand.
Yet even she thawed under Miss Van
Harlem's attentions and gentle Mrs.
Beatoun's tact, and the winning ways of
the last Beatoun baby. She took this
cherub to her heart with such undis-
sembled warmth, that its mother ever
since has called her " a sweet, funny lit-
tle old lady."

They were both (Patrick and his wife)
quite unassuming and retiring, and no
urging could dissuade them from part-
ing with the company at the tavern
door.

" My word. Tommy, your mother and
I can git home by ourselves," whispered
honest Patrick ; " we've not exceeded
— if the wines miere good. I never ex-
ceeded in my life, God take the glory ! "

But he embraced Tommy so affection-
ately in parting that I confess Mrs. Car-

riswood had suspicions. Yet, surely,
it is more likely that his brain was
— let us not say turned, but just a wee
bit tilted, by the jo}'^ and triumph of the
occasion rather than by Beatoun's port
or champagne.

But Mrs. Carriswood's w^ord had noth-
ing to do with Tommy's parents, osten-
sibly, though, in truth, it had every-
thing to do. She said: "Will you dine
with us to-morrow, quite en famille,
Thomas?"

" I ought to tell you, I suppose, that I
find your house a pretty dangerous para-
dise, Mrs. Carriswood," says Tommy.

"And I find you a most dangerous
angel, Thomas ; but — you see I ask
you ! "

" Thank you," answers Tommy, in a
different tone ; " you've always been an
angel to me. What I owe to you and
Harry Lossing — well, I can't talk about
it. But see here, Mrs. Carriswood, you
always have called me Tommy ; now
you say Thomas ; why this state ? "

" I think you have w^on your brevet,
Thomas."

He looked puzzled, and she liked him
the better that he should not make
enough of his conduct to understand
her ; but, though she has called him
Tommy often since, he keeps the brevet
in her thoughts. In fact, Mrs. Carris-
wood is beginning to take the Honora-
ble Thomas Fitzmaurice and his place
in the world seriously, herself.

THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.

By Walter B. Peet.

r^ there v
/_\ JJ, tors of
\,' ^ J TEpee,

' -fV^ /-\ 1- l^ /~\ i^

3^^**f^f4«^ BOUT a century ago
^v there were two con-
'^ temporaneous educa-
* ^ -p ^j^e deaf and
the Abbe de
on the one
hand, used as his
method natural signs
or gestures, which he developed to a
system, and the manual alphabet, or
spelling with the fingers, as a means
of conveying a knowledge of language
to the brain of the pupil, following out
the principle that " there is no more
natural and necessary connection be-
tween abstract ideas and the articulate
sounds which strike the ear than there
is between the same ideas and the writ-
ten characters that address themselves
to the eye."

On the other hand, Samuel Heinicke
took a diametrically opposite view, with
the idea that " the written word is only
the representation of articulate sound.
It addresses itself to the eye, and can
never be imprinted on the soul or be-
come the medium of thought. That
is the sole prerogative of the voice.
Without an acquaintance with spoken
language a deaf - mute child can never
become more than a writing machine,
or have anything beyond a succession
of images passing through his mind."
With this theory he refused to use any
means of educating those bereft of hear-
ing except through speech, which was
read by his pupils from the lips, and
writing.

These two pioneers have had their
followers ever since, and when the
Twelfth Convention of American In-
structors of the Deaf, and the first In-
ternational Convention in America, was
held at the New York Institution, on
Washington Heights, in the summer of
1890, each system had its enthusiastic
advocates.

But the chasm between them has
been bridged by the majority of Amer-
ican instructors in the use of the '' Com-
bined System."

The advocates of the French method,
following out De I'Epee's fundamen-
tal idea, that spoken words were not
necessary to the development of the
brain, and wishing to increase the men-
tal growth as rapidly as possible, bring
to their help signs, the natural language
of deaf-mutes, and one which they ac-
quire without effort in a remarkably
short time after entering a school where
gestures are used. In this manner
they converse with great ease and ra-
pidity, and it is undoubtedly the means
through which they can communicate
with each other with the greatest pleas-
ure.* In these signs both the hands
and arms are employed.

De I'Epee developed the sign lan-
guage with the original gestures of the
uneducated deaf - mute as a basis ; and
it has now attained to such a degree of
perfection that by means of it a lecture
containing the most abstract ideas may
be rendered perfectly intelhgible to a
large audience of deaf-mutes.

It is a fact worth noting that the signs
used by the Indians of North America
are identical in many instances with
those employed by the deaf-mutes of to-
day. A short time ago a friend of the
writer, who had spent considerable time
among the Indians, but who had never
talked with a deaf - mute before, con-
versed with some pupils of the New
York Institution by means of signs
which he had learned from the red men.
" Where are you going ? " and " I am
going away on horseback," were the
same when given by the deaf-mutes and
by the visitor. Another instance show-
ing the sign language to be a universal
one was when the mother of the writer,
herself a deaf person, while attending a
convention of instructors of the deaf
in France, conversed on various topics
with a mute friend by means of signs.
The French lady had no knowledge of

* At the Convention alluded to above, one of the great-
est exponents of the pure oral method, in answer to a
question put to him during his speech on the system, ad-
mitted that his pupils generally talked to each other by
signs after leaving school.

464

THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.

the Englisli language, while the Ameri-
can knew hardly a word of French.

It is evident that with the aid of
a means of communication having the
scope of this sign language, and learned
without effort by simple inter-communi-
cation of deaf-mutes, general knowledge
may be rapidly instilled into the minds
of those who are deprived of hearing.
They improve remarkably fast ; but this
system is not without its drawbacks, for
if the sign language is depended upon
too greatly the pupil does not make
that progress in the English language
that is essential to his communication
with hearing and speaking people, nor
for his improvement by the reading of
both text-books and current literature.

The followers of De I'^fipee also make
use of the single - hand alphabet given
above.* This has come down to us from
Pedro Ponce de Leon, a Spanish monk
of the sixteenth century, and is in use
at the present daj" in almost its original
form. The letters, as formed by the
hands, are in a measure similar in looks
to the small Roman characters. There
is also a double-hand alphabet, which is
used only in England.

* The alphabet given above is a copy of engravings
made from photographs of the hand under the direction
of Professor J. C. Gordon of the National Deaf-Mute
College at Washington.

The Single Hand

Those perfectly familiar with the one-
hand alphabet can spell words as fast as
the average man speaks in,, delivering
an address. The writer has repeatedly
spelled with his fingers every word of a
sermon to his deaf mother. This is
an easy task for anyone who has had
a few years' practice ; and with him,
and, in fact, with all the children of the
family, the language of the hands has
been literally their mother tongue, as
they instinctively began to make signs
before they could speak.

The followers of Heinicke, or the
pure oralists as they are called, discard
signs and spelling, teaching only by
means of spoken vrords. They go even
so far as to insist that words shall be
spoken and read from the lips before
they are written. When a new pupil is
brought to them, words are pronounced
by the teacher, and the object repre-
sented is shown. An attempt is then
made to get the child to reproduce the
sound, and so, step by step, words and
their meaning are conveyed to the
brain. Each stage is slowly, tediously
taken, and the mind expands propor-
tionately tardily.

The argument used by the advocates
of this method is that if all other means

THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.

465

O

Deaf and Dumb Alphabet.

of communication are shut off from the
pupil, he must of necessity advance at a
much greater speed in articulation and
lip-reading, and this is the goal for
which they try, as, according to their
principle, speech is the only road to in-
telligence. The methods used in thus
teaching articulation will be explained
later in this article.

It may be said, however, without the
least fear of contradiction, that the most
brilliantly educated deaf-mutes in this
country are results of the Combined
System. As the name implies, it is a
combination of all methods — signs,
spelling, articulation, lip-reading, writ-
ing, charts, symbols, objects — in fact
everything is made use of that has been
found practicable in the instruction of
this unfortunate class. This method is
in. vogue, in some form, in fifty -nine
of the eighty-four institutions in Amer-
ica.

Before giving an illustration of the
methods used in the Combined System
for the education of deaf-mutes, as prac-
tised in one of the leading institutions,
it may be well to state that the instruc-
tors of the deaf and dumb recognize
three distinct classes :

1. Semi-deaf, or those having suffi-

cient hearing to be instructed in part
through the ear by means of devices
shown later.

2. Semi-mutes, or those who have be-
come deaf after having acquired a knowl-
edge of language by hearing. A great
number of these articulate more or less
when they arrive at school, and conse-
quently the task of developing their
speech, lip-reading, and use of language
is comparatively easy.

3. Congenital deaf - mutes, or those
born with no hearing, and consequently
dumb as regards their power of articu-
lating words. They are not dumb, how-
ever, in the sense of having no voice, as
is erroneously supposed by many, ex-
cept in very rare cases, caused by pa-
ralysis of the vocal organs.

It is to this last class, of course, that
articulation and lip-reading come the
most slowly and with the greatest diffi-
culty, and, never having had words con-
veyed to their brain through the nor-
mal channel, the ear, thej^ acquire the
English language only after the most
persistent efforts, both on their part
and on that of their teachers. In fact
it is as a foreign language to them.
They use it with the same difficulty that
the Japanese do when not born here,
and in many cases make the same idio-

466

THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.

matic errors that these foreigners fall
into.

This is practically illustrated in the
extracts given below from letters written
by a congenital deaf-mute in one col-
umn, and from the correspondence of a
Japanese friend in the other :

Congenital Deaf-
mute.

My Dear —

I am going a write
letter to you. The hens
success eggs, every day
three four five eggs.

I will think some lit-
tle chickens dead will.

I am very tired by
heavy hands from
hard work. I have get
trouble very pain teeth
about two weeks. If
you let me will kill a
pig for eat me ? If
you's family come at
here April Ird 1892?
You and me can seeds
on hot bed on April.

Mrs. K ■ not like

red paint of house and
like yellow. I told she
that is style new house
for paint color.
Your truly

friendship boy,

Japanese.
March 3th, 1892.

My Dear Mr. C. B.—

I received your let-
ters two times but I
could not answer you
for first time. I have
very few letters which
writted in the English
language.

I was looking for the
place where I can sale
goods. There is a Jap-
anese store has been
founded by our coun-
trymen at the October
of 1891. I came to part-
ner at that store it is
very good chance to
me.

I was finished my
work at the 27th of
last month, but here I
am trouble occurred to
me, for my friend laid
in the bed about eight
days by la grippe. It
seems to me every
things are monotony.

Has your mother
quite well now ?

Yours truly friend,

When a congenital deaf-mute, six or
eight years of age, is brought to an in-
stitution he knows nothing. He has
not the slightest idea of letters, words,
or language of any kind. Neither has
he that knowledge of general subjects
which hearing and speaking children
gain through their ears. In fact he is
lower in point of intellect than the child
of a savage.

He is taken into a class-room, where
he sees written on a black - board, in
round, clear letters, the following twelve
words :

The key.
The hat.
The box.
The mat.
The jug.
The saw.

The adze.
The cup.
The vase.
The door.
The quill.
The knife.

On the table are the twelve objects rep-
resented by these words. The teacher
touches the key and points to the writ-
ten name. This exercise is repeated
till the pupil catches the idea that the
written word represents the thing, and
the pupil soon points to that word when
the teacher touches the object. The
instructor then goes through the same
process in connection with each of the
other objects till the pupil is able to
associate the name with the object at
sight. This done the teacher points to
each name and requires the pupil to
touch the object.

In the third exercise the teacher in-
structs the pupil to spell the words by
the manual alphabet, forming the let-
ters on his own hand as models for the
little learner. For the fourth step the
teacher repeats the letters in alphabeti-
cal order on his hands, and requires the
pupil at the same time to point out
these letters as they occur in the list
of words. Then the pupil writes the
words, copying them from the slate ;
and at this point he has learned the
alphabet, both written and manual, for
in these twelve words all the letters
occur.

The next step is to require him to
write the several words without copy
whenever the objects are shown to him.
The pronoun of the first person singu-
lar, with the verb touch, is soon added
in this way : the teacher writes the di-
rection *' touch the key," and shows the
pupil how 1^0 perform the act desired.
He then writes the question, " What did
you do ? " and teaches his charge to
write, "I touched the key." In like
manner all the objects are treated. On
this principle of direction, question, and
answer, in connection with an object, a
considerable number of nouns, verbs,
pronouns, numerals, adjectives, and prep-
ositions are introduced.

By the time this point has been
reached the pupil has picked up from
association with his playmates the lan-
guage of signs, and his little mind
bursts forth into an unusually rapid
growth because of its former stagnation.
He runs to his teacher each day and
asks the word equivalent to some sign
which he has just learned, that he may
write it in his daily journal, which is by

THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.

467

this time used as one of the means for
developing language.

The teacher now spells with the fin-
gers everything of which he has occasion
to speak, and requires his pupils to give
a responsive sign for each word. If
any pupil fails to understand a word,
the teacher explains it in signs, and
thus these responsive signs are a test
of the child's understanding. It is at
once detected when a pupil does not
understand a word, and the teacher then
acts as a dictionary to him.

After this fashion all his lessons are
explained, and the English language
constantly finds its way to his mind.
He is also encouraged in every possible
way to read each day and to put the
ideas so obtained into written English
in his own style. The products of his
attempts are corrected and criticised by
his tutor, the results being, after a time,
most gratifying. Day by day, month
by month, year by year, his mind is
expanded, until, at the end of eight
years, which time finds him in the high
class, his list of studies comprises
arithmetic, English grammar, English
composition, geography, United States
and English history, natural science,
moral science, continental literature,
mediaeval arts, and mythology.

In the special class for college prepa-
ration political geography, physical ge-
ography, natural philosophy, algebra,
and Latin are added.

But to go back. After the pupil has
become familiar with the alphabet in
connection with the twelve objects, the
teaching of articulation and lip-reading
is commenced.

The first step is to teach the phonic
alphabet given below, which embraces
all the sounds of the English language.

Consonants.

Lip. Tip of tongue. Top of tongue. Back of tongue.

P

b

m
f

V

wh
w

t

d

n

1

r

s

z

th

y

sh
tsh
zh

dzh =: j
h

ch

k

ng
ks -
kw =

X

qu

aJr-3

D 4) cj

o ^^

> a o

o ?^ I*

y *-i tc

,'- o 5s

^ ft

^^1

ti
iir

o c^

GO

66
6
a
a

V

o

EC
o

>

a>
a

'2

B
o

o
ae = I

aoo = ou or ow
ae = oy or oi
ioo = u

The sound, not the name, of each
letter and combination is given by the
teacher, and the pupil is encouraged to
imitate this as closely as possible. Of
course he cannot hear it, but a looking-
glass is given him, and after seeing the
teacher form the letter with his lips,
the young student tries to imitate him,
comparing his own lips with those of
the teacher by means of the mirror.
He feels the throat and the chest of the
teacher, and puts his hand in front of
the instructor's mouth, and tries to re-
produce the manner of puffing out the
air, breathing, etc., that the teacher uses
in giving the sounds.

With the congenital deaf - mute this
is slow work ; his more fortunate class-
mates, the semi-mutes, having learned
all this naturally before coming to
school, are easily far ahead of him in
this branch of study.

After a pupil has learned the proper
positions that his mouth, lips, and
tongue should assume, his voice must
be governed. The most common diffi-
culties to overcome are high pitch, and
nasal and guttural intonations. The
high pitch is the most frequent, and to
correct this the teacher makes as deep
tones as is possible, and placing the
boy's hand on his chest, shows him that
the vibrations are low on the trunk,
and then the child is encouraged to
make his vibrations equall}' deep. After
the phonic alphabet has been mastered
words are spoken, then sentences, and
afterward series of sentences combining
all the sounds.

As the pupil learns to form the phonic
letters himself, he is also made to read
them from his preceptor's lips, and so

* Ab will be
used.

Been, Webster's diacritical marke are

468

THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.

his power of lip-reading grows simul-
taneously with his articulation.

One of the greatest obstacles that the
oral teacher has to overcome is the mis-
leading spelling of the English language.
If we spelled phonetically the task would
be much lighter. As it is, the teacher
must first translate his words into their
phonetic equivalents before asking his
pupil to pronounce them. When a sen-
tence such as " Queens used to write with
quill pens," is given, the teacher writes
it " Kwenz loozd too raet with kwil
penz ; " and in the class-room the pupil
is supplied with a handy volume of
Webster's dictionary, to which he turns
for the diacritical marks of the words
with which he is unfamiliar.

A most useful device for teaching ar-
ticulation to the deaf and dumb is the
system of "visible speech" or "sound-
writing," invented by A. Melville Bell,
father of Dr. A. Graham Bell.

This was not originally intended as a
help to deaf-mutes, but was what Mr. Bell
hoped it would be, as he expressed it, uni-
versal phonetics. It is to the son that the
credit must be given for having applied
the system to deaf-mute instruction.

It consists of symbols which repre-
sent the positions which the different
vocal organs assume while one is speak-
ing, and being in a sense pictorial, it

puffing out of breath which produces
the sound (not the name) of P. With

the addition of U^ , which is

the mark for voice, —J ^ is produced,
which is B, and, \^ with stiU an-
other adjunct, I the nose, we have the
following dia- \ gram showing that

a, nose ; &, lips ; c, voice ; d, closed.

the lips are closed, voice is used and the
nasal sound is brought into play, all pro-
ducing M. These examples will suffice
to show the method used.

This system has been so perfected by
Mr. Bell that the symbols for any sound
or series of sounds, capable of produc-
tion by the human voice, can be written,
and when read by a person be exactly
reproduced, even though the person do-
ing it has never heard the sounds be-
fore. A short time ago a number of
Mexicans visited the New York Institu-
tion, where the Bell system is in vogue
in one of the classes. The professor of
the most advanced class in articulation
asked the interpreter who accompanied
them to say to him slowly, and not in

Top o{Tonguc / NV-Afose

:)li?

Tip of To'\g"*'

0 --lip-

_/ '"T'p of "Jonovxe .

^ Top

( — -^ack

> Puff o} {?realK.

Voice.

Diagram of the Head, showing the Parts Used in Speech with their Symbols.

clearly shows the deaf-mute what he
should do to produce any desired
sounds. A diagram is drawn of that
portion of the head containing the parts
which are used in speech, and the sym-
bols are taken directly from it as fol-
lows :

As is seen above

means the
lips, and
closed

D>

lips,
rep-
lips

Dthe symbol J
the closed ^
resents the
followed by the

the presence of the visitors, some Span-
ish words of welcome. The teacher put
the words on paper in Bell's symbols,
and members of the class gave the
sounds of these Spanish words, although
totally ignorant of their meaning, clear-
ly enough to be distinctly understood
by the delighted foreigners.

The brain of the semi-deaf joupil is
reached, whenever possible, through the

THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.

460

ear. Some years ago Professor E. H.
Currier, of the New York Institution,
devised an instrument which has proved
of great benefit in teaching this class of
pupils. It consists of a double flexible
speaking-tube, each division of which
has an opening for the voice. It has
but one ear-piece, which is at the union
of the two tubes.
The pupil puts the
end of the tube in-
tended for the ear
in place. The teach-
er speaks in one
division, and the
pupil, imitating,
speaks in the other.

The scholar is in
this way able to
compare his own
voice with that of
the teacher, as is
shown on page 473.

Another instru-
ment, shown here,
has been made by
Professor Currier
on the same prin-
ciple, which has
four double tubes
branching from the
teacher's mouth-
piece, so that four
pupils may be
spoken to at the
same time, each pu-
pil, as in the other
instrument, being

enabled to hear his own voice as well as
his instructor's.

The semi -deaf and semi -mutes are
helped to a great degree by articulation
and lip-reading, but the congenital deaf-
mute, except in a very few instances, is
not appreciably benefited by this branch
of instruction. It is true that in excep-
tional congenital cases a success has
been made, but it has almost invaria-
bly happened that the pupil was unusu-
ally clever, and that he had had the un-
divided attention of an expert teacher.
But in large classes, such as are made
necessary by the present appropriations
for teaching the deaf, articulation and
lip-reading are of no practical benefit
except to semi-mutes and the semi-
deaf.

Instrument with Four Double
pils can be taught at once,
own voices as well as their

The religious instruction, which is
entirely free from sectarianism, consists
of services in the chapel every Sunday
given by means of signs. The order
followed is : 1. The Lord's Prayer. 2.
Hymn, rendered in concerted signs by a
choir of girls. 3. Reading of the Ten
Commandments. 4. Prayer. 5. Ser-
mon. 6. Prayer.

7. Doxology, given
by the girl choir.

8. Benediction.
The deaf, being

for the first few
years entirely shut
out from the evils
of the outside
world, as well as
from its advan-
tages, their morals
are*easily moulded,
and one of the
most striking facts
noticed is the su-
preme faith which
the pupils have.
An almost amusing
instance of this
ha]3pened some
time ago, when two
boys were arguing
over the respective
skill of the base-
ball teams of Yale
and Princeton.
One of them had
made a bet on the
New Jersey team.
When the new^s came that Yale had w^on
he was seen to say that it was not fair,
that Yale did not win on account of good
ball-playing, but that Stagg, their Chris-
tian pitcher, had praj^ed to the Lord, as
was his custom, to let him win, and that
God helj^ed Yale to be victorious, al-
though Princeton played much better
ball.

After the pupils leave school they
are still enabled to attend religious ser-
vices. This has been made possible by
the philanthropy of the Rev. Thomas
Gallaudet, the son of the first Ameri-
can instructor of the deaf, who holds
regular services in this city, rendered
in the sign language. His efforts are
supplemented l3y others who, under
his direction, travel throughout the

Tubes, with which four pu-
enabling them to hear their
instructor's.

470

THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.

countiy preaching to the deaf and
dumb.

As long ago as 1070 Lana Terzi rec-
ognized that " the privation of one
sense gives to the others a keenness
entirely new and extraordinary." In
art this is especially noticeable, the in-
creased acuteness of the eye assisting
the students to a great degree. They
are taught clay-modelling, wood- carv-
ing, free-hand and mechanical draw-
ing, painting in oil and water colors,
original designing, ceramic ornamenta-
tion and decoration, and glaze and en-
amel work on tiles, trays, and plaques.
The girls are also taught embroidery.
Several of the graduates who have taken
the art course in connection with their
other studies are now supporting them-
selves comfortably by means of this oc-
cupation. Until within the past few
years the great majority of adult deaf-
mutes have been forced to depend
solely for their livelihood upon the
manual trades.

The industries taught include the
following : Printing, shoemaking, car-
pentering and cabinet-making, painting
and glazing, tailoring, gardening, dress-
making, type-writing, shirt-making, and
plain sewing. In the first named the
boys become remarkably proficient, as
their quickened eyes and hands are a
great help in type-setting. Being un-
able to talk without the use of their
hands, the possibility of setting type
and talking at the same time, as some
of their hearing and speaking neighbors
try to do, is excluded. About thirty of
the most advanced girls receive instruc-
tion in cooking from a professional
teacher of this branch.

By these courses, both educational
and industrial, an ignorant, irresponsi-
ble being is transformed into a useful
and law-abiding member of society.
Not only is this true of the great ma-
jority, but in some cases we meet with
almost incredible brilliancy and talent.

A still more affiicted class than those
already noticed, and one which, fortu-
nately, is comparatively small, consists
of deaf-mutes who are also deprived
of sight. Of these cases several show
that the deaf, dumb, and blind may not
only be educated, but that they are ca-

pable of a high degree of mental devel-
opment.

There is a boy now under instruction
who has made remarkable progress in a
comparatively short time. He is shut
in from the outside world in every way
except through the sense of feeling.
He knew, of course, even less than the
congenital deaf - mute beginners. The
first light was admitted to his brain two
years ago, when he was eight years old.
He was taken to the beginners' room,
and started on the twelve objects. The
names of these had been carved by a
member of the art department on a
square block of wood in distinct script
letters.

The key was handed to him, and after
feeling it slowly, he showed by the ex-
pression of his face that he knew its
use. The teacher then took the boy's
finger and ran it over the carved let-
ters, "the key." This had to be re-
peated man}' times, but at last the boy
recognized that every time the key was
given him he felt the same letters, and
saw that these invariably followed the
handling of the key. In like manner
the association betw^een the other ob-
jects and their names gradually became
clear to him. After this had been ac-
complished, he learned the manual al-
phabet by feeling his teacher's hand as
he spelled the names of the twelve ob-
jects. He acquired it in a remarkably
short time, as he also did the sign lan-
guage. The latter w^as taught him by
his seeing deaf companions whose arms
he felt while they were talking.

By this time he had become familiar
with the formation of written letters.
He was given a j^encil and told to imi-
tate these letters. Whenever he went
astray his hand was guided, and soon
he was able to write legibly.

He was also taught to read the raised
letters in ordinary use by the blind,
but his daily lessons from regular text-
books are studied for him by the eyes
of his comrades, who take turns in
helping him during the study hours.
They read the lesson, spelling it by the
manual alphabet, while he, by placing
his hand upon that of his companion,
feels each letter, no matter how rapidly
the words are spelled.

By the aid of feeling alone, he has

THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB, 471

3 diHM MM/

i/ 'dj(}//i/

./iA/vaA/^

V

a/vv\

i^A/k^ rw(AAYv^ijD . (9 Vm^

f

J_etter Written by a Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Boy, Ten Years Old, after Two Years' Instructipn.

472

THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.

been taken through the various stages
for beginners described before — signs,
spelling, reading and writing, all reach-
ing his brain through the medium of
his hands alone — until now, at the age
of ten, he is capable of expressing his
thoughts in writing, of which a speci-
men is given on page 471.

Not long ago among the graduating
class was a deaf, dumb, and blind young
man, James H. Caton, who, on account
of his comparatively fluent use of the
English language, was selected to give
the Salutatory Address. I quote it
here in full :

Nature was man's first teacher. From see-
ing things he tried to give them names. He
made many mistakes, which experience cor-
rected. People formerly did not know much.
They had funny beliefs about many things,
but they slowly improved. Time explained
many things they did not know. So we see
the different ages show a steady advance.
Learning spread wider. People became more
sensible. We do not now fear witchcraft, but
it was once a serious thing. We now laugh at
many old fancies. Perhaps a hundred years
hence a new generation will laugh at us, and
still former times produced some things which
we cannot improve upon.

In education, however, the progress is very
marked. History tells us that in old times
people had a very poor chance of obtaining a
good education. Especially, in America, it
was hard work. Every improvement came
very slowly. This was a new country. At last
some learned men came here from England.
After a time they opened Yale College, in Con-
necticut ; Harvard, in Massachusetts ; Colum-
bia, in New York, and Princeton College, in
New Jersey, Later, a part of the taxes was set
apart by law for public education. We now
boast of one of the best systems of public in-
struction. No child need remain uneducated.
Everything is done to make our people intelli-
gent. So it is with our benevolent institutions.
They do great good.

We sometimes read of men teaching animals
to act almost like people. There are wonder-
ful examples of trained horses, dogs, birds,
and even of insects. But these instances are
as nothing compared with the wonders in teach-
ing those who lack important senses. My own
case is an instance of difficulties overcome. I
came to this Institution at the age of nine years,
knowing nothing of language, for I was born
deaf and dumb, but have not always been
blind. At the age of twelve years I became
blind. The directors naturally thought it im-
possible to instruct one who was blind as well
as deaf. They, however, gave me every op-
portunity to prove it was possible. After
months of patient endeavor on the part of the
principal, my teacher, and myself, I began to
comprehend the signs made to me, and also to

read by touch whatever was spelt to me by
the manual alphabet. By following the mo-
tion of the writer's arm I also came to under-
stand whatever was written to me with a pen-
cil. At present I have no difficulty in using
the English language intelligently, and this is
a source of delight to me.

Now that I am about to graduate, I hope to
be able to support myself. I have learned to
cane the bottoms of chairs, and this will help
me. Moreover, I am an expert at picking
berries, which will afford me employment dur-
ing the summer months. I can chop wood,
too, but this accomplishment is too risky to
hope that it will be a means of gaining a live-
lihood. Nevertheless I am hopeful of being
able to work and support myself.

To the Board of Directors : I desire to say
that to you I am greatly indebted. You have
done much to add to my comfort and happi-
ness. No pupil has received greater care or
consideration at your hands. I am only sorry
that in moments of despair I have been so
careless as to do wrong, I assure you that it
has been from thoughtlessness rather than
from intent. I shall ever remember your lov-
ing care, and there is One above who, should I
forget, will not.

To the Principal and Teachers it is also
proper that I should say a few words. You,
my kind friends, have been my aids and com-
forters for many years. I shall miss you all.
You have worked hard to make my life less
lonesome. Often you have reprimanded and
advised me for my own good. I wish that in
the past I had given more heed to your coun-
sels, but even now it is not too late ; I shall
ever remember you, one and all, for you have
ever been my kind, my sincere, my patient, and
loving friends.

To the audience who have honored us with
their presence this morning we extend greet-
ings. We hope that the exercises of Closing
Day will prove interesting and suggestive, and
will show that our school, both in its intellec-
tual and mechanical instruction, has main-
tained, if not excelled its high reputation as a
successful school for the deaf. Welcome,
thrice welcome.

This young man was a congenital
deaf-mute, but lost his eyesight during
an attack of small-pox when he was
twelve years old. He became an expert
type-writer, learning the position of the
keys in a very short time, and with this
machine he puts his ideas rapidly into
words. He is able, however, to write
plainly, although at a much slower rate
than with the type-writer. A cui'ious
psychological phase of the deaf, dumb,
and blind is that, contrary to what
might naturally be supposed, they have
the sunniest of dispositions.

Many of the brightest semi-mute grad-
uates obtain positions as teachers of

THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.

478

the deaf, and other thinp;s being equal
they make excellent instructors, as they
know better than anyone else the needs
of this class. Of course they are un-
able to teach articulation, but this is
provided for by the employment of spe-
cial teachers.

Provision is made for the higher edu-
cation of deaf-mutes of both sexes by
the National College for the Deaf at
Washington, D. C, under the presi-

In 9,209 recorded cases of adventi-
tious deafness the causes, as given l)y
the parents of the pupils, were : Men-
ingitis, 2,850 ; scarlet fever, 2,695 ;
malarial and typhoid fevers, 571 ; mea-
sles, 448; fevers, non - malarial, 381;
catarrh and catarrhal fevers, 324 ; other
inflammations of the air-passages, 142 ;
falls, 323 ; abscesses, 281 ; whooping-
cough, 195 ; nervous affections, 170 ;
scrofula, 131 ; quinine, 78 ; blows and

A Double Speaking-Tube.
The teacher speaks into one division and the pupil imitating speaks into the other.

dency of Dr. E. M. Gallaudet, to whose
efibrts is due much of the success of the
Combined System.

The course pursued at Washington
is almost identical with that of Ameri-
can colleges in general. The degrees
of Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of
Arts, and Master of Arts are conferred
here. There are sixty-two State schools
for the deaf and dumb in the United
States, and fifteen private, with a total
number of 9,232 pupils. Canada, with
seven institutions, brings the number
up to 10,025. Slightly more than half
of these are congenital deaf-mutes.
Vol. XII.— 52

contusions, 74 ; inflammations of the
ear, 72 ; diphtheria, 70 ; hydroceph-
alus, 63 ; teething, 54 ; mumps, 51 ;
small-pox and variola, 47 ; erj'sipelas,
36 ; fright, 32 ; water in the ear, 25 ;
sunstroke, 21 ; noises and concussions,
21 ; tumors, 11 ; chicken-pox, 10 ; struck
by lightning, 10 ; foreign bodies in
the ear, 9 ; salt -rheum, 3 ; malforma-
tion of the ear, 2 ; syphilis, 2 ; con-
sumption, 1.

From the above it will be seen that a
great number of this class lose their
hearing from the diseases of childhood.
The general practitioner is beginning

474

AUTUMN AND THR AFTEK-GLOIV.

to realize the necessity of guardintr the
ear by projihylactic measures during
these ilhiesses, and it is to be hoped
that through these efforts the percent-
age of deaf children may be lessened.

A precaution which parents should
avail themselves of for the future wel-
fare of their children, in case of deaf-
ness, and especially as this measure is

conducive to the good of the child in
any event, is tlie very early teaching of
reading and use of language.

Nothing is more pernicious than baby-
talk in conversing with a child, for this
invariably delay's the acquisition of
proper pronunciation, and, what is even
more important, the correct formation
of sentences.

AUTUMN AND THE AFTER-GLOW.

By Edith M. Thomas.

When the far w^oods a misty veil assume

(The sun being gone), and stand in solemn hush,

To the pale heavens comes a heightened bloom ;

Slowly it gathers — an ethereal flush.

Blending the summer rose — the oriole's breast —

Wine — fruit — and leafage touched to various flame-

The candle-light of home far seen and blest,

And flower-like, gem-like splendors without name.

This is the reminiscent After-glow^,

Day's riches told upon the bourn of Night :

So I, Life's pilgrim, ere from hence I go.

Resigning the sweet heritage of light.

Would view in the soul's w^est the pageant train

Of what hath been, but shall not be again.

As dies the Day so dies the blessed Year,
Through dreamful languishment and mystic trance,
AVith murmur-voiced adieu, and wistful glance
Still deepening as the shadow drawls more near.
What is it wanders with the thistle's sphere,
Or darts before the gossamer's shimmering lance,
Or mingles with the lost leaves' elfin dance,
Or, birdlike, flutes along the upland sear ?
The host of those departing ! Yet, a while
They linger, and wdth sweet remembering
Catch back the tender prattle of the Spring,
The full heart-throb of Summer and her smile.
Good-by, fond Day, good-by, regretful Year !
Ye go — the Night and Winter tarry here !

:i\f». i

7X#

The D'AIembert School Buildings at MontSvrain.

A SCHOOL FOR STREET ARABS.
By Edmund R. Spearman.

STREET Arabs are often picturesque
to look at, especially on the can-
vasses of the fair bride of an Afri-
can explorer. They are also amusing in
their " cheek " and their " lingo," esj^ec-
ially in the pages of Dickens. But they
are also highly dangerous to the public
peace if allowed to " run to seed," the
seed being often robbery, outrage, and
even murder. The street Arab battal-
ions of London during recent years have
kept whole districts under a reign of
terror, and one notorious murder in
Marylebone, connected with the wild
excesses of the London urchins, a few
years ago set all tongues to wagging over
the necessity of some sweeping reform.
The street Arab growls into the " larri-
kin " and "hoodlum," the " rough " and
" plug ugly," and becomes less pictur-
esque and more obnoxious.

While London has been talking, Par-
is has been acting. The philosophic
guardians of the French capital have,
during the last decade, taken the street
Arab in hand to some purpose, and have
dealt with him in a manner to serve as
a model to the other great capitals of
the world, where the same questions
are sure to present themselves for solu-
tion.

The Municipal Council of Paris has
invented a new theory in legislation re-
garding the young. The street Arab is.

according to them, to be known hence-
forth in jurisprudence as the " morally
abandoned." Other cities and other
lands have taken to task the juvenile
convicted vagrant and criminal, and de-
vised schemes for their reclamation ;
but the Parisian authorities apply the
axiom that the " ounce of prevention
is worth more than a pound of cure,"
and take the children before they have
become either misdemeanants or crim-
inals. The juvenile criminal and juve-
nile vagabond, in nine cases out of ten,
is the child of certain classes of par-
ents who are unfit to have the care of
children. Such are the older criminals
themselves, the notoriously vicious, and
the notoriously debauched or dissipated.
By a new French law (July 24, 1889), aU
this special class of parents are denied
all rights over their children. This law
is the result of the Paris lever, which, in
this as in so many other matters, raised
the whole of France.

Previous to 1889 there was no legal
authority in France to hand over non-
convicted children above twelve j'ears
of age to the public charge. Moreover
there was no authority to take into
state charge any children below^ twelve
not convicted of offence who had not
been cast adrift by their parents, al-
though the said parents might be worse
than none. This great lack in the

476

A SCHOOL FOR STREET ARABS.

French legislation especially struck the
attention of M. Loys Brueyre, who, in
his capacity as head of the children's
bureau in the office of poor relief in the
Department of the Seine, had i3eculiar
facilities for knowing the shortcomings
of the system. M. Brueyre felt that a
large number of children were wander-

Moring, director of the department of
the Paris poor relief, who induced the
Council of the Seine to take up the
matter. The Council consists of the
well-known Municipal Council of Paris,
with the deputies from the banlieue or
communes in the suburbs outside the
fortifications. All matters relatinir to

■\'V*«>

The Carpenter's Shop.

ing the streets under no proper paren-
tal care, or, worse still, highly improper
care, who would make better citizens
than those already in charge under the
orphan, foundling, and common laws.
At present these children were plung-
ing into certain careers of ignorance,
vice, and crime.

There is nothing like " teaching by
example," and, before moving the un-
wieldy and stolid fabric of national
legislation, the authorities of the capi-
tal were first appealed to, and asked
to put the idea into practice, showing
the practicability of reclaiming these
juvenile vagabonds, then get the coun-
try to adopt it, after it saw " how the
thing worked." M. Brueyre found an
able backer in the work in M. Michel

the police and poor relief are treated as
departmental affairs. The Seine Coun-
cil debated several schemes, such as the
establishment of a departmental orphan
asylum, and the care of all children
where the mother was " seule et mise-
rable," or where the father was ** veuf ou
abandonne par sa femme." All these
propositions being set aside as imprac-
ticable, the Council finally came around
to M. Brueyre's idea. This idea was
first developed before a special commit-
tee of the Council, consisting of M.
Moring, Dr. Thulie (ex-president of the
Council and also of the Anthropolog-
ical Society), and M. Charles Lafont (one
of the representatives for Paris in the
Chamber of Deputies). In December,
1879, this commission reported most

A SCHOOL FOR STREET ARABS.

^11

favorably, and, althouoh the premature
death of M. Moring, in May, 1880, de-
prived the scheme of its ablest sup-
porter, a good substitute was found in
M. Moring's successor, M. Charles Quen-
tin, who gave the new proteges that
great requisite in successful movements
of reform and legislation — a name.
M. Quentin dubbed the children pro-
posed to be taken in state keeping the
*' morally abandoned," a most happy ap-
pellation.

To Dr. Thulie we owe the careful fos-
tering of the idea in the channels of
legislation. His painstaking reports on
the progress of the matter have been
summarized in his elaborate work on
the Paris foundlings,* a perfect triumph
of typography achieved by the children
for whom the author did so much to
give an opportunity to gain their present
position. From the first all the foster-
parents of the new scheme were active
in their several directions. M. Quentin,
as head of the Paris branch of that cu-
rious compound of public and private
charity, the French poor relief, used
every available occasion to give facili-
ties for launching the venture. Among
other opportunities he was enabled to
purchase, for forty thousand francs, a
beautifully located farm in the depart-
ment of the Seine -et-Marne, for the
installation of some hospitalary or hy-
gienic establishment. M. Quentin in-
duced the Council to devote this pur-
chase to the use of one of the new
schools. It is now the location I am
about to describe. Meanwhile M. La-
font had interested his powerful fellow-
legislator, the distinguished M. Theo-
phile Roussel (then a fellow-deputy, but
since elected a senator), who has di-
vided his life between chemistry for
adults and philanthropy for juveniles,
to broach the legal reform. M. Eous-
sel (who is the author of the standard
law for the protection of nursing chil-
dren, known as the Eoussel Act) formu-
lated still another important law for
child protection, the one which became
at length enacted in 1889. Dr. Thulie
collected all the accumulated wisdom of
past experience on the subject, includ-
ing the advice of the prison reform so-
cieties, and especially the noble Pastor

* Enfants Assistes de la Seine. Paris, 1887.
Vol. XIL— 53

Robin, the Protestant philanthropist of
Belleville, and of M. Charles Lucas, of
the Institute, the accomplished archi-
tect and resolute advocate for the abo-
lition of death penalties, and of other
prison reforms. Most important of all
was the mission of M. Brueyre himself,
who happened to be blessed with a
store of rich friends and the knack of
interesting them in helping forward
good works. Funds were the chief
requisite ; for the Council could not or
would not vote much money for the
venture, as it hardly had the power.
The donations obtained by M. Brueyre
were mostly from the kings of the haute
finance, including several of the Roths-
childs. Some of these donations were
for the service generally, and some for
particular undertakings. Several schools
were thus inaugurated. A school of
horticulture at Villepreux, not far from
Versailles, was one of the first ventures.
This was at first a great success, being
especially under the benevolent eye of
M. Roussel himself. The Minister of
Agriculture gave an annual donation,
and two scholarships at the Barres
School of Forestry, near Montargis,
were also created for the benefit of the
Villepreux scholars. This last is a great
honor, for in Loiret the picked guar-
dians of the national forests are trained.
Villepreux has languished of late, from
various causes, but may yet recover its
early vigor. Another school has been
placed at Alen§on, principally of typog-
raphy, the young printers being trained
and their labor used by a local printer.
To this school a shoemaking department
has been added. Still another school for
girls, of weaving and housekeeping, was
started at Yseure, a little commune in
central France, but the pupils were so
few that it was soon closed. The most
important of all the ventures however
was the school of cabinet-making, with
a minor printing annex, which, in 1881,
was, as before mentioned, authorized by
the Municipal Council to be placed at
Montevrain in the Seine -et-Marne. In
honor of the co-founder of the Ency-
clopsedia, the Municipal Council (which
holds as gospel that all good dates from
the Revolution, and that, the Revolution
being the sum of all wisdom, the Ency-
clopaedia was its prophet) named the

478

A SCHOOL FOR STREET ARABS.

new venture the D'Alcmbert School.*
Tlie immediate inauguration of the vent-
ure was provided for by the munificent
gift of fifty thousand francs by the Bar-
on de Sarter. This sum was afterward
supplemented by a like amount from
Madame Dagnan. Still another of M.
Brueyre's financial friends, M. Edouard
Kohn, has given nine thousand five hun-
dred francs at various times, and Ma-
dame S. Emden three thousand francs.
These various benefactions are duly
acknowledged in letters of gold on a
tablet at the school to-day. This rich
sup2)ly of funds has encouraged the
Municipal Council to devote an increas-
ing amount of attention to the plan, and
to allow considerable subsidies from the
general fund. The school w^as opened
in August, 1882, and has had an in-
creasingly prosperous history. It has
had the devotion of two thoroughly en-
thusiastic directors, M. May, the first,
being replaced a year or two since by
M. Dehesden, and both of them have
evidently had their whole hearts in the
undertaking. No more agreeable day
can be passed in the country around
Paris than by a visit to the D'Alembert
School, for anyone who has the " open
sesame " of an order from the Place de
Greve.

Fifteen miles to the eastward of Paris,
on the Strasbourg line, is the quaint old
town of Lagny, lying on the south bank
of the wide and sleepy Marne, having a
twin town (Thorigny) on the north bank.
The fine old bridges and the lazily mov-
ing canal boats give a notion of the easy-
going life of other days. The bustle and
modern innovations of the great steam
highway are hidden from the river-side.
The crooked old streets of Lagny seem
only made for palfreys and cavaliers.
Taking the eastern highway out of the
town, we soon find ourselves climbing to
high ground, whence we look across the
river valley to the flourishing settlement
of Dampmart. The Marne valley is sweet
to the eye and refreshing to the lungs.
No choicer spot could be found to es-
cape the close confinement of town life
at such short distance from Notre Dame
and the Hotel de Ville. Here, just east

* Some of the more orthodox revolutionists insist on
calling it the Alembert School, considering the aristo-
cratic prefix as rank heresy.

of Lagny, in the S2:)arsely settled com-
mune of Montovrain — the home of the
D'Alembert School — at a spot where the
painstaking road -builders of the " king's
highway," in the days when kings were
rife in France, have spanned the sudden
fall of a deep hollow by a fine viaduct of
solid earth. Close under the high land
to the right, a steep slope is left toward
the still deeper falling ground on the
left. Thus, quite below the roadway
and reached by a flight of steps and in-
cHned paths, are hidden the buildings
of the farm. These buildings are not
now attached to their former domain,
but will be added most likely in a short
while for increased accommodation.
Covering the former fields toward the
roadway, the new structures and new dis-
positions of the ground for the school,
might themselves be unnoticed by a care-
less passer-by, being all below the road
level. The ofiicial who was inspired
with the notion of placing an asylum on
the spot was certainly endowed with the
gift of "happy thoughts." The situation
is simply ideal ; on one side it nestles
against the hill-side, protected from the
bleakness of a too exposed position,
while toward the river the broad ex-
panse of valley below gives air and sun-
shine in abundance. Here the D'Alem-
bert School lodges, feeds, and instructs
a constant succession of Parisian street
Arabs, giving them indeed an industrial
paradise.

The grounds are ample, and include
trim-kept gardens and lawns to the road-
side, with high shrubberies hiding most
of the place. To the rear the two chief
workshops are j)laced high up at either
extremity of a long parade, this latter
being the exercise ground and gymna-
sium. The parade is the rear and much
the larger of the two open courts, the
one nearer the road being separated by
a large building used in three floors as
a dormitory, the upper story being un-
der a pitched roof with dormer windows.
To the right of this front court is the
directors' office and residence, w^hile to
the left is the mess-room and storage-
house. At the rear of the great court
or parade is a fourth dormitory in a
low building, while to its right is the
" police cell " for bad boys (a structure
whose office is almost a sinecure), and

A SCHOOL FOR STREET ARABS.

479

to the left is an engine-house with a
third workshop devoted to turning-. The
majority of the young workers are how-
ever employed in the two large brick
pavilions which face each other from the
high banks that bound the premises.
In the river end of the left-hand or west-
em pavilion is installed the school of
printing. The lower story is devoted to
the presses, hand and foot, while above
is the composing-room. Two large ma-
chine presses are placed in the adjoin-
ing end of the rear building, next to the
turners, and thus, like the latter, have
the use of the power from the engine-
room.

The printing occupies about thirty of
the boys, and, like all the other depart-
ments, is under the direction of a mas-
ter of the craft. Judging by the results,
the teaching printer must be a born ge-
nius at the task : the work turned out by
these young aspirants to " the Art pres-
ervative of Art" will bear comparison
with the best in any land, and is of the
most varied and difficult description, in-
cluding a great variety of ornamental
and " table work." Of course, excellent
method and ample materials, in the shape
of a full assortment of type and other
necessaries for a great printing-office go
a long way to help the young printers.
But their tutor and the aptitude and in-
terest taken by the pupils are the chief
factors. On my visiting rounds I en-
countered one bright little lad who had
only been four days in the school, yet
had set up a short galley of type, the
proof of which was better than some I
have seen come from old printers. Of
course he must have been exceptionally
clever and have been carefully coached ;
but all the pupils seem to be able to
perform somewhat similar prodigies.
An older pupil, of eighteen months
standing, was setting up a railway time-
table, which not one compositor in five
hundred would dare to undertake at
first sight. The street Arab as a printer
is evidently a success. No printing of-
fice in the world can show such a galaxy
of choice and capable apprentices as can
the D'Alembert School.

The work in the press-room below is
of as great excellence as the type-setting
above, and, although there are no "long
runs " (as printers call taking a great

many impressions of the same work) to
keep the two large machines of the lat-
est improved patterns in two adjoining
buildings always in motion, the young
printers are as adept in this branch of
the trade as in the others. Doubtless,
when the capabilities of this printing
office get fully into the general adminis-
trative craniums, the imprint of Monte-
vrain will be as familiar in French official
documents as "Eyre & Spottiswoode,
Printers to the Queen," on the English
archives, or "Government Printing Of-
fice, Washington," on those of the United
States. This was not originally intended
for the chief printing school of the ser-
vice, that at Alen5on having printing as
its special feature, while at Montevrain
only a handful of boys were originally
set to the composing-stick and ink-roller.
The easy access to Paris, however, soon
occasioned the printing of the oversee-
ing bureau to drift to Montevrain, which
soon outstripped the more distant rival,
now still engaged on private work. At
present Alen9on is becoming more and
more an apprenticeship of its alternated
trade, the trade of the twin Saints
Crispin - Crispanus. The shoemaker^
can as well be five hundred miles away
as fifty.

The handiness of the printers to Paris
has not caused them to oust the other
trade of Montevrain however, for the
very good reason that all the other young
apprentices are engaged in manufacture
which is even more important as an ad-
junct to the administrative bureau than
the printing. They, in fact, make a large
proportion of the furniture for the hos-
pital service of Paris.

I have mentioned the turning-shop
adjoining the press-room on one side,
and the engine-room on the other, in the
rear buildings. There are only a few
boys here, because the ornamental work
is a minor factor in ordinary cabinet-
making. The product is nevertheless
worthy of comparison with the most
beautiful furniture in the matter of ar-
tistic finish, although simple as a rule.
The sawing is mostly done by the mas-
ter turner, a circular saw being the last
thing intrusted to a workman, and es-
pecially dangerous to novices, however
careful and clever. The work in the
turning-room is the most dangerous on

180

A SCHOOL FOR STRHHT ARABS.

the 2^ remises, and liable to take odd fin-
gers and tliunibs as a toll on the high-
way to knowledge. The boys when I
visited them seemed to have thus far
escaped with only a bandaged forefinger
on the eldest of their number, due
doubtless to the momentary forgetful-
ness of some recent day. For, although
not trusted with the circular saw itself,
all turning is done at rapidly oscillat-
ing engine-driven instruments, and the
least carelessness occasions injury either
to the work or to the workman. The
youths here were producing various or-
namental designs with the confident
dexterity of a master of the craft, al-
though the chips, from gouges, chisels,
grooving planes, and bevelling knives,
showered like driven snow over the
chucks and mandrels of the turning-
lathes and moulding-gear, and the loud
crunching of the sharp iron on the hard
fibre was quite enough to frighten the
nervous observer.

Leaving the clever young turners to
their sanctuary of sawdust, I next vis-
ited the lower floor of the opposite end
of the chief workshops, beyond the
printing-room. Here the first elements
of the cabinet-making trade were being
instilled into the heads of some fifteen
of the younger pupils, planing and pol-
ishing the large smooth surfaces of fur-
niture being here the special feature.
The great bulk of the articles in hand
seemed to be washstands and tables.
At the time of my visit a great stock of
new furniture was being made for the
Bichat Hospital at Paris, large altera-
tions and renovations there requiring
a new supply. The superintendent at
the polishing-up workshop seemed to
have a more mischievous crew than any
other : probably the less steady atten-
tion required for the work allows ani-
mal spirits more scope. Hence the re-
bukes of the schoolmaster were rife
here — the only specimens I noticed on
my visit.

On the floor above, the work was
chiefly fitting and finishing, putting on
ornaments, locks to drawers and doors,
etc., the fire and glue-pot being ever at
hand. Here the work was of special
nicet}', and the ingenuity shown by the
young workmen in morticing, pinning,
clamping, etc., being very wonderful.

In a room of twenty bo^'s, of course, a
single overseer has to trust almost en-
tirely to each one's talent and faithful-
ness of detail. If the work were solely
matter of practice, to be thrown aside
when done, the after-examination and
correction of faults would be all neces-
sary. As a fact, the work is all disposed
of for important use, and wiU not only
bear comparison with the furniture sold
in the fashionable salesroom, but is su-
perior to most modern work, which is
generally made to sell and not to use.

The truth is, the cabinet-making trade
is one which has suffered more than any
other by the modern mania for hurry-
skurry, shoddy manufacture, and mere
show in place of substance. The so-
called " craze " for old furniture, rife
during the last thirty or forty years,
has this solid basis of reason that the
furniture of our ancestors is an alto-
gether different product, outside all
considerations of fashion, from that of
the modern cabinet-maker, who knows
not his trade, but is a mere particle in
a great machine of cheap and slovenly
production. This school at Montevrain
was partly started as a protest against
this bad tendency in the cabinet trade,
by one of the leading and most enlight-
ened cabinet firms of Paris, that of Da-
mon-Kreiger, in Saint-Antoine. The
Municipal Council would scarcely have
been able to launch their novel scheme
without the assistance of this far-sight-
ed house. The cabinet-making of Paris
is famous the world over, but, like that
elsewhere, has been going rapidly to the
bad. A genuine cabinet-maker, master
of his trade, below middle age, had al-
most ceased to exist in the French
capital. The firm of Damon-Kreiger
keenly felt this lack. The extreme di-
vision of labor and a machine-like pro-
duction is profitable enough to master
and men, if fashions never changed.
But fashions do change, and fashions in
furniture as well. It was found that the
machine workman of divided labor was
incapable of producing good work in
another direction, when his own special
feature became obsolete and a new one
was wanted. It is only the master of
all branches of the art who can thus
easily shift about. The process of ex-
treme division of labor has been built

A SCHOOL FOR STREET ARABS.

481

up in all trades by a sort of process of
living on brain capital. The old race of
workmen, with their all-round capacity,
could easily develop special features in
various directions. But gradually this
breeds but mere human machines.
When these human machines are asked
to work another way they cannot re-
spond. The streets of our great capi-
tals are swarming with helpless, worth-
less, beggared workmen, thrown out of
employment by mere violent shifts of
fashion and their own inability to adapt
themselves to altered conditions. With
the streets of Paris full of unemployed
workmen, such a firm as these Saint-
Antoine cabinet-makers cried in vain for
competent artisans. They evidently
had some of the old-fashioned love for
faithful apprenticeship. But the work-
man no longer apprentices his son, the
son no longer submits to apprentice-
ship. The father wants his son to
support himself from the day he sets
to work ; the son thinks he has the
right to assume an independent po-
sition thenceforth. But here was a
chance for the firm of Saint-Antoine.
The city of Paris had a stock of boys,
intelligent, and yet amenable to disci-
pline, and only too glad to take sufii-
cient time to learn a thorough trade.
In fact, the longer the better ; for it
meant good living and a pleasant home
meanwhile — things hitherto unknown —
and therefore to be all the more appre-
ciated. So the firm of Damon-Kreiger
not only furnished a picked band of
working instructors in the trade and
abundant material for the work, but
also agreed to take the work even at a
cost far above that in their own work-
shops ; for it was stipulated by the city
that the boys must be paid from the
very start for such work as they did.
In this way a valuable beginning was
obtained.* In course of years, when a
thoroughly efficient staff of apprentices

* For the clew to this interesting episode in the early
history of the D'Alembert School, I am indebted to the
report of a conversation between an intelligent foreman
in the Damon-Kreiger employ (M. Lepine) and M. Fran-
cisque Sarcey (the famous dramatic critic), in the Gagne-
Petii newspaper. This daily journalistic refulgence of
all the talents (which was really " too good to last," and
like " the good, died young ") printed at the end of April,
1885 (and near the close of its own career), an account of
the visit of M. Sarcey with the publisher and certain
officials to Montevrain. The articles (like most French
journalism) are rather erroneous if not erratic, but, as
their source would indicate, naturally most entertaining.

was generated, including a good pro-
portion of boys of two and three years'
training, practically capable journeymen,
the products, of course, became very
much more valuable, and the school
was able to be almost self-supporting.

The solid character of the product of
the school to-day I well appreciated
when I crossed the extensive exercise
yard and mounted the high bank to the
opposite workshop. Here but a small
number of boys are employed, the chief
portion of the pavilion, the larger of the
two, and having three stories, being de-
voted to storage of the work and of
specimens of special results or trophies
of industry. Some of these were exhib-
ited at the great exhibition of 1889, and
included most beautiful examples of
not only plain but ornamental work, in
ebony and rosewood. There was a state
bed which Louis Quinze himself might
have envied, while some of the inlayings
of tables and sideboards were simply
exquisite. To the professional eye, how-
eyer, the triumph of all the exhibits was
a large hard -wood cylinder, perfect in
its smooth circle, the most difficult of
all turning processes. It is far more
important that the young workmen are
apt in the plain, honest work they are
chiefly engaged in.

In this pavilion the workers are prin-
cipally employed in the carpentry and
joinery features of the cabinet trade.
Doors and sashes and all the specialties
of the joiner are here manipulated, and
the young workmen show that at a
pinch they could build a house as well
as furnish it.

The upper floor of this right-hand
(or eastern) pavilion is devoted to two
school-rooms, one for general study,
and the other for drawing and design.
Each room is fitted with all the acces-
sories of not only elementary but higher
instruction. Maps and charts adorn the
walls, while implements of example and
experiment in the rudiments of the sci-
ences are visible in the cabinets. The
benches look neat, and httle injured by
the proverbial jack-knives of the village
urchin in the country school -rooms.
The drawing-school is, of course, a most
important feature, and the scholars can
not only show their ingenuity on the
blackboard and paper sheets, but can

482

A SCHOOL FOR STREET ARABS.

carry out tlie ideas here developed by
Rpeedy application in the workshop.
The trade of the cabinet-maker is special-
ly fertile in oj^portunities for the inge-
nious designer, while even the printers,
in their artistic ornamental work, have
some field also for application of the
instruction.

The hours of schooling are somewhat
peculiar, but perhaps best adapted to
the circumstances. The young learners
take their lessons just after rising from,
and just before going to, their beds.
This gives a solid day in the more active
employment. The following is the daily
routine at Montcvrain :

5 A.M. Rising, morning toilet, and ar-
rangement of dormitories.

5.45 A.M. School.

7 A.M. Soup.

7.30 A.M. Workshop.

11 A.M. Gymnastics.

12 M. Luncheon.
2 P.M. Workshop.
6.30 P.M. Dinner.
7 P.M. School.
8.30 p.m. Bed.

On four days in the week there is one
extra hour of school (8.30 to 9.30), for
the pupils in music and drawing, two
evenings for each. The regular school-
master is replaced in these lessons by
special instructors.

The gymnastics are a great pride of
the school, the grand parade between
the two banks bounded by the work-
shops offering exceptional facilities for
various manoeuvres. Besides the cross-
bars, swings, etc., such as are character-
istic of every French barrack yard, the
boys here make a special feature of fire-
man's exercise ; they have not only a fire
engine, but an experienced instructor
from the corps of sapeurs-pompiers ; for
all the French firemen are either soldiers
in the service of the state or organized
as local military battalions. The school
has also had the advantage of a special
instructor from the famous military
gymnastic school at Joinville-le-Pont,
just east of Paris. From these advan-
tages they have been enabled to compete
with remarkable success in the athletic
competitions so rife in France of recent
years, the mania for athletics being the
feature of the age. The D'Alembert
School boasts a great collection of

wreaths, medals, and other trophies,
from gymnastic and fire exercise com-
petitions, even as far away as the histo-
ric old town of Provins, in Champagne,
whence the D'Alembert School carried
away in triumph a pretty little statuette
of Joseph Viola, the Avignon boy hero
of the Revolution (killed by the Royalist
insurgents of '93 while cutting the ca-
bles on the Rhone), offered by President
Carnot himself. All these prizes are
displayed in great state in the directors'
office. Perhaps some of the snobbish
spirits (found even among school-boys)
of more fashionable establishments may
feel shocked at seeing the street Arabs of
Paris prove themselves best in the tug
of war, but the D'Alembert boys never
allow their illustrious name to be back-
ward in the race, and the supercilious
critics (if any such exist), may be re-
minded that the great D'Alembert him-
self, not a physical, but an intellectual
giant, was not only a Paris street Arab,
but a Parisian foundling.*

As every able-bodied Frenchman is

* As D'Alembert is the most illustrious name on the
roll of the juvenile outcasts of Paris, a few recently
disclosed facts regardinj:^ his earliest experiences in life
will be interesting. D'Alembert was the product of one
of the many amours of Cardinal de Tencin's erratic sister,
the famous authoress of the Princesse de Cleves, escaped
nvxn, and Parisian leader of literary fashion. D'Alem-
bert's father was the Chevaher Destouches, another illus-
trious literary connection, the chevalier being of the
family of Philippe Destouches, the poet. Several bio-
graphical errors being generally repeated regarding
D'Alembert's birth, M. Leon Lallemand produced the
following authenticated facts on June 8, 1885, in an ad-
dress before the Academy of Sciences, and has included
them in his excellent Histoire des Eiifants abandonn^s :

"In the Biographic Universelle of Michaud (new edi-
tion, tome i., page 385, will be found the following infor-
mation concerning the origin of D'Alembert :

" ' Alembert (Jean le Rond d'), born at Paris, Novem-
ber 16, 1717, was exposed on the steps of St. Jean le
Rond — a church near Notre Dame, now destroyed. The
existence of this child appeared so frail that the Com-
missaire of Police who received it, instead of sending it
to the Enfants Trouves, thought it necessary to give it
special care, and with this view confided it to the wife
of a poor glazier. Perhaps he had received some instruc-
tions to act in this manner, for although the parents
never made themselves known, a few days after its birth
they retook the abandoned one from where they had left
it.' Same details in the Nouveau Dictionnaire de la Con-
versation et de la Lecture {2vae.'E^., Didot, 1873, tomevii.,
p. 104).

" These recitals.extracts from the eulogy on D'Alembert
delivered before the Academy of Sciences by Condorcet,
contain, side by side with the truth, some points which
are not exact and which it is important to correct.

" D'Alembert was really abandoned on the steps of the
church of St. Jean le Rond, and the proces-verbal of
the exposure, published above, shows that special pre-
cautions had been taken, for the poor forsaken ones
were never placed in wooden boxes. People were gen-
erally quite content to deposit them on the earth or on a
bench. The story of the commissaire who did not dare
to have the child taken to the Maison de la Couche on
account of its weakness, is absolutely false, as is proved
by the register of admissions for the "year 1717, where, on
folio 513, under the register No. 1584, we find :

" ' Jean le Rond, newly born — on the proces-verbal of
Commissaire Delamere of 16th November, 1717, given in

A SCHOOL FOR STREET ARABS,

483

a soldier, of course military exercise is
a portion of the athletic instruction —
a full supply of guns of small pattern
(not the famous new Lebel, but breech-
loaders of another species) enable the
D'Alembert battalion to forestall the
time when each youth will have to serve
his three years in the active army. For,
though the trades here learned are for
life, the young artisans, each and all,
have to have their first experience of
manhood, the same as other citizens, in
the callmg of war.

The guns are a noticeable feature in
the dormitories, standing in racks at
either end of each sleeping apartment.
In fact these dormitories have somewhat
the look of barrack life. There are
about thirty beds in each of the prin-
cipal ones, each bed with a small locker
at its head, in which, in military order,
are found the dress-suits, brushes, etc.,
of the youth appertaining thereto. The
boys work ordinarily in blue jeans and
bare-headed, but the "Sunday suits"
are quite gala affairs, with spruce naval
caps and gold-lettered ribbon, a hand-
some white flannel shirt with rolling col-
lar and corded throat, a double-breasted
blue tunic with brass buttons and or-
naments in the lapels, a pair of blue
trowsers, and a pair of flannel panta-
loons and white gaiters. This supply
makes two full rig-outs, for both mili-
tar}^ and gymnastic exercises, the waist
for the latter in great galas being
adorned with dazzling red and sky-blue
sashes, a store of which are kept in the
school wardrobe.

This wardrobe is the only portion of
the premises where the boys are not
their own servants. Two seamstresses
and a wardrobe mistress keep the whole
of the stock of clothes in excellent re-
nurse to Anne Freyon, wife of Louis Lemaire, living at
Cremery.

" • First month, 5 livres for the first month, ended 17
December, 1718.

" * 5 January, 1718, 2 livres 5 francs to 1 January, 1718,
when the child was returned to its parents. This child
was given up to Sieur Molin, doctor in ordinary to the
King, who charged himself with it by deed before Beus-
eel, notary, on January 1, 1718.'

"It is thus established, 1st, That D'Alembert was de-
posited at the Maison de Couche, and placed at nurse in
Picardy for six months. 2d. That his parents, not
wishing to betray their incognito, chose M. Jacques Molin,
known as Dumoulin, one of the most celebrated prac-
titioners of his time."

It is worth noting that D'Alembert chose to remain a
foundling. When he had become monarch of the mind
of France, greater than the king, his erratic mother
wished to claim him. It was too late. He refused the
ofEer.

pair, and also have charge of all spare
garments, issuing such as are needed.
The washing is not done at Montevrain,
but sent to Paris, to the Hospital Lari-
boissiere, which, being near the Stras-
bourg station, can accommodate the
school in the course of its own great
labors without any inconvenience.

Sunday is a general holiday at Monte-
vrain. The Municipal Council, being
rampantly secular, there is no chapel or
chaj)lain on the premises. As the boys
are all given leave on Sunday, those
over sixteen can attend church if so
incHned. Probably few of them thus
spend the Sunday, boys not being much
given to that idea of their own accord.
Those under sixteen have their Sunday
leave in charge of an attendant. The
hours of the leave are from 2 to 7 p.m.
Each boy is given five sous for pocket-
money on Sundays, to lay out in " cakes
and ale." During the four years ap-
prenticeship a certain sum is put by to
give them at the end of their appren-
ticeship, as a start. Besides this, a boy
away from his apprenticeship can stay
and work until eighteen years of age,
when he departs for the army. If he
comes at the minimum age of twelve
(as the majority do), this means two
years, from sixteen to eighteen. These
boys are called the " veterans," and are
paid three francs a day, one franc be-
ing however charged for keep. The
*' veterans " are paid each three months,
but are allowed advances of fifteen francs
a month. They have full liberty on
Sunday, to go to Paris and return when
they please. These " veterans " occupy
a portion of the fourth dormitory (the
rest not being used as yet), and are
barred off from the room, having trunks
instead of lockers, and altogether begin
to blossom out a bit. As the jolly di-
rector said, rattling on in his descrip-
tion : " Void la canne, le paraluie, et
quelque/ois le parasol aussi/' and a
merry twinkle came into his eye. These
" veterans " are quite free to go to any
other employment, with the consent
(which is never refused) of the officials at
IParis, as the Poor Relief Bureau stands
in loco parentis in every respect, even to
consent to marriage, until twenty-five
years of age, a Frenchman's legal ma-
jority ; but the good living and secure

484

A SCHOOL FOR STREET ARABS,

emplo3'mcnt at Montovrain are better
than an uncertainty. One of them went
away with eight hundred francs and
then enlisted to work at his trade in
the artillery for six years, where he
would get extra pay, and not get out
of practice ; he has already been pro-
moted.

M. Dehesdin related an interesting
tale, illustrating the far-reaching bene-
fits of such' institutions as the D'Alem-
bert School. In Paris, a poor working
painter, with five children, three boys
and two girls, died suddenly, and his
death was followed soon by that of his
widow. The children would have been
helpless, being beyond the limit of
twelve years, at which the law for the
help of abandoned children and orphans
draws the line, had not the boys been
allowed to come, all three, to Monte-
vrain, where one became a printer and
two became cabinet - makers. The two
girls had to shift for themselves, but one
went to service, while the other, the eld-
est, had just obtained a place as book-
keeper before the family catastrophe.
In course of time the boys got their
trades and places in Paris, the eldest
being allowed the short one year's mili-
tary service as support of a family, for a
family they have again become. The
eldest sister, having hired apartments,
recalled the younger from service to set
up as the housekeeper, and then gath-
ered the three brothers together. Thus,
by the help of the timely intervention
of the D'Alembert institution, a family
was saved which would otherwise have
been scattered in hopeless misery.

Such a return to home life must have
been a sweet variety for these brothers,
for, after all, good living, beautiful sur-
roundings, and healthy employment as
have our street Arabs at Montevrain,
there is an eternal barrack huddling and
drill, which even young humanity must
wish occasional relief from. Perhaps it
would not do to allow these lads of un-
tried propensities to live away from an
inspecting eye. Still, it seems as if tiny
apartments of their own might make
them more responsible and civilized cit-
izens, teaching them self-respect and
self-dependence. They could do the
household duties as now, although sep-
^.rately. At present two boys each day

are detailed to act as the mess servants
of the establishment, assisting the cook
and waiting on the tables. The boys
cannot do their own cooking however,
a woman cook, with the women of the
wardrobe, being the only female ele-
ment connected with the school. Be-
sides the instructing staff, there are
three attendants who have charge of the
discipline. One of these is the fire in-
spector before mentioned, and another
is the accomplished gymnast.

The diet of the school is a very for-
mal affair, the bill of fare for each meal
for a month being printed. The morn-
ing meal consists of various kinds of
soup — herb soup, meat soup, rice soup,
onion soup, leek soup, julienne soup,
and panade being scattered through
the thirty-one days. In like manner
the noon meal is varied with veal,
hashed beef, mutton, fresh pork, sau-
sages, black-puddings, and beef in vari-
ous fashions, and all with a variety of
vegetables. The evening meal is a sort
of compromise between dinner and sup-
per, being soup and vegetables — pota-
toes, beans, lentils, macaroni, on part
of the days, and on others soup and
meats, including roasted veal. The diet
also includes wine from the city's own
wine-cellar, and a moderate allowance
of fruits, dessert, etc., in season. Alto-
gether, the living is not bad at Monte-
vrain.

The behavior of the boys at table, a
sure index of boarding-school life (even
in a Squeers academy), is remarkably
pleasant. My first insight into the rou-
tine, on my visit (as I arrived at high
noon), was to see the lads marshalled on
the parade by their drill-master, marched
to the tables and seated in the dining-
hall to the left of the front court. They
ate with relish and satisfaction as well
as decorum, and when, at two o'clock, I
saw them again summoned by trumpet-
call to the parade-ground, to march to
the two workshops, a large detail to the
left and a little one to the right, there
was a cheerfulness and a promptitude
which told, more than words, of good
living and happy existence.

On the diet above, the street Arabs
thrive most wonderfully. The health of
the school is generally perfect, the doc-
tor's bill being lower than at almost any

A SCHOOL FOR. STREET ARABS.

485

similar collection of juveniles gathered
haphazard from anything but healthy
surroundings. There has been but one
death in the ten years since the estab-
lishment of the school, that of a boy, in

rise in quite the same proportion, a
school of one hundred being relatively
much more costly than one of four-
fold the number. At present the cost,
though on a liberal scale, is recouped to

The Printing Office.

1889, from a pulmonary consumption.
A great h^^gienic advantage of the es-
tablishment is the proximity of the
limpid Marne, in the waters of which
the boys take regular baths in the sum-
mer months, nearly all of them becom-
ing accomplished swimmers. In winter
they have to content themselves with
the amj^le bath-rooms of the establish-
ment, where they are given three baths
a week.

The accommodations of the school
could easily be made quite equal to three
or four hundred pupils, and in course of
time that number may be reached, when
the idea gets generally accepted in the
official brain. This will largely increase
the value of the establishment, for the
product will increase in projoortion to
the w^orkers, while the expenses will not
Vol. XII.— 54

a considerable degree. In 1889, for in-
stance, the credits to the school actu-
ally exceeded the debits by over forty
thousand francs, because a large arrear
of products of former years were then
brought in. The actual product for
that year was over one hundred thou-
sand francs to one hundred and sixty
thousand francs of cost, not a bad show-
ing for a great public "charity." As
the number of older and skilled pupils
becomes greater, the value of the pro-
ducts increases. The product of 1890 in-
cluded thirty thousand francs for j^rint-
ing alone, and two or three times as
much in the cabinet-making line.

The school is by far the most success-
ful of the new "morally abandoned '
ventures, find its fame gets already noised
about. In fact, parents and guardians

486

A SCHOOL FOR STREET ARABS.

The Drum Major.

have offered large sums to be allowed
to have their children given the bene-
ficial physical and industrial training
at Montevrain — a strange turn of for-
tune's wheel when the well-to-do citizen
envies for his own cherished offspring the
lot of the poor street Arab ! Of course
such offers are refused. The Munici-
pal Council have not 3^et summoned up
courage to take up the mournful in-
heritance of 1848, and the " national
workshops." All these fond parents
can easily get their offspring admitted
at Montevrain by simply becoming bad
citizens themselves and throwing their
children into the streets.

In initiating Montevrain and its mates,
the French officials made a careful study
of the legislation and establishments in
Great Britain and the United States.
The interesting story of the development
of reformatory and industrial schools is a
record of the generous rivalry and emu-
lation between different states of western
Europe, and their transatlantic neigh-

])ors, in jjrivate and public efforts, for
over a century past. The French re-
formers coml^ined the l)est features of
the whole field, and, moreover, made a
distinct advance on all. The English
law allowed the removal of the children
found in certain associations. The Mas-
sachusetts law annuls all parental right
over its reformatory proteges. The New
York plan included apprenticeship at
various trades. In Scotland, Sheriff
Watson first gave technical instioiction
to young vagrants in association. The
Council of the Seine decided to initiate
a wholesale crusade for the removal of all
children in obviousty improper hands, to
assume the annulling of parental rights,
to educate his children with all the ad-
vantages of those in the care of careful
guardians, and to do this by large board-
ing-schools with a vaiiet}' of teachers.
Until the strict legal sanction of the leg-
islature could be had, the Council acted
upon its own assumption. There were
frequent cases of drunken, brutal, and
criminal parents coming with effrontery
and bluster to reclaim their offspring,

The Trumpeter.

A SCHOOL FOR STREET ARABS.

487

generally to advance their own seltisli
schemes. All such were promptly kicked
out of doors. Of course the courts were
oj^en to them ; it was well known that
they Avould never dare to appeal to the
law, an appeal almost certainly liable to
end in a dama<;iiig expose of their own
characters, perhaps bringing them into
the clutches of the very law itself, and
most certainly confirming the denial of
rights over their children, rights which
the children themselves invariably re-
pudiated. At length the law of 1889
settled the matter for once and all. The
distinctive character of Montevrain and
the other new schools is the "weeding "
process. These schools cannot be a suc-
cess without it. The weakness of pre-
vious ambitious industrial refuges is
the necessity of using only the often
poor human material — and using all
this material — which comes for treat-
ment.

In their Redhill enterprise the Lon-
don Philanthropic Society was taunted
by a Quarterly reviewer with its little
chance when it lacked the enthusiasm
and exceptional care of Mr. Turner, the
founder. The reform school for western
New York, in Rochester, which imitat-
ed Montevrain on a large scale in 1884,

will tind a difhcult task if it hopes to
bring all the young outcasts into the
necessary limited curriculum of highly
technical trades. No such impossibility
is attempted at Montevrain. The stu-
pid, incompetent, and refractory youths
are carefully sifted out and sent else-
where. The widely-si^read network of
agricultural colonies, and other aids for
the ill-provided juvenile in France, en-
ables this to be done. Thus the elite
of the street Arabs can always be pro-
vided for at Montevrain. Thus is this
special school almost sure of success.
The banished boys are sometimes al-
lowed to return. Of course the incom-
j^etent have little care to renew their
failures, but in cases of mere childish
waywardness of really bright youths
they often beg to go back to such a
cheerful home, w^here their talents find
such gratifying scope. In case of gen-
uine amendment these prayers are an-
swered. Thus the Montevrain school is
a very model of good conduct. The
Parisian street Arabs take pride in their
eminent privileges, and the graduates
of Montevrain are as liable to achieve
praiseworthy social distinction as the
graduates of any learned university in
the world.

^^"fsp^ff'^

Arrangement of Hawsers for Stopping a Cruiser. — Page 496.

LAUNCHING CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS.

By IVilliam J. Baxter, U. S. Navy.

LAUNCHING IS a perilous opera-
tion, though simple in principle.
The ship is carried on a massive
sled, called the cradle, whose runners
rest on a slippery incline extending un-
der the water, called the ground-ways.
At the proper moment, ship and cradle
descend along the ways into the wa-
ter ; when the ship floats, the cradle is
stopped, the ship moving onward until
she also is brought to rest. The weight
to be moved and controlled being great,
the forces developed and the resistances
encountered are correspondingly large,
and the ship may be subjected to greater
strains than she will ever again experi-
ence, except from grounding or collision.
The launching apparatus, when made
strong and of proper proportions, is of
such delicacy that small obstacles, or
even unforeseen delays, will cause the
launch to be a failure ; but if the appa-
ratus be weak or poorly designed, disas-
ter will surely follow. Notwithstand-
ing these dangers, ships are successfully
launched every week without a rivet be-

ing loosened or a seam opened ; they
enter the water so gracefully and safely,
and with such apparent ease of control,
such rarity of accident or failure, that the
risks are not known and the precautions
not appreciated. Though the process of
launching is but little understood, the
most casual observer is imj^ressed with
the latent power for harm so well con-
trolled, and he breathes easier when
the ship floats safely. A brief article
that shall avoid all unnecessary techni-
calities, can describe but a few details
of the operation. Though many of the
j)recautions described may seem quite
superfluous, yet costly failures and
blasted reputations have almost inva-
riably followed their neglect. Large
ocean steamships are launched with
fully as great care as cruisers and bat-
tle-ships, but the latter, being national
property, arouse more interest and en-
thusiasm.

Before the preparations for building
the ship are begun, even before the lo-
cation of the ship - yard is decided, the

LAUNCHING CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS.

489

facilities for laiiiicliiii<^' are considered ;
when other considerations permit, a wa-
ter-front is chosen which has a o-nxd-
ual slope of solid ground, with a long-
stretch of sufficiently deep water be-
yond. But as economy in building
must be the main reason for selecting a
site, launching facilities are frequently
subordinated.

The loc[ition in the ship-yard of the
building - slip on wdiicli the ship is to
be constructed should have in yiew the
greatest available stretch of clear water.
Though desirable to have its centre-line
perpendicular to the shore-line, this is
not necessary ; in ship-yards located on
the shores of narrow rivers, the slips
are pointed diagonally to the stream.
The ship's wondrous structure, so
strong, rigid, and shapely, is composed

riously strain her, or perhaps ])riiig her
to a standstill wdiile launching.

The solidity of the slip must, there-
fore, be beyond question, and many
suitable supports must be j^i'^^'i^^ed.
The slip is accordingly given additional
solidity by driving many piles, whose
heads are connected by wooden sleepers ;
in navy-yards cement and masonry are
frequently added. Piles are also driven
in the river bottom, extending out far
enough to support the underwater- ways ;
in narrow rivers they are sawed off be-
low the surface of the mud, so as not to
obstruct the channel.

The main supports of the hull while
building, are the wooden keel-blocks,
stout logs placed crossw^ays along the
centre of the ship, about three or four
feet apart, their upper surfaces con-

'MMSNr.««PMfK^

Driving the Wedges. — Page 494.

of numberless plates, beams, angles, and
castings, which must be accurately held
in position until riveted together. As
the hull grows larger, its weight in-
creases, and it must be held upright.
Any settling of the foundation will dis-
tort the ship while building, and inju-

forming to the proposed form of the
keel. Their height and inclination are
such that the ship's forefoot, the be-
ginning of the bow, cannot strike the
ground when the ship enters the water ;
care is also taken that there is sufficient
room for riveting and using the launch-

490

LAUNCHING CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS.

ing rams below tlic lowest portion of
the ship's bottom. On these blocks,
■with the stern nearest the water, the
keel, a rigid strncturc of steel plates
and angles, is laid and riveted ; the
frames are attached to the vertical keel-
plate, extending out on either side like
mammoth ribs. To retain them at their
proper height and distance apart, rib-
bands and shores are used. The for-

" planking " extending from stem to
stern) are now fitted and riveted, with
edges caulkfMl so that not a drop of w^a-
ter can enter ; bulkheads are erected ;
decks are laid ; the rudder is hung ;
water-tight doors and manholes are fit-
ted ; stanchions or pillars supporting
the decks are adjusted ; the hawse-pipes
for the anchor - cables, bitts (to wdiich
the cables are fastened when she lies

Sawing off the Sole-piece. — Page 495.

mer are pieces of square timbers run-
ning fore and aft, usually placed under
the longitudinals, strong fore and aft
girders which stiffen the ship, and which
are put in position at the same time as
the frames. The shores are stout logs,
whose heads fit against the ship or rib-
bands, and whose heels rest on the sleep-
ers ; they are adjusted by wedges and
fastened by heavy iron dogs, shaped
like large double-pointed tacks, thus
f \. When the frames are sufficiently
extended, the beams are put in position,
more and more shores being used to
sustain each part of the structure ac-
curately and firmly in its designated
position.

The strakes of outside plating (iron

at anchor), are secured, and outboard
valves and propellor shafts are put in
place. When the hull is from sixty to
seventy-five per cent, completed, the
ship is ready for launching. She is not
finished, as much work is yet to be
done ; engines, boilers, turrets, and ar-
mor are to be put in position, and the
steel shell is to be made inhabitable.

The launching apparatus must fulfil
several conditions : the ship must be
readily transferred from the supports
to the cradle without shock or strain ;
the cradle must thoroughly sustain her
until she is w^ater-borne ; the ship must
start at the jorecise moment desired ;
and she must stop before reaching the
opposite shore.

LAUNCHING CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS.

491

When on the cradle the whole weight
is sustained from the ground, the ship
is land-l)orne ; but as she enters the
water its buoyanc}' gives rise to an up-
ward pressure, increasing as the ship de-
scends, until linally it equals the ship's
weight, and slie floats. If the ways
do not extend far enough into the wa-
ter, there is an abrupt transfer of the
weight from the land to the water ; the
ship drops or stumbles, and the bottom
scrapes over the ways. Her stern may
strike the river-bottom, and she be left
partly in and partly out of the water, or
the forefoot may strike the piling and

from the cradle ; there is thus a j^eriod
during which the ship turns on a pivot,
and this pivoting is the most danger-
ous period of the launch ; the weight is
concentrated under the forefoot and no
longer distributed over the whole length
of the cradle, and the ship is more apt
to topple over. To illustrate : One may
safely stand with l^otli feet on a slight
cane-seated chair, yet it is not so safe
when standing on but one foot, and it
is dangerous when standing on tiptoe ;
the seat may tear and let the foot
through, or the foot may weaken and
let the body fall, or both may occur si-

Launch of the Passenger Steanner Virginia at Cleveland, O. — Page 497.

cut its way through. Such accidents do
occur, but they can always be avoided
by careful forethought.

After a certain depth of water is
reached, its upward pressure becomes
so great that the stern rises from the
cradle and a great portion of the w^eight
is thrown on the forefoot, which rests
on the forward part of the cradle.

The stern continues to rise until the
ship floats and entirely detaches herself

multaneously, and BJij unsteadiness will
result in a tumble. This is precisely
what may happen during the pivoting
period of a launch ; fortunately, such
accidents rarely occur, as every precau-
tion is taken to insure ample strength
and stability in ship, cradle, and ways.
Ships are generally launched stern
first, mainl}^ because the pivoting pres-
sure and the risk of capsizing are less
than if launched bow first ; dipping or

LAUNCHING CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS.

493

dropping when the ship leaves the ways
are also less dangerous.

While the ship is building the plans
for the launch are made, and the launch-
ing apparatus is erected and made
ready for use by the time the ship is in
launching condition. Two lines of ways
are commonly used, one on each side,
equidistant from the keel, as nearly as
may be under the longitudinals, about
one-third the breadth of the ship apart.
Each consists of large, solid timbers of
oak or yellow pine, as long as can be ob-
tained, with their ends bevelled and
rounded off, the after end of each one
overlapping the forward end of the next.
These ground -ways are supported by
blocking, all being firmly secured to
one another and to the sleepers. The
upper sui'face has a slight inclination
toward the keel, but is smooth and con-
tinuous from end to end ; sometimes
straight, though usually slightly convex
with very heavy ships. The inclina-
tion of the ways depends on that of
the keel-blocks, the slope of the river-
bottom, the weight of the ship, and the
available stretch of deep water ; it va-
ries from one in twelve for small ves-
sels, to one in twenty for very large ones,
one in sixteen being most common. Es-
pecial care is taken that the chosen
inclination will not allow keel or cra-
dle to strike the river-bottom. Should
this happen, the ship may stop and the
launch be a costly failure ; or she may
have to plough through mud and sand,
scraping or tearing open the bottom
plating. On the outboard side of each
line of ways, or on the inboard side of
the cradle, is fastened a projecting
plank, called the rib-band, which pre-
vents the cradle from sliding off trans-
versely, in the same manner as the
flange on the rim of a car wheel. Many
stout shores, firmly braced and secured,
keep the ways from spreading apart, for
when spreading does occur the result
may be as disastrous as when the rails
spread under a train. This spreading
of the ways is the most common of all
launching accidents, as the shape of the
ship's bottom produces an excessive
transverse pressure. If any of the fast-
enings are insecure, others are soon
loosened, the ways begin to move, and
disaster follows.

Vol. XII.— 55

Between the ways and the cradle is the
lubricant, composed of tallow, soft soap,
and fish-oil ; only the very best materials
are used. It is a2)plied shortly before
the launch. To grease the ways of a
large battle- ship, two tons of tallow and
sixteen barrels of soft soap are required.

The cradle extends about three-quar-
ters of the ship's length, and is built
of large timbers ; its upper surface is
accurately fitted against the ship's bot-
tom, its lower surface parallel to the
ground -ways. It is in two indepen-
dent sections, the lower is called the
sliding- ways, and the upper, the pack-
ing. The sliding- ways rest on the lu-
bricant, and are composed of oak or
yellow-pine timbers as long as possible,
the butts rounded and bevelled, and se-
cured by chain or rope lashings passing
through holes near the butts, to enable
the cradle to accommodate itself to any
small irregularities of the ground- ways.
Between the sliding- w^ays and the rib-
band there is a clearance, which in-
creases toward the lower end, to pre-
vent binding should spreading occur.

The breadth of the sliding -ways is
adjusted so that the pressure on the
ground- ways is from 2.5 to 3.5 tons per
square foot. It is worthy of note that,
in launching, the friction decreases as
the pressure increases, but for various
reasons the pressure rarely exceeds
three tons, the weight of forty men,
per square foot. The upper section
of the cradle, called the packing, ex-
tends the whole length of the sliding-
ways ; the top fits snugly against the
ship's bottom, but its lower surface is
straight and continuous. Toward the
extremities the solid packing is re-
placed by strong upright timbers,
called poppets, whose heads, where pos-
sible, are trimmed to stand square
against the ship's side. To resist the
heavy pivoting pressure concentrated
at the forefoot, various methods of ar-
ranging the poppets are employed ; of
these the following is the best : A
broad iron strap passing under the
keel unites two large wooden chocks,
which fit closely against the outside
plating ; to these chocks the poppet-
heads are neatly fitted and firmly se-
cured, and the ship thus strung from
the poppets.

494

LAUNCHING CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS.

The two sides of the cradle are pre-
cisely alike. They are connected, and
prevented from being squeezed apart
by strong lashings, passing under the
keel and ingeniously fastened in such a
manner that, when afloat the ship auto-
matically releases them, and thus the
two sides of the cradle separate and
are drawn out, leaving her entirely free.
The top of the completed cradle merely

are tightly driven in, the upper section
of the cradle is therefore the only por-
tion of the launching apparatus which
can move. Many wedges are used, the
cradle's height is gradually increased,
and the ship is slowly lifted. Slightly
tapered oak wedges are employed, which
are long enough to insure the ship be-
ing raised a sufficient height. They are
from eight to twelve inches broad and

Method of Launching "Broadside On." — Page 497.
(The ship starts when the rope is cut which holds the trigger against the keel.)

touches the ship, whose entire weight
is sustained by the blocks and shores ;
but the process of transferring this
weight from the supports to the cradle is
very simple. The rigid and immovable
ground- ways carry the cradle, which is
in two independent sections one above
the other. If the top section is pushed
upward it will raise the ship above ; the
blocks and shores can then be readily
taken away, as they no longer sustain any
weight. The top section of the cradle
is pushed upward by driving in wedges
between it and the sliding- ways, which
cannot move, as the latter rest on the
ground- ways that are sustained by the
solid building- slip. When the wedges

spaced about the same distance apart.
Along the entire length of the cradle, on
both sides of the ship, these hundreds
of wedges are driven in, as nearly si-
multaneously as possible, with many
heavy wooden rams, each manoeuvred
by a gang of four or six men. There is
one gang of men to about every dozen
wedges. It is very essential that the
ship should not be strained, and that
her weight should be evenly distributed
over the whole length of the cradle.
Should the weight be excessive at any
point, the ground-ways might become
hollow and the ship would be started
with great difficulty, if at all ; and when
once started, the lubricant would be

LAUNCHING CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS.

495

squeezed out and the wooden surface of cannot move unless the sole-pieces are

the ground- and sliding- ways, rubbing cut apart or torn asunder. The pull of

on each other, would quickly develop a battle-ship that is resisted by these

so great a friction that the ship would sole-pieces may exceed that of a locomo-

come to a dead stop. By preconcerted tive pulling a train at the rate of sixty

signals and careful supervision, the miles an hour. At the desired moment

wedges on both sides are struck equally the sole-pieces are sawn through, and

and simultaneously, and the blocks and the ship moves off ; frequently they tear

shores removed symmetrically, so that off before being entirely cut through,

the ship's weight is transferred to the In order to have the two sides of the

cradle smoothly.

The ship now
rests only on the
cradle, which would
at once slide down
the greasy incline
if not prevented.
The start, however,
must be under ab-
solute control.
Should the ship
start too soon, the
blocks and shores
yet remaining may
impede or stop her
progress, and un-
fortunate workmen
who have not had
time to escape from
beneath her will be
crushed and man-
gled. If the start
be much delayed,
the tide will fall ;
the launch must be
postponed, as the
reduced length of
underwater -ways
will cause drop-
ping or stumbling.
Various methods
of controlling the
start are employed,
but the two fol-
lowing are most
common. In the first, a short distance

Section of a Cruiser showing Arrangement of Poppets and
Inside Sliores at Forward End of Cradle. — Page 493.

cradle move off
simultaneously, a
scale is marked on
each sole-piece to
guide the men in
sawing off, as they
are unable to see
one another, being
on opposite sides
of the vessel.

In the second
method of starting,
on each side of the
ship a suitably
shaped stout wood-
en strut, called the
dog -shore, has its
upper and forward
end resting against
a heavy cleat at-
tached to the cra-
dle, and its lower
end resting against
a similar cleat fast-
ened to the ground-
ways. When the
ship is lifted, her
tendency to slide
is resisted by the
thrust of these dog-
shores. Above
them are suspend-
ed heavy weights
sustained by
strong ropes .: at

the proper time they are simultaneously
beyond the forward end of the cradle cut ; the weights then fall on the dog-
(which is the end farthest from the wa- shores, knocking them away from the
ter, as the vessel is launched stern first), cleats, and the ship descends. By va-
a large chock of oak is firmly bolted to rious ingenious contrivances, such as
each of the ground -ways, and a heavy snipping a rib-band, pushing an electric
oak plank, called the sole-piece, has one button, or pulling a knob, the tripping-
end bolted to the chock and the other weights can be dropped from the launch-
to the end of the sliding-ways. After ing platform. Although dramatic, this
the wedges are driven, these sole-pieces method is somewhat unreliable, as the
still unite the immovable ground- ways dog-shores may be so tightly held that
with the cradle and ship ; the latter they are not simultaneously knocked

496

LAUNCHING CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS.

out, and the ways or cradle twisted or
spread in consequence ; or if the dog-
shores have not sufficient strength or
the proper shape and adjustment, they
will be crushed or squeezed out, and
the ship will start unexpectedly while
the keel blocks are being removed.
The "sawing-off" method is therefore
usually preferred, as less risk is in-
curred.

To give the men who remove the
keel -blocks entire confidence in their
safety, " safety chains " tie the lower
ends of the sliding-ways to the ground-
ways. They are removed after the last
man has come from beneath the ship,
but before the sole -pieces are cut.
Faulty lubrication, or the presence of
the slightest obstacle, such as a spike
between the cradle and rib-band, a pro-
jecting bolt-head, or even a little dust
or sand on the lubricant, will prevent
the ship from starting after the sole-
pieces are cut. Hydraulic rams are
therefore provided at the ends of the
cradle and under the forefoot ; they
raise and push the ship. Similar causes
may stop the ship when only partially
off the ways. The possibility of such
an accident, notwithstanding the most
careful inspection and supervision, gives
more worry than any other part of the
launch.

At first the ship moves slowly, but
the velocity rapidly increases, until she
moves at the rate of twelve or even fif-
teen miles an hour. To quickly stop
a ship moving at this speed, and weigh-
ing thousands of tons, without inju-
rious shock or strain, is not an easy
task ; but it is done by strong hawsers
and cables fastened to buried anchors,
or other solid supports on shore, and
on the ship to bitts or beams. There
are many ways of arranging these haw-
sers, but in all the shock is reduced by
tying them in coils with smaller ropes,
which, breaking in succession, act as
buffers. Even with these precautions
it is not unusual to see enormous ropes
snapped like twdne, or great anchors
pulled up like mushrooms. With a
long stretch of deep water there is no
necessity for stopping the ship quickly,
and the speed is reduced by the re-
sistance of the water, and she is slow-
ly brought to rest ; sometimes an an-

chor is droj^pod. The cradle does not
remain under the ship after flotation,
as its progress is checked by hawsers
immediately after the ship leaves the
ways.

The erection of the ways and cradle
does not in any way interfere with the
work of building the ship until shortly
before the day chosen for the launch,
when the final preparations are begun.
The workmen, even the most lazy and
indifferent, are full of excitement, and
in their anxiety to do well are very
apt to blunder. Only old and experi-
enced mechanics, the veterans of many
launches, are given the posts of danger
and responsibility. The sliding-ways
are removed, and the sliding surfaces
of both ground- and sliding-ways are
greased ; several coats of melted tallow
and grease are first applied ; after hard-
ening this is covered with soft castile
soap, over which fish-oil is frequently
poured. The sliding-ways are then re-
placed in position, but the greased
surfaces are frequently kept apart by
short pieces of wood, which are re-
moved before the w^edges are entered ;
every portion of the lubricant is care-
fully protected by coverings until just
before the launch. The underwater-
ways are also lubricated, floated in po-
sition, then sunk and secured to the
piles or cribbing. Lashings, hawsers,
anchors, and checking-gear, sole-pieces
and their appurtenances, are adjusted ;
keel-blocks and shores are painted to
designate the order in which they shall
be removed ; and the stage poles and
planking are taken down.

On board, wooden shores are erected
to stiffen the ship ; with battle-ships
this shoring is of great importance ; all
valves, manholes, and doors are shut,
and every portion of the outside plat-
ing is carefully scrutinized to insure
water - tightness ; flags and bunting
are everywhere displayed. Finally, the
workmen who are to participate in the
launch are assigned their stations, and
drilled until each is familiar with his
duties.

This method of launching a ship,
stern first on tw^o lines of ways, is the
result of centuries of experience. Two
other methods, however, are success-

LAUNCHING CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS.

497

fully used, lauiieliing on the keel and
launching" broadside on.

The former has reached its highest
perfection in France, where it is almost
universally used ; small torpedo-boats,
as well as great battle-ships, are con-
stantly being launched by this process
with perfect safety. Only one line of
ways, laid directly on the keel-blocks,
is needed. The cradle consists of the
sliding-ways only, resting on the lubri-
cant, their upper surface fitting directly
against the keel ; and the ship is raised
by wedging between the ground-ways
and the keel-blocks instead of between
the two parts of the cradle. The ship is
prevented from canting or swaying, be-
fore being water-borne, by long timbers
called cant-pieces, whose tops fit against
the plating on each side near the turn
of the bilge. Their lower surfaces are
parallel to, yet do not touch, a line of
timbers beneath ; it rarely happens that
the ship sways far enough to either
side to bring these surfaces in contact.
The ship is usually started by sawing
through the forward end of the sliding-
ways.

Launching broadside on, as practised
on the Great Lakes and Western riv-
ers, is essentially a Western method,
as extensive water-fronts are available.
The ship is built with her keel parallel
to the water-front, and sustained by
blocks and shores in the usual manner,
but instead of one or two lines of ways,
there are twenty or more. They are
simply stout logs placed under the ship,
transversely, at an inclination much
greater than that used when launching
stern on. The cradle runs fore and
aft, and consists of several lines of tim-
bers resting across the ways. Wedges
are used to lift the ship, as usual ; and
especial care is taken that they are set
lip uniformly, to insure equal distri-
bution of the weight. To control the
start, two tripping-levers at each end,
held by ropes fastened to posts be-
yond the ship, sustain triggers resting
against the keel. At the proper mo-
ment these ropes are cut simultane-
ously by watchful men with broad axes,
the triggers are let go, and the ship
starts off ; should a trigger fail to act,
the result is obvious. The ends of
the ways do not extend below the wa-

ter, but are four or five feet above it,
so that the shij:) actually jumps from
the land into the water. Dangerous
as this may seem, large lake steamers,
with boilers and engines on board, are
safely launched in this way ; but with
long cruisers having sharp ends, the
risk would be very great. This method,
even when modified by laying the ends
of the ways under water, is seldom used
in Europe.

Strange though it may seem, there
are now afloat cruisers and battle-ships
which never have been launched. In
the large English navy yards, these
ships have been built in dry docks ;
when sufficiently near completion wa-
ter is admitted into the dock and the
ship is towed out.

The progress of applied mechanics
has enabled the naval constructor to cal-
culate, prior to the launch, the magni-
tude of the strains the ship will expe-
rience, their exact points of application,
and the requisite proportions and di-
mensions for the launching apparatus
to insure absolute safety, provided his
plans are faithfully executed. But the
possibility that accidents may occur,
and the serious consequences of failure,
make him very conservative ; he there-
fore never neglects a single precaution
which experience has shown him to be
a possible necessity. Serious launching
accidents rarely occur, but their rarity
is solely due to the many minute pre-
cautions taken. All of the ships of the
new navy have been launched with brill-
iant success ; certain recent disasters,
however, will show the dangers which
have so successfully been avoided.

In the summer of 1883 the small
screw steamer Daphne was launched on
the Clyde, over two lines of ways, in the
usual manner. The ship's stern safely
reached the river, but just as the bow
was leaving the ways she slowly began
swaying to one side, and an instant
later rapidly fell over to an inclination
of forty-five degrees. There she hesi-
tated for a moment, as if endeavoring
to give the men on board an opportu-
nity to escape. Unable either to return
to her upright position, or to remain
where she was, she slowly turned com-
pletely over and sank, her keel remain-

498

LAUNCHING CRUISERS AND BATTLE-SHIPS.

ing above the water. On board the
Daphne were more than two hundred
workmen, many of them below working
as though the ship were still on the slip,
for they considered the launch a matter
of ship-yard routine. As the ship ca-
reened, some of those on deck climbed
to the upper side, then jumped into the
water, and were picked up by tugs and
boats which quickly hastened to their
rescue. Others, struck by loose plates
and timbers, were hurled into the water,
and there sank before aid could reach
them ; the unfortunates below deck,
unable to escape, were drowned ; in all,
one hundred and twenty-four men per-
ished. This fatal accident was not due
to the launching apparatus, as it was
amply strong and well proportioned ; it
was solely owing to the Daphne's lack of
stability, that property by which a ship
tends to return to the upright after be-
ing inclined. At the time of this disas-
ter it was not customary to investigate a
ship's stability when in launching condi-
tion ; but no further accidents of this
nature have since occurred, as the launch-
ing stability is now investigated when
the plans for the launch are prepared.

The use of an inferior quality of lubri-
cants is a frequent cause of ships stop-
ping on the ways. The expense of
launching, as described above, is so
great that builders occasionally yield to
the temptation to economize, forgetting
that the cost and discredit of one fail-
ure may offset many successful launches.

At the launch of the Italian battle-
ship Dandolo, the stern sank so deeply
that the stern-post was buried in the
mud, and the ship remained partially
on the ways and partially in the water
for several days.

The steamship Saratoga was launched
in the Delaware, in 1876, without the
use of safety chains tying cradle and
ground- ways together. When most of
the keel-blocks had been removed, the
ship began to move ; finding it was im-
possible to hold her, the word was passed
for the men beneath the ship to escape at
once ; through' some misunderstanding
the signal was then given to saw off.
The ship started quickly, floating off
safely amid the cheers of the specta-
tors, and it was thought that the launch
was a brilliant success ; but in a few mo-

ments these cheers became groans and
sobs, for it was discovered that many
of the men beneath the ship had been
unable to escape ; as the ship started
they were caught between the keel-
blocks, and a mass of men and timbers
was piled up at the lower end of the
ways. Some were killed outright, and
others so severely crushed that they
afterwards died.

The day of the launch should be
bright and fair, with a gentle breeze
covering the river, with merry, dancing
ripples impatient for their new play-
thing. The workmen gather at their
stations, while the foremen make sure
that all the necessary tools and appli-
ances are in readiness. On the ship a
small working party only is permitted ;
spectators are as unwelcome as on the
deck of a passenger steamer during a
violent gale. Meanwhile crowds throng
into the ship-yard, filling all available
space with interested, wondering hu-
manity. On the gayly decorated plat-
form beyond the bow are the distin-
guished guests : the Secretary of the
Navy, who has outlined the require-
ments of the battle - ship before him ;
the Chief Constructor, who designed
her to fulfil these requirements ; the
Governor of the State for which she
is named ; the Commandant whose flag-
ship she will be, and the Captain who
will command her, surrounded by many
brilliantly dressed women and notable
men. At the front of the platform, be-
side the gaudy champagne-bottle hang-
ing from the bow, is the gentle sponsor,
proud and yet fearful of her respon-
sibility. By ship -yard tradition she
should never before have christened a
ship ; and her failure to break the bot-
tle of champagne over the bow as the
ship moves off would be an infallible
sign of bad luck.

On roofs and other ships are grouped
the workmen whose handicraft has cre-
ated the powerful ironclad ; all — even
the laborers who have only pulled and
hauled — are happy and proud of their
share in the work. On the river are
many crowded tugs and boats, whose
erratic movements endanger one an-
other and exasperate those trying to
clear a path for the ship. Apparently
cool-headed, and confident of the accu-

U^OOD SONGS. 499

racy of his plans and the workmanship cut deeper and deeper the fibres crack,

of his men, the Constructor is really and finally tear olt", and then the ship

intensely anxious, for his reputation is starts ; at this moment the sponsor

at stake. He is at the mercy of events dashes the bottle against the ram.

— congratulations or denunciations are Moving cautiously at first, as if dis-

awaiting him. trusting her new-born strength, she

All is now ready. At the signal the quickly gains confidence and moves

men begin ramming in the wedges, and steadily onward with increasing speed,

a resonant clanging is heard from stem till she enters the water, as if no power

to stern. When it ceases, the ship- on earth could stop her. The end of

Wrights begin cutting out the keel- the ways is passed, the anchor falls, and

blocks, and others remove the shores, the chain rattles after it, cable and

working from aft forward. The men hawser tauten, and she is brought to

are safely out from beneath the ship, rest so gently that not even a tremor is

and all the original supports have been felt ; while cheering men, shrieking

removed ; though the timbers creak and whistles, and booming cannon greet

groan the ship cannot start. At the her :
sole-pieces the apprentices are ready

with their saws, envied by every man " Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel,

there. At the word they begin. As they That shall laugh at all disaster,"

WOOD SONGS.
By Arthur Sherburne Hardy.

I.

Stoop with me. Dearest, to the grass
One little moment ere we pass
From out these parched and thirsty lands.
See, all these tiny blades are hands
Stretched supplicating to the sky ;
And listen, Dearest, patiently —
Dost thou not hear them move?
The myriad roots that search, and cry
As hearts do. Love,
" Feed us, or let us die."

II.

As once through forest shade I went
I heard a flower call, and bent —
Then strove to go. Should love not spare ?
" Nay, Dearest, this is love's sweet share
Of selfishness. For which is best,
To die alone or on thy breast ?
If thou hast heard my call,
Take fearlessly, thou art my guest ;
To give is all — "
Hush, O Love, thou casuist !

HOMER.

By Andrew Lang.

HE Homeric Question,"
says a French author, "we
shall have with us always,
while letters endure."
Seneca, in his time, de-
clared that life was not long
enough for the Homeric Question as the
ancients knew it, and an eminent Eng-
lish scholar (in the freedom of private
conversation) has wished that we could
let it drop. But we cannot let it drop.
Every year, in the soil of Greece,
Asia Minor, and Egypt, the spade makes
new discoveries of the old world, and
each discovery has its bearing on Ho-
mer, on his date, on his method of
composition, on the life he knew.

The object of this paper is to set
forth, as clearly as possible, the devel-
opment of the Homeric Question, to
show where Homer stands, now that
critics and commentators have done
their best and worst for him. By the
nature of our emotions we approach
the question with a prejudice. Here
are the two most beautiful poems, and
the two oldest poems, the Hiad and the
Odyssey. Our very gratitude for these
makes us desire to give the author a
personality : we want to think of Homer
as we do of Shakespeare, to regard him
as a man, the poems as his own, not
as the work of time, chance, many min-
strels, many interpolators, many edi-
tors. So we must be on our guard
against the "personal bias," and state
the theories of opponents as fairly as
we may.

Ancient Greece, in the great age of
Athens (say 420 e.g.), had no doubt
that one man. Homer, was the author
of the Hiad and the Odyssey. These
poems were at once the Bible and the
Doomsday Book of Greece. In the
sixth century b.c., Xenophanes said
that "everybody learned them." In
the seventh century b.c., Archilochus
parodied a passage in the Iliad, and
Callinus is known to have thought
Homer the author of other poems as
well as of the two famous ones. Indeed

this was a general opinion in early his-
torical Greece, though Greek criticism
gradually denied to Homer the au-
thorshij) of several epics which are
lost. All this merely proves that the
poems were known, and were ascribed
to Homer as early as history tells us
anything of Greece. Probably people
in those days never asked themselves
whether Homer wrote his poems or not.
They appealed to them as evidence for
religion, morality, history, and in cases
of disputes about lands and frontiers.
Thus the poems, as early as Solon's day
(560 B.C.), formed a kind of sacred canon,
and any alterations made in them (Solon
was accused of making one) would be
rigidly watched. So much for the his-
tory of the poems when first we get any
light on them. They were clearly not
matters to be tampered with ; all Greece
was interested in preserving every jot
and tittle.

Nevertheless there floats, in out-of-
the-way corners of Greek literature, a
tradition that the poems had, in some
way, been "scattered," either in frag-
ments of written texts, or in memory,
and that by someone they were gath-
ered up and put together. Who this
" someone " was, and when all this
happened, was a question very obscure.
About 400-300 b.c., certain writers find
the someone who collected the poems in
Lycurgus of Sparta, himself almost a
myth. About 65 b.c., Cicero assigns
the honors to Pisistratus (550 b.c), but
other traditions give it to his sons. Now
Cicero, the first extant writer who men-
tions the matter, lived five centuries af-
ter the supposed event. Still later au-
thors tell a similar tale, and all seem to
base their statements on a few verses of
an epigram, itself late and anonymous.
Clearly, all this testimony amounts to
no more than evidence of a certain unea-
siness about Homer in the Greek mind.
Then, about 90 a.d., Josephus, that
learned Jew, mentions, as a common
belief, the idea that Homer could not
write, and that his poems were long

HOMER.

;oi

handed down by memory, " hence the
discrepancies in them."

After the revival of learning in Eu-
rope these vague legends were noticed,
at different dates, by several scholars.
In 1769, Kobert Wood wrote his "Es-
say" on Homer, deciding that the poet
could not write. If this be once admit-
ted, several questions arise ; for exam-
ple, could such long poems, one of 16,-
000, one of 13,000 lines, be composed
without writing ? That they could be
remembered when once composed is
perfectly certain, the feat has been ac-
tually performed. But to compose two
long, closely connected narratives, one
of them with perhaps the best construct-
ed plot in the whole range of fiction, is
a different thing. Again, if these could
not be created without writing, how did
they come into existence, for verily here
they are ?

These are the problems which the
famous Wolf set himself to solve, in his
"Prolegomena" to the Iliad (1795). This
celebrated work has been more talked
of than read, even now it is onl}^ in its
second edition. Wolf had enormous
learning, great conscientiousness and
fairness ; moreover, unlike most Ho-
meric critics, he had literary taste. But
he was dealing with a new and complex
theme ; he had worked long and labori-
ously ; but he wrote in a hurry, and, be-
tween his taste as a man of letters and
his microscopic studies as a critic, he
failed quite to make up his mind. Com-
pared with many living critics of the
cocksure school. Wolf may almost be
said to have no constructive theory at
all. He admitted that when he read
Homer for pleasure, he was angry vvdth
his own doubts. Now Homer made his
poems merely to be heard, or read, for
pleasure, and to peer into his work as
if we were examining a clause in a new
bill, or a new treaty, or cross-examining
a witness before a jury, is to prove our
own incompetence. We must keep his
object in view, he sang for human en-
joyment ; and we must keep his audi-
ence in view, he sang to warriors and
to ladies. Many things would pass with
them, nay, would delight them, which a
practised barrister could cause to ap-
pear very dubious in the eyes of a jury.
Wolf knew and felt all this when he

studied Homer for enjoyment, as Ho-
mer expected to be studied ; he forgot
it when he came to apply his critical
microscope. Moreover, since the death
of AVolf many discoveries have been
made, a chapter of lost history has been
discovered, and were he living now his
acute and candid mind would reverse
man}^ of his old conclusions. Perhaps
we might say that Wolf never was a
Wolfian : it is certain that he would be
a Wolfian no longer.

Wolf approached his task as an ed-
itor of Homer. His business was to
produce a text as pure and perfect as
possible. But, as he worked on — com-
paring every quotation from Homer that
survives in Greek literature, " grinding
at grammar," hewing his way thrice
through the mediaeval commentary of
Bishop Eustathius "the wordiest of
men," examining the old notes or scholia
on the MS. found by Yilloison at Ven-
ice (1788) — Wolf recognized that no text
can be perfect and pure, that none can
give us the very words of Homer " as
they flowed from his divine lips."

At most we might hope to recover
the text as it was read by Cicero and
Caesar.

Now all this does not very much in-
terest ordinary modern readers of Ho-
mer. We are quite prepared to admit
that barbarisms have crept into ordi-
nary texts, even since the invention of
printing. In ancient times a copyist
might blunder in ignorance or care-
lessness ; a critic might insert a con-
jectural alteration of a line in his own
copy, and that might be recopied and
handed down ; nay, Aristarchus, or
some other Alexandrian student of the
second century before Christ, actu-
ally cut out five or six lines which he
thought immoral. AVolf restored them
as they are quoted by Athenseus. Simi-
lar changes have befallen the text not
only of Shakespeare but of Scott and
Thackeray. Such matters are impor-
tant to minute scholars, but we mere
readers for pleasure look on them as
things of mint, anise, and cumin. But
Wolf comes to weightier considera-
tions. Suppose that Homeric Greece,
and Greece for centuries after Homer,
had no written text of the poems at
all ! Suppose they were first composed

502

HOMER.

in memory only, and so recited by the
poet ; then handed down in memory,
and declaimed by wandering "rhap-
sodists." Suppose that the unity, the
consistency, the polish which we ad-
mire, were given, not by the original
naV/* popular minstrel, but by the critics
and editors of a far later and more civ-
ilized age. Suj)pose that the very lays,
or ballads, which these later editors
worked into a whole, were by different
hands, at different dates.

Well, if you suppose all that, you cer-
tainly deprive us at once of Homer as a
23erson, and of his poems as two con-
sistent masterpieces of a single heroic
age. Instead of these you tell us that
Greece once possessed a set of popular
lays, almost ballads, which are now
dovetailed by men of a later period,
into epics, and are lost in a mass of
additions, mutilated by omissions, and
generally sophisticated and bedevilled.

These would be gloomy conclusions,
but "Wolf is not consistent in holding
them. He objects that Homer knew
not writing, or, if he knew it by repu-
tation, could not use it, and conse-
quently could not have composed such
long poems as the Iliad and the Odys-
sey. But he admits, not in his "Pro-
legomena" so clearly as in a later es-
say, that a single bard composed "the
greater part of the lays." Say there are
sixteen thousand lines in the Iliad.
"The greater part" would be some ten
thousand lines. If so many could be
composed without writing, why not six
thousand more ? Where are we to draw
the line ? WoK's purely literary sense
insisted on revealing to him a great
poet at work. He felt the unity and
the grandeur of " the grand style," that
most convincing argument for one per-
sonal Homer. But the external evi-
dence, as he knew it, for the absence of
writing, kept contending with his liter-
ary sense, and the conflict ended in the
inconsistency we have noted. What,
then, was the external evidence for the
lack of early writing in Greece, and
how does it look in the light of discov-
eries later than the days of Wolf ?

Wolf admits that, as the story of
Cadmus tells us, and as the form of the
Greek letters demonstrates, the Greek
was borrowed from the Phoenician al-

phabet. But what was the date of its
introduction ? " We do not know when
the Phoenicians began to use writing,
nor to what uses they applied it." Well,
Josephus says, in the very passage where
he denies writing to Homer, that the
Phoenicians used it " in the business of
daily life, and for the recording of pub-
lic acts." Again, we have a Semitic,
though not a Phoenician, " record of
public acts" in the famous Moabite
Stone, now in the Louvre. The Moab-
ites were a remote and pastoral peo-
ple, far from commerce and the sea.
" Mesha, King of Moab, was a sheep-
master" (2 Kings ii. 3). The stone
on which Mesha praised his god, Che-
mosh, and boasted of his triumphs, be-
longs to the ninth century b.c. Now
the Moabite Stone shows certain char-
acters later than those of the earliest
Greek inscriptions. "If the outlying
and uncultivated race of Moab used,
in the ninth century, a form of writing
which was, in some respects, more mod-
ern than the typical alphabet of the
Greeks, that fact alone pushes the in-
troduction of letters into Greece back
to the tenth century at the earliest." *

Here, then, we have evidence that the
Greeks borrowed a Semitic alphabet
older than that which a very unliterary
race of sheep-masters were using about
850 B.C.

Wolf next argues that, even when
writing reached Greece from the Phoeni-
cians, with whom they were undeniably
in constant contact, centuries would
pass before the Greeks would learn
the art and apply it to literary pur-
poses. They would incise inscriptions
on stones and hard materials before
they would write on soft materials.
Now the Greeks were uncommonly
acute. Why should they be more dila-
tory in learning writing than the Red
Men, who, about 1750, wrote out, on a
buffalo- skin, a legend of their migra-
tions for the English, a document of
some 1,500 words? The skin was de-
posited in the Georgia Office, in West-
minster ; it has been lost, and we know
not what kind of characters were used.f
A negro race in Africa improvised, af-

* Willamowitz, Mollendorff : Philol. Untersuchungen,
vii., p. 287.
t Gatschet's Migration Legend. Brinton, Philadelphia,

1884.

HOMER.

503

ter meeting Europeans, a new alphabet
suited to its language. Would Greeks
be more backward than negroes and
Creek Indians? Again, as to writing
materials, the Greeks would first meet
Phoenician traders on their own coasts.
They would not find them " making rec-
ords of public acts " on stone, but " writ-
ing down the business of daily life"
on portable materials, perhaps on pa-
pyrus. Not only the Phoenicians, but
the Greeks themselves, had been in com-
munication with Egypt for uncounted
centuries, as Mr. Flinders Petrie has
lately proved by his excavations. In
Egypt papyrus had long been used.
But even if the Greeks had not papy-
rus, they used skins (as Herodotus tells
us), like the Creek Indians and the
Aztecs. They also used thin sheets of
lead, such as those on which Pausanias
saw, at Ascra, a very ancient Hesiod,
said to be the original copy. "Want of
materials never yet made writing im-
possible. Potsherds, leaves, birch-bark,
clay, bone, have all been employed by
various peoples. Once more, even very
rude races use some forms of writing
for literary purposes. The Aztecs, who
employed a kind of picture-writing,
had many volumes, most of which were
burned by the Spaniards. The Ojibbe-
ways noted down their short songs and
incantations on birch-bark, as Kohl in-
forms us. Grettir in the Saga cut his
songs on staves, in Runic characters.

Thus we see that if the Greeks occu-
pied six centuries in learning to write
their poems, as Wolf thinks probable,
they were more dull and slow than all
other races, whereas they were notori-
ously more keen and " gleg at the up-
tak'." Again, all their traditions take
writing for granted as immemorially
old. Homer himself, in the story of
Bellerophon, says that the hero carried
credentials, that these were asked for
by his host, that they contained " sad
tokens, many baneful matters, inscribed
in di, folded tablet." The probabilities
are, says Mr. Jebb, that "the baneful
tokens denote some kind of alphabeti-
cal or syllabic writing " (Iliad, vi., 168).
Clearly, if the tablet had not been fold-
ed, Bellerophon could have read the
message, and learned that he carried
with him his own destruction. Wolf

has another argument. Nobody says
that there was a large reading public in
Homer's day. Poems were published by
recitations. Why, then, should a poet
write out a long poem, if few, or none,
were likely to read it? The poems, he
says, would be like a huge ship, built
by a man who had no engines for
launching it, " nor even a sea on which
to try his craft."

Happily we can illustrate the poet's
case by analogy. There exists the last
will and testament of a French epic
poet of the twelfth or thirteenth cen-
tury. He bequeaths his MS. poem to
his son. He tells him that he has lived
well by reciting the poem, and has al-
lowed nobody to get a copy of it. He
hopes his son will find the poem as
profitable as he has done. Now an old
Greek tradition says that Homer gave
an epic to his daughter, as a dowry on
her marriage. This tradition could only
have arisen in days when a poet could
write, but had no profitable reading
public. The manuscript could only be
valuable in these circumstances. The
poet was paid for reciting what he had
composed, and as long as nobody was
allowed to take a copy, his copyright
was complete.

If we want other evidence of early
Greek writing, we have the inscriptions
which Greek mercenaries cut on the
leg of the colossal statue of Eameses
II., at Abu Simbel, on the frontier of
Nubia. These show that, about 600 e.g.,
Greek condottieri, not the most edu-
cated of men, could and did write very
well, in an alphabet much later than
many which are found on earlier Greek
inscriptions. The earliest of all are
written, like Hebrew, from right to left ;
the next, alternately from right to left
and left to right. The Greek soldiers of
600 B.C. write from left to right in an
alphabet which shows a great advance
on earlier examples. To make these
advances much time for evolution is
required. All this was unknoT\Ti to
Wolf, like the Moabite Stone and other
inscriptions : like the very ancient con-
nection of Greece with a writing people
in Eg}^t. Modern discoveries, then,
tend to show that " it cannot be proved
that the Homeric poems were not com-
mitted to writing, either when origin-

504

HOMER.

ally composed or soon after" (Jebb,
" Introduction to Homer," p. 114). This
is also the oi^inion of Bergk and many
others, though by no means of all
scholars.

If, then, Homer could and did write,
we can understand both how his poems
were composed and how they might be
preserved, though subject to minor
accidents. Now, to account for their
preservation, Wolf has to imagine the
energies of reciters, of "Homeridse"
and rhapsodists. It is well known that
the ancient hymns of the Maoris in New
Zealand and the Vedas of India were
preserved and transmitted by organized
guilds and colleges, with teachers and
pupils. If any colleges like these exist-
ed in Greece, then the Homeric poems,
once composed, might have been hand-
ed down by the organized system of
teacher and pupil. But there is real-
ly " no trace of such organizations "
(Jebb). The Homeridse are a mere
name : scholars discuss, at enormous
length, the few and mutilated texts
which mention them. Moreover, the
Homeridse are assumed to have freely
added to, interpolated, and altered
the poems which they received from
tradition. If they did, their conduct
was the reverse of that which charac-
terizes the Vedic and Maori reciters.
Their business was to maintain the
traditional versions of the sacred hymns,
not to improve them at pleasure. The
Homerids are supposed to have been,
in many cases, poets on a level in style
and genius and "the grand manner,"
with their great ancestor Homer. This
is the point which was incredible to Mr.
Matthew Arnold and to us. Moreover,
it is plain that as soon as Homer be-
came the sacred and recognized source
of religion and early history, tamper-
ing with and adding to his work would
be made very difficult. There existed a
recognized Homer, to whom statesmen
appealed as early as the sixth century
B.C, How did the scattered lays of the
Homeridse, which might vary in every
quarter of Greece, attain this recog-
nized position? Here Wolf explains
matters by alleging that the Athenian
tyrant, Pisistratus, collected the frag-
ments scattered in memory, had them
written out for the first time, imposed

on them their unity, and " imparted
artistic merit " in the way of polish.
This is the cardinal point in Wolf's
theory : Early minstrels provided the
materials, Pisistratus, or his friends,
were the architects who constructed
out of those materials the Iliad and
Odyssey. Even later, much was inter-
polated into those poems.

We have examined the evidence for
this legend about Pisistratus, and shown
that there is, j^ractically, none at all.
"The story is both doubtful and vague "
(Jebb). Nothing proves that Pisistra-
tus and his friends were "architec-
tonic" epic poets, and that in an age
when epic poetry was dead. Nothing
exjDlains why the rhapsodists should
yield their "art and mystery" to Pisis-
tratus. Nothing explains how a state
then so distrusted and comparatively
unimportant as Athens was, could im-
pose her private version of the Greek
Doomsday Book and Bible on all Hellas.
Wolf argued under a prepossession.
He thought that an early age must be
incapable, and that the Pisistratean age
must be capable, of constructing large
and harmonious works in poetry. His
Pisistratean hypothesis is very gener-
ally abandoned. Even Ritschl, who be-
lieves in it, supposes that Pisistratus
"did not create a new unity," as W^olf
held, "but sought to preserve an old
unity, which had disappeared."

If the Pisistratean legend be aban-
doned, as it is abandoned by many mod-
ern impugners of Homeric unity, a new
difficulty arises. Here are the poems,
recognized as a whole and accepted by
Greece. How did they come here, how
did they win their position ? The vast
army of German commentators, with
Mr. Leaf and others in England, dissect
every book, exhibiting here a fragment
of an older lay, there the work of a rhap-
sode ; here the additions of a later poet,
there the intrusions of a diaskeuast,
or interpolator. They fight like fiends
among themselves as to what portion is
old, what new, what genuine, what false.
There is little consistency, there are
hundreds of flat contradictions among
the exponents of the Higher Criticism.
Their ideas are sometimes even ludi-
crous. Thus, because the opening of
the Iliad says that many bodies of

HOMER.

505

heroes were eaten by dogs and birds,
Fick announces that the passage in
which the slain were burned and buried
cannot be authentic. Thus Christ is
sure that the poet who makes Aias
challenge Hector, in Book xiii., cannot
have known the passage in which those
heroes fought a kind of courteous duel,
in Book vii. The commentators are full
of wisdom like this. But one thing the
commentators rarely do, they seldom
tell us where, when, and how the " in-
terpolations " were made, they seldom
tell us from what motive they were
made. For example, the gods fight and
interfere a great deal in Book vi. These
doings of theirs must have been inter-
polated by a later poet. But why on
earth did he interpolate them? Why
did he not make a poem of his own, and
get the glory and rewards? "Potter
hates potter, and poet hates poet," says
Hesiod. Is it likely that members of
the genus irritahile would sink their
own reputation in that of a rival or a
predecessor? It is insisted that one
poet wrote " the fightingest parts " and
that another introduced Helen the fair-
est, and Andromache the most faith-
ful of women. Is it probable that one
great poet was incapable of, or neglect-
ed "the female interest," that another
poet, equally great, excelled in it, and
that the latter, instead of making a
poem of his own, generously collabor-
ated with his posthumous rival ? These
ideas are contradicted by the doctrine
of chances and the nature of things and
of men. But suppose this generosity
and self-forgetfulness, and this equal-
ity of greatness to be possible, how was
the thing managed ? How did one poet
take an earlier epic and introduce the
women ? how did another work in the
machiner}^, the intrigues of the gods ?
how did a third, for mysterious reasons
of his own, keep foisting in speeches
by Nestor? and a fourth, fifth, and
sixth add passages of transition from
one scene to another ? These things, if
done at all, must have been done in
different corners of the Greek-speak-
ing world. If we abandon the doc-
trine of an Homeric guild, or college, as
destitute of evidence, how, and where,
and when were the fragments com-
bined ? How were they offered, with

perfect acceptance, to the credulity of
Greece, as one whole poem by one
author? Why did Megarians, Athe-
nians, Chians, Thebans, Syracusans, Mi-
lesians admit and receive the mass en
bloc? How did it all manage to get en
bloc at all ?

The commentators supply no answer
to these inevitable questions. They go
on talking of " ancient lays " concern-
ing which we know nothing whatever.
They are learned about diaskeuasts
and rhapsodists, of whose labors (except
that they are appealed to in minutiae
by the critics of Alexandria, say 200 b.c.)
we have no knowledge at all. Like
the Rabelaisian chimsera, the Higher
Criticism is bombinans in vacuo, "buz-
zing in the void."

Now Wolf, at least, answered the
question, how did the innumerable po-
etic passages of many dates coalesce
into orderly wholes, how did they win
acceptance, as orderly wholes, from
Greece ? He said that Pisistratus and
his friends made the order and unity,
and that Greece accepted from their
hands the earliest wi'itten text. But
the moderns, who abandon the Pisis-
tratean hypothesis as a legend or fable,
have no answer to give. They cannot
and do not tell us how interpolations
and additions, made here and made
there, by divers hands and in places
divers, were collected, were moulded
into unity, such as it is nor, above
all, do they tell us how the poems, so
fashioned, came to be universally ac-
cepted and recognized.

If we admit an original written text,
those unsolved problems vanish. The
poems exist as wholes because they
were composed as wholes. Since the
time of Grote the critics, on the whole,
and with many exceptions, have be-
lieved in an original epic poem, com-
posed by one poet, with or without the
aid of writing. But they have held that
the poem was comparatively short, and
dealt strictly with the wrath of Achilles
and the fulfilment of the promise made
by Zeus to Thetis, the promise to honor
Achilles by aiding the Trojans. As to
the extent of this original poem (to
which all the rest of the Iliad is a later
addition by various hands), they differ
among themselves. Wolf thought it

506

HOMER.

impossible to discover where, and at
what jDoints, the new materials come in
and are attached to the original work.
The new critics are more confident.
Tick has printed the Iliad " as she was
wrote." Among other pleasing circum-
stances Tick's Iliad makes Agamemnon,
unarmed, in cloak and slippers, rush
into the fray, where we presently find
him fighting with a spear and protected
by complete armor. This is by way of
restoring the original consistency. As
Mr. Leaf says, Fick's method "begins
to bear an unfortunate family resem-
blance to that of Mr. Ignatius Don-
nelly." It is needless to discuss here
the many varying theories as to what
part of the Iliad is original, what was
added later. The hypotheses mainly
rest on inconsistencies in the narrative.
Where the poet makes a slip, visible to
the microscopic eyes of a poring com-
mentator, it is assumed that his work
must here have been modified. Now,
first, the inconsistencies, with rare ex-
ceptions, could never be visible to
Homer's original audience, nor to any-
one who now reads for pleasure. Next,
all writers fall into such errors. Thack-
eray makes Master Francis Clavering
grow, in six years, from the age of five
to that of thirteen. He says, in the first
number of "Pendennis," that Arthur's
mother is still alive ; he kills her in his
seventeenth number. He gives Mrs.
Bungay two different Christian names
in two consecutive pages. In the "An-
tiquary " Scott makes the sun set in the
east. All these, and a thousand similar
slips, the Germans, if they found them
in Homer, would account for as "in-
terpolations." Now, Homer, whether
he could or could not write, had no
proof-sheets, no revises, and no James
Ballantyne to mark his proofs with
minute comments and inquiries. He
was but human ; aliquando bonus dor-
mitat Homerus. More frequently, as
Pope says,

" It is not Homer nods, but we who dream."

The critics, in fact, are on the wrong
road. They do not read Homer as a
poet addressing his audience of war-
riors ; they cross-examine him as if he
were a prevaricating witness.

Turning to a much more sympathetic
subject, we may ask, When and where
did Homer sing ? what was the life that
was lived in his day ? with what art and
institutions was he familiar? On all
these topics recent discoveries have
thrown a light for which we would
never have hoped. The grave has given
up her dead and their awful treasures.
A chapter of lost history is restored.

In the dim traditions of Greece one
fact is luminous. A whole civilization,
once firm in the Achaean lands, and
especially in the Peloponnesus, was
swept away by a wave of invaders from
the north, the Dorians, or children of
Heracles. Of their invasion, with its
destruction of an orderly society. Ho-
mer says nothing. It was believed till
recently that he was a poet of the ex-
pelled Achseans, descendants of the he-
roes who colonized the coasts of Asia
Minor after the Dorian invasion, rough-
ly dated about 1000 b.c!. On this
theory he dealt with old traditions,
he purposely ignored the Dorian con-
quest, and he described a society and
arts which were ideal, or survived only
in tradition. A different complexion is
given to these beliefs by Dr. Schlie-
mann's discoveries at Orchomenos and
Mycenae, and by the contents of the
more recently discovered "Vaphaeo
tomb," near Amyclse, in Sparta. It has
become clear that Homer described a
real but hitherto unknown civilization,
of which true relics were found at My-
cenae, Tiryns, Orchomenos, and Amy-
else. The objects unearthed corre-
spond to and verify the pictures of life
and art in the Homeric poems.

We all remember what a confusion
of tongues arose when Dr. Schliemann
announced his discoveries. The doctor
had " salted " the graves ; the treasures
had been buried by Celts, or by Attila,
or Alaric, or anyone but Clj-taemnestra.
They were the Mycenaeans's share of the
Persian loot, after Plataeae, and so on.
Now the treasures are acknowledged to
be Homeric or pre-Homeric, Achaean or
purchased by Achaeans, and of a date
between 1500-1200 b.c. They illustrate
Homer most and best in his descrip-
tions of art. These had been thought
fanciful or ideal. The art of Greece,
about 850 b.c., his presumed date, was

HOMER.

507

very stiff and barbaric, either a fol-
lowing of Phoenician works, while the
Phoenicians imitated Egyptian and As-
syrian designs, or frankly crude and
childish. Homer, then, must have in-
vented the art which he described.
The treasures prove, on the other hand,
that there had existed, before the bar-
barous eruption of Dorians, an art very
free, vivid, and picturesque. The gold-
work is of especial excellence. Homer
more than once speaks of designs in-
laid on metal in gold of various col-
ors. Here we find such designs, in the
graves of Mycenae. There are several
daggers, w^hose blades, when first un-
earthed, were of dull, dim bronze.
On being carefully cleaned the daggers
were found to be inlaid with designs in
gold of various hues. The scenes rep-
resented are groups of men and ani-
mals. We see armed men, in the huge
shields which Homer's heroes wear,
reaching from neck to heels, attack-
ing lions. One man has fallen, a lion
stands at bay over him, his friends
press on, a lion flees, another has just
started in flight. It is like an illustra-
tion of an Homeric simile. The art is
far more free, far less conventional than
it is on the vases and gems made when
Greece was reviving after the Dorian
conquest. On another dagger large,
cat-like animals, bounding through a
marsh of papyrus reeds, chase wild
ducks which are worthy of Landseer.
The date of this kind of work is not
later than the sixteenth century b.c. ; a
dirk like those of Mycense was found in
the grave of an Egyptian prince of that
period. More wonderful still is the
gold cup found in a grave near Amy-
else. The artist has represented, in
repousse -work, wild cattle in one com-
partment, in the other tame kine. The
almost over - energetic action of the
wild bull is in Homeric contrast with
the idyllic and rural quiet of the other
piece. Better art in its kind has not
come to us from the Italian Penais-
sance. The fine head of an elk, in sil-
ver, and the great bull's head are
equally notable. The gold cup, like
the cup of Nestor, with doves perched
on the handles, is of coarser modelling.
The engraved rings are very curious.
Pliny noted that Homer never men-

tions ring -seals, any more than he
speaks distinctly of writing. But here
are signets, some of them obviously of
Eastern origin, others displaying, with
much freedom, warriors engaged in
combat. Seal rings and cylinders, in
Egypt and the East, were used in af-
fixing signatures to documents. Of
what use could they be to men who,
not knowing how to write, had no doc-
uments to sign ? They might, indeed,
be employed to seal up boxes and
drawers, but their original Eastern use
was for signatures. One of the most
marked characteristics of Mycenaean
art is its freedom from exotic influ-
ence. The reeds of the Nile are shown
on one of the daggers, but there is
nothing Egyptian in the drawing of
the figures. Some of the rings may
have come, in course of commerce,
from Babylon, but none of the na-
tive designs show the stiff hieratic
Babylonian manner. The figures of
men, chariots, and horses on the stelce,
or gravestones, are extremely rude.
Either the art of sculpturing on stone
had not been mastered, or the stones
were entrusted to very inferior crafts-
men.

The steloe bear no inscriptions, but
it does not follow that writing was
unknown. On Innishail, the green
isle of Loch Awe, are many Celtic
tombstones of the fifteenth or six-
teenth century, marking sepulchres of
Campbells or Camerons. They are
decorated with rude figures of warriors
and of combats, but are uninscribed,
though writing, of course, was perfect-
ly familiar to the chiefs and clergy.
The most common ornamental designs
of Mycenae are arrangements of spirals,
something like what is usually called
Celtic work, though it probably came
from Byzantium, through the Norse-
men, to Scotland and Ireland. There
are especially charming patterns on the
blade of one of the Mycenaean dirks,
and on a ceiling at Orchomenos. Of
wall-paintings, or frescos, there is one
example at Tiryns : a man is vaulting
onto a bull's back, somewhat in the
style of the Vaphaeo cups.

It is natural to wish to think that
these Mycenaean treasures were buried
in the deep-shaft graves, with the mur-

508

HOMER,

clcred A«^ainemnon and his company.
Dr. Schucliardt, however, argues, from
an analysis of the contents of the graves,
that all the dead there were not buried
simultaneously and hurriedly. The ap-
pearance of hurry and confusion was
given by the heavy beams, which rotted
and fell in upon the corpses. The
mode of burial was not precisely Ho-
meric. The bodies had been mummified,
to some extent, not burned to ashes.
Manners may have changed between
the date of the poet and that of his
heroes ; but even in Homer there are
traces of burial without burning, in the
case, as Mr. Leaf remarks, of Sarpedon
(Iliad, xvi., 674). Death and Sleep bear
the dead man out of the war, home
to peaceful Lycia, where the body, it
seems, is to be embalmed before burial.
(See, also, Iliad, vii., 85. It is thought
that honey was used as a preservative.)
In other respects, except in certain
details of dress, Homeric life and art
closely conform to what is revealed in
the tombs of Mycenae. But it is not
supposed that the poet was contempo-
rary with the dead of the tombs. He
always speaks as if he were looking
back to a distant past. Many remains,
especially those of the great bee-hive-
like later tombs, prove that centuries
of civilization intervened between the
age of the treasure-graves and the fall
of Mycenae, and of all the old Achaean
civilization, beneath the Dorian invad-
ers. In these centuries, and late in
them, just before 1000 e.g., our poet
may have lived. His verses would be
carried by the exiled Achaean s to their
new homes on the other side of the
iEgean. Thence they would be borne
back to Greece, as Greece awoke again
to a new and more glorious civiliza-
tion.

Thus we may reconstruct the story
of the most precious possession which
Greece has left to us. The poems are
voices out of a w^orld so old that Greece
knew nothing of it, except through
the poems themselves. Now the spade
has revealed what Mother Earth kept
secret in her bosom. We once again
admire to see how " all ends in song."
The heroes perished, the sons and
daughters of the gods ; the gods, too,
have gone, the song alone remains.

Thus we have reason to believe in a
Poet, not in a Society of Men of Let-
ters ; in a real and beautiful age of hu-
man life, not in a set of fanciful pict-
ures. True, the former part of our
creed is still rejected by most scholars.
They leave it to the poets — to Shelley,
to Schiller, to Goethe, to Matthew
Arnold. I confess that I think poets
better judges than professors, of poeti-
cal matters. But we probably have the
people (so far as it reads Homer) as
well as the poets, except Coleridge, on
our side. We see the forest ; the crit-
ics cannot see the forest for the trees.
However, even the critics are becom-
ing more conservative. Some of them
admit, with Mr. Jebb, that there really
was a great original poet, " who exe-
cuted the most essential parts " of the
Iliad ; which was enlarged and gener-
ally " doctored " later by various people
at various dates. How they kept up the
unity of the characters, the consisten-
cy of the manners, the grandeur of the
style, we do not learn. Mr. Jebb seems
to think that by " grandeur of style "
Mr. Matthew Arnold meant epic formu-
lae and commonplaces. It is needless
to combat so strange an opinion.

Among English critics the most sym-
pathetic to the true believers is Mr.
Monro, the Provost of Oriel College.
Like Colonel More, whose gallant de-
fence of Homeric unity is systematical-
ly ignored by German and modern Egn-
lish critics, Mr. Monro is a Scot, and
loyal to a cause by no means lost, by no
means forlorn. For one, as a reader of
poetry, I can believe in almost anything
more readily than in the contradictory,
the inappropriate, the fantastic, and
pedantic set of notions which make up
much of the Higher Criticism. Where
Shelley said that Homer truly began
to be himself, in the glorious final book
of the Iliad, notably in the last, Pepp-
mtiller discovers " the work of a mere
imitator, who could hardly write a sin-
gle line, unless he had a passage of the
Iliad or Odyssey from which to copy it."

Are we to hesitate between Shelley
and Peppm tiller? On the Homeric
Question, as far as the Odyssey is con-
cerned, I have said nothing. Even the
Germans seldom break their teeth on
the Odyssey. Kirchoff, however, tries

THOMAS JEFFERSON IN UNDRESS.

509

to show that one poet composed the
adventures of the hero before he ^ot to
Ithaca, while another narrated what
befell after he landed. A third poet,
about G60 b.c, foisted in Telemachus,
and anything else which struck him as
suitable, and worked the whole mass up
together. As is notorious, this is the
way in which masterpieces of construc-
tive art are usually achieved.

To a mere " belletristic trifler " the
chief of the modern Homeric contro-
versy seems at once sad and ludicrous.
The owl-like gravity of men Avho pick
to pieces the great webs of Homer's
weaving ; their honest but misapplied
industry ; their total misconception of
what poetry is, of what art is, of what
heroic human nature is ; their innocent
conceit in deciding, all differently, on
questions which Wolf knew were in-
capable of solution — these things are
enough to make one despair of the

Higher Criticism. But Homer, could
he hear them, would only smile, as of
old with Lucian he smiled at his ancient
critics in the Islands of the Blessed.

"Which of the pieces considered un-
authentic did you write ? " asked Lu-
cian in this interview.

"All of them!" answered the happy
spirit of Homer.*

•To an English reader, acquainted with Greek, the
most useful modern books are Mr. Leaf h excellent edi-
tion of the Iliad, and Mr. Jebb's Introduction to Homer
(Macmillaus), with Mr. Monro's Iliad (The Clarendon
Press). Readers of German will find all the throng of
competing Teutonic theories in Dr. Hentze's An-
hang to Ameis's Iliad (Triibner, Leipzig). A con-
servative French study of the Iliad, mainly literary, is
M. Bougot's l^^tude sur I'lliadc d'llomere (Hachette,
Paris, 1888). On the other side, mainly following Christ,
is, in French, M. Croiset's Histoire de la Litterature
Grecque, vol. i. Dr. Schliemann's discoveries are dis-
coursed on in Dr. Schuchardt's work, translated by Miss
Sellers (Macmillans), with an interesting introduction by
Mr. Leaf. The best remaining authorities are the Iliad
and Odyssey.

Since this article was in print the wTiter has read in
Jevons's History of Greek Literature (Griffin, London),
where the chapters on Homer are consecutive. The Ap-
pendix to the Second Edition contains an ingenious
theory of the " Rhapsodizing " of the lUad.

THOMAS JEFFERSON IN UNDRESS.
By Paid Leicester Ford.

N every country boast-
ing a history there
may be observed a
tendency to make its
early leaders or great
men superhuman.
Whether we turn to
the legends of the
East, the folk-lore of
Europe, or the traditions of the native
races of America, we find a mythology
based upon the acts of human man,
gifted with supernatural powers. In
the unscientific, primeval periods in
which these beliefs were born and elab-
orated into oral and written form, their
origin is not surprising. But to all who
have studied the creation of a mythol-
ogy no phase is a more curious one
than to see the keen, practical Ameri-
can of to-day engaged in the same pro-
cess of hero-building which has given
us Jupiter, Wotan, King Arthur, and
others of the same ilk. By a slow evo-
lution we have well - nigh discarded
from the lives of our greatest men of
Vol. XII.— 56

the past all human faults and feelings,
and have enclosed their greatness in
glass of the clearest crystal, and hung
up a sign, "Do not touch." Indeed,
with such characters as Washington,
Franklin, and Lincoln we have practi-
cally adopted the English maxim that
the king "can do no wrong." In place
of human man, limited by human lim-
its, and influenced by human passions,
we have demi-gods, so stripped of hu-
man characteristics as to make us ques-
tion even whether they deserve much
credit for their sacrifices and deeds.

But with this process of canonization
have we not lost more than we have
gained, both in example and in inter-
est? Man}^, no doubt, with the great-
est veneration for our first citizen, have
sympathized with the view expressed
by Mark Twain, when he said that he
was a greater man than Washington,
for the latter " couldn't tell a lie, while
he could, but wouldn't." We have
endless biographies of Franklin, pict-
uring him in all the public stations of

510

THOMAS JEFFERSON IN UNDRESS.

life, but altop^ether they do not equal
in popularity his o^vn human autobiog-
rai:)hy, in which we see him walking
down Market Street with a roll under
each arm, and devouring a third. And
so it seems as if the time had come to
put the shadow - boxes of humanity
round our historic portraits. Not be-
cause they are ornamental in them-
selves, but because they will make them
examples, not mere idols.

" No man is a hero to his valet," is
so trite that it needs no emphasis here;
but, unfortunately, valets do not write
biographies. In place of them we have
lives which treat solely of the great
moments and actions of each hero,
written as a rule by a fervent admirer,
who suppresses, glosses over, or apolo-
gizes for all else. Even in the letters
and public utterances of the man him-
self it seems impossible for him not to
pose more or less. And so the materi-
als for a real knowledge of the traits
and tendencies of each are well-nigh
impossible to obtain.

Of one of these historic figures there
exists a mass of memoranda, which,
when properly winnowed, goes far to
show us the actual man — in the cur-
rent note and expense books of Thomas
Jefferson, kept from 1771 to 1790, w^e
do not find a record of great deeds,
but one of small expenses — not a rec-
ord of thoughts or principles, but of
facts and results. But after a careful
study of these little books one feels
more familiar with the great exponent
of democracy than after the most la-
borious analysis of his political acts
and theories. These brief and hurried
notes have been most generously loaned
me by his great granddaughter. Miss
Sarah N. Randolph, and from them I
have selected enough to give us a
glimpse of Thomas Jefferson in un-
dress.

The first extracts we shall make here
are the pages covering the period of his
honeymoon with the charming widow
who gave happiness to ten years of his
life. We begin with the day he left the
new nest he had just been building for
lier — since known in history as Monti-
cello — and follow him till his return.
He was married to Mrs. Skelton, Janu-
ary 1, 1772.

*' 1771, Dec. 24. Paid entertainment
at the Fork church ordinary 2/.

Dec. 25. Gave servant at Martin
Key's, 7d^. Gave Jupiter [his body
slave] for ferriage at Goochland court
house 2/.

Dec. 28. Paid ferriage and gave
ferryman at the Hundred 4/.

Dec. 29. Gave mrs. Sk [soon to

be Mrs. Jefferson] 10/. Gave Jupiter
to pay ferriage at We stover 1/4 1.

Dec. 30. Inclosed to M. Debnam
for marriage license 40/.

1772, Jan. 1. Gave rev^ W. Coutts
£5. borrowed of mr Coutts 20/.

Jan. 2. Gave rev*^ mr. Davies mar-
riage fee £5. Gave mrs Eppes [his
sister-in-law] 1/3.

Jan. 3. Gave a fidler 10/.

Jan. 11. Paid carriage at Shirley
2/6.

Jan. 12. Paid John at Shirly for
mending Phaeton 50/.

Jan. 13. Paid at Dr. Brown's for
wax 1/. Paid at Gait's for watch-chrys-
tal 2/6.

Jan. 18. Gave Ben at Forest [the
home of Mr. Jefferson's father] 5/.
Gave Jamey 10/. Gave Martin 2/3.
Gave Betty Hemmins 5/ Gave Tom
5/. Gave Kikey 5/. Gave other ser-
vants 15/. Inclosed to James New for
marriage lisence 40/.

Jan. 22. Gave mrs. J. 7/6. Paid
smith at Tuckahoe 2/6."

"He who takes a wife, takes care,"
and this act therefore suggests his
means of caring for her ; so we turn
to Jefferson's legal notes to find what
there was, besides the " little god of
Love " to boil the pot. And at first
sight his profession seemed ample to
supply all things needed. In the pe-
riod he still practised, covered by these
notes, are recorded several hundred
cases in w^hich Jefferson was retained.
Indeed, if his practice was a sample of
those of the dozen brilliant la^vj^ers,
soon to make the Old Dominion famous
throughout the continent, the whole
population was in litigation. Most of
the cases were conflicting land grants,
which the curious colonial laws had so
perplexed, but we find cases involving
slaves, libel, malversation in office, tres-
pass, assault and battery, and contested
elections, including among them many

THOMAS JEFFERSON IN UNDRESS,

511

of the names of the F. F. V. — such as
the Fontaines, Blair s, Ballard s, Carters,
Harrisons, Gordons, Wallers, Sharpes,
Lewises, Cabells, Blands, Stuarts,
Balls, Slauf^^hters, Carringtons, Roanes,
B3'rds, Burwells, Nicholases, Madisons,
Nelsons, Boilings, Card's, Coles, Dan-
dridges, Randolphs, Dinwiddies, Da-
vies, Lees, Leighs, and Claibornes. It is
of interest to note that Jefferson, when
he needed assistance, always retained
George Wythe or Edmund Pendleton,
and was in turn retained by Wythe,
Patrick Henry, Robert Carter Nicholas,
and Edward Carrington ; as well as his
note concerning the first-named that :
" in these cases of G. W's I meant to
charge nothing which was not volun-
tarily offered." In these cases Jeffer-
son's fees ranged from 10/ to 21/ for
drawing a will or deed, to £10 for ar-
guing before the General Court, or the
Council ; and the profits of the law
looked very good. But analysis ends
this. Tobacco was no longer profit-
able, the whole colony was over-mort-
gaged, and the slave — not yet valuable
enough to pay for breeding — was eat-
ing the life out of every large estate-
holder. And so we find that though
Jefferson's law practice between 1767
and 1770 on paper amounted to
£1,489.9.9^, he actually received only
£474.19.11| in that period. A pleasing
fact in this chaos of law and debt is
that the only two cases Jefferson was a
partj^ to were both friendly suits. And
so punctilious w^as he of debt that we
find numerous entries such as these :

"Paid Will for Belinda 1/3. (3d too
much.)

Lent Patrick Henry Id^.

Borrowed of Mazzei 4id.

Lent Edmund Pendleton 3^f.

Repaid James Maury postage Id^.

Credit my mother's estate a bottle of
wine."

Turning from the law we find that
his income as a planter was even less.
From £200 to £300 was the average
gross yearly return for the tobacco Jef-
ferson raised, and except for this, he
cannot be said to have raised any crop
for the market. And to grow this he
had to buy all food supplies for his
slaves, except the pigs, w^hich form so
essential a part of every Southern plan-

tation. Jefferson was a large slave hold-
er. Though the British carried oft', at
the end of the Revolution a large num-
ber of slaves, he nevertheless, between
1784 and 1798, sold or gave away not
less than one hundred and sixty, and
had as many more still on his planta-
tions. Yet with this number to feed
and clothe, he was compelled to hire
many more to do his work. Judging
from the number of negroes so hired
from time to time, almost the entire
work on his plantations was done by
such. A few of his memoranda touch-
ing these are interesting, as illustrating
the terms and system.

"Agreed with Geo. Bradby for an-
other year. — I am to give him £8. &
meat as is given to the other negroes
of our family. He pays his own levies,
taxes, &c., & clothes himself."

"Agreed with mr. Cox to give him
£30 for overlooking my plantations at
Elk-hill & Crank's the year following,
but told him it was £5 too much, &
more than I could give again."

" Settled with T. Morgan, and I owe
him of the wages of 1770 £4.10. I am
to continue his wages £8. this year, and
afterwards he is to maintain himself
till the mill is ready for him."

"Bishop has worked 3 J days for
which am to give him 7/6 he will under-
take to mould and trim bricks for 7/6
the 1000 and requires two men, three
boys, and no more. He counts only
those that are worked up. But better
give him £3.10 a month."

"The hire of the seven negroes I
hired of mr. Eppes in Bedford last
year has been settled at £46,15 by Will-
iam Austin & "Robert Clarke out of
which is to be deducted however the
feeding of their children which mr. Cox
sais was not allowed for."

Dragged do^vn by an overplus of ne-
groes, Jefferson was far from making his
estates yield him a living. Like most
Virginians he made himself land poor,
having four large estates, and still want-
ing more land. And Jefferson's tastes
were cultured and expensive ones. At
Monticello he built the best bit of archi-
tecture in Virginia, and he filled it with
all that a man of varied knowledge would
wish. He bought expensive furniture.
In Paris he spent many hundred francs

;i2

THOMAS JEFFERSON IN UNDRESS.

upon pictures. His library was second
only to Franklin's in size and value,
and cost him many more thousands
than he could well spare. His love of
music led him to purchase a valuable
violin, a guitar, clavicord, harmonica,
and other musical instruments. His
scientific study tempted him to many
expenditures, of which we select the
following :

Pedometer, 76 francs.

Microscope, £4.10.

Theodolite, £2.

Telescope, £10.10.

Thermometer, 10/.

Protractor, 5/.

Hydrometer, 31/ 6.

Botanical Microscope, 10/6.

Air Pump, £12.10.

Electrical Machine, 9/.

Magnetic Needle, 44 francs.

And his exj)enditures did not end
with the interior. Many entries relate
to the improvements he wished to make
in the grounds, types of which will
show both his disbursements and his
ambitions for his estate :

"At the Spking on the Nokth Side
OF THE Park.

A few feet below the spring level
the ground 40 or 50f. sq. — Let the
water fall from the spring in the upj)er
level over a terrace in the form of a
cascade. Then conduct it along the
foot of the terrace to the Western side
of the level, where it may fall into a
cistern under a temple, from which it
may go off by the western border till it
falls over another terrace at the North-
ern or tower side. Let the temple be
raised 2f. for the first floor of stone.
Under this is the cistern, which may be
a bath or anything else. The first
story arches on three sides ; the back
or western side being close because
the hill there comes down, and also to
carry up stairs on the outside ? The
2d story to have a door on one side,
a spacious window in each of the other
sides with a small table and a couple of
chairs. The rooms each 8f. cube. The
roof may be Chinese, Grsecian or in the
taste of the Lanthern of Demosthenes
at Athens.

The ground just above the spring
smoothed and tufted ; close to the
spring a sleeping figure reclined on
a plain marble slab, surrounded with
turf ; on the slab this inscription.

Hujus nympha loci, custodia fontis
Dormio, dum blandas sentio murmur aquae.
Parce meum, quis quis tangis cava marmosa,

somnum
Rumpere ; si bibas, sive lavere, tace.

near the spring also inscribe on a
stone or a metal plate fastened to a
tree these lines ' Beatus ille qui procul
negotus, Ut prisca gens mortalium,
Paterna nura bobus exercet suis, Solu-
tus omni foenore : Forumque vitat et
superba civium Potentiorum limina.
Libet jacere modo sub antiqua ilice,
Modo in tenaci gramine : Labuntur
altis interim rivis aquae ; Queruntur in
silvis aves ; Fontesque lymphis obstre-
junt manantibus, Somnos quod invilet
leves.' Plant trees of Beech and Aspen
about it. Open a vista to the mill-
pond, the river, road &c. Query — If a
view of the neighboring town would
have a good effect ? Intersperse in this
and every other part of the ground
(except the environs of the Burning
ground) abundance of Jassamine, Hon-
eysuckle, sweet briar &c. Under the
temple an ^olian harp where it may
be concealed as well as covered from
the weather.

This would be better. The gi'ound
above the spring being very steep, dig
into the hill and form a cave or grotto.
Build up the sides and arch with stiff
clay. Cover this with moss. Spangle
it with translucent pebbles from Han-
over town and beautiful shells from the
shore at Burwell's ferry, pave the floor
with pebbles, let the spring enter at
a corner of the grotto, pretty high the
side, and trickle down, or fall by a
spout into a bason from which it may
pass off through the grotto. The fig-
ure will be better placed in this. Form
a couch of moss. The English inscrip-
tion will be then proper.

Nymph of the grot, these sacred springs I

keep,
And to the murmur of these waters sleep :
Ah ! spare my slumbers I gently tread the

cave

And drink in silence lave !

THOMAS JEFFERSON IN UNDRESS.

513

The Ground in General.

Thin the trees, cut out stumps and
undergrowth, remove old trees and
other rubbish except where they may
look well. Cover the whole with grass.
Intersperse Jessamine, honeysuckle,
sweet-briar, and even hardy flowers
which may not require attention. Keep
in it deer, rabbits, Peacocks, Guinea
poultry, pidgions &c. Let it be an
asylum for hares, squirrels, pheasants,
partridges and every other wild animal
(except those of prey). Court them to
it by laying food for them in proper
places. Procure a buck elk, to be as
it were Monarch of the wood ; and keep
him shy, that his appearance msij not
lose it's effect by too much familiarity.
A buffalo might perhaps be confined
also. Inscriptions in various places
on the bark of trees or metal plates,
suited to the character or exj)ression of
the particular spot. Benches or seats
of rock or turf passim."

One of his pet ambitions, as above
recorded, was a herd of deer at Monti-
cello, and a number of entries relate to
such as were brought to him by the
people about and purchased at prices
ranging from two to four pounds.
And Jefferson could never resist a horse
"trade." He bought, sold, and traded,
in this time, not less than twenty horses,
little dreaming that he was thereby in
the end to aid in mounting the troop-
ers with which Tarleton, the British
*' partizan," harried the State in 1781.
And the following note would seem to
show that Jefferson was successful in
his trades.

" 1774, Jan. 8. Exchanged with John
Hylton my black horse for a sorrel
mare which he says was five years old
last June. He supposes she is with
foal by young Fear-nought, and if she
proves to be so, I am to pay £3 for
putting her to horse."

"Jan. 10. I have promised to give J.
Hylton 40/ more to boot between our
horses, he being dissatisfied with the
first bargain,"

Nor did this end his expensive tastes.
In his account book for 1772 we have
his entry of the condition of his cellar,
as follows :

" Liquors and bottles on hand.

About 3 galls, rum.

A hhd Madeira K. C— abt. 3 galls.

doz.

6 — 11 Lutherans of Madeira.
3— 1 L. 69.
2—11 M. 70.
2— 2 m.
0—10 Port.
2 — 5 small beer.
9 — 2 empty.
0 — 1 do. Lutheran.
2 — 7 with miscellaneous in closet
and elsewhere.

24 — 2 present stock.

By acct. last Sept. 30 we had then

doz.

27—
1 — 10 received since.

28—11

24 — 2 present stock subtracted.

4 — 9 one year's consumption.

Again by same memm. had on hand,
subtract present stock leaves consump-
tion of the year.

L.

69 3-0-

-3- 1

Doz.

M.

70 7-2-

-2-11

4-3.

m.

4-0-

-2- 2

1-10.

adds Lutheran

2.

3 galls, of E. C.

1-0.

Wine

) used since Sept.

30, 177L

7-3."

And from this time on he was con-
stantly adding to the stock. Whole
pipes of wine were bought, and while
in France he purchased largely, till he
must have had as good a stock of wine
as any man in the country. And, in-
deed, even a good Federalist had to
express his admiration at the "deli-
cious" wines, with a qualifying sigh that
Jefferson's "French politics w^ere not
as good as his French wines." It is
amusing to quote in this connection a
single entry :

" Received from the Forest 4 doz. 10
bottles of Jamaica rum — note I shall
keep a tally of these as we use them by
making in a mark in the margin in
order to try fidelity of Martin."

His table, too, was an expensive one.
We find not merely the ordinary food

514

THOMAS JEFFERSON IN UNDRESS.

charges of the day, but many little lux-
uries which, if now hardly extravagant,
were then costly. A dish of crabs,
10/. Four bottles of anchovies cost
£3.12. Pineapples cost almost the pro-
verbial English guinea. And for such
items as oysters, venison, partridges,
nuts of various kinds, watermelons,
peaches, oranges, etc., the expenditures
are constant. And Jefferson certainly
showed his knowledge of the darky by
buying all his poultry of them, even
sometimes of his own slaves.

In dress it is difficult to tell whether
he was equally refined and tasteful.
We all have a mental picture of him
from the English Minister Merry's fa-
mous description of him, " dressed, or
rather undressed, in an old brown coat,
red waist - coat, old corduroy small-
clothes, much soiled, woolen hose, and
slippers without heels." And yet, as
appears in these little volumes, Jeffer-
son was spending as much in dress, for
the times, as any well-dressed dandy of
to-day. For a suit he paid £13. For
a hat, 50/. For a pair of lace ruffies,
120 francs. For a sword, 200 francs.
And it must seem that Jefferson's
soiled linen and threadbare clothes,
which caused such endless comment,
were far more the expression of a prin-
ciple in the " man of the people " than
of any personal want of neatness or
fastidiousness.

Still another means of spending
money seems to have tempted him
strongly. Anything in the nature of
an entertainment or " show " appealed
to his tastes. In the early Virginia
days he was a regular attendant at the
theatre, as he was later in Philadelphia.
And in Paris scarcely a week passed
without visits to the " Italian comedy,"
the "French comedy," the "opera,"
the " concert spirituel," and other like
attractions. — At the time Jefferson was
fiercely opposing the royal governor of
Virginia, Lord Dunmore, he was sub-
scribing "20/ towards a ball for Lady
Dunmore." And from the many en-
tries of this class the following will
show the variety of his amusements :

"1771. Paid for hearing musical
glasses 3/. Paid for seeing Alligator
1/3. Paid for Dutch dancing and
singing 2/.

1772. Paid for seeing puppet show
2/6.

1777. Paid towards a ball 30/.

1778. Paid for hearing organ at
church 12/.

1783. Paid for 2 ticket to see bal-
oon 15/.

1785. Paid at Masquerade 6 francs
12.

1786. Paid seeing figure of King
of Prussia 12 francs. For seeing a
learned pig 1/. Paid at Ranelegh
3/6. Concert at Pantheon 4 francs.

1790. Paid for seeing a cougar from
Paraguay 1/. Subscribed to Dancing
assemblies and paid $8."

While a sight which had Inore seii-
ousness in it is recorded but three
days after what made it famous, thus :

"1789. July 17. Paid for seeing Bas-
tile, 6 francs. Aug. 1. Gave for widows
of those killed in taking Bastille, 60
francs."

This last entry introduces another
phase of Jefferson's character, by no
means the least interesting. Till 1774
his books contain no mention of a sin-
gle gift in charity, thus bearing out
Franklin's assertion that there was no
such thing as beggary in the colonies.
And, indeed, such was the scarcity of
labor and the social organization of the
country that there was no room for
such. An axe or a rifle was capital
enough for any man to marry on. But
in November, 1774, we find an entry :
"Gave in charity 6/," and from this
time on such gifts were constant. An
occasional note gives us a clue to
the character of the beneficiary — "a
wounded soldier," " a disabled sol-
dier," "a poor woman," "a little boy."
His gifts ranged from 6 pence to 30
shillings ; and amounted in some years
to as much as thirty or forty pounds.
But it was not till he reached France
that we find him spending this much.
And the chanp:e in this item alone illus-
trates the difference between America,
poor only because she could not sell
her overplus, and France, starving her-
self into a reign of terror.

To servants, too, Jefferson was lib-
eral. In each year many fees are en-
tered, and though the free and bound-
less hospitality of the Virginia gentle-
men has passed into history, it was no

THOMAS JEFFERSON IN UNDRESS.

515

economy to pass a night in their homes,
as compared with the taverns or "or-
dinaries." A single instance will show
the cost in fees to the slaves for a
night's lodging :

" Gave Frank, 1/3.

Ostler at Forest, 2/6.

Servant at Forest, 5/.

Another, 2/6.

Paid boy for bringing mv horses,
3/."

And though in France these ceased,
they were really only commuted to
one lump sum. In place of feeing in
each house, Jefferson once each year,
when he paid his official visit as Min-
ister Plenipotentiary to the Court, dis-
bursed in fees between two hundred
and three hundred francs, divided one
year thus :

"1787. Jan. 1. Gave the following
etrennes [new year's gifts] at court :

Valet de cliambre m. de Vergennes 96

Livery servants of do 34

Suisse of do 24

Suisse of M. de Reyneval 24

Garcon de bureau of do 24

Coffee men at the Salle des Ambassadeur. 48

the two Swiss at do 24

264"

As early as 1769 Jefferson took up a
political career, by being elected a bur-
gess or member of the Lower House
of the Assembly of Virginia. And in
1771 we find him, like his successors of
to-day, spending the sum of £4.19.3 at
a "burgessing," and twice again do we
find amusing entries of election ex-
penses as follows :

" 1771. Dec. 30. Paid Mrs. Scott for
cakes had at election yesterday, 45/."

"1774. Aug. 16. Paid Richard
Scott for 6 dozen cakes at the election,
24/."

In this last year there is a note
.which must take rank in importance to
all others. It is not merely of inter-
est from its being so early a suggestion
of nationality, but is, so far as I am
aware, the earliest use of the expres-
sion United States — the United Colo-
nies being the universal designation till
after the separation from England :

"A proper device (instead of arms)
for the American states united would

be the Father j^resenting the bundle of
rods to his sons.

The motto ' Insuperabiles si insepa-
rabiles ' — an answer given in parliament
to the House of Lords and Commons,
4. [Coke's] Institute 35. He cites 4. H.
6. nu 12. parliamentary rolls, which I
suppose was the time it happened."

This shadow of " coming events "
naturally turns us to the greatest mo-
ment and act of Jefferson's life, when,
in pursuance of the famous resolution
that "these colonies are, and of right
ought to be, free and independent
states," the Continental Congress, on
June 10, 1776, appointed him chairman
of the committee to draft a "Declar-
ation of Independence." In his biog-
raphies we have this period properly
draped, as was the rule in historical
paintings, with the classic toga. We
are told of his seeking solitude, and
with neither help nor suggestion from
man or book, drawing the most famous
paper ever written by a single man ;
declaring in language familiar to every
school-boy, that a new nation had been
created, and was determined " to as-
sume a separate and equal station " in
the world. But even in such moments,
" civilized man cannot live without din-
ing," and so we print some of his en-
tries between his appointment to pre-
pare the Declaration and its proclama-
tion to the people :

"June 9. Pd. for 7 washbaUs, 10/6.
Pd. for stockings for Bob, 7/. Pd.
mrs. Graaf one week's lodging, 35/.

June 10. Pd. dinner at Smith's, 6/
(succeeding daj^s show dinners at
Smith's ranging from 5/ to 8/6).

June 11. Pd. for Window shutter
rings, £1.18.2.

June 12. Reed from mr. Eppes by
Myles Taylor, 16 Dollrs.

June 18. Paid for a nest of trunks,
7/6. Paid ferrge of horses, 6d.

June 19. Paid King for handling six
spring bolts, 30/. Paid Greentree for
wine, 6/.

June 20. Paid Hugh Walker for
waggonage of sundries last mnter to
head of Elk, 27/^6. Paid Aitkin for
lining a map, 5/

June 22. Paid Sparhawk for pair
spiers, 25/. Paid ferrge over Schuyl-
kill &c., lOd.

516

THOMAS JEFFERSON IN UNDRESS.

a

June 31.
July 1.
July 3.
mer, 7/6.

June 23. Paid Graaf 2 weeks lodg-
ing &c., £3.10.

June 25. Paid for 2 pr stockings for
Bob, 15/. Paid for a straw hat, 1/.

June 27. Paid Byrne for 6 weeks
shaving & dressing, 30/.

June 28. Paid mrs. Lovemore wash-
ing in full, 39/9.

June 30. Paid Sparhawk for a pen-
cil, 1/6 ; a map, 7/6.

Paid expences riding, 2/4.
Paid ferrge of horses, 8d.
Paid Towne for Doctor Gil-
Paid do for mj^self, 7/6.
Paid Smith in full, 15/6.

July 4. Paid Sparhawk for a ther-
mometer, £3.15. Paid for 7 pr wo-
men's gloves, 27/. Gave in charity,
1/6.

July 5. Paid for a quire of paper,
2/6.

July 6. Paid mr Braxton for 4 pr.
cotton cards, 48 /. Paid for pamphlets,
6/. Paid for beer, 1/."

Another fact recorded elsewhere in
the diary deserves notice. The great
heat of the day on which the Declaration
was adopted has come down to us in
tradition, and from this has found its
way into history. One of our popular
history writers has even drawn a pict-
ure of the discomfort and irritation
the weather caused Congress, and has
gravely questioned whether the abnor-
mally high temperature was not a bless-
ing in disguise as forcing the members
to agree, in order to escape from the
heated hall. But this tradition finds no
support here, the "cold" facts being
recorded :

"July 4th, 6 A.M., 68^; 9 a.m., 72J° ;
1 P.M., 76° ; 9 P.M., 73i°."

The expenditure for beer noted un-
der July 6 suggests entries which occur
quite a number of times, and of which
we will quote samples :

Paid for Club at Davies, 1/.

Paid for toddy at Anderson's, 9d.

Paid for grog at the Forge, 1/6.

Paid for Punch, 1/.

And still another class, though few
and far between, are instanced in the
following :

Lost at Backgammon, 7/6.

Won at backgammon, 7d|.

Won at cross and pyle, 3|d.

Mrs. Jefferson lost at cards, 1/3.

Lost at lotto, 18/.

One more quotation and the end is
reached. We have seen Jefferson in
many phases, and in all have found
him cultured, generous, minute, rather
extravagant, and very human. And to
complete this very humanity we add an
attempt of his in poetry, which can be
taken for what it is worth :

'* Inscription for an African Slave.

Shores there are, bless' d shores for us remain,
And favor'd isles with golden fruitage
crown'd
Where tufted flow'rets paint the verdant plain,
Where ev'ry breeze sha,ll med'cine ev'ry
wound.

There the stern tyrant that embitters life.
Shall vainly suppliant, spread his asking
hand ;
There shall we view the billow's strife,

Aid the kind breast, and waft his boat to
land."

IN A MEDICEAN GARDEN.

By Grace Ellery Channing,

I KNOW not why ; but when the night is still,
And nightingales are pouring out their heart
From the ilex- shadowed thicket 'neath the hill ;
When the soft fingers of the moonbeams part
Light leaves whence streams the hidden melody —
My listening heart grows faint, my dim eyes fill,
Slow tears from under heavy eyelids start
As drops fall from drenched flowers resistlessly.

Garden and grove grow dim, they change and fade

Like their pale lords — the vanished Medici ;

They are the phantomed shadows of a shade ;

It is not night nor earth nor Italy ;

And that which sings within the silences —

I know him well ! — no singer of the dark,

No alien bird, no foreign minstrel, he,

But mine own unsung, western-carolling lark —

Triumphant singer of the farthest day

Carolling earth, heaven and Italy away !

I've heard him in the new-world wilderness
Singing, sad nightingale, not notes like thine.
But plenteously poured forth like joyous mne
From an overflowing chalice. Loneliness
And sorrow were not then ; the sunnj^ plain
Filled and ran o'er with the melodious rain
Of music, and the golden-spaced air
Trembled with happiness fine-felt and rare;
"While over, over, over, high above.
Went lilting still the med-lark, love and love,
And joy and passionate joy and ecstasy ;
O singer and O song, return to me !

I've known him send such strains to so far height,

Purple sierras shook beneath their veil,

And golden poppies drank the liquid light,

As down the molten music dropped and fell

Quivering, in notes of fire. O nightingale.

Thou art a silver singer, canst delight

Sad-hearted dwellers in the sad Old World,

With j)allid chaplets of sweet song impearled

Upon a string of silence ; but too pale.

Too wan for me thy passion, far too faint

The thrilling of thy melancholy plaint.

Thou art but love in sorrow — I have heard

Love's self sing westward from a golden- throated bird !

HISTORIC moments:

THE FIRST CAPITAL OPERATION UNDER THE INFLU-
ENCE OF ETHER.

By Daniel Denison Slade, M.D.

No discovery ever came upon the
world more suddenly, or more com-
pletely fitted for immediate employ-
ment, than did that of surgical anaes-
thesia. Its advent was heralded by no
signals which gave notice of the mighty
power for good which it was destined
to exert. Its presence, after the first
few successful demonstrations, seemed
as natural as the sunHght, and when
experience had made more fully known
the laws which govern this condition,
its use became almost immediately es-
tablished in the community which wit-
nessed its birth. Those who were in-
strumental in its introduction have
mostly passed away, and a new genera-
tion has since come upon the scene, as
ignorant and heedless of the story of
its origin as if centuries had flown by
instead of a few decades.

Although it is the special object of
the series of papers entitled " Historic
Moments " to depict actual culminating
scenes, without any extended notice of
the facts and events which may have led
up to them, yet, to a certain extent, a
knowledge of such facts and events is
essential to their proper appreciation,
and must be productive of increased
interest to the reader. This remark
has peculiar application to the present
article.

It is far from my purpose to venture
even upon the edge of the Maelstrom of
bitter controversy which, lasting for

several years, finally engulphed within
its fatal embrace the practical discov-
erer of painless surgery. But it will be
necessary to draw an outline of the in-
dividual to whom the civilized world
owes this inestimable blessing, which
it now so unwittingly enjoys, and who
must, consequently, form the centre of
the group which is to be called up from
the realms of the past, in order to con-
struct a truthful picture of that histori-
cal scene of which I was an eye-witness.
W. T. G. Morton was bom at Charl-
ton, Mass., August 7, 1819. His parents
were of respectable Scotch descent. He
received a common school and acade-
mic education, during which period of
his life he resided for a short time in
the family of a physician, where he
acquired a taste for the medical pro-
fession. Being obliged to depend upon
his own exertions for support, he left
home at the age of seventeen years, and
came to Boston, where he passed a few
years as salesman and clerk in the book
trade. Becoming dissatisfied with the
business, and urged by his early fond-
ness for medical pursuits, circumstances
induced him to enter the Baltimore Col-
lege of Dental Surgery, as a stepping-
stone to the other branches. After two
years of preparation he formed a part-
nership in the practice of dentistry with
Horace Wells, at Hartford, Conn. This
being dissolved in 1843, he removed
to Boston, where he resumed his busi-

THE FIRST CAPITAL OPERATION UNDER ETHER, 519

iiess. In 1844 be entered his name as ton from a man, under the influence of

a student of medicine with Dr. Charles its inhalation, without the least suffer-

T. Jackson, of Boston, and in the win- ing.

ter of 1844-45 he matriculated at the As the mere extraction of a tooth,

Medical School of Harvard University, however, would not be sufficient proof

thus evincing his determination to be- of the insensibility to pain under many

come thoroughly educated in his pro- circumstances, Morton was induced to

fession. His necessities obliged him, call upon Dr. John C. Warren, senior

however, to attend diligently to his surgeon at the Massachusetts General

dental business, a circumstance which Hospital, and to ask permission for the

interfered seriously with his studies. earliest opportunity to experiment in

While at Hartford he discovered a a surgical operation with a substance

method of soldering false teeth to a which would prevent pain. After some

gold plate, but requiring for its advan- deliberation this request was granted,

tageous use the removal of remaining although the nature of the agent to be

old roots. This painful process, not used was not at that time made known

demanded by other dentists, proved a to Dr. Warren.

great injury to his pecuniary success. In the meantime Morton groped his

Morton directed his attention therefore way with various devices for the conven-

to some method by which the anguish ient administration of his " compound,"

of this necessary step might be over- and at last settled upon a glass globe

come. with two necks, in one of which was

Just previous to 1845 some fortunate placed a perforated cork, through wliich

experiments had been made by Horace air was admitted, while to the other

Wells, the former partner of Morton, in neck was attached a tube, with valves

the use of nitrous oxide gas as an agent which opened and shut during inspira-

for preventing pain in tooth extraction tion and expiration, and through which

But a public demonstration, which the patient inhaled the vapor, given off

Wells gave at Boston, having complete- from a sponge saturated with the agent

ly failed, he abandoned his project, and and held inside the globe,
even his occupation as a dentist. This Morton, in a few days, received a note

partial success of Wells stimulated still from Dr. J. C. Warren saying that he

more the efforts of Morton toward the would offer him the desired opportu-

end he had so constantly in view. nity to test his discoveiy at the hospit-

On a certain day a lady came to Mor- al. Accordingly, on the day appoint-

ton's office to have a very sensitive tooth ed, he went to the hospital, and there,

filled. B}^ chance he applied some pre- in the presence of several medical men

pared chloric ether, which had been and students, he gave to the patient — a

given him by Dr. C. T. Jackson, who young man with a tumor upon the neck

had repeatedly used it as toothache — his so-called " compound," by means

drops. This had a benumbing influence of the apparatus just described. AI-

upon the pain, and was, in fact, so sue- though, as Dr. Warren subsequently

cessful that he was induced to institute stated, the anaesthesia was " imperfect,"

an inquiry into the nature of this and still the patient declared that he had

other forms of ether. One of his stu- felt no pain during the operation, be-

dents, in the course of conversation, yond a certain disagreeable sensation

also informed him that when a scholar as if the part had been scraped with a

at an academy he had inhaled sulphu- blunt instrument. This was the first

ric ether for amusement, without any case at the Massachusetts General Hos-

unpleasant effects. Thereupon Morton pital in which an attempt was made

was led to experiment upon animals, with the new agent to alleviate the pain

upon himself, and upon his assistants, of a surgical operation,
discovering thereby the necessity for Morton was asked to come on the

the use of pure rectified sulphuric ether, next day and to repeat the experiment,

in place of the cnide commercial arti- He then again administered the prepa-

cle usually on sale by druggists. Fin- ration to a female, from whose shoulder

ally, a painful tooth was pulled by Mor- a large fatty tumor was removed by Dr.

520

THE FIRST CAPITAL OPERATION UNDER ETHER.

George Hayward. The operation was
not a severe one, but the most complete
insensibility was induced, and although
long incisions were made in the skin,
the patient was perfectly unconscious of
pain.

After these first trials at the Massa-
chusetts General Hospital the use of
Morton's discovery was discontinued at
that institution for several weeks. Nev-
ertheless the discoverer himself con-
tinued to employ it in his dental prac-
tice, not always with perfect success,
however, and in some cases even with
serious consequences. This was attrib-
utable to inexperience, and to defective
means of application.

The temporary discontinuance of Mor-
ton's agent at the hospital was due to
various reasons. It was a secret mixt-
ure ; moreover, it was a patented arti-
cle ; both of which facts unfitted it for
the use of the regular practitioner. Its
nature not being understood, its inhala-
tion might, under circumstances not yet
established, be followed by untoward,
and even fatal symptoms. Professional
etiquette and rivalry also played no
small part in the withdrawal of its use.
All these objections, however, were safe-
ly tided over. Moreover, Morton had
at last undertaken to acquaint the hos-
pital surgeons, by a letter addressed to
Dr. Warren, senior, with the true nat-
ure of the agent used. Thus, all ob-
stacles being removed, Morton adminis-
tered his anodyne to a patient who was
to undergo an amputation at the thigh.

At this point attention may properly
be called to the element of mystery which
hung over the early days of the intro-
duction of the material which produced
such wonderful effects. It was now the
subject of general popular interest and
attention, but its nature had not been
made known to the public, or even to
the medical profession. In fact there
was never any authoritative announce-
ment that the new discovery was simply
sulphuric ether. It gradually became
known that it was that substance, but it
was never formally so stated. Its ad-
ministration at the outset was conduct-
ed solely by Morton himself, who en-
deavored, by the admixture of foreign
inert elements, such as fragrant essences,
tinctures, etc., to disguise the peculiar

odor of the ether. Thus, in this new
position in which he was placed, it was
not unnatural that the illiterate should
have looked upon him as a conjurer
possessed of secret powers, or as the
one might have been regarded who had
discovered the Fountain of Perpetual
Youth, so ardently and fruitlessly looked
for by Juan Ponce de Leon and his fol-
lowers.

A few words in regard to the Massa-
chusetts General Hospital. Its exist-
ence was due to a few public- spirited
and generous citizens of Boston. It
was incorporated in 1811, and opened
for the reception of patients in 1821.
Charles Bulfinch, to whom the city of
Boston owes the construction of many
of its finest buildings, was the architect.
It is constructed of hammered granite,
and consists of a main building sur-
mounted by a handsome dome, and of
two wings, which were extended in
1846. It was thus, at this time, the
largest and most important institution
of the kind in New England, and the
most complete and best organized in the
country. It had acquired a widespread
reputation, not only owing to the prom-
inent position of its medical officers, but
also by its connection with the Harvard
Medical School, which, however, was
wholly unofficial.

This fine building stood in the midst
of a park -like garden, with noble trees
and flowering shrubs, upon the banks
of the beautiful bay forming the mouth
of the Charles River. On this site it had
a well-arranged bath-house, with facili-
ties for fresh- and salt-water bathing.
Within the walls of the hospital the ap-
pointments were of the very best. Its
wide and airy halls, its stone stairways,
the scrupulously clean and well waxed
floors of the wards and private rooms,
its curtained beds, and everj^ article of
furniture, and, above all, its skilled
nurses, bespoke an attention to the
primary objects of the institution, and
to the comfort and care of its humblest
patient. The dome contained a large
and commodious operating-theatre, to
become, in 1846, the starting-point of a
discovery "which was destined to go
around the world."

The day fixed for the memorable op-
eration which was to add to the fame of

THE FIRST CAPITAL OPERATION UNDER ETHER.

521

the Massachusetts General Hospital, was
Saturday, November 7, 1846, at eleven
o'clock. News of the expected event
had been noised abroad, not only among
the Harvard medical students, and the
medical fraternity of Boston and its vi-
cinity, but also among those of other
professions who would be interested in
an occasion of this character ; so that
not only all the seats, but every avail-
able place for standing, in the amphi-
theatre of the operating-room, was
crowded with an anxious and expectant
assembly, an hour or more before the
appointed time. Spread out before
them, and occupying the central space,
just in front, was the operating-table,
covered with linen of a snowy white-
ness, rarely seen elsewhere, and for
which the Hospital was noted. On the
left, upon a convenient table, also pro-
tected by immaculate linen, were all the
instruments and paraphernalia for the
surgeon's use ; while in the back of the
room, handsome cases, in which artisti-
cally arranged surgical articles of every
description, and adapted to any and all
emergencies, were conspicuously placed.
In one corner, in an erect posture, an
Egyptian mummy, with a scarabseus on
the end of its nose, looked calmly down
upon the first scene of a new epoch, from
its gayly adorned, wooden sarcophagus,
the cover of which had been removed.
In close contiguity, in a glass case dis-
creetly veiled by curtains, hung a hu-
man skeleton, whose presence could
only be conjectured from the peculiar
form of its ghastly chamber. Hooks,
rings, and pulleys inserted in the walls
to aid in the reduction of dislocated
limbs met the eye, happily for suffer-
ing humanity to be henceforth and for-
ever discarded.

While the assembly was scanning
these various objects, gazing upward
also at the elegant and well -lighted
•dome, and taking cognizance of every
trivial incident, as is customary with
impatient crowds, the six hospital sur-
geons entered the room.

First and foremost among these was
the senior Warren. A man rather
above the medium height, possessing
a thin, somewhat stooping form, his
scanty gray hair carefully brushed away
from the high forehead, the shaggy eye-

brows overhanging dark sparkling eyes,
while the entire expression of counte-
nance showed determination and cool-
ness. In manners somewhat brusque
and severe, his presence was command-
ing, and his word was law. As a sur-
geon he had continued for many years
to hold the first rank, a position due
not only to his unimpressionable tem-
perament, but also to his long and
weU- directed education. His lectures
as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery
in Harvard University were instructive,
useful, and popular. In private life he
was justly esteemed for his social and
public-spirited qualities.

By his side was Dr. George Hayward,
who was Professor of Clinical Surgery
in the Medical School. Bather shoi-t
in stature and thick set, he formed
a marked contrast to his companion.
His countenance was indicative of strong
good sense, and his small, deep set,
twinkling ej^es suggested a certain bon-
homie and a most amiable disposition.
Having received his surgical education
mostly in the English and French
schools, his lectures were interesting,
and contained frequent allusions to his
former instructors. Although not a
brilliant operator, his hand was guided
by excellent judgment.

The round, full-faced man, with neat-
ly trimmed side-whiskers and hair cut
short, was Dr. S. D. Townsend. He w^as
formerly a naval surgeon. This gave
him a methodical manner of dress and
bearing which easily distinguished him
from his confreres. His experience as
hospital surgeon had been large and
varied. For his skill as an operator,
his kindness of heart, and his unbend-
ing uniformity of character, he was
much admired both by the patients and
by the officers of the hospital.

Dr. J. Mason W^arren, Dr. H. J. Bige-
low, and Dr. Samuel Parkman, who com-
pleted the group of surgeons, had been
recently appointed upon the surgical
staff. The first had already become
eminent as a surgeon and practitioner,
and in the former capacity had shovm
that the mantle of the father had fall-
en upon the son. Always scrupulously
particular as to the style and quality of
his dress, even his great attention to
these matters was not permitted to in-

522

THE FIRST CAPITAL OPERATION UNDER ETHER.

terfere with his professional duties,
which at this time were onerous. Slen-
der, and even frail in form, he was erect
and dignitied in his bearing, while his
countenance was expressive of a certain
intellectual keenness, and of genuine
sincerity. His amiability and pleasing
manners had made him a great favorite
with both sexes.

The other two gentlemen were both
tall and dignitied in person, and might
well be termed handsome. They had
both entered upon a career in their na-
tive city which promised excellent ad-
vantages to themselves, to their profes-
sion, and to the public at large. Dr. Big-
elow, in particular, had already shown
great executive ability, and in his dex-
terity and skill as an operator remind-
ed me of the most famous surgeons of
Europe.

These gentlemen, after their entrance,
were soon grouped together and earn-
estly engaged in a low-spoken conver-
sation upon a subject to which their at-
tention had been evidently called before
entrance. Suddenly, Dr. Bigelow left
the room, and after a few minutes reap-
peared, held a brief but animated collo-
quy with Drs. Warren, senior, and Hay-
ward, and again left. In explanation,
it may be said that Dr. Bigelow was
acting as an enthusiastic advocate for
the expected experiment, about which
it was apparent, even to the specta-
tors, that there was some obstacle ; and
it was not until the very last moment
that all scruples as to the course to
be pursued were overcome, and the ser-
vices of Morton, who was waiting in
another part of the hospital, and the
use of his compound, were determined
upon.

Dr. J. C. Warren advanced, and tak-
ing from his pocket a letter addressed
to him by Morton, read from its con-
tents. The reading of this letter added
to the interest of the listener, but by no
means explained the causes which had
led to its presentation, or its connection
with the subject which had been the
source of such earnest conversation be-
tween the surgeons ; and no intimation
was given to the audience by Dr. War-
ren as to the nature of the preparation
which was to be used for the pui-pose of

making the impending operation pain-
less.

And now the moment had fully ar-
rived. Scarcely had the tall clock on
the hospital stairway rung out the hour
of eleven, when the side-door of the op-
erating-theatre was widely opened, and
the stretcher, upon which was laid a
pale and emaciated girl of nineteen
years, was carefully borne in by the
united strength of two faithful ward-
tenders, and attended by the two house-
surgeons, Drs. C. F. Heywood and Al-
fred Lambert, the bright hectic flush
upon her cheeks contrasting strongly
with the white sheet which otherwise
enveloped her entire form.

Alice Mohan had been an inmate of
the Massachusetts General Hospital for
the past eighteen months. Two months
before her entrance, while walking on
the ice, she had fallen and struck upon
her right knee. She experienced con-
siderable pain at the time, which was
soon after followed by enlargement and
sensitiveness of the joint, with increased
suffering on motion of the limb. On
her admission to the hospital an ex-
amination of the joint revealed consid-
erable swelling and distinct fluctuation
at the side and below the knee-pan, as
also much tenderness on deep pressure.
She was placed in bed and ordered to
maintain perfect rest in a horizontal po-
sition, while various forms of local treat-
ment were adopted. Thus she contin-
ued for weeks and months, at times com-
paratively free from pain, and again in
much suffering. Gradually, however,
in spite of all measures suggested, hec-
tic and symptoms of constitutional dis-
turbance made their appearance. The
knee-joint having evidently become
greatly disorganized, her attending sur-
geons determined to amputate the hmb.

Such was the patient who was to un-
dergo the first capital operation under
the influence of an agent which was to
annihilate forever afterward the agonies
of surgery.

As all eyes were now fixed upon the
scene before them. Dr. George Hayward
stepped forward and remarked that,
with the advice of the other surgeons,
he should allow Mr. Morton to admin-
ister an article by inhalation to the pa-
tient upon whom he was about to oper-

THE FIRST CAPITAL OPERATION UNDER ETHER,

523

ate, which it was alleged would prevent
any pain from being felt.

Thereupon, Morton, a man of com-
manding figure and appearance, very
erect, and dressed, as he usually was,
in a stylish fashion peculiar to himself,
consisting of a blue frock coat with
brass buttons, a large and elegant scarf
which completely filled up the open
front of the waistcoat, " gaiter " trousers,
etc., and bearing in his hands the in-
strument already described, came in
from an adjacent room, and advancing
to the operating-table, spoke a few words
of encouragement to the patient and in-
structed her in the method of inhaling.
The curiosity on the part of all present
was intense. The stillness was oppres-
sive, broken only by the hurried respira-
tion and occasional sob of the patient.
Grouped about Morton, standing as the
central figure at the head of the operat-
ing-table, were the surgical and medical
officers of the institution, as also the at-
tendants, all as intent upon the unusual
scene before them as were the most un-
tried spectators in the seats of the am-
phitheatre.

In three minutes the patient was com-
pletely under the influence of the prep-
aration, as shown by the complete mus-
cular relaxation, the drooping eyelids,
the immobile pupil, and the deathlike
insensibility to external impressions.
Morton now informing Dr. Hayward
that his patient was ready, the assistants
drew her body down upon the table, so
that the lower limbs projected beyond
its edge, the right one being duly sup-
ported. Dr. J. Mason Warren com-
pressed the femoral artery at the groin.
Dr. Hayward, grasping the soft parts of
the front of the thigh, so as to bring
them well out from the bone, pushed the
long amputating knife through the flesh
from the outside, transfixing the whole
thickness of the thigh, and cutting out-
ward, formed an anterior flap. This be-
ing slightly lifted up by his assistant, he
then carried the knife in the same di-
rection which it first took, but behind
the bone, and again cutting outward,
formed the second flap from the posteri-
or surface of the thigh. The two flaps
were then retracted by one of the sur-
geons while the bone was sawed. A
slight un evenness of the bone remaining.

was made smooth by the bone-forcejjs.
The principal artery was then secured
by ligature, and four others were placed
upon bleeding points. The loss of blood
was very small. A compress, dipped
in cold water, and retained in place by
a few turns of a roller bandage over
the stump, was the only dressing ap-
plied. The amputation occupied less
than two minutes, not including the
time consumed in tying the arteries.
Dr. Hayward said afterward that he j^er-
formed the operation rapidly, as he
feared the insensibility might pass off,
and that there were no means of contin-
uing it as long as it might be desirable.

During the operation the patient re-
mained in the most profound sleep,
evincing not the slightest sensibility
to pain until the tightening of the last
ligature, when she uttered a groan, and
then soon returned to partial conscious-
ness. She was ignorant of the loss of
her limb, and could hardly be persuaded
of the fact.

The operation completed, and even
before the removal of the patient from
the room, the profound stillness and
suspense which had hung over all pres-
ent, was broken by loud murmurs of
surprise and admiration at the success
which had been attained. Morton was
the hero of the hour, and was regarded
with feelings akin to those which might
have been awakened had an angel sud-
denly appeared, bearing waters from
" the Lethean streams of oblivion,"
which having been administered to the
suffering invalid, had produced the ef-
fects witnessed.

As the long procession passed out and
down the hospital stairways, everyone
was earnestly engaged in discussing the
events of the past hour. The nature of
the anodyne and its discoverer, the suc-
cess of the operation under its influence,
the operator, the patient, the cause of
the long and mysterious discussion
among the surgeons — each of these top-
ics came in for its due share of atten-
tion. However much they may have
differed on minor points, it was conced-
ed that this was a demonstration which,
from its magnitude, would carry to the
scientific world a conviction, not mere-
ly of a possibility, but of the certainty,
safety, and the completeness of the in-

524

THE FIRST CAPITAL OPERATION UNDER ETHER.

seDsibility capable of bein^r produced
during the severest surgical procedures.
And with this conviction uppermost in
their minds, the witnesses of the scene
which I have imperfectly described, sep-
arated to their various avocations, little
realizing then the value of the gift be-
stowed upon mankind, and which can
hardly now, even after the lapse of near-
ly half a century, be sufficiently appre-
ciated.

A glance at the Hospital records of
that date informs me that, after the pa-
tient was brought down and placed in
her bed, she complained of great pain in
the knee and foot which had been re-
moved, but that at two o'clock in the
afternoon she revived, talked very pleas-
antly, and asked for some tea, which was
given her. From this period her recov-
ery was rapid. Her wound healed read-

ily, her general health improved, and,
on December twenty - second, she was
discharged *' well."

It will be remembered that the first
operation in which the attempt to ad-
minister sulphuric ether at the Massa-
chusetts General Hospital, was not con-
sidered by the operator a complete
success. This memorable incident in
the history of anaesthesia has, however,
been made the subject of a large paint-
ing, executed by the distinguished ar-
tist, Mr. Samuel Hinckley, of Washing-
ton, D. C. This work of art, both from
the importance of its subject as well as
from the merits of the painting itself,
were it exhibited at the approaching
Chicago Exhibition, would remind the
beholders that the discovery of surgical
anaesthesia is one of the glories which
belong to the New World.

it*

Do"

THE POINT OF VIEW,

One of Mr. Henrj James's amusing and
incisive bits of humor is the reply of the
immortal Daisy Miller's young cub of a
brother to the inquisitive and supercilious
hero of the tale, who asks him if his father
is in Rome. " My father's in a better place
than Rome," he says scornfully ; "he is in
Schenectady, N. Y." A longo intervallo, cer-
tainly, for the Empire, can hardly as yet be
compared with the Eternal, City, this re-
mark was duplicated by one of the thou-
sands of young ladies who attended the
Christian Endeavor Convention recently,
and who observed candidly and impartially
to an inquiring reporter: "New York is
very nice, of course, but it's not Minneapo-
lis." Another member of the Society, " hail-
ing from " Omaha, Neb., admitted candidly
that New York was " way ahead " of Omaha.
Perhaps, nevertheless, he preferred Omaha.
It was a happy newspai^er idea to cull from
visitors from all over the country their im-
pression of what is sometimes, though evi-
dently most erroneously, called the Metropo-
lis of the New World. They were unani-
mous in asserting that New York had clean
streets, and that its citizens were extremely
polite. The only "rudeness," one lady re-
marked, was a conductor's prohibition of
singing hymns in the street-car as likely to
frighten the horses. Plainly there are parts
of our country where car-horses have fewer
nerves, where the streets are less clean, and
public manners less courteous than in New
York.

These inductions have their significance ;
but what, I think, is especially to be noted
in the comments of the visiting Eudeavor-
VoL. XII.— 57

ers, is the fact which they indirectly attest,,
of the remarkable number of different cen-
tres of communal life in America. If we
are justly accused of lacking public spirit,
we can at least plead that we possess local
pride in a degree approached by no other
people in the world, except jDossibly the
Italians. It is, however, within a genera-
tion that Italy has been more than Metter-
nich's "geographical expression," and the
history, memories, mutual jealousies and
rivalries of her different ^^rovinces are cen-
turies old and centuries deej^ly embedded.
Such a moral decentralization as our own in
a nation as completely a nation as ours is
really a new thing under the sun. A per-
fect reflection of the Constitution, with its
carefully distributed functions of State and
Federal authority, is conspicuous in the sen-
timents of our people. When a young ladv
remarks that New York is very nice, but
that, of course, it is not Minneapolis, it is
l^lain that, however ardent her patriotism as
an American, it is strongly alloyed with a
very particular pride and satisfaction in her
own immediate environment, and that this
results from her feeling herself very integ-
rally a part of it. A citizen — not to men-
tion a young lady — of Lyons or Birming-
ham, for example, who should thus ex-
l)ress his j)i"ide in, and preference for, his
native city as contrasted with Paris or Lon-
don would be an anomaly. A reputation
for critical appreciation is probably more
valued abroad than with us, and perhajos
acts as a check on the innate disposition to
magnify everything with which one is in-
timately connected.

526

THE POINT OF VIEW.

This attitude of mind may be accused of
provincialism, if one chooses ; but it is in-
dicative of a certain objective ideality thor-
oughly public-spirited, personally unself-
ish, and, at least in the case of young
unmarried women, wholly admirable. It
is probably a choice between this and noth-
ing, indeed ; either one must think well,
hotly even, of Minneapolis, or else not oc-
cupy one's self with the res yuhlicce at all, in
which case one is a waif, a drifting, inconse-
quent, and irresponsible member of the
body social and politic. And undoubtedly
it is the great distinction of what we all
mean by America, to have so few citizens as
we have who take no personal interest in
the mechanism of which they are mem-
bers. At the same time one must note
the other side of this unquestionable ad-
vantage. Our social decentralization re-
tards tremendously the development of the
American tyj^e. It handicaps us in this re-
spect with the loss of that most potent of
all forces in this s]3here, namely, insensible
co-operation. If Omaha and Minneapolis
are preoccupied with self-assertion — in it-
self of course an admirable sign of conscious
and alert life— they are, in very much the
proportion of their alertness and activity,
drags upon whatever advance has been
made outside their limits. Chicago, for
example, talks about "the effete East,"
meaning the acme of whatever civilization
has been reached on this continent, and not
at all because Chicago has anything new in
the way of endeavor or accomplishment to
hold out as an example — such as America
entire has in references to " effete Euroi^e,"
even— but purely out of local jDride. I re-
member hearing a distinguished French
actress complain that there was no Ameri-
can public to be conquered or conciliated.
" If I have won New York or Boston," she
said,, "that seems to be just so much
against my chances of winning Philadelphia,
or even Cincinnati." In a word, the disad-
vantage of provincialism is, that in propor-
tion to its force and its highly laudable
(though a little uncritical) self-respect it
keeps whatever metropolitanism there is
marking time until it catches up with it.

A coNTEMPOEAKY obscrver announces, as
a result of notice taken, that some men have
morals, and others principles. Of course

it happens occasionally that people have
both, as others again have neither ; but, ac-
cording to the exj^erience of the obsei'ver
in question, such cases are more or less ex-
ceptional. He cites instances of i)oliticians,
the most scmpulous in their private prac-
tices, and most unprincipled in their politi-
cal acts, and contrasts them with other poli-
ticians of the severest political morality but
not immaculate in all their personal rela-
tions. There are so many cases of emi-
nently moral men who lacked political vir-
tue, and so many more of immoral men who
had it, that historical research can easily
take such a turn as to leave the seeker
wondering whether there is not something
about private morality which is incompati-
ble with successful cultivation of state-craft.
What is true in that direction is that there
is probably something about ordinary do-
mestic felicity which is hostile to political
success, for the simjole reason that a man
with a family to live with, and probably to
support, can give only a divided attention
to politics, and politics is a game which
demands the concentration of the whole
man. The most successful politicians of re-
cent times with some exceptions have been
bachelors, childless married men, and hus-
bands whose homes were not happy. Celi-
bacy is at least as desirable in a politician
as in a priest, the main difference being that
whereas it is useful to a priest as long as
he is a priest, there may come to a politician
a time when the storm and stress j)eriod of
his career is so distinctly over, that he might
as well get married as not.

Apart from politics and its professors
there are several reasons why principles are
more apt to ai)pear as a substitute for mor-
als than to accompany them. For one, a
man whose daily walk is discreet, and who
behaves wisely and knows it, acquires con-
fidence in his instincts, and is reasonably
well satisfied that he does about the right
thing, and that his conduct in future is
likely to be as correct as it has been in the
past. A principle is a fixed opinion, but
your moral man, who has confidence in his
habits, is apt to be guided very much more
by them than by his opinions, A conse-
quence of which often is that his habits
gain in strength until they get undesirably
powerful, and his opinions grow vague for
lack of practical demonstration. The more

THE POINT OF VIEW.

527

fixed his moral habits become, the more in-
stinctive grows his behavior, and the less
occasion he has to reason as to what is right
or wrong, or to develop opinions into \)y\\\-
ciples.

But with the man of no morals it is very
different. Eealizing his large x>otentiality
for loose behavior, recognizing the unrelia-
bility of his instincts, and knowing that such
habits as he has are mostly bad, he feels the
uncertainty of his anchorages, and the great
need of having some sure thing to tie to.
"Whatever worse things he may do, he de-
termines that at least he will approve the
better. A sinner he may be, but not an
unprincipled sinner. He will know right
from wrong anyhow, whether he acts upon
what he knows or not. Prompted by such
necessities he pays attention to his opinions,
taking care to hold those most approved,
to hold them continuously, and to support
them by the best arguments obtainable.
The fact that he does not permit his be-
havior to affect his principles, or vice versa,
frees him from many embarrassments that
w'ould be incident to a different system.
The consequence is that his principles con-
stantly increase in height and splendor, un-
til the man of mere morals, hearing him
hold forth, feels his knees knock together
at the thought of his own inferiority.

If any one doubts that it works this
way, a convincing illustration is found in a
general comparison of men with women.
Women are absurdly superior to men in
their morals, but only an adventurous dis-
putant would deny that men have stricter
and more definite principles.

Students valorous for a minute and intri-
cate inquiry might find a subject to their
liking in the relative picturesqueness now
and formerly of common English speech.
That it now very generally lacks pictu-
resqueness, any one at all sensitive to the
qualities of speech must feel. There is
playfulness enough and gravity enough in
the best talk that one hears ; and there is,
as a rule, grammatical correctness and verb-
al precision. But somehow the best as well
as the worst lacks distinction ; it rarely ex-
hibits the least individuality or vividness
of phrase. It is lustreless, lifeless ; and
often oppresses the spirits by its many-syl-

labledness, like six- storied warehouses in
contrast with nestling cottages.

The novelists recognize this and are em-
barrassed by it. Constantly they incur the
reproach of making their people speak as
the like people in life are never heard to
speak. Yet the stoutest naturalist of them
dare not herein reproduce nature exactly.
To impart distinction to the talk and still
keep it to a tone that shall raise in the read-
er's thoughts no question of naturalness or
unnaturalness, is an end they must all aim
at ; and the frequency of the reproach of
unnaturalness only shows how nice is the
task set them.

Hitherto they have found their most ser-
viceable instrument for saving talk from
the dulness of nature to be the apothegm.
From Sancho Panza downward, the home-
ly personages in fiction have been uncon-
scionable maxim-mongers. Metaphor and
simile smacking of the speaker's calling and
station, have served a good term too ; but
they are not to be named for extent of ser-
vice beside the apothegm. How often, from
its abundance in this one article, the novel's
marriage feast (reversing the order of the
Hamlet cuisine) has coldly furnished forth
a funereal collation of '' Wise Sayings " or
" Gems of Thought ! "

Now, was there not once a golden age
when writers of fiction were not forced to
this expedient ? There never was a time
when they did not employ it, and they em-
ployed it formerly with a much larger li-
cense than they do now. The early dram-
atists, for example, show a daring in the
larding of lean conversation with apothegm
that the most lawless modern novelist would
never dream of. Still, is there not reason
to believe that with those who have taken
the liberty most largely it was really need-
less, and that they migM have reproduced
the talk of their day closely and still have
kept their dialogue sufiiciently picturesque ?

Indeed, with the early dramatists this
very riot in apothegm was in a measure the
reproduction of real speech. It was the
reproduction of a polite affectation, how-
ever ; and, as a polite affectation is always
of narrow and short vogue, the rei^roduc-
tion affords only a partial picture of the
common speech of the time. W^e may not
infer, therefore, from the dialogue of the
early dramatists that all men, or most men.

528

THE POINT OF yiElV.

in Elizabeth's day spoke in apothegms.
But, then, neither need we infer from the
profusion of the dramatists herein that the
common sj^eech of the day would not have
done for literature quite unadorned. All
that the profusion unequivocally proves is
that the dramatists themselves were dom-
inated by the jjolite affectation. And, in
truth, so completely dominated by it were
they, that some characters set up by them
to exhibit it ridiculously are scarcely dis-
tinguishable from those j^resented for al-
together admirable. Thus Polonius in
" Hamlet " is no more of a saw-maker than
the Duke in " Measure for Measure " and a
much fluenter and pleasanter one. Yet
Polonius, we are given by Shakespeare to
understand, is a tedious coxcomb, while
the Duke is a paragon.

In short, the Elizabethan drama leaves
one, in respect of the common speech of its
day, about where it finds one. And so, in
respect of the common speech of its day,
does any fraction of imaginative litei'ature.
Little sure inference of the one is ever pos-
sible from the other. None the less, we
cannot read far in the history and literature
of the Elizabethan and the succeeding Pu-
ritan age without, if not finding, at least
fancying, in the common speech of those
ages a natural sweetness and felicity alto-
gether gone from the common speech of
ours. Whether it be anything more than
fancy, anything but another bit of obscur-
ing time's beguilement, must be left for
positive ascertainment to whomsoever will.
The function undertaken here is but to
suggest an inquiry, not to conduct one.
We will extend it so far, however, as to cite
in a word the evidence of the old prov-
erbs. They are certainly folk-lore, not book-
lore ; the flowerings of the common speech.
Does one to-day detect any notable prov-
erb-making in progress at his very ear ?

I AM aware that it is idle to advertise for
new words, but I wish that mysterious in-

ventor and arbiter of language, the " man in
the Street," could be induced to produce or
discover a few terms that would enable us
accurately and briefly to describe in Eng-
lish the varieties of pleasantry. Whatever
may be true of the transatlantic branch of
the family, I think that pleasantry does
not shine by its absence in the talk of
Americans above a certain level of intelli-
gence. But the word in which I have em-
braced its several forms is vague enough,
and unsatisfactory ; and for the various
forms themselves there are, so far as I
am aware, no very definite terms what-
ever.

M. Francisque Sarcey, who joins with the
learning of a professor the keenness of the
critic and the ample current observation and
exjDcrience of the journalist, has recently re-
published a little volume, written in 1860,
entitled "Le Mot et la Chose." It is in-
tended to show how both words and things
have changed since the seventeenth, or even
the eighteenth century, and among the in-
stances of evolution he cites is that of the
" mot." Neither the thing nor the term
was known, he thinks, a hundred years
ago. Then there were, as there now are,
the "bon-mot;" the "mot de caractere,"
the charm of which is the unconscious rev-
elation of character ; the " mot de situa-
tion," which i^leases by its betrayal of an
unsuspected incongruity of relation, etc.
But there was not then, as there is now,
the "mot," the intended witticism, charged
with "malice," which the author enjoys,
and in which he may properly feel a mod-
est satisfaction. How should I, how would
my readers, render what is so delicately
and comj)letely rendered by this term ? I
recently heard a jDcrson who concluded an
ill-temiDered and unfair tirade against an
absent acquaintance with the remark, " I
simply express myself," silenced by the
response, "You do." M. Sarcey would de-
scribe that response as a " mot." What is
it in Euerlish ?

VICTOR HUGO.
[From tlie portrait by S. Pannemaker. Engraved by G. Kruell.]

SCRiBNER's Magazine.

Vol. XII.

NOVEMBER, 1892.

Xu. 5.

THE GRAND CANAL

'By Henry James.

The Illustrations by Alexander Zezzos.

The honor of represent-
ing" the plan and the place
at their best might perhaps
appear, in the city of St.
Mark, properly to belong to
the splendid square which
bears the pati'on's name, and
which is the centre of Vene-
tian life so far (this is prett}'
well all the way indeed), as
Venetian life is a matter of
strolling and chaffering, of
gossiping and gaping, of cir-
culating without a purpose,
and of staring — too often
with a foolish one — through
the shop- windows of dealers
whose hospitality makes
their doorsteps dramatic, at
the very vulgarest rubbish
in all the modern market.
If the Grand Canal, however,
is not quite technically a
" street," the perverted Pi-
azza is 2)erhaps e\ei\ less of
one ; and I hasten to add
that I am glad not to find
myself studying my subject
under the international ar-
cades, or even (I will go the
length of saying) in the sol-
emn presence of the church.-
For indeed, in that case, I
foresee I^ should become even more path of the lover of Venice who rashly
confoundingly conscious of the stum- addresses himself to exjiression. " Ve-
bling-])l()ck that inevitably, even witli netian life " is a mere literary conven-
his first few words, crops up in the tion, even though it be an indispensable

Copyright, 1S93, by Charles Scnbner's Sons. All rights reserved.

The Grand Canal from a Terrace.

532

THE GRAND CANAL.

figure. The words have })laye(l an el- It lias no flowers in its hands, Ijiit as a
fective '^nvi in the literature of sensi- compensation, perhaps — and the thing
bility ; they constituted, thirty years is doubtless more to the point — it has
a^o, the title of Mr, Howells's deli^i^htful money and little red l^ooks. The ever-
volunie of ini2)ressions ; but in using lastin<^ shuffle, in the Piazza, of these
them to-day one owes some frank irresponsil)le yisitors is contemporary
amends to one's own lucidity. Let me Venetian life. Everything- else is only
carefully premise, therefore, that so of- a reverberation of that. The vast mau-
ten as they shall again drop from my soleum has a turnstile at the door, and
pen, so often shall I beg to be regarded a functionary in a shabby uniform lets
as systematically superficial. you in, as per tariff, to see how dead it

Venetian life, in the large old sense, is. From this con^tatation, this cold
has long since come to an end, and the curiosity, proceed all the industry, the
essential present character of the most prosperity, the vitality of the place,
melancholy of cities resides simply in The shopkeepers and gondoliers, the
its being the most beautiful of tombs, beggars and the models, depend upon

it for a living ; they are
the custodians and the
ushers of the great mu-
seum — they are even
themselves to a certain
extent the objects on
exhibition. It is in the
wide vestibule of the
square that the poly-
glot pilgrims gather
most densely ; Piazza
San Marco is like the
lobby of the opera in
the intervals of the per-
formance. The present
fortune of Venice, the
lamentable difference,
is most easily measured
there, and that is 'svhy,
-. . in the effort to resist
our pessimism, we must
turn aw^ay both from
the purchasers and
from the venders of ri-
cordi. The ricordi that
we prefer are gathered
best where the gondola
glides — best of all on
the noble waterway that
begins in its glory at
the Salute and ends in
its abasement at the
^ railway station. It is,

Ganzer— a Retired Boatman who Assists Gondolas at Landing-places. llOWever, the COCkuey-

fied Piazzetta (forgive

Nowhere else has the past been laid to me, shade of St. Theodore — has not a

rest with such tenderness, such a sad- brand new cafe begun to glare there,

ness of resignation and remembrance, electrically, this very year ?) that intro-

. Nowhere else is the present so alien, so duces us most directly to the great

discontinuous, so like a crowd in a cem- picture by Avliich the Grand Canal

etery without garlands for the graves, works its first spell, and to wdiich a

134

THE GRAND CANAL

thousand artists, not always witli a tal-
ent apiece, have paid their tril)nte. We
pass into the Piazzetta to look down
the <2^reat throat, as it were, of Venice,
and the vision must console us for
turnin<j: our backs on St. Mark's.

We have been treated to it a^'-ain and
again, of course, even if we have never

wide steps disposc'd on the <^round like
the train of a robe. This fine air of the
woman of the world is carried out by
the well-bred assurance with which she
looks in the direction of her old-fash-
ioned Byzantine neighbor ; and the jux-
taposition of two churches so distin-
guished and so different, each splendid

A Girl of the People.

stirred from home ; but that is only a
reason the more for catching at any
freshness that may be left in the w^orlcl
of photography. It is in Venice, above
all, that we hear the small buzz of this
vulgarizing voice of the familiar ; yet
perhaps it is in Venice, too, that the
picturesque fact has best mastered
the pious secret of how to wait for us.
Even the classic Salute waits, like some
great lady on the threshold of her saloon.
She is more ample and serene, more
seated at her door, than all the copyists
have told us, with her domes and scrolls,
her scolloped buttresses and statues
forming a pompous crown, and her

in its sort, is a sufficient mark of the
scale and range of Venice. How^ever,
we ourselves are looking a^vay from St.
Mark's — we must blind our eyes to that
dazzle ; without it, indeed, there are
brightnesses and fascinations enough.
AVe see them in abundance, even while
we look a^vay from the shady steps of the
Salute. These steps are cool in the
morning, yet I don't know that I can
justify my excessive fondness for them
any better than I can exj^lain a hundred
of the other vague infatuations with
which Venice sophisticates the spirit.
Under such an influence, fortunately,
one needn't explain — it keejis account

THE GRAND CANAL.

585

of notliinj;* but perceptions and affec-
tions. It is from the Salute steps, per-
haps, of a summer mornin<^', that this
view of the open mouth of the city is
most brilliantly amusint>-. The whole
thing composes as if composition were
the cliief end of human instituti(^ns.
The charming' architectural promontory
of the Dogana stretches out the most
graceful of arms, balancing in its hand
the gilded globe on which revolves the
delightful satirical figure of a little
weathercock of a woman. This For-
tune, or Navigation, or whatever she
is called — she surely needs no name —
catches the wind in the bit of drapery
of which she has divested her rotary
bronze loveliness. On the other side
of the Canal twinkles and glitters the
long row of the hapj^y palaces which
are mainl}' expensive hotels. There is

liypocritical loveliness, for the stranger
and the victim, I call them happy be-
cause even their sordid uses and their
vulgar signs melt somehow, with tlndr
vague sea-stained pinks and drabs, into
that strange gayety of light and color
wlii(th is made up of the reflection of
superannuated things. The atmos-
pliere plays over them like a laugh, they
are of the essence of the sad old joke.
They are almost as charming from
other places as they are from their
own balconies, and share fully in that
universal privilege of Venetian objects
which consists of being both the picture
and the point of view.

This double character, which is par-
ticularly strong in the Grand Canal,
adds a difficulty to any control of one's
notes. The Grand Canal may be prac-
tically, as an impression, the cushioned

A Moonlight Serenade — at the Rialto Bridge.

a little of everything everywhere, in balcony of a high and well-loved palace

the bright Venetian air, but to these — the memory of irresistible evenings,

houses belongs especially the appear- of the sociable elbow, of endless linger-

ance of sitting, across the water, at the ing and looking ; or it may evoke the

receipt of custom, of watching, in their restlessness of a fresh curiosity, of me-

636

THE GRAND CANAL.

thodical inquiry, in fi j^'-ondola jailed
with references. There are no refer-
ences, I on<;ht to mention, in the pres-
ent remarks, ■which sacrifice to acci-
dent, not to conii)leteness. A rhap-
sody on Venice is ahvays in order, but
I think the catah)<j:ues are finished. I
shoukl not attempt to write here the
names of all the palaces, even if the
number of those I find m^^self able
to remember were less insignificant.
There are many that I delight in that
I don't know, or at least that I don't
keep, apart. Then there are the bad
reasons for preference that are bet-
ter than the good, and all the sweet
bribery of association and recollection.
These things, as one stands on the Sa-
lute steps, are so many delicate fingers
to pick straight out of the row a clear
little featureless house which, wdth its
pale green shutters, looks straight
across at the great door and through
the very keyhole, as it were, of the
church, and which I needn't call by a
name — a pleasant American name —
that everyone in Venice, these many
years, has had on grateful lips. It is
the very friendliest house in all the
wide world, and it has, as it deserves
to have, the most beautiful position.
It is a real jyoiio di mare, as the gon-
doliers say — a j^oi't within a port ; it
sees everything that comes and goes,
and takes it all in with practised eyes.
Not a tint or a hint of the immense iri-
descence is lost upon it, and there are
days of exquisite color on which it may
fancy itself the heart of the w^onderful
prism. We wave to it, from the Salute
steps, which we must decidedly leave
if we wish to get on, a grateful hand
across the water, and turn into the big
white church of Longhena — an empty
shaft beneath a perfunctory dome —
wdiere an American family and a Ger-
man party, huddled in a corner upon
a pair of benches, are gazing, with a
conscientiousness Avorthy of a better
cause, at nothing in particular.

For there is nothing j^articular, in
this cold and conventional temple, to
gaze at save the great Tintoretto of
the sacristy, to which we quickly pay
our respects, and which we are glad to
have, for ten minutes, to ourselves.
The picture though full of beauty, is

not the finest of the master's ; but it
serves again as well as another to
transport (there is no other word)
those of his lovers for whom, in far-
away years when Venice was an early
rapture, this strange and mystifpng
painter was almost the supreme reve-
lation. The plastic arts may have less
to say to us than in the hungry years
of 3^outh, and the celebrated picture,
in general, be more of a blank ; but
more than the others any fine Tintoret
still carries us back, calling up not only
the rich particular vision but the fresh-
ness of the old wonder. Many things
come and go, biit this great artist re-
mains for us, in Venice, a part of the
company of the mind. The others are
there in their ol)vious glory, but he is
the only one for whom the imagination,
in our expressive modern phrase, sits
up. The Marriage in Cana, at the Sa-
lute, has all his characteristic and fas-
cinating unexpectedness — the sacrifice
of the figure of our Lord, wdio is re-
duced to the mere final point of a
clever perspective, and the free, joyous
presentation of all the other elements
of the feast. Why, in spite of this
queer one-sidedness, does the picture
give us no impression of a lack of w4iat
the critics call reverence ? For no
other reason that I can think of than
because it happens to be the work of
its author, in whose very mistakes there
is a singular wisdom. Mr. Ruskin has
spoken with sufficient eloquence of the
serious loveliness of the row of heads
of the women, on the right, who talk
to each other as the}" sit at the fore-
shortened banquet. There could be
no better example of the roving in-
dependence of the painter's vision, a
real spirit of adventure, for which his
subject was always a cluster of acci-
dents ; not an obvious order, but a sort
of peopled and agitated chapter of life,
in which the figures are submissiA'e pic-
torial notes. These notes are all there,
in their beauty and heterogeneity, and
if the abundance is of a kind to make
the principle of selection seem in com-
parison timid, yet the sense of "com-
position," in the spectator (if it hap-
pen to exist), reaches out to the j^ainter
in j)eciiliar sympathy. Dull must be
the spirit of the worker tormented, in

THE GRAND CANAL.

any licld of art, with that particular
question, Avho is not moved to recog-
nize, in the eternal problem, the hi<^li
fellowship of Tintoretto.

If the lon^^ reach from this point to
the deplorable iron brid<2^e which dis-
charges the pedestrian at the Academy
— or, more comprehensively, to the
jjainted and gilded Gothic of the noble
Palazzo Foscari — is too much of a curve
to be seen at any one point as a whole,
it represents the better the arched
neck, as it were, of the undulating ser-
pent of W'liich the Canalazzo has the
likeness. AVe pass a dozen historic
houses, we note in our passage a hun-
dred component "bits," with the baf-
fled sketcher's sense, and with what
would doubtless be, save for our in-
tensely Venetian fatalism, the baffled
sketcher's temper. It is the early pal-
aces, of course, and also, to be fair, some
of the late, if we could take them one by
one, that give the Canal the best of its

ages and the generations have worked
their will upon them, and the wind and
the weather have had much to say ; but
disfigured and dishonored as they are,
with the bruises of their marbles and
the 2)atience of their ruin, there is
nothing like them in the world, and
the long succession of their faded, con-
scious faces makes of the quiet water-
way they overhang a promenade histo-
rique of which the lesson, how^ever often
Ave read it, gives, in the depth of its in-
terest, an incomparable dignity to Ven-
ice. We read it in the Romanesque
arches, crooked to-day in their very
curves, of the early middle-age, in the
exquisite individual Gothic of the splen-
did time, and in the cornices and col-
umns of a decadence almost as proud.
These things at j)resent are almost
equally touching in their good faith,
they have each in their degree so effect-
ually parted with their pride. They
have lived on as they could and lasted

Dinner-time — Type of Gondolier.

grand air. The fairest are often cheek as they might, and we hold them to no

by jowl with the foulest, and there are account of their infirmities, for even

few, alas, so fair as to have been com- those of them whose blank eyes, to-

pletely protected by their beauty. The day, meet criticism with most submis-

THE GRAND CANAL.

539

sioii, are far less vul<i,ar than the uses
we have iJiaiiily iiiaiiaj^ed to put them
to. We have botched them and 2)atehed
them and covered them with sordid
signs ; we have restored and improved
them with a merciless taste, and the

tlieni up for you," say these honest
Jews, whose prices are marked in dol-
lars, " and who shall hlame us if, the
Howcu-s being pretty well plucked, we
add an artificial rose or tw^o to enhance
the bouquet V " They take care, in a

Fishmongers.

best of them we have made over to the
peddlers. Some of the most striking
objects in the finest vistas, at present,
are the huge advertisements of the cu-
riosity-slioj^s.

The antiquity - mongers, in Venice,
have all the courage of their opinion,
and it is easy to see how well they
know they can confound you with an
unanswerable question. What is the
whole place but a curiosity-shop, and
w^liat are you here for yourself but to
pick up odds and ends ? " We pick

word, that there be plenty of relics,
and their establishments are huge and
active. They administer the antidote
to pedantry, and you can complain of
them only if you never cross their
thresholds. If you take this step you
are lost, for 3'ou have parted with the
correctness of your attitude. Venice
becomes, frankly, from such a moment,
the big, depressing, dazzling joke in
which, after all, our sense of her con-
tradictions siidvs to rest — the grimace
of an overstrained philosoph}'. It's

540

THE GRAND CANAL

rather a comfort, for the euriosity-
sliops are aiiiusing'. You liave had
inomeiits, indeed, as you stand in their
halls of humbug-, and, in the intervals
of lia,in'<i:lin,ij:, hear, tlirou<i^]i the hi<^h
Avindows, the soft j^lasli of the sea on
the old water-steps, for you tliink witli

intensified, hy real jiarticiiiation. If
you have had tlie <^ood fortune to en-
joy the lios2)itality of an old Venetian
home, and to lead your life a little in
tlie painted chand)ers that still echo
with one of the historic names, you
have entered by the shortest step into

Entrance of the Grand Canal.

anger of the noble homes that -are laid
waste in such scenes, of the delicate
lives that must have been, that might
still be, led there. You reconstruct the
admirable house according to your own
needs ; leaning on a back balcony you
drop your eyes into one of the little
green gardens with wiiich, for the most
part, such establishments are exasper-
atingl}^ blessed, and end by feeling it a
shame that you yourself are not in pos-
session. (I take for granted, of course,
that as you go and come you are, in
imagination, perpetually lodging your-
self and setting up your gods ; for if
this innocent pastime, this borrowing
of the mind, is not your favorite sport,
there is a flaw in the appeal that Ven-
ice makes to you.) There may be hap-
py cases in which your envy is tem-
pered, or j^erhaps I should rather say

the inner spirit of the place. If it didn't
savor of treachery to j^i'i^^ate kindness,
I should like to speak frankly of one
of these delightful, even though alien-
ated, structures, to refer to it as a
splendid example of the old palatial
type. But I can only do so in jjassing,
with a hundred precautions, and, lift-
ing the curtain at the edge, droj) a
commemorative Avord on the success
with which, in this particularly happy
instance, the cosmopolitan habit, the
modern sympathy, the intelligent, flex-
ible attitude, the latest fruit of time,
adjust themselves to the great, gilded,
relinquished shell, and try to fill it out.
A Venetian palace that has not too
grossly suffered, and that is not over-
whelming by its mass, makes almost
any life graceful that may be led in it.
With cultivated and generous contem-

THE GRAND CANAL

541

porary ways it reveals a pre-cstablislied suinincr afternoon, lor instance, when

harmony. As you live in it, day after the call of playing children comes in

dav its beauty and its interest sink more behind from the campo, nor the way

deeply into your spirit ; it has its moods the old ghosts seemed to pass on tip-

.^^^^V'^rr^'*^*^

The Bridge of the Rialto.

and its hours, and its mystic voices, and
its shifting expressions. If in the ab-
sence of its masters j^ou have happened
to have it to yourself for twenty-four
hours, you will never forget the charm
of its haunted stillness, late on the

toe on the marble floors. It gives you
practically the essence of the matter
that we are considering, for beneath
the high balconies Venice comes and
goes, and the pai-ticular stretch you
command contains all the characteris-

542

THE GRAND CANAL,

tics. Everytliiiiu' lias its turn, from the
lieavy barges of lucrcliaiidise, pushed
by long i)oles from the patient shoul-
der, to the floatin<^- pavilions of the great
serenades, and you may study at your
leisure the admirable Venetian arts of
managing a boat and organizing a spec-
tacle. Of the beautiful free stroke with
"which the gondola, esi)ecially when there
are two oars, is impelled, you never,
in the Venetian scene, grow weary ; it
is always in the picture, and the large,
profiled action with which the stand-
ing rowers tlirow^ themselves forward
with a constant recovery has the double
value of being, at the fag-end of great-

nursery-maid pushing her small charges
in a i)('raijd)iilator.

But why should I risk too free a
comparison where this picturesque and
amiable class are concerned? I delight
in their sunburnt complexions and their
childish dialect ; I know them only by
their merits, and I am grossly i)reju-
diced in their favor. They are inter-
esting and touching, and alike in their
virtues and their defects human nature
is simplified, as with a big effective
brush. Affecting above all is their de-
pendence on the stranger, the whimsi-
cal stranger who swims out of their
ken, yet whom Providence sometimes

r >j

'.t:\;,l

Traghetto — a Passageway of the Grand Canal.

ness, the only energetic note. The peo-
ple from the hotels are always afloat,
and, at the hotel-pace, the solitary gon-
dolier (like the solitary horseman of
the old-fashioned novel) is, I confess, a
somewhat melancholy figure. Perched
on his poop without a mate, he re-en-
acts i^erpetually, in high relief, with his
toes turned out, the comedy of his odd
and charming movement. He always
has a little the look of an absent-minded

restores. The best of them, at any rate,
are in their line great artists. On the
swarming feast-days, on the strange
feast - night of the Redentore, their
steering is a miracle of ease. The mas-
ter-hands, the celebrities and winners
of prizes (you may see them on the
private gondolas in spotless white, with
brilliant sashes and ribbons, and often
Avith very handsome persons), take the
right of way with a pardonable inso-

THE GRAND CANAL.

543

Vaporetto — Small Passenger Steamer on the Grand Canal

lence. Tliey penetrate the crush of
boats with an authority of their own.
The crush of boats, the universal soci-
able bumping and squeezing", is great
when, on the summer-nights, the ladies
shriek with alarm, the city pays the
fiddlers, and the illuminated barges,
scattering music and song, lead a long
train down the Canal. The barges
used to be rowed in rhythmic strokes,
but now they are towed by the steamer.
The colored lam23s, the vocalists before
the hotels, are not, to my sense, the
greatest seduction of Venice ; but it
would be an uncandid sketch of tlie
Canalazzo that should not touch them
with indulgence. Taking one nuisance
with another, they are j)robably the
prettiest in the world ; and if they
have, in general, more magic for the
new arrival than for the old Venice-
lover, they at all events, at their best,
keep up the immemorial tradition. The
Venetians have had, from the begin-
ning of time, the pride of their pro-
cessions and spectacles, and it's a won-
der how, with empty pockets, they still
make a clever show. The carnival is
dead, but these are the scraps of its
inheritance. Vauxhall on the water is

of course more Vauxhall than ever,
with the good fortune of home-made
music, and of a mirror that redupli-
cates and multiplies. The feast of the
Redeemer — the great popular feast of
the 3^ear — is a wonderful Venetian
Vauxhall. All Venice, on this occa-
sion, takes to the boats for the night,
and loads them with lamps and pro-
visions. Wedged together in a mass,
it sups and sings ; every boat is a float-
ing arbor, a j^rivate cafe-concert. Of
all Christian commemorations it is the
most ingenuously and harmlessh' pa-
gan. Toward morning the passengers
repair to the Lido, where, as the sun
rises, they plunge, still sociably, into
the sea. The night of the Redentore
has been described, but it would be
interesting to have an account, from
the domestic point of view, of its usual
morrow. It is mainly an aftair of the
Giudecca, however, which is bridged
over from the Zattere to the great
church. The pontoons are laid to-
gether during the day — it is all done
with extraordinary celerity and art —
and the bridge is j^rolonged across the
Canalazzo (to Santa 3Iaria Zobenigo),
which is my only warrant for glancing

o

THE GRAND CANAL . 545

at the occasion. We glance at it from short way further down the Canal, we
our palace windows ; lengthening our can almost see, in spite of the curve,
necks a little, as we look up toward the from the window at which we stand.
Salute, we see all Venice, on the July This great seventeenth - century pile,
afternoon, so serried as to move slow- throwing itself upon the water with a
ly, pouring across the temj)orary foot- peculiar florid assurance, a certain up-
way. It is a flock of very good chil- ward toss of its cornice which gives it
dren, and the bridged Canal is their the air of a rearing sea-horse, decorates
toy. All Venice, on such occasions, is immensely (and within as well as with-
gentle and friendly; not even all Venice out) the wide angle that it commands,
pushes anyone into the water. There is a more formal greatness in
But from the same high windows we the high, square, Gothic Foscari, just
catch, without any stretching of the below it, one of the noblest creations
neck, a still more indispensable note of the fifteenth century, a masterpiece
in the picture, a famous pretender eat- of symmetry and majesty. Dedicated
ing the bread of bitterness. This re- to-day to official uses (it is the prop-
past is served in the open air, on a neat erty of the state), it looks conscious
little terrace, by attendants in livery, of the consideration it enjoys, and is
and there is no indiscretion in our one of the few great houses within our
seeing that the pretender dines. Ever range whose old age strikes us as ro-
since the table d'hote in " Candide," Ven- bust and painless. It is visibly " kept
ice has been the refuge of monarchs in up ; " perhaps it is kept up too much ;
want of thrones — she wouldn't know perhaps I am wrong in thinking so
herself without her rois en exit. The well of it. These doubts and fears
exile is agreeable and soothing, the course rapidly through my mind (I am
gondola lets them down gently. Its easily their victim when it is a ques-
movement is an anodyne, its silence is tion of architecture), as they are apt to
a philtre, and little by little it rocks all do to-day, in Italy, almost anywhere,
ambitions to sleep. The prescript has in the presence of the beautiful, of the
plenty of leisure to write his proclama- desecrated, or the neglected. We feel
tions, and even his memoirs, and I be- at such moments as if the eye of Mr.
lieve he has organs in which they are Kuskin were upon us ; we grow ner-
published ; but the only noise he makes vous and lose our confidence. This
in the world is the harmless splash of makes me inevitably, in talking of Ven-
his oars. He comes and goes along the ice, seek a pusillanimous safety in the
Canalazzo, and he might be much worse trivial and the obvious. I am on firm
employed. He is but one of the inter- ground in rejoicing in the little garden
esting objects it presents, however, and directly opposite our Avindows (it is
I am by no means sure that he is the another proof that they really show
most striking. He has a rival, if not in us everything), and in feeling that the
the iron bridge, which, alas, is within gardens of Venice would deserve a
our range, at least (to take an immedi- page to themselves. They are infinite-
ate example) in the Montecuculi Pal- ly more numerous than the arriving
ace. Far descended and weary, but stranger can suppose ; they nestle, with
beautiful in its crooked old age, with a charm all their own, in the com-
its lovely proportions, its delicate round plications of most back-views. Some
arches, its carvings and its disks of of them are exquisite, many are large,
marble, is the haunted Montecuculi. and even the scrappiest have an artful
Those who have a kindness for Vene- understanding, in the interest of color,
tian gossip like to remember that it with the water-ways that edge their
was once, for a few months, the prop- foundations. On the small canals, in
erty of Robert Browning, who, how- the hunt for amusement, they are the
ever, never lived in it, and who died in prettiest surprises of all. The tangle
the splendid Rezzonico, the residence of plants and flowers climbs over the
of his son and a wonderful cosmopoli- battered walls, the greenness makes
tan " document," which, as it presents an arrangement with the rosy, sordid
itself, in an admirable position, but a brick. Of all the reflected and liquefied
Vol. XII.— 59

546

THE GRAND CANAL

things in Venice, and the nunihor of
these is countless, I think the laj^ping
water loves them most. They are
numerous on the Canalazzo, but wher-
ever they occur they give a brush to
the picture, and in particular, it is easy
to guess, they give a sweetness to the
house. Then the elements are com-
plete — the trio of air and water and
of things that grow. Venice without
them would be too much a matter of
the tides and the stones. Even the
little trellises of the traghetti count
charmingly as reminders, amid so much
artifice, of the woodland nature of man.
The vine-leaves, trained on horizontal
poles, make a roof of chequered shade
for the gondoliers and ferrymen, who
doze there, according to opportunity,
or chatter or hail the approaching
"fare." There is no " hum " in Venice,
so that their voices travel far ; they en-
ter your windows and mingle even with
your dreams. I beg the reader to be-
lieve that if I had time to go into every-
thing, I would go into the traghetti,
which have their manners and their
morals, and which used to have their
piety. This piety was always a madon-
inna, the protectress of the passage — a
quaint figure of the Virgin with the red
spark of a lamp at her feet. The lamps
appear for the most part to have gone
out, and the images doubtless have been
sold for bric-d-brac. The ferrymen, for
aught I know, are converted to nihilism
— a faith consistent, happily, with a good
stroke of business. One of the figures
has been left, however — the Madonnetta,
which gives its name to a traghetto near
the Rialto. But this sweet survivor is
a carven stone, inserted ages ago in the
corner of an old palace, and doubtless
difficult of removal. Pazienza, the day
will come when so marketable a relic
will also be extracted from its socket
and purchased by the devouring Ameri-
can. I leave that expression, on sec-
ond thought, standing ; but I repent of
it when I remember that it is a devour-
ing American — a lady long resident in
Venice and whose kindnesses all Vene-
tians, as well as her country people,
know, who has rekindled some of the
extinguished tapers, setting up espe-
cially the big brave Gothic shrine, of
painted and gilded wood, which, on the

to]! of its stout palo, sheds its influence
on the place of passage opposite the
Salute.

If I may not go into those of the pal-
aces this devious discourse has left be-
hind, much less may I enter the great
galleries of the Academy, which rears
its blank wall, surmounted by the lion
of St. Mark, well within sight of the
windows at which we are still lingering.
This wondrous temple of Venetian art
(for all it promises little from without)
overhangs, in a manner, the Grand
Canal, but if we were so much as to
cross its threshold we should wander
beyond recall. It contains, in some of
the most magnificent halls (where the
ceilings have all the glory with which the
imagination of Venice alone could over-
arch a room), some of the noblest pict-
ures in the world ; and whether or not
we go back to them on any particular
occasion for another look, it is always
a comfort to know that they are there,
for the sense of them, on the spot, is a
part of the furniture of the mind — the
sense of them close at hand, behind
every wall and under every cover, like
the inevitable reverse of a medal, of the
side exposed to the air reflecting, in-
tensifying, completing the scene. In
other words, as it Avas the inevitable
destiny of Venice to be painted, and
painted with passion, so the wide world
of picture becomes, as we live there,
and however much we go about our af-
fairs, the constant habitation of our
thoughts. The truth is, Ave are in it
so uninterruptedly, at home and abroad,
that there is scarcely a j^ressure upon
us to seek it in one j)lace more than an-
other. Choose your stand-point at ran-
dom and trust the picture to come to
you. This is manifestly why I have
not, I become aware, said more about
the features of the Canalazzo which oc-
cupy the reach between the Salute and
the position we have so obstinately
taken up. It is still there before us,
however, and the delightful little Pa-
lazzo Dario, intimately familiar to Eng-
lish and American travellers, picks it-
self out in the foreshortened bright-
ness. The Dario is covered with the
loveliest little marble plates and sculpt-
ured circles ; it is made up of ex-
quisite pieces (as if there had been only

THE GRAND CANAL.

547

enough to make it small), so that it
looks, in its extreme antiquity, a good
deal like a house of cards that hold to-
gether by a tenure that it would be
fatal to touch. An old Venetian house
dies hard, indeed, and I should add
that this delicate thing, with submis-
sion in every feature, continues to re-
sist the contact of generations of
lodgers. It is let out in floors — it
used to be let as a whole — and in how
many eager hands (for it is in great re-
quisition), under how many fleeting dis-
pensations have we not known and
loved it ? People are always writing in
advance to secure it, as they are to se-
cure the Jenkins's gondolier, and as the
gondola passes we see strange faces at
the windows (though it's ten to one
we recognize them), and the millionth
artist coming forth with his traps at
the water-gate. The poor little patient
Dario is one of the most flourishing
booths at the fair.

The faces at the window look out at
the great Sansovino — the splendid pile
that is now occupied by the Prefect. I
feel decidedly that I don't object as I
ought to the palaces of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. Their pre-
tensions impose upon me, and the im-
agination peoples them more freely
than it can people the interiors of the
prime. Was not, moreover, this mas-
terpiece of Sansovino once occupied by
the Venetian post-ofiice, and thereby in-
timately connected with an ineffaceable
first impression of the author of these
remarks ? He had arrived, wondering,
palpitating, twenty-three years ago,
after nightfall, and, the first thing on
the morrow, had repaired to the post-
office for his letters. They had been
waiting a long time and were full of
delayed interest, and he returned with
them to the gondola and floated slowly
down the Canal. The mixture, the
rapture, the wonderful temple of the
pode restante, the beautiful strangeness,
all humanized by good news — the mem-
ory of this abides with him still, so that
there always proceeds from the splendid
water-front I speak of a certain secret
appeal, something that seems to have
been uttered first in the sonorous cham-
bers of youth. Of course this associa-
tion falls to the ground — or rather

splashes into the water — if I am the
victim of a confusion. Was the edifice
in question twenty- three years ago the
post-office, which has occupied since, for
many a day, very much humbler quar-
ters ? I am afraid to take the proper
steps for finding out, lest I should learn
that, for all these years, I have misdi-
rected my emotion. A better reason
for the sentiment, at any rate, is that
such a great house has surely, in the
high beauty of its tiers, a refinement of
its own. They make one think of colos-
seums and aqueducts and bridges, and
they constitute, doubtless, in Venice,
the most pardonable specimen of the
imitative. I have even a timid kindness
for the huge Pesaro, far down the Canal,
whose main reproach, more even than
the coarseness of its forms, is its swag-
gering size, its want of consideration
for the general picture, which the early
examples so reverently respect. The
Pesaro is as far out of the frame as a
modern hotel, and the Cornaro, close
to it, oversteps almost equally the
modesty of art. One more thing they
and their kindred do, I must add, for
which, unfortunately, we can patronize
them less. They make even the most
elaborate material civilization of the
present day seem wofuUy shrunken
and bourgeois, for they simply (I allude
to the biggest palaces) cannot be lived
in as they were intended to be. The
modern tenant may take in all the mag-
azines, but he bends not the bow of
Achilles. He occupies the place, but
he doesn't fill it, and he has guests
from the neighboring inns with ulsters
and Badekers.

We are far, at the Pesaro, by the way,
from our attaching window, and we
take advantage of it to go in rather a
melancholy mood to the end. The long
straight vista from the Foscari to the
Rialto, the great middle stretch of the
Canal, contains, as the phrase is, a hun-
dred objects of interest, but it contains
most the bright oddity of its general
deluged air. In all these centuries it
has never got over its resemblance to a
flooded city ; for some reason or other
it is the only part of Venice in which
the houses look as if the waters had
overtaken them. Everjsv^here else they
reckon with them — they have chosen

548

THE GRAND CANAL.

them ; here alone the lappinp^ seaway
seems to confess itself an accident.

There are persons who think this
long, gay, shabby, spotty perspective,
in which, with its immense field of con-
fused reflection, the houses have infi-
nite variety, the dullest expanse in
Venice. It was not dull, we imagine,
for Lord Byron, who lived in the mid-
most of the three Mocenigo palaces,
where the writing-table is still shown
at which he gave the rein to his pas-
sions. For other observers it is suf-
ficiently enlivened by so delightful a
creation as the Palazzo Loredan, once a
masterpiece and at present theMuni-
cipio, not to speak of a variety of
other immemorial bits whose beauty
still has a kind of freshness. Some of
the most touching relics of early Venice
are here (for it was here she precari-
ously clustered), peeping out of a sub-
mersion more pitiless than the sea. As
we approach the Rialto, indeed, the
picture falls off and a comparative com-
monness suffuses it. There is a wide
paved walk on either side of the Canal,
on which the waterman — and who, in
Venice, is not a waterman ? — is prone
to seek repose. I speak of the summer
days — it is the summer Venice that
is the visible Venice. The big tarry
barges are drawn up at the fondamenta,
and the bare-legged boatmen, in faded
blue cotton, lie asleep on the hot stones.
If there were no color anywhere else,
there would be enough in their tanned
personalities. Half the low doorways
open into the warm interior of water-
side drinking- shop 3, and here and there,
on the quay, beneath the bush that over-
hangs the door, there are rickety tables
and chairs. Where in Venice is there
not the amusement of character and of
detail ? The tone in this part is very
vivid, and is largely that of the brown
plebeian faces looking out of the patchy
miscellaneous houses — the faces of fat
undressed women and of other simple
folk who are not aware that they enjoy,
from balconies once doubtless patrician,
a view the knowing ones of the earth
come thousands of miles to envy them.
The effect is enhanced by the tattered
clothes hung to dry in the windows, by
the sun-faded rags that flutter from the
polished balustrades (they are ivory-

smooth with time) ;and the whole scene
profits by the general law that renders
decadence and ruin in Venice more brill-
iant than any prosperity. Decay, in
this extraordinary place, is golden in
tint, and misery is couleur de rose.
The gondolas of the correct people are
unmitigated sable, but the poor mar-
ket-boats from the islands are kaleido-
scopic.

The bridge of the Rialto is a name to
conjure with, but, honestly speaking, it
is scarcely the gem of the composition.
There are, of course, two ways of taking
it — from the water or from the upper
passage, where its small shops and
booths abound in Venetian character ;
but it mainly counts as a feature of
the Canal when seen from the gondola
or even from the awful vaporetto. The
great curve of its single arch is much
to be commended, especially when,
coming from the direction of the rail-
way station, you see it frame with its
sharp compass-line the perfect picture,
the reach of the Canal on the other
side. But the backs of the little shops
make, from the water, a graceless col-
lective hump, and the inside view is
the diverting one. The big arch of
the bridge — like the arches of all
the bridges — is the waterman's friend
in wet weather. The gondolas, when
it rains, huddle beside the peopled
barges, and the young ladies from the
hotels, vaguely fidgeting, complain of
the communication of insect life. Here
indeed is a little of everything, and
the jewellers of this celebrated pre-
cinct (they have their immemorial row),
make almost as fine a show as the
fruiterers. It is a universal market
and a fine place to study Venetian
types. The produce of the islands is
discharged there, and the fishmongers
announce their presence. All one's
senses indeed are vigorously attacked,
the whole place is violently hot and
bright, and odorous and noisy. The
churning of the screw of the vaporetto
mingles with the other sounds — not
indeed that this offensive note is con-
fined to one part of the Canal. But
just here the little piers of the resent-
ed steamer are particularly near to-
gether, and it seems, somehow, to be
always kicking up the water. As we

THE GRAND CANAL

549

go further down we see it stopping
exactly beneath the glorious windows
of the Ca' d' Oro. It has chosen its
position well, and who shall gainsay it
for having put itself under the protec-
tion of the most romantic fayade in
Europe? The companionship of these
objects is a s^'mbol ; it expresses su-
premely the present and the future
of Venice. Perfect, in its prime, was
the marble Ca' d' Oro, with the noble
recesses of its loggie, but even then it
probably never "met a want," like
the successful vaporetto. If, however,
we are not to go into the Museo Civico
— the old Museo Correr — which rears a
staring, renovated front far down on
the left, near the station, so also we
must keep out of the great vexed ques-
tion of steam on the Canalazzo, just as,
a while since, we prudently kept out
of the Accademia. These are expen-
sive and complicated excursions. It is
obvious that if the vaporetti have con-
tributed to the ruin of the gondoliers,
already hard pressed by fate, and to
that of the palaces, whose foundations
their waves undermine, and that if they
have robbed the Grand Canal of the
supreme distinction of its tranquillity,
so, on the other hand, they have placed
" rapid transit," in the New York
phrase, in everybody's reach, and en-
abled everybody (save indeed those who
wouldn't for the world) to rush about
Venice as furiously as people rush
about New York. The suitability of
this consummation need not be pointed
out.

Even we ourselves, in the irresistible
contagion, are going so fast now that
we have only time to note in how clev-
er and costly a fashion the Museo Civ-
ico, the old Fondaco dei Turchi, has
been reconstructed and restored. It is
a glare of white marble without, and a
series of showy majestic halls within,
where a thousand curious mementos
and relics of old Venice are gathered
and classified. Of its miscellaneous
treasures I fear that I perhaps frivol-
ously prefer the series of its remark-
ably living Longhis, an illustration of
manners more copious than the cele-
brated Carpaccio, the two ladies with
their little animals and their long
sticks. Wonderful indeed, to-day, are

the museums of Italy, where the reno-
vations and the belle ordonnance speak
of funds apparently unlimited, in spite
of the fact that the numerous custo-
dians, frankly, look starved. What is
the pecuniary source of all this civic
magnificence (it is shown in a hundred
other ways), and how do the Italian
cities manage to acquit themselves of
expenses that would be formidable to
communities richer and doubtless less
aesthetic ? Who pays the bills for the
expressive statues alone, the general
exuberance of sculpture, with which
every piazzetta of almost every village
is patriotically decorated ? Let us not
seek an answer to the puzzling ques-
tion, but observe instead that we are
passing the mouth of the populous
Canareggio, next widest of the water-
ways, where the race of Shylock abides,
and at the corner of which the big col-
orless church of San Geremia stands
gracefully enough on guard. The Ca-
nareggio, with its wide lateral footways
and humpbacked bridges, makes, on
the feast of St. John, an admirable,
noisy, tawdry theatre for one of the
prettiest and the most infantile of the
Venetian processions.

The rest of the way is a reduced
magnificence, in spite of interesting
bits, of the battered pomp of the Pesaro
and the Cornaro, of the recurrent mem-
ories of royalty in exile which cluster
about the Palazzo Vendramin Calergi,
once the residence of the Comte de
Chambord, and still that of his half-
brother, in spite, too, of the big Papado-
poli gardens, opposite the station, the
largest private grounds in Venice, but
of which Venice in general mainly gets
the benefit in the usual form of irrepres-
sible greenery climbing over walls and
nodding at water. The rococco church
of the Scalzi is here, all marble and
malachite, all a cold, hard glitter, and
a costly, curly ugliness, and here, too,
opposite, on the top of its high steps,
is San Simeone Profeta, I won't say im-
mortalized, but unblushingly misrep-
resented, by the perfidious Canaletto.
I shall not stay to unravel the mystery
of this prosaic painter's malpractices ;
he falsified without fancy, and as he ap-
parently transposed at will the objects
he reproduced, one is never sure of the

550 TIVO BACKGROUNDS.

particular view that may have consti- white church, domed and porticoed, on

tuted his subject. It would look ex- the top of its steps, the traveller emerg-

actly like such and such a place if al- ing for the first time upon the terrace

most everything were not different, of the railway station seems to have a

San Simeone Profeta appears to hang Canaletto before him. He speedily dis-

there upon the wall ; but it is on the covers indeed, even in the presence of

wrong side of the Canal and the other this scene of the final accents of the

elements quite fail to correspond. Canalazzo (there is a charm in the old

One's confusion is the greater because pink warehouses on the hot fonda-

one doesn't know that everything may menta), that he has something much

not really have changed, even beyond all better. He looks up and down at the

probability (though it's only in Amer- gathered gondolas; he has his surprise

ica that churches cross the street, or after all, his little first Venetian thrill ;

the river), and the mixture of the recog- and as the terrace of the station ushers

nizable and the different makes the in these things we shall say no harm of

ambiguity maddening, all the more that it, though it is not lovely. It is the

the painter is almost as fascinating as beginning of his experience, but it is

he is bad. Thanks, at any rate, to the the end of the Grand Canal.

TWO BACKGROUNDS.

By Edith Wharton.

I-

LA VIERGE AU DONATEUR.

Here by the ample river's argent sweep,
Bosomed in tilth and vintage to her walls,
A tower-crowned Cybele in armored sleep
The city lies, fat plenty in her halls.
With calm, parochial spires that hold in fee
The friendly gables clustered at their base,
And, equipoised o'er tower and market-place,
The Gothic minster's winged immensity ;
And in that narrow burgh, with equal mood,
Two placid hearts, to all life's good resigned,
Might, from the altar to the lych-gate, find
Long years of peace and dreamless plenitude.

II.

MONA LISA.

Yon strange blue city crowns a scarped steep
No mortal foot hath bloodlessly essayed ;
Dreams and illusions beacon from its keep,
But at the gate an Angel bares his blade ;
And tales are told of those who thought to gain
At dawn its ramparts ; but when evening fell
Far off they saw each fading pinnacle
Lit with wild lightnings from the heaven of pain ;
Yet there two souls, whom life's perversities
Had mocked with want in plenty, tears in mirth.
Might meet in dreams, ungarmented of earth.
And drain Joy's awful chalice to the lees.

CHICAGO'S PART IN THE WORLD'S FAIR.
By Franklin Macl^eagh,

T will aid the editor of
Scribner's, who wishes to
inform the readers of the
Magazine as to the rela-
tions of Chicago and the
great Exposition, if I state
that this article is written
at his suggestion b}^ one
who has no connection
with the World's Fair
management ; because then it need not
be read as if it were the doing of an
enthusiast. The truth, however, is that
it is much easier to keep within the
facts, in this case, than it is to get be-
yond them, if one has only the usual
imagination ; and the editor in try-
ing to get an unbiassed article might
have saved himself some of his trouble.
Moreover, there is probably nothing new
to be said at all, which is another pro-
tection against enthusiasm ; for every-
thing touching Chicago's relations to
the Fair has probably been said many
times over — both as to her part in mak-
ing the Fair, and as to how she will care
for the people who visit it. But the
facts have not been put all together, nor
for the general public, in any more de-
liberate form than news items of the
daily press.

In measuring the discharge of respon-
sibilities by Chicago one should be care-
ful to know what her responsibilities
are. She has practically taken the work
of the Fair upon her hands entire, even,
in large measure carrying on her shoul-
ders the Government's own Commission.
But strict limitations to the responsi-
bilities of whatever city might be chosen
as the place of the Fair, were clearly
fixed by the Government. The theory of
the law was that the World's Fair should
be controlled and administered by the
Government's Commission ; while the city
was simply to furnish, to the satisfaction
of the Commission, a site and buildings,
and then to conduct the mere business
administration. The scope of the Fair,
and all intercourse with exhibitors and
with foreign nations, and all matters of

award and the general control, were to
be in the hands of the Government. To
carry out the engagements of Chicago a
coi'poration was formed, the members
of which are the shareholders, who fairly
represent the entire community, and
whose work is done by a board of forty-
five directors. There are therefore two
executive bodies, admirably contrived
for conflicts of authority and general
confusion and delay ; all of which prom-
ised at the beginning, but have been
for the most part averted by the uncon-
templated dependence of the National
Commission and its admirable good
sense and patriotism, and by the youth-
ful readiness of Chicago to do unlimited
work and assume unlimited responsibil-
ities. Perhaps any other American city
would have done this, and felt obliged,
by the Government's reluctance, to pay
the way of its Commission, to discharge
its own responsibilities and those of the
Government, too. Chicago, at any rate,
accepted very willingly the work which
threw upon her an almost exclusive re-
sponsibility for the success of the Fair.
And it has certainly had the excellent
effect of unifying the management, by
breaking down in practice the double
authority fixed by the law. Since the
Government would not adequately sup-
port it, the Commission had to look to
the Directory for a part of its subsist-
ence ; and as in all governments the real
power goes with the purse-strings, so it
was in this. Possibly the power might
have resided in the National Commission,
if Congress had generously sustained it ;
and yet, looking back now, it is diffi-
cult to imagine the absence of the pro-
foundly individual impress made upon
the Fair by the characteristics of the
city ; nor does it seem possible that the
remarkable power, energy, and public
spirit which were so ready to devote
themselves could have been declined.
At any rate in this way, and in this alone,
by indefinitely exceeding Chicago's re-
sponsibilities, has the World's Fair se-
cured the advantage of the astonishing

552

CHICAGO'S PART IN THE WORLD'S FAIR,

iuclividuality of the city. And so favor-
ably has the world been impressed that
it is doubtful whether Congress, when it
makes an appropriation, will now dis-
turb the situation.

But there is another thing to be said
of Chicago's responsibilities. It is gen-
erally assumed that the Fair is Chicago's
entei-prise, and only countenanced by
the Government ; for it is forgotten that
Congress, feeling obliged to celebrate
the four hundredth anniversary of the
discovery of America, chose to hold a
World's Fair, and established it before
deciding where it should be held. There
was after this a sharp contest in Con-
gress between the partisans of four cities.
This is a different thing, and carries
very different responsibilities from a
proposal by Chicago to hold a fair on
its own account, coupled with a request
for the Government's endorsement. As
I have intimated, Chicago hasn't troubled
itself to draw lines about its responsi-
bilities, and it has been prompt to fill all
the gaps left by the Government ; but if
we are to weigh the performance of her
duties we must understand what her
duties are.

And here, before going on to specify
what has been done by Chicago, and
what will be done, let me say a word
about the finances. I am writing before
it is possible to know what action Con-
gress will take ; but I have no doubt
whatever that, whether Congress contri-
butes or not, the Fair will not be allowed
to fail, or even to suffer. Chicago is
committed, not to the w^orld — for her re-
sponsibilities there are distinctly limited
— but to herself ; and under whatever
hardship or injustice, she will unques-
tionably raise all the money needed if
the Government refuses to participate.*
No one who understands Chicago could
doubt this for a moment ; and if Con-
gress declines the responsibility it will
be because she knows Chicago will as-
sume it.

Nothing, however, in my opinion,
could be a more unjust hardship.
What are the facts ?

1. That the sum put in the bill for
the city to contribute was five millions.

2. That no higher sum was men-

* This paper had been WTitten before the final action
of Congress.

tioned while the contest of the cities was
before Congress.

3. That the deliberate judgment ot
Congress and of the contesting cities, at
the time Chicago was chosen, was that
five millions measured all a city should
contribute in addition to a site.

4. That the bill had practically passed,
and simply paused in the hands of a
committee while the city was chosen,
that the name might be inserted ; and
at this juncture, and when Chicago had
been chosen, one of the unsuccessful
cities chose to say it w^ould have pro-
vided ten millions, whereupon the com-
mittee chose to think Chicago ought to
double the amount which Congress had
itself adopted. Three Chicago men went
before the committee to meet this situa-
tion. They thought it would not do to
stand upon their rights, and yielded to
the pressui'e. They telegraphed the
fact, and received in reply a telegram
from leading Chicago financial institu-
tions and wealthy citizens, sustaining
them. Perhaps the committee ought to
have insisted upon the amount in the bill
when the cities contested, and which
was part of a moral contract ; but they
did not, and Chicago, which had not en-
tered a ten-million contest, found itself
with its obligations suddenly doubled —
doubled in a day — never having before
contemplated such a thing.

5. That the committee of Congress
itself faltered, fearing Chicago might
be promising under pressure more than
it could perform. It therefore cross-
examined Mr. Gage, the Chicago spokes-
man, as to how Chicago could get the
other five millions of dollars. Mr. Gage
made the best answers he could, the
new situation being wholly unexpected.
He said, " We will raise another million
by subscription, and then we will
pledge the gate receipts and borrow the
other four from our people. We will
get it somehow, for we have promised."

6. That as five millions was consid-
ered sufiicient, no one ever expected that
Chicago ought to exceed ten.

7. That Chicago has voluntarily raised
the sum to eleven millions, and herself
proposes to raise it to thirteen.

8. That meanwhile the National Com-
mission, which had to be made satisfied
with site and buildings, and determined

CHICAGO'S PART IN THE WORLD'S FAIR.

553

the scope of the exhibits, demanded so
much that eighteen millions will be
needed to open the Fair. These de-
mands were wise and were heartily be-
lieved in by Chicago ; but the Govern-
ment took the responsibility of making
them.

9. That Congress has itself pro-
nounced that Chicago has already ful-
filled its financial obligation to the Fair,
leaving, one might think, nothing to be
said.

It is true that Chicago was expected
to furnish the site and buildings, but
certainly not at a cost of eighteen mil-
lions. If Congress refuse to share the
wholly unexpected increased expense
of her own enterprise, Chicago will
beyond any question pay it all. But
would it be worthy of the nation to
take advantage of a clause in the bill
originally associated with a liability of
five millions of dollars, and already
obliged to include a liability of double
the original amount, to make a single
city pay eighteen millions in face of the
fact that the increased cost has been in-
curred by the Government itself — and
when Congress has formally enacted
that Chicago has fulfilled its obliga-
tions ?

And these financial relations have
worked from the beginning other mis-
chief, and have made Congress not sim-
ply parsimonious, but unfriendly and
unjust as well. No one certainly can
deny that it is unfriendly and unjust to
enact a great World's Fair and select
a city to hold it in, throw the whole
expense and responsibility uj)on that
city, and then treat the whole affair
with practical hostility. And that has
occurred ; and Chicago, in addition to
lacking the support of certain influen-
tial parts of our country, and those the
parts most known and listened to by
foreign nations, has had to carry the
weight of governmental suspicion, hesi-
tation, and indifference. The only thing
volunteered by Congress has been an
investigation, and its only anxiety has
been to escape expense.

And under these not too easy or flat-
tering circumstances, what, speaking now
specifically, has our youngest American
city done ? That it has done wonders
all the world now knows : and in this

we may all take pleasure, for it is a
national achievement due to national
traits in their most national develop-
ment.

In the first place, then, Chicago, ex-
pecting at first to furnish five millions
of dollars, has supplied eleven millions,
and will certainly supply two millions
more ; and the other five, if the Govern-
ment doesn't.

She has also arranged a site for the
Fair which in extent, in situation, in
plan, and in adornment, exceeds by far
anything ever before attempted for
World's Fair purposes.

She has provided these remarkable
grounds with buildings equally remark-
able ; which in size, variety (within the
wonderful harmony of a general plan),
and artistic value, constitute the greatest
possible aid to the development of na-
tional architecture, and suggest the sin-
gle regret that they are not to remain
always, to interest and instruct the na-
tion.

She has brought sculpture and kin-
dred forms of adornment into generous
use to make the buildings more worthy,
more interesting, and more beautiful ;
and has given to sculpture other wide
and distinguished opportunities.

She has brought color to its most ar-
tistic and refined exterior uses, and pro-
tected and defined it to a single large
result ; so that nothing in the hundreds
of acres is too large or too small —
neither a building nor a boat — to be
brought into a general harmony.

These great effects have been made
possible by seeking them with single-
ness of purpose and largeness of mind.
In the first place, politics had to be vig-
orously excluded ; and their complete
exclusion and the substitution of pure
public spirit in their stead, is one of
the remarkable feats of this entei-prise.
The expenditure of eighteen millions of
public money within two years, in an
American city, without wasting a penny
through politics, and without letting a
politician ply his trade for one moment,
is a unique achievement, and a very im-
portant contribution to American his-
tory.

To achieve these great effects, another
rigorous exclusion had to be made, and
was made almost or quite by instinct —

554

CHICAGO'S PART IN THE WORLD'S FAIR.

the exclusiou of localism. From the
first the directors simply sought out
the best tilings and the ablest men, re-
gardless of where they came from. The
architecture, for instance, is by picked
men whom all would say represent the
best development of that art throughout
the United States. The color directors
come, one from the West and one from
the East. The chief landscape archi-
tect is Frederick Law Olmstead, the re-
cognized head of his profession. So in
all things else a perfect cosmopolitan-
ism has prevailed.

But more than this, none but the
largest and noblest plans and the best
ideas have been adopted from the be-
ginning until now. Nothing is inade-
quate, nothing without great plan, noth-
ing incomplete, and nothing inharmoni-
ous ; and nothing falls short of " the
best that is thought and known in the
world." There is no note of provincial-
ism and of localism : all has been ex-
cluded but the evidence of unique public
spirit, wonderful energy, and the better
knowledge of the world.

Another achievement is now assured
in the certain completion of site and
buildings within the time specified.

And another doubt has been resolved
by the unprecedented foreign interest
in the Fair. The international char-
acter of the enterprise will be more ac-
cented than that of any previous exposi-
tion. The number of foreign countries
exhibiting will be not less than fifty-
nine, and in many an exceeding interest
is felt. What seemed the impossible
has been rather easily accomplished ; and
it now seems as if we had been over-
looking the special reasons why both ex-
hibitors and visitors and governments
should prefer to get into the midst of a
nation rather than to merely reach its
coast. Indeed, the justification of the
location of the Fair in the interior is
now seen to be complete ; for not only
will foreign exhibitors have access to all
of our people, and all foreigners who
come see a much greater portion of our
country, but our own people will better
see our own country and get better ac-
quainted with each other.

But, after all, the best thing that Chi-
cago can boast of is that she is building
a Fair that can conveniently be visited

by more of the American people who are
not rich than could visit it in any other
city. This is her finest justification ;
and we may be sure she has done this
great work with this inspiring thought
in her mind. And it can tnily be add-
ed that, as she has been building for the
people, and as politics and mere localism
have been excluded, so nothing that is
petty or sordid, or any other way un-
Avorthy in motive, has been admitted
within her plans. She could not have
built as she has with sordid motives or
a narrow mind. The building of the
Fair could not be given over, as it
wholly is, to the spirit of art and beau-
ty, and high and wide usefulness, if the
men who direct it or the community
supporting them felt it to be other than
a great public trust, committed to hands
that must be kept clean and to minds
that must be kept clear. It is right
that this should be said, for it is a part
of the evidence of how Chicago has dis-
charged her responsibilities, and of how
she has dealt with the honor of the na-
tion.

And so, not by magic but through
well-considered purpose, hard thought,
and hard work Chicago, in acknowledg-
ment of her responsibilities, presents
a World's Fair site and buildings that
not only surpass what has been done
by previous World's Fairs, but equally
surpass the expectations of the nation ;
and at the same time give guarantee
that the Exposition will be filled to over-
flowing with the exhibits of almost the
entire w^orld. The outside alone will be
enough for anj" man to see ; and the in-
side will certainly excel that of any
other exhibition. Even the more purely
intellectual and spiritual sides of exhi-
bitions, contrary to general expectation,
will be here more than ever accented ;
and there has again been done what
was thought to be impossible, in plac-
ing it beyond question that the Fine
Arts department will be one of the great-
est successes of the Fair. And though
the Fair has from the beginning been
treated as a vast educational enterprise,
the other important end, of making it
an entertainment upon a vast scale, has
been completely secured. Orchestral
and choral music will be beyond doubt
at their best ; and amusements and nov-

CHICAGO'S PART IN THE WORLD'S FAIR.

555

elties will be in such increased numbers
over those of other expositions, and of
so much greater elaboration, and will
occupy so much more space, that they
will constitute a new develo]3ment. And
great preparation and provision has been
made for congresses of every useful kind ;
and for the accommodation of these the
new Art Institute, now building by day
and night in the centre of the city, will
be entirely set aside. All these are pro-
vided, or all fully assured ; and are noted
here as chief instances only among the
things which Chicago has thus far done
in fulfilment of her legal obligations, and
her self-imposed duties to the nation
and the world.

The other of the two main questions
to ask is, what Chicago has done or can
be trusted to do to take care of, and make
safe and comfortable, the visitors to the
Fair.

The facilities for getting to and from
Chicago have not been open to ques-
tion. A railroad centre so phenomenal
can easily take the people to and from
the city. All of the great railways cen-
tring there — and I believe there are
more than thirty small and great — are,
however, making special preparations.
Additional tracks are laid in some in-
stances, and new rolling stock is be-
ing generally added. I am credibly in-
formed, too, that every terminal station
in the city, except one which has been
quite recently built and another which
will be entirely new, will have its facili-
ties materially increased. The raih'oad
managers are taking advantage of all
previous experience in handling crowds,
to provide against all delays and dis-
comforts that can possibly be foreseen.

The transportation of the people from
other parts of the city to the Fair pre-
sented difficulties which have been com-
pletely solved. All excursion trains —
that is, all trains with passengers for
the Fair exclusively, no matter from
what distance, nor over what lines they
come — will deliver their passengers over
the Belt lines, in the Fair grounds, with-
out entering the heart of the city at all,
and will take up their passengers at the
same place. The transportation facili-
ties within the city will be these :

1. Surface street-car lines, including

one first class cable line, which has in
anticii3ation just now doubled its capac-
ity by doubling its loop facilities. This
line has handled an immense Sunday
traffic easily without these extra facili-
ties.

2. A double-track elevated railroad
just completing, and therefore a new re-
source.

3. A boat system from the old city
front. This transportation will be in
the hands of one very responsible com-
pany. The vessels will be large, safe,
and well appointed ; and the company
is obliged to furnish a service equal to
at least fifteen thousand passengers per
hour.

4. The Illinois Central Railroad Com-
pany's right of way runs from the centre
of the city almost to the Fair grounds,
and consists of six tracks, two of which
are for suburban passenger traffic. The
right of way is being raised, and four
tracks being added for exclusive World's
Fair passenger traffic — two for express
trains from and to the centre of the
city without stops, and two for trains
that stop at all city stations.' These
four tracks will run into the World's
Fair grounds, where the terminal facil-
ities will be ample and perfect. The
facilities of this line, of course, could be
largely increased by the partial use of
its other tracks, but that will not in the
least be necessary. The line will be
protected by the latest and best auto-
matic block system ; and it is expected
to carry the bulk of the people.

5. The World's Fair is reached from
the heart of the city by parkways, and
many people will choose to drive. A
cheap cab system prevails, and the
streets are w^ell supplied with hansoms
and other cabs. The cabs will of course
greatly increase.

6. Very man}" people, living or stop-
ping near the Fair grounds, will need
no conveyance.

Transportation within the grounds
will be all that could be wished. As all
the principal buildings are directly
reached by the interior water-courses
(which have a circuit of more than two
and a half miles) three classes of boats
will be used — omnibus boats making
regular trips and stopping at each
building ; express boats making round

556

CHICAGO'S PART IN THE IVORLD'S FAIR.

trips without stopping ; and boats an-
swering to cabs, to be hailed and en-
gaged for the trip or by the hour.

There will also be an elevated railway
making a five-mile circuit, and reach-
ing everywhere within the grounds ;
and finally there will be the usual roll-
ing chairs that are found at all Exposi-
tions in profusion.

But can visitors be comfortably
lodged ? It must be remembered that
when the numbers of admissions to
World's Fairs are mentioned, these do
not mean people. Visitors, of course,
multiply their visits. But in addition
to the multiplication of visits there is
to be borne in mind the fact that very
many of the visitors at all expositions
are the people of the city in which it is
held, or who come from distances that
admit of excursion trains. This greatly
reduces the apparent need of house ac-
commodation. It is a noteworthy fact
that Paris (at least as far as I could ob-
serve) didn't build a single new hotel,
or enlarge an old one, in 1889.

Then the mass of the visitors who will
need lodgings will wish moderate prices,
and will choose boarding-houses ; and
boarding-houses can rise in a night.
At Philadelphia there were boarding-
houses in profusion, because they could
so easily be improvised ; and so it will
be in Chicago, where people, as at the
Centennial, will turn an honest penny
by taking boarders or lodgers just as
far as the demand shall exist. And the
same is true of restaurants, which, how-
ever, are already in very abundant sup-
ply. The danger is not that there will
be too few restaurants, lodging, and
boarding houses, but that there will be
too many to be profitable.

But after all allowances are made,
there will be great use for hotels, and
especially for those of the highest grade.
That Chicago has always had hotel ac-
commodations ample for special occa-
sions is quite true, and great gatherings
like national conventions have chosen
it for that reason ; but lately, and es-
pecially in view of the World's Fair, ho-
tels have largely increased in number
(and they have also improved in qual-
ity). I recall four large hotels of the
first grade that have opened since Chi-

cago was given the Fair (besides the
Auditorium hotel, also opened about
that time), two that are opening now,
three nearing completion, and the du-
plicate Auditorium that is to be ready
next spring. There are other perma-
nent ones doubtless built or building not
seen by me ; and there are large hotels
to be improvised near the grounds, and
I think another permanent one about
which I am not particularly informed.

Of course all hotels can, if required,
increase their facilities by taking on
rooms near at hand ; and if there should
be need it would then be profitable to
temporarily use some of the great fire-
proof structures constantly going up.
Such extreme possibilities I only men-
tion to show how impossible it is that
an enterprising American city could be
without accommodation for expected
visitors ; but I think it will be clear
from the above that no extraordinary
provision will be necessary. Certainly
one would think not when the experi-
ence of Paris in 1889 is recalled. It
will, however, allay any remnant of ap-
prehension, if I state, after very good
authorities, that there are, great and
small, fourteen hundred hotels in the
city.

A bureau will be established by the
Directors, and another by the Lady
Managers, which will systematically aid
all who may require their services in
placing themselves satisfactorily. These
bureaus will have all the necessary in-
formation, and will have agencies at all
the stations ; but of course a variety of
private enterprises will anticipate a great
deal of the necessity for these services.

The police arrangements, I am defin-
itely assured by Major McClaughrey,
the able chief of police, are receiving
the fullest attention, and will be ample
and efficient. The force for the World's
Fair itself will not tax the general po-
lice force, but is a separate body which
has been organized and growing with
the Fair, under the command of Col-
onel Eice, of the United States Army.
It will consist of not less than five hun-
dred men. The city force has been
" taken out of politics," and has been
severely reorganized by Major Mc-
Claughrey ; and even in its political
days it was always effective in emergen-

CHICAGO'S PART IN THE [VORLD'S FAIR.

557

cies. It will luiinber probably from
3,400 to 3,700 before the Fair opens;
and will be greatly strengthened by the
new Bureau of Identification on the sys-
tem of M. Bertillon, of Paris, which is
an interesting feature of the prepara-
tions. This bureau will have the Bertil-
lon measurements of most of the prin-
cipal " crooks " and criminals of Euro2)e
and America ; and the fact that their
identification by this dreaded system is
easy, will deter many from coming, so
that it would not be strange if Chicago
should become during the Fair less the
resort of the criminal classes than it, or
any great city, usually is.

A word now about the water-supply
of the city, for the reason that more or
less has been rather sensationally pub-
lished upon the subject, both in Eng-
land and America, in the way of warn-
ing to those intending to visit the Fair.
The simple truth is that there will be no
trouble with the water-supply next year,
as there is none now ; for Chicago has
now and will have then what it has al-
ways had, except for a few brief inter-
vals (which cannot now occur), the most
favorable water-supply enjoyed b}" any
of the great cities of the world. The
difficulty is to explain how any hubbub
has risen against water that is not only
not bad, but is good and wholesome
and delicious almost beyond compari-
son. Lake Michigan, which the city faces,
is the source of supply, and is a great
body of the freshest, clearest, coolest,
and purest water that can be imagined.
As a source of supply for a city it is
ideal. The drainage of the city is, of
course, not into the lake, but into the
Chicago River, which is also the port of
the city and leaves the lake port unused.
The course of the river was long ago
changed, and is not into but out of the
lake, and through a canal to the Illinois,
and- so on to the Mississippi. Thus the
drainage flows westward over and be-
yond the lake's watershed, leaving the
lake itself as pure and clear as when it
was an Indian liighwa3\

Then, why is there any criticism ? I
fear it must be admitted that enough
excitement was aroused by the contest
over the location of the World's Fair to
make criticism of Chicago rather entic-
VoL. XII.— 60

ing, so that rigid investigation, which
might forestall it, isn't held to be ob-
ligatory. The starting-point of the story
— which could easily have shown itself
to be but a temporary accident, against
whose effect a remedy was i^reparing
and then almost completed — was a fiood
in the Chicago River. In this year of
singular storms and downpours more
than one fiood had occurred ; and when
the flood is heavy enough the devices
of engineering, pumping- works, and all
are overcome and the current of the
river is turned toward the lake. The
river drains such a very small district
that floods are not frequent and are of
ver}' short duration ; and it is only the
exceptional ones that can carry the
river-stream very far beyond the shore
of the lake. Now, the water-supply has
been taken, since the city grew large, at
a point two miles from the shore, con-
siderably away from the direction of
the river, and considered to be beyond
the possible reach of the waters of a
flood. But as it w^as proven that, under
certain coincident conditions of wind
and flood, the waters of the river could
get that far, tunnels were undertaken
four miles long, to unimpeachable dis-
tance and dej^th, and they have just
been completed ; so that the remedy
was almost at hand when the criticism
arose. The new drainage undertaking,
which the city has just entered upon, in-
volving a probable outlay of thirty mil-
lions of dollars, confirms the fitness of
the present system, of which it is but
an elaboration meant to anticipate the
demands of a city of several millions of
people. When that is finished even
floods cannot affect the stead}' course of
the river, but will themselves suffer cap-
ture and be sent harmlessly into the
valley of the Mississipj^i. Meanwhile
the new tunnels make the water-supply
perfectly secure. Doubtless the World's
Fair has hastened these tunnels, but
the}' were begun before it was thought
of. And it may be said generally that
no city could be more careful at all
times, or more enterprising or indiffer-
ent to cost, in the protection of its
water-supply and the management of its
drainage ; and to this is doubtless due,
in large measure, the remarkable health-
fulness of the city.

Hauteville House, the Residence of Victor Hugo, on the Island of Guernsey.

CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO.

FEOM UNPUBLISHED PAPEKS FOUND AT GUERNSEY.

By Octave U^anne,

THE English weekly review, the Ath-
enceum, published in April last the
following curious information : —
" Mr. Samuel Davey, archivist and ex-
pert in autographs, announces to us that
he has acquired a journal intime of Vic-
tor Hugo, ' The Journal of Exile,' con-
sisting of about two thousand pages of
close writing, as well as a thousand let-
ters addressed to the poet. These let-
ters were contained in six stout pack-
ages of divers papers, which the son of
Mr. Davey bought some years ago, and
which seem to have been sold by the
people of Hauteville House as so much
waste paper. The journal commences
in July, 1852, and goes to 1856. It is
a minute relation of the conversations
of Victor Hugo with his family, his
friends, and distinguished visitors, that
seems to have been written day by day.

Victor Hugo must have reviewed this
journal himself with care. With his
own hand he has made corrections and
additions. The correspondence extends
over a period of nearly fifty years. It
comprises letters of a great number of
celebrated people — writers, artists, mu-
sicians, actors, politicians, and political
refugees — from all parts of the globe."

This note, furnished by a literary re-
view generally well informed, and of
which the authority is very great in the
United Kingdom, was enticing, and as I
found myself in London at the moment
when it appeared, I hastened instantly
to the house of the expert and dealer
in autographs, Mr. Samuel Davey, situ-
ated on Great Russell Street, immedi-
ately opposite the British Museum.

The worthy Mr. Davey, whom I now
count among my friends, received me

CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF FICTOR HUGO. 559

with exquisite urbanity, and, far from
making a mystery of his discoyery, he
was, on the contrary, eager to com-
municate to me this treasure and to tell
me how, about two years before, his son,
since deceased, was put in possession of
these paj)ers by a person whose fanjily
had been established for some time at

ined the lots and went away hesitat-
ing, his sight no clearer than a blind
man's. It was at that time that an
unknown person at Guernsey took ui)on
himself to disburse eight or ten shil-
lings to acquire the whole en bloc. This
seems like a dream, but it is so. The
son of Mr. Dayey then bought from

Hugo, from an Unpublished Photograph made about 1!

Hauteville House. The story, as he nar-
rated it, was very simple and direct :

Papers in considerable bundles, ac-
companied by old books, were thrown
out of the work-room of Victor Hugo a
little time after the death of the poet
for the purpose of clearing and clean-
ing the place. These notable papers
were offered to all the visitors at the
island, and — incredible as it is — no buyer
was found at any price. An expert in
autographs from Paris — let us not dis-
credit him by giving his name — exam-

the unknown person this considerable
stock of papers, of every kind, for a
l^ound sterling or two, and set to work,
with admirable patience and the verita-
ble tact of an enthusiastic expert, clear-
ing up, revising, and classifying this
avalanche of papers.

I still had some distrust as to the
journal, and as in my character as an
amateur of autographs I knew in all
their variations the handwritings of Vic-
tor Hugo and of his sons, I asked leave
to run over the two large octavo vol-

6G0 CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO.

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Facsimile of a Page of the Journal of Franjois Hugo, showing Victor Hugo's Interlineations.

umes, Avliicli the archivist had spread
before me, in a superb binding of blue
half morocco, with this flaming title :
*' Journal de I'Exil." The letters, kept
separately, were not bound. I saw in-
stantly that the handwriting of these
manuscripts was not that of Victor
Hugo, but that of his son, Francois-
Victor. The sheets were of unequal
size, but intelligently arranged. I saw
before me in reality a random collection
of papers which had been brought into

some order and which form to - day a
very curious series of rare interest.
Here and there, in the graphic monoto-
ny of these pages, numerous and large
corrections appear ; written in a com-
manding and confident fashion, they were
undeniably from the hand of the great
poet. They traverse the lines, the}' take
their flight along the margins, they put
a sort of official seal upon all the con-
versations recorded, which they sanc-
tion as veracious.

CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO,

561

After the reading of half a volume I
was able to convince myself that the
title, "Journal de I'Exil," was only rela-
tively exact. According to my idea,
we had here a diary of Franyois-Victor
Hugo, the translator of Shakespeare's
works, who must have amused himself
by noting every evening the
detailed conversations — literary,
artistic, political, economical,
aesthetic, and dramatic — held
every day during the rej)asts of
the Titan in exile. The true title
of these manuscripts, it seems to
me, should be " The Table-talk
of Victor Hugo at Guernsey."

It would be difficult to sum
up the bewildering dialogues em-
bodied in these three heavy vol-
umes. They represent a peri-
od of five years after the Coup
d'etat, and it can be imagined
what an extraordinary univer-
sality of things is discussed in
them. All the men of the time
are judged, from Louis Bona-
parte, Granier de Cassagnac,
Generals Bugeaud, Lamoriciere,
Changarnier, Magnan, and Saint-
Arnaud, to Emile de Girardin,
Lamennais, Montalembert, La-
martine, Chateaubriand, Dupin,
Louis Veuillot, and Frederic Le-
maitre. Each dinner brings to
the table, in turn, various guests ;
but the author of the " Chati-
ments " is the chief talker, with
the despotism of genius, and
the pope according to the state
mind, but always with amplitude and
magnificence. The dialogue is familiar,
and often rather badly written. One
feels that the editor — Fran yois-Vic tor
Hugo — intended to make only a personal
memorandum, a rough model for the
future, which he would have developed
later as far as concerned the literary
style, and polished its primitive form.

I took some extracts, and on my re-
turn to Paris I hunted up MM. Meurice
and Vacquerie, testamentary executors
of Hugo, who, in a newspaper inter-
view, recognized the authenticity of
these dialogues and anecdotes, and were
surprised, astounded, at the existence of
this amazing journal, which they could
not secure. I was then able to return

to London, with complete confidence, to
copy the principal passages of these un-
published works, and to sketch the gen-
eral spirit of them, for the purpose of
presenting the essence of them to the
numerous readers of Scribner's Maga-
zine.

Portrait of Victor Hugo, published by " TOracle Europ^en," in 1828.

plays
of his

The task was arduous, and not too
agreeable. I trust I have executed it
to the complete satisfaction of the pub-
He beyond seas.

The " Journal de I'Exil " takes up Vic-
tor Hugo at his departure from Brus-
sels, July 30, 1852, and accompanies him
to 185G. It begins thus : *' M. Victor
Hugo and his two sons, Franyois and
Charles Hugo, quitted Brussels j^ester-
day morning, at eleven o'clock, to go to
Antwerp, where they were to embark for
London, which place they will only pass
through in order to arrive as soon as
possible at the island of Jersey, where
they intend to fix their residence. A
great number of French refugees and
some Belgians were assembled at the
station to bid adieu to the exiled poet."

On the passage of Victor Hugo to

5C2 CONl^ERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO.

LoDdon nothing esi^ecially strikinji: is "Ob, my country! It is at this hour

reported, unless it be a visit to Maz- when I see thee V)leedinj;^, inanimate,

zini, whom lie wished to dissuade from with droopinp^ head, and eyes closed, with

the possibility of carrying out his proj- parted lips yet no longer speaking, the

ect. From London Hugo passes to Jer- mark of the lash upon thy shoulders.

Hugo, from a Portrait published by " Le Sylphe," in 1829.

sey, where he arrives August 5th, and
where he straightway becomes enthusi-
astic over the beauty of the site. " Jer-
sey," he cries, "is a grove, through
which plays the voice of the ocean. It
has the sharp aridity of Brittany and
the smiling grace of Normandy. In its
heaths, its ferns, its rocks, its green
paths, its vast denuded plains, in the
wind of the sea, Jersey has every beau-
ty." On his way the poet sees some
elms. " How sweet this is ! " he says,
" I find the elm again. It is a tree of
France."

August 6th the travellers alighted at
the hotel of the Pomme d'Or. In the
evening Victor Hugo reads some pas-
sages from " Napoleon le Petit," from
the "Crime du 2 Ducembre," from
" Dieu et Loi ; " then, in a voice pro-
foundly agitated, he says these words :

the nails of the boots of thy execu-
tioners printed upon thy body, naked
and soiled, and like one dead — a laugh-
ing-stock ! — it is at this hour that the
heart of the exile overflows with love
and respect for thee."

The exiles installed themselves, Au-
gust 12th, at Marine Terrace, a coquet-
tish little dwelling at St. Clement, near
St. Helier's. They were not long in
receiving visits from the best known
persons of the time. One of their first
and most constant visitors was General
Le Flo, also an exile. It is in talking
with him that Victor Hugo makes this
cruel and unjust mot on Proudhon.
" If the empire becomes a fact, we shall
find citizen Proudhon changed into His
Excellency Count Proudhon, Senator."
Hugo elsewhere shows but little ten-
derness to this writer. He goes so far

CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO. 563

as to say, " The conduct of Proudlion
was that of a wretch."

It is at this time, as soon as they are
fairly established, that the hosts and
guests of Jersey commence their curious
conversations, anecdotes, stories about
artists and men of letters of the period.

presses some remarkable ideas on God :
"God exists ; but being absolute, per-
fect. He has not created the perfect and
the absolute because He would have re-
produced Himself. God, then, has cre-
ated the imperfect and the relative, and
therein He has placed man. Man suf-

Hugo, from an Etching by Salmon, published in 1840.

August 14th, Mme Hugo relates the
visit which she made with Beranger to
Rosa Bonheur. She thus describes the
artist : "Rosa Bonheur is a pretty wom-
an, with well-defined features, a very
lively eye, abrupt gestures ; she has
small hands, small feet, a slight figure,
and delicate features. Yet, from this
ensemble there arises a vague impres-
sion of the masculine. She herself re-
lates that from childhood she cared
nothing for ribbons or dolls, but only
for oxen, cows, and sheep, and when,
later, her father, seeing that she had a
taste for drawing, had her attempt his-
torical pictures, at the age of twenty,
carried away by her vocation, she re-
turned to her beautiful cows, to her
dear oxen — quitting men for beasts."

August 17th, in the course of a con-
versation which unfortunately is not
recorded entire, Victor Hugo thus ex-

fers because he is among the imperfect
and the relative. Man suft'ers because
he expiates. He expiates in this world
a fault he has committed in an anterior
world. He does not know what that
fault is, that original sin, but the feel-
ing of it remains. This sentiment of
former sin is four i in all religions.
Upon his good or b A conduct will de-
pend his re-entry iaio the primitive and
happy existence, and in the same wa\^
everything in nature will be transformed.
Mineral life passes to organic vegetable
life ; vegetable life becomes animal life,
of which the highest specimen is the
ape. Above the ape commences intel-
lectual life. Man occupies the lowest
degree in the intellectual scale, a scale
invisible and infinite, by which each
spirit mounts to eternity, and of which
God is the summit. All worlds are
progressing ; they are all in travail."

564 CONl/ERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO.

Hugo, from a Photograph rr.ade about 18;

Do not these lines show an unknown
Victor Hugo — a Victor Hugo who is a
metaphysician ?

Again, one finds the romantic poet in
his fashion of regarding the possible
role of Louis Bonaparte. "If Louis
Bonaparte," he says, " had been an in-
telligently ambitious man instead of be-
ing a miserable intriguer, armed with
the popular name oi Napoleon, he would
have had a magnificent and unique role
to fill — to renounce the frippery and the
tinsel of vanity ; to renounce money and
luxury ; to renounce the title of Prince,
uselessly added to that of President,
while treating loftily the sovereigns of
Europe ; to secure the good of his peo-
ple ; to restore liberty ; to bring about
all possible improvements ; to encour-
age art ; to raise France, while making
himself humble ; to live poorly and
worthily, and, above all, to be an honest

man ; to respect the constitution ; final-
ly, his four 3^ears' term having elapsed,
to depart, saying, ' I resign the power
given me by the people, and I leave it
to him whom the people shall judge to
be more worthy than L' And all would
have cried to Bonaparte, ' Kemain. We
shall keep you in spite of yourself.' "

Upon the subject of the most desir-
able form of government he advances
this proposition to General Le Flo : "I
have been, like you, a liberal monarch-
ist. Then I recognized that the two
principles. Monarchy and Republican-
ism, could not live together without de-
vouring eacli other, and in this meal the
Bepublic, to which belongs the future,
would eat up the old Monarchy." And
Le Flo replies : "I believe, indeed, that
the Republic has the future to itself ;
but a very distant future."

In his quality as a soldier Le Flo

CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF yiCTOR HUGO, 565

abounds in stories. The war in Africa
furnishes him the greater number. He
thus estimates his companions in arms :
" General Bedeau is a man who, in
battle, hunts for the most dangerous
place. Lamoriciere was a weak head.
Papa Bugeaud did not know exactly
where honesty stopped and rascality
began. As for Changarnier, he is a man
silent and impassible, but of a sure and
implacable decision. He is the strongest
of the French generals. Saint-Arnaud
was a fellow without morality ; thought-
less and witty. I could cite you a hun-
dred examples of his joyous frivolity."

It is about this period, September,
1852, that Victor Hugo seriously dis-
cusses the project of going to France
in a balloon and casting over Paris col-
lections of "Napoleon le Petit." The
thing was actually resolved upon for
some days. It is probable that before
executing this fantastic project Victor
Hugo reflected upon the inconveniences
of such a propaganda.

Among the curious ideas given out at
this time by the poet, this one is worth
instancing. "The inhabitants of the
sun are at least five hundred feet high.
There are vehicles in the sun. I am
led to know this by observing the move-
ments that are made in the stars. At
any rate, where there are inhabitants
there are vehicles. Perhaps there are
no houses, but there are vehicles. This
is why : The first instinct of man is to
move bodies. In order to be moved
they must be carried. To carry them, a
vehicle is necessary. The sun is at once
the source and the end of all great gen-
iuses, who come in turn to inhabit for a
time the inferior spheres. These in-
ferior spheres are — the moon, the earth,
Saturn, Venus, etc."

The journal of November, 1852, re-
ports a neat judgment of the poet on J.
J. Rousseau. " He is naivete in corrup-
tion and puerility in profundity." It
contains also two amusing anecdotes.
" M. A. (Auguste Vacquerie, doubtless)
related to Hugo that Gerard de Ner-
val had become crazy. Without bread,
without a roof, and without lodging, the
poor devil had been taken in by his
friend, Theophile Gautier. One fine
morning, or rather one foul morning,
Gerard being in bed sick and crazier
Vol. XII.— 61

than ever, at the house of his friend
Gautier, now more than ever his nurse,
suddenly the two friends are interrupt-
ed. It is the highly troublesome visit of
Gerard's father, who enters the chamber
of the sick man, pays no attention to
his unlucky and wild son, or to Gautier,
looks with care at every piece of furni-
ture, passes from the table to the com-
mode, from the commode to the chair,
from the chair to the arm-chair, from
the arm-chair to the clock, from the
clock to the carpet, all the while say-
ing : " That's good ; that suits me ; that
is worth so much ; this chair needs re-
pairing ; the clock must be regulated,
such a clockmaker will repair it."

" Oh, come," finally says Gautier, " did
you come here to make an inventory of
my furniture ? " (the my was especially
orotund).

" Your furniture ! " exclaims Gerard's
father.

"Yes, of my furniture ? Your son is
in my house. Your son was without
fire or home, and it is I, his friend, I,
Theophile Gautier, who have taken him
in, and he is at my house among my
furniture. Now do you understand ? "

" No, monsieur, I do not understand
you. My son is lodged here. He is
old enough to have his own furniture.
This furniture, then, I assume to be his,
and as he owes me money I am going
to sell the said furniture."

The dialogue, as may be supposed,
was closed only by putting Gerard's
father out of doors.

The other anecdote relates to rela-
tives of Lamennais. This latter had a
sister who was married to a certain
Blaise. Blaise had two sons, one named
Louis and the other Auguste. It came
one day to the knowledge of Blaise that
Lamennais had just sold a manuscript
for a considerable sum — from four to
five hundred thousand francs. Address-
ing himself to his eldest son : " Did j'ou
know, Louis, Lamennais has sold his
last volume for five hundred thousand
francs. Tiens. Say, now, how would it
be if Auguste should learn to make lit-
erature ? "

Some time after these anecdotes Vic-
tor Hugo and his son engaged in an
interesting discussion regarding the
value of conquerors. The point of de-

566 CONyFRSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF l^ICTOR HUGO.

parture was the French Kevolution, and
the poet speaks first of Napoleon I.
with enthusiasm. Charles Hiijjfo denies
the usefulness of this conqueror, as well
as that of Alexander and of Caesar.
The manuscript continues as follows :

Victor Hugo. " Hannibal, Csesar, Alex-
ander, Charlemagne, and Napoleon are
violent civilizers, who introduced civili-
zation by upsetting the world."

Charles Hugo (his son). " Then, if
Hannibal was a civilizer, Attila must
also be a civilizer."

Victor Hugo. " Attila at the head of
his army of barbarians invading the
South is nothing but the representative
of the peoples of the North invading the
peoples of the sunshine. Attila comes to
warm himself, that is all ; while Hanni-
bal civilizes. Alexander and Caesar civ-
ilize ; Charlemagne civilizes ; Napoleon
civilizes. They bring ideas of progress
into the lands of shadows. They vio-
lently incubate by w^ar the germs of
progress, but they do not incubate them
gently by thought, as did Virgil, Homer,
Dante, and Shakespeare. The men of
the sword are inferior to the men of the
pen."

From this point the conversation
turns upon the social "bearing of the
works of Victor Hugo. The latter says :
"I have intended to rehabilitate the
pariah, whatever form he may take,
whether it be a buffoon like Tribou-
let ; a courtesan like Marion Delorme ;
a poisoner like Lucrezia Borgia ; the
oppressed, like the people. Those who
say that I have made art for art's sake,
have said a silly thing. No one more
than I has practised art for society and
for humanity. I have always worked
for this end, and known what I wished
to do."

Augusie Vacquerie. "That is true,
but I believe that you are an exception,
and that few poets have had a con-
sciousness of their work. It is plain
that Moliere did not see his dramas as
sad as we see them."

Victor Hugo. " I believe, in fact, that
Moliere, although he was very unfort-
unate and put his misfortunes into his
works, did not see all the sinister sides
of his dramas. iEschylus, in the same
way, did not clearly perceive all the as-
pects of his work, for his time was too

restricted for him to see them all.
That is the sublime side of art, that in
creating a work the poet creates at the
same time the infinite in his work, and
each century, each movement of pos-
terity, discovers there a new horizon ;
and that is why, since art does not
progress, neither ^schylus nor Shake-
speare will be suipassed."

Shortly after this conversation there
began to be a serious disturbance about
an apparition which haunted the shore,
and rapping spirits that troubled Hugo's
sleep. The passages relating to these
are curious and should be cited entire.

" For some time it has been pretend-
ed— sceptics may laugh — that an appa-
rition has haunted the strand, and partic-
ularly the approaches to Marine Terrace.
This apparition, which assumed a lu-
minous form, was named ' The White
Lady.' Throughout all the island the
White Lady was reputed to be the fa-
miliar genius of Marine Terrace. Victor
Hugo had at first smiled a little about
this apparition, then w^hen he heard it
said that several persons had seen and
reseen the spectre, he thought of Shake-
speare and remembered Hamlet and
the shade of Banquo. Jersey, for that
matter, is an island filled with legends.
There is not a rock, not an old ruin
which does not pass as haunted by ap-
paritions. Some pretend even that the
devil has appeared there. Marine Ter-
race itself had its legends and its spec-
tre. To conjure or to mollify the shade
which every night had wandered upon
the Terrace, it had been thought d pro-
pos to draw a big black cross upon the
wall which separated the Terrace from
the sea.

" Credulous minds believe blindly all
mysteries ; sceptical minds deny them
all ; great minds are serious in the
presence of mystery, in presence of the
night, in presence of the unknown.
They do not say absolutely, yes ; they
do not absolutely say, no. Great minds
do not affirm as the credulous do, but
they do not deny as do the sceptical.

"Victor Hugo used to hear in his
chamber strange sounds. Sometimes
papers would move all by themselves
when there was no wind ; sometimes
he heard blows struck upon the wall ;
Charles Hugo and Franyois Hugo, in the

CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO, 567

neighboring chamber, heard the same
sound. One evening Mme Hugo had
gone to sleep, having forgotten to blow
out her candle. Mme Hugo awoke in
darkness ; who could have blown out
her candle ?

"In the night of the 22d of Febru-
ary Victor Hugo, b}^ chance, entered the
salon, the two windows of which looked
out upon the street. He saw neither
fire in the chimney nor light upon the
table ; the servants were sleeping. Vic-
tor Hugo goes up to his chamber and
goes to bed. At two o'clock in the
morning Charles and Franyois Hugo
return. They see the windows of the
salon illuminated, not only as if there
were a great fire, but lighted candela-
bra. The two young men enter aston-
ished, so astonished that, to clear up
the thing — so luminous and so obscure
at once — they try to open the door of
the salon. It is locked. Fran9ois Hugo
goes to bed ; Charles asks for the key
from his mother and his sister, who do
not know where it is. He hunts for it
and finally finds it. Then he feels him-
self seized with such a terror that he
flees without daring to enter the salon."

At this passage in the "Journal
de I'Exil " the table - tipping appears.
Charles Hugo is surprised by these un-
accustomed facts, and interrogates the
table. The spirit present in that piece
of furniture declares that her name is
the White Lady, and she cannot say
any more unless in the street, at three
o'clock in the morning. Victor Hugo, to
whom the thing was told, was not very
brave ; he found the hour and the place
of rendezvous badly chosen. He pre-
ferred to remain at the house, and ev-
erybody else did the same. During the
night, as often happened, Victor Hugo
was still working when the bell rang
violently. The poet instantly thought
of the White Lady. He looked at his
watch ; it was just three o'clock in the
morning. "Ghosts are punctual," he
said.

The phenomena of apparitions and
of turning tables did not make Victor
Hugo forget politics. The journal re-
ports to us that he had a notion of re-
assembling the National Assembly in
England, and if England refused to give
it an asvlum, in America. " The Ameri-

cans would be very happy," he said, " to
give England such a slap in the face."
The Assembly having deliberated, the
deputies would return and would go to
Nantes, where they would fortify them-
selves, and whence they would issue
proclamations and appeals to insurrec-
tion.

According to Pierre Leroux, this
plan and all others must remain use-
less. If a new religion was not brought
to the people, nothing would make the
people free, even if Bonaparte should
be killed.

"Let us not kill Louis Bonaparte,"
responded the poet ; "let us abolish the
death penalty."

Pierre Leroux. "Yes, doubtless, my
dear friend, doubtless."

Charles Hugo. "But the galleys; isn't
that as hard as death ? "

Victor Hugo. "To me there is an im-
mense difierence between the galleys
and the death penalty. Death for some
is annihilation ; for others it is hell ;
for this man, it is heaven ; for all it is
mystery. And brutally, abruptly, with-
out transition, you cast a human creat-
ure into this fearful unknown. Death
is a thing by itself. When you con-
demn to the galleys, the sacred princi-
ple of human life is respected."

Pierre Leroux. "Our epoch is an
epoch of decadence. Its literature suf-
ficiently proves it. Thus, dear friend,
all these little poets whom you have
created, and who are, so to speak, the
foam of your works — all these little po-
ets have no talent, and, above aU, no
imagination."

Victor Hugo. " What, Theophile Gau-
tier, Alfred de Musset, Alphonse Karr,
Janin?"

Pierre Leroux. "No, they have no
real talent coming from themselves.
No one will speak of them fifty years
from now. There was only one of them^
as I think, who had any future. He
died in the hospital. It was H. Mo-
reau."

Victor Hugo. "Dear friend, you are
mistaken. He was not worth as much
as the others, and he is hardly known."

Pierre Leroux. " I return to my sub-
ject. Our epoch is an epoch of deca-
dence. Its literature, born of vice, proves
it. It has the vices, the useless and lux-

568 CONl^ERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF HCTOR HUGO.

urious superabundance of the letters
of the Byzantine empire ; of the time
when there aj^peared all those poets, all
that artificial literature that you re-
member. Our letters to-day are the
fatal announcement of the fall and the
engulfing of humanity."

Victor Hugo. "You are completely
mistaken. Never was there an epoch
so grand as ours. Never was literature
so complete. Complete poetry is com-
posed of three things: Man, Life, and
Nature. Former French poets found
only man mingled with life. There is
not in Moliere, or in Eacine, the shad-
ow of an allusion to a tree, a plant, a
star. It is only in this century that the
French school, of which you speak with
disdain, has perceived that there is a
heaven, stars, fields, hills, rocks, the sea,
water."

Further on is a curious indication of
the care with which Victor Hugo sought
out the titles of his books. He says, to
begin with, that he wishes people to un-
derstand them ; then, after having hesi-
tated a long time among several titles
for the book, which appeared some time
later as "Les Chatiments," he rejects
"L'Empire au pilori," and decides for
a time upon "II faut rendre a Cesar
ce qui est a Mandrin."

Charles Hugo. " Oh, that is too long.
How can anybody say, Send me some
' II faut rendre a Cesar ce qui est a Man-
drin?'"

Francois Hugo. "Why not simply,
' Cesar Mandrin ? ' It's shorter, and is
the same idea."

Victor Hugo. "'Cesar Mandrin,' yes,
that is good enough."

Auguste Vacquerie. "As for me, I
don't understand. I prefer a hundred
times the title of 'Chatiments' to all
the other titles."

Some days later General Metzacas
pays a visit to Victor Hugo, and they
talk of California. " California is a cu-
rious country. Liberty and the gold
fever have there developed a strange
phenomenon. They kill, they pillage,
they rob, without anyone's interfering.
They gain 100,000 francs a day and lose
it with the same facility. Amid the dis-
order of morals and the absence of laws
one thing only is observed ; it is rest
on Sunday."

Mme Hugo. " What ! Sunday has
crossed the sea ? "

Victor Hugo. "Alas, yes, my child.
More English than the English, the
Americans pass the Sabbath stretched
in chairs, their boots on the window-
sills, a spectacle which has suggested
to a Frenchman the rather witty saying
' We are going to hold a review of soles.'
B^^t the most singular thing is the need
of whittling with which all Americans
are possessed. It is such that on Sun-
day they give the sailors little bits of
wood, because if they did not they would
whittle the ship. In court, at the most
critical moment, the judge, whittling,
says : ' Prisoner, are you guilty ? ' and
the accused tranquilly responds, whit-
tling, ' I am not guilty.' "

Following these geographical fancies
I find reported this word of Mazzini on
Victor Hugo : " He is the chief of jug-
glers." Fourrier, not less unjust, has
this mot, also preserved in the "Journal
de I'Exil," " Victor Hugo is the king of
Quakers."

But it is particularly in anecdotes
that the manuscript is rich. The poet
relates an adventure of Pierre Le-
roux : " Do you know the story of
Pierre Leroux ? He was never willing
to marry. Nevertheless he asked a
young girl of her parents. ' You wish
our daughter?' the parents said to
him. 'Certainly.' ' But you do not wish
to espouse her? ' ' No.' ' Why ? ' 'Be-
cause I do not care to marry.' He was
refused, but betook himself elsewhere
and was accepted."

Victor Hugo reports that being at the
burial of Balzac, in 1850, he came near
being crushed between the tombstone
and the hearse. He was saved only by
a strange chance. A man who was on
the other side of the tombstone saw his
peril, and, lifting him by his shoulders,
prevented " the world's assisting at the
spectacle of Victor Hugo crushed by
Balzac."

The Pole Bemenyi often gave musical
soirees at Marine Terrace. On one oc-
casion, after a comparison between Be-
menyi and Paganini — a comparison that
Victor Hugo found exaggerated — the
exiled poet gave these definitions : " The
organ is the voice of the infinite. The

CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO. 569

orchestra is the complete resume of in-
strumental music. The violin sings like
a human voice. The human voice is a
translation of divine harmony, composed
of the sounds of nature, of the wind,
of the sea, of birds, of the rustling of
trees, of the murmur of brooks, and of
the peal of thunder. This music of nat-
ure has as its interpreter the instru-
ment ; the instrument is a Word." Is
not that the very way of thinking and
expression of a romantic poet ?

We find him again, as we know him,
in the following conversation. August
18th:

My Mother (Mme Hugo). " I am go-
ing to send for the Hennequin's book
on the ' Soul of the Earth.' "

My Father (Victor Hugo). " You are
quite right to send for that book. It
cannot lack a certain interest. Henne-
quin has very well defined Fourrier,
showing him to be a bourgeois to whom
God has granted three or four great
rays of light and progress. As for me,
if I had a book to make on the soul of
the earth, I should show it transmitting
three or four grand ideas to humanity.
But since, unfortunately, men of ge-
nius are wanting, it takes at hazard a
grocer, a bourgeois, whom it intoxi-
cates with these great ideas. That is
the history of Fourrier. A thick-headed
bourgeois, a vulgar grocer, who has
caught a glimpse of one or two eternal
truths."

Then the conversation turns on Fre-
deric Lemaitre.

Victor Hugo. " Actors have only one
time, that of their theatrical life, and as
nothing remains of them after their life,
they should have the greatest respect
for the things of the present (actualite).
This is the moment of their triumph.
Frederic Lemaitre did not understand
this, and he wasted his last years treat-
ing with the Coignards and playing an
unsuitable repertoire. So now Frederic,
worn out, is completely extinguished.
Talma did differently, and though he
had not a genius as varied and as com-
plete as that of Lemaitre, his work will
last longer, will endure as long as the
work of an actor can. For Talma had
the intelligence to choose great Indies
which have left great memories. Le-
maitre had no such sagacity."

The "Journal de I'Exil" contains
pages far more severe and of a very
different tone, such as the following,
under the date of November 23d :

Charles Hugo. " Who will say that
Louis Bonaparte did not believe that
he was saving society when he commit-
ted the crime of December 2d ? "

Victor Hugo. "I heard it said the
other day that Torquemada was a great-
er wretch than Montalembert. That is
an error. Torquemada burned people
alive, and in that way killed four hun-
dred thousand persons. I concede that
Montalembert has not done so much.
But Torquemada mistakenly sought to
save humanity from hell by burning it
in this world. He was a man of convic-
tions. Moreover, this same Torquema-
da, at the age of ninety, was living with
a hood of iron on his head, to escape
assassins ; he was living in haircloth,
imposing voluntary poverty upon him-
self. If, in reality, this man had, as he
believed, saved humanity from eternal
perdition by a few hours' torture, then
Torquemada would evidently be one of
the benefactors of humanity ; whereas
M. de Montalembert did not, and does
not, in anywise believe, and arrests prog-
ress in order that he may be called M.
le Comte de Montalembert and may gain
money. Men can be judged only by
their intentions, and their intentions
can be known only because their char-
acteristic actions have a relation to
themselves. When men act against
their interests, they are pure in inten-
tion ; when they act for their own inter-
ests, they are culpable in intention."

The same day there is a conversation
between the two sons of the master,
giving us the touching story of Marie
Duplessis, whence was derived Dumas's
drama, " La Dame aux CameUas."

Franc^ois Hugo. ''Little Dumas has
just captured another success with ' Di-
ane de Lys.' Have you read Gautier's
feuilleton?"

Charles Hugo. " Yes, he's lucky, is
the little Dumas. He has won a suc-
cess already with his ' Dame aux Came-
lias.' Still the romance from which he
took the play was finer than the play,
and the real history is even much more
interesting. Dumas has completely
marred it."

570 CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF I^ICTOR HUGO.

Here Charles Hugo relates the story.
Marie Duplessis was a young woman of
fashion who owed a wonderful success
to her beauty. At the Champs, at the
Bois, her carriage was more surrounded
than any other. She had a great num-
ber of admirers, acknowledged and w^el-
comed. But of those who could not
approach her was a young collegian of
eighteen, who was madly enamoured of
her. As long as she was d la mode the
young man held himself aloof. Then she
fell ill and the admirers dropped away.
At that time the collegian came to her
door to inquire as to her condition,
and, learning from her domestic that
she was deserted and uncared for, he be-
came her nurse. He remained by her
bedside to the last, and when she died
he alone followed her coffin, and he alone
tended her grave, which was always cov-
ered with fresh camelias.

Charles Hugo, who shows taste
enough in this conversation, seems not
to have had as much at all times.

Victor Hugo. " Louis Bonaparte has
sent me two books on artillery, with
this inscription : ' A tribute of high es-
teem and of profound consideration.'
For that matter, Louis Bonaparte is
a fairly good writer ; he has a certain
talent."

Charles Hugo. *' Talk of Louis Na-
poleon. Bah ! He has hardly more
talent than his uncle. We must be
done with this mass of stupid preju-
dices. Homer has only two or three
fine scenes ; I say it, I, who have trans-
lated the ' Iliad.' As for Horace, I pre-
fer Musset to him."

Victor Hugo glances quietly toward
his right at a big fellow just arrived
from the Provinces. " Monsieur, what
have you been giving my son to drink ? "
The young man replies, " Nothing,
Monsieur, nothing."

Charles Hugo. "It is as it is with
the Bible. You admire the Bible, you
admire Job. Job and the Bible are
commonplace."

Victor Hugo. "Don't talk about
things that you know nothing of. Are
you sure you have even read the Bible ?
Know that Job is one of the greatest
masterpieces of the human mind. It is,
perhaps, the greatest masterpiece. And

to-morrow, if all literature was to be
destroyed, and it was left to me to
retain one work only, I should save
Job."

Here Victor Hugo makes a masterly
analysis of the Book of Job. He is in-
terrupted by Auguste Vacquerie, who
says : " The discourses of the three
friends of Job are interminable and
horribly tiresome."

Victor Hugo. "What you call inter-
minable and tiresome is perhaps the
finest passage of the poem."

(They go down into the salon and the
discussion continues.)

Auguste Vacquerie. " I grant you
that the subject is grand, but not the
prologue. This prologue that you find
immense I find petty and ignoble. The
God of Job is a miserable God, an in-
grate, who plays at dice for the soul of
a man, who renders this man wretched
and delivers him over to Satan solely
because the man is virtuous. That be-
littles and degrades God. A work that
diminishes God is not a grand work."

Victor Hugo. " When I say God, I
do not insist upon God such as Christian
orthodoxy represents Him. If you will,
this God of whom I speak to you shall
be Jupiter, and the subject will not be
the less superb. It is not a question of
orthodoxy that I am discussing, it is a
question of art."

From Job Victor Hugo passes to
Hamlet, of whom he gives a remarkable
study, and, summing up the subject, he
closes thus : "There are superior spirits
who reach to heaven through the starry
azure, and before whom we should all
bow down."

Charles Hugo. " Then why have you
hung on the heels of Kacine and har-
ried him? His name carries weight
enough, surely."

Victor Hugo. " Well, are you going
to put Racine on the level of the others ?
We have attacked Eacine because he
was a usurper of renown."

Charles Hugo. " What tells you that
the others are not 'usurpers of re-
nown?'"

Victor Hugo. " My intelligence. When
I read a celebrated author and do
not find in him the merits that ought
to win for him his celebrity, I do all that
I can to put him in his true place. I

CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR. HUGO. 571

think it a duty to rectify the judgments
of posterity."

The conversation, pursued some time
longer, ceased for want of hearers.

It was late, some had withdrawn ; as
for those who remained, the grocer,
Asplet, and the paper-maker, finding no
great interest in this literary conversa-
tion, were commencing to get sleepy.

Among the souvenirs of Victor Hugo
this one is notable ; it shows all the
vehemence of the poet : " Dupin is the
greatest of wretches. When I was in
the tribune and that rascal hindered me
from speaking, I cried out to him, ' Hold
your tongue, then, you vile rascal. Let
me alone, blackguard.' Dupin pretend-
ed not to hear and swallowed my in-
sults unmoved."

After Victor Hugo attacking Dupin
we have Charles defending Hebert d,
propos of the French Revolution.

Charles Hugo. " I am sure that He-
bert has been calumniated, as well as all
the Revolutionists."

Victor Hugo. " Hebert may have had
some heart at odd moments, but he
none the less represents the bad side of
the Revolution. In the Revolution the
head was Robespierre ; the heart was
Danton ; the belly, Hebert."

To these reflections upon the person-
ages of the first French Republic, suc-
ceed others upon a great man of the
Roman Republic. Victor Hugo says
that he admires the figure of Brutus,
the devotion of the citizen to his coun-
try, for which he slays his children.
Charles responds that Brutus is a man
destitute of all human sentiments, and
that, moreover, Brutus never existed.
Auguste Vacquerie comes to the help
of Charles. He says that if he had ex-
isted, Brutus sacrificed a human senti-
ment, paternity, to a local sentiment,
patriotism, and he cites these lines of
Corneille :

" Je rends grace au ciel de n'etre pas Romain
Pour conserver encore quelque chose d'hu-
maiu."

Victor Hugo says that for him the
family cannot stand against the country.
Auguste Vacquerie resumes : " Happily
God has not put a man in this horrible

dilemma, where he must choose between
his country and his children. Brutus
never existed. If he had, he would be
more to be pitied than admired."

Victor Hugo. *' Brutus did exist, and
Brutus is a great figure. Abraham is
a primitive Brutus, sacrificing his son
Isaac to God. All great acts, all great
devotions of humanity are relative."

Victor Hugo cites this fact, drawn
from the "Romancero :" Don Diego, in
obedience to the Queen of Spain, sends
his six sons to the siege of Zamorah,
where all six perish. What could be
more relative, and yet more grand, than
this father sending his six sons to death
in obedience to a Queen, who was not
equal even to Christine ; and what could
be greater than this father forgetting
that he is a father to save his country ? "

Victor Hugo has the notion of over-
turning everything in France — all its
institutions, even the Academy, which
must be re - established upon another
footing. "The idea of the Academy is
very grand," he says, " and very beauti-
ful. It is the Senate of the future, for
the great power of the United States of
Europe will be an academy composed
of all the illustrious scientific and liter-
ary persons of France, named by the
suffrage of the men of letters and of all
the intelligent youth of the schools."

While waiting to be in condition to
overturn everything in France, the poet
complains of the proscription. " I find
it extremely disagreeable to nourish, not
the real exiles who are brave fellows,
but to have at my heels the spies of M.
Bonaparte ; for out of every eighty ex-
iles twent}^ are spies."

Some days later Victor Hugo returns
to the subject of his visions and his
nocturnal fears. " Formerly I used to
sleep like a tranquil man. Now I never
lie down without a certain terror, and
when I awake in the night I awake with
a shudder. I hear rapping sj)irits in
my room, and this sound (Victor Hugo
taps upon the table). Two months ago,
before the White Lady had sketched
her portrait, I did not have this terror,
but now, I confess it, I experience an
accursed horror."

Mme Victor Hugo. " Why, good heav-
ens ! you always had that disposition.
When Saxe-Coburg died, and his mother

572 CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO.

entered yeur room, the sight of that
great woman in despair, weeping for her
dead son, cost you such a fright that for
a fortnight you could not stay alone af-
ter nightfall. It was the same with the
vision you have told as being the dream
of the last day of a condemned man.
The apjoarition of that old Avoman pur-
sued you for a long while."

Auguste Vacqueine. "All this upsets
my ideas. I believed that we were in
the epoch of the majority, and I see
with vexation that we must still have
ruts and religions ! "

Victor Hugo. " The world is still in its
infancy. It does require ruts and reli-
gions. It is doubtful if the average hu-
man being has arrived at even a modest
degree of reason. Yes, I believe that
at some time, in thousands of millions
of years, perhaps, every man will have
no other religion than his own philoso-
phy. At the present hour man still has
need of religion and of written revela-
tion. The truths that man finds must
be confirmed by God. Those which
are developed from the j)henomenon of
the tables — I discovered them fifteen
years ago ; I made a book upon these
very truths. It is the book that my
daughter urges me so much to publish.
This book is confirmed by the phe-
nomena. For that matter, all great
men have had revelations — all superior
minds. Socrates had his familiar ge-
nius ; Zoroaster, so he said, distinctly
perceived good and evil ; Shakespeare
saw phantoms. Very well, a hundred
years from now it will be said that
this book about the tables was inspired
by the familiar demon of Marine Ter-
race."

Auguste Vacquerie. " Notwithstand-
ing, I, who belong to the party of the
nineteenth century, I must say that if
the intervention of the spirits were
strictly proven to me, it would modify
mj ideas. I should believe that man
is nothing more than an instrument on
which the spirits play, that the phenom-
enon of inspiration, for example, is pro-
duced not by the labor and the creation
of man but by an idea, a sort of spirit
that takes its place in the brain of man.
Thus, in my own case, this is so true
that I have been ten years unsuccessful
in finding some idea, which finally came

to me all at once, at the moment when
I least expected it. And so, too, I was
composing a scene to-day so touching
that it brought the tears to my own
eyes, when suddenly an idea so comical
crossed my brain that I fairly ran on the
shore eager to put it into execution."

Victor Hugo. "Inspiration comes to
me in exactly the opposite way. There
is in all my work not a single idea, not
one line, that I have not sought for ;
not a single word that I have not medi-
tated on. Thus, do you know how the
idea of Buy-Bias came to me ? I want-
ed to represent a minister invested with
absolute power, the undisputed ruler
of a great kingdom ; when he has ar-
rived at the highest degree of power,
one day, amid his courtiers and his flat-
terers, there enters to him an unknown
man who commands him as his mas-
ter. That is the idea from which Buy-
Bias came."

Charles Hugo. "As for me, I believe
that to make a fine thing one must take
some trouble. When Vulcan made Mi-
nerva spring from the head of Jupiter
he broke the skull of the god. Minerva
was the goddess of wisdom, of philos-
ophy, of the Idea."

Victor Hugo. " You are wrong to
measure beauty by difficulty. Thus I
consider prose infinitely more difficult
than verse. I hate to write prose, I
passionately love to make verses, and I
consider that prose is very inferior to
verse. It has required all the wiU with
which I am endowed to reach the point
that I have reached. When I was a very
young man I wished to quit lyric poe-
try for dramatic poetry. I maintained
that I should make a revolution in the
art. I brought all my family down
upon me. I had them all against me.
I remember that my wife's father said
to me : * You are Avrong, 3'ou are at-
tempting an impossible thing.' My
father, who nevertheless was very fond
of me, said : ' It is senseless. You wish
to revolutionize art. It is madness.'
A relative, an amiable young w^oman,
said to me, mockingly : ' Ah, w^e have
then more talent than Racine ? ' "

Charles Hugo, who judges difficulty
to be one of the conditions of art, also
thinks that rigidity and absolutism are
conditions of pohtical integrity. About

CONl^ERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO. 573

the same period the " Journal de I'Exil "
reports this judgment of Hugo on the
English press in particular and the press
in general : "I was reading an English
journal the other day. It boasted of
having always been faithful to Bona-
parte and of having greeted him as a
great man at the time of the Coup d'Etat,
and it claimed that in this it had more
clearness of perception than the other
papers. One cannot imagine the feeble-
ness of the English press with reference
to Bonaparte. As to the French press,
it is dying. Its annihilation will bring
on the decadence of the book trade.
Books will no longer be sold when
papers are not bought. Now, how will
journals be bought that are not read ?
Or journals be read which contain no
controversy, and therefore present no
interest ? From the moment the jour-
nals are not read the taste for reading
is lost, and, naturally, that for books.
That is why Theophile Gautier got only
five hundred francs for three volumes
on Constantinople."

Victor Hugo exclaims (in September,
1854) : "If I were writing the history
of the French Revolution (and I shall
write it), I would tell all the crimes of
the revolutionists, only I would tell who
are really guilty of those crimes. It is
not the revolutionists, it is the royalists.
Above the tribunal of the Convention
which judges and which condemns
Louis XVI., there is the throne of
France, where were seated Pharamond
and his successors ; and it is not from
the tribunal of the Convention that the
condemnation of Louis XVI. issues ;
it is from above — from that invisible
throne of the kings of France. Start-
ing from that, I should be very tender
with the royal victims. I should pity
Marie Antoinette ; I should pity Louis
XVn., and I should add : ' Do you
know who tortured Louis XVII. ? It
was not Simon ; it was Louis XIV. Be-
hind Simon there was Louis XIV. urg-
ing his hand.' "

This way of considering history is
really an extraordinarily poetical con-
ception, if not absolutely exact.

Perhaps there is less exaggeration in
this judgment given upon Robespierre,
after a striking resume of the acts of

the revolutionist : " Robespierre is a
magnificent scoundrel. That is the word
that paints him exactly."

Here is the way in which Victor Hu-
go described the destiny of Saint-Ar-
naud, and saw in the malad}' by which
the General died a chastisement of
God.

My Father. "Has anyone here read
the article of Raspail in the Nation ? "
No one had.

My Father. " I am the only one here
who reads. Raspail makes a study of
the cholera, and he explains it thus : The
cholera is nothing but an invasion of
infusoria into the human body." (Here
Victor Hugo recalls his well-known the-
ory, admirably anticipating the ideas of
Raspail and his works on the cause of
diseases.)

Charles Hugo. "It is cholera which
struck Saint-Arnaud, like a just chas-
tisement ? "

Victor Hugo. "Yes ; what a chastise-
ment ; what a visible punishment. This
man, this General, dies in his bed at the
very moment of the taking of Sebasto-
pol, when his name was to be changed
from Saint-Arnaud to Duke of Sebas-
topol and Prince of the Crimea. . . .
What justice ! A man of the slums, he
ends in the sewers ! and he felt it him-
self. He says, ' The misfortune that as-
sails me is unexampled ! ' "

31. Auguste. "Yes, Saint-Arnaud felt
that it was a chastisement. One feels
in his address to the soldiers to what
degree he has suffered."

Victqr Hugo. " His expiation has
been sufficient. I shall take pity upon
him. I shall strike his name from my
verses."

It is near this point in the manuscript
that I find a very fine story of an Amer-
ican who had assumed the mission of
liberating the slaves. After he had
liberated seven of them, he was prose-
cuted and condemned to a fine greater
than his fortune. " You see," said the
judge, " while trying to free the slaves
you have lost not only all your prop-
erty, but more than your property."
" Yes," responds the prisoner, " I have
lost my property, but I shall continue
my mission, and if a single slave finds
himself here who has need of my help,

574 CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO,

let him come to old Tom ; although he
is seventy-one years old Old Tom will
know how to rescue him."

After the capture of Sebastopol Louis
Napoleon was credited with schemes of
conquest.

Charles Hugo. "It is possible that
Bonaparte may invade Belgium and put
an army on the Ehine."

Victor^ Hugo. "Although I approve
nothing that that rogue can do, never-
theless I should think it well if Belgium
were invaded by France and conquered
by her."

Charles Hugo. " But the Belgians
have their nationahty. If they wish to
remain Belgians, and not to become
French, it is their right."

Victor Hugo. " They should not re-
sist nature, which has placed Belgium
within the natural limits of France.
Belgium is, properly speaking, a French
department."

Charles Hugo. " Nevertheless there is
something above geographical lines, ter-
ritorial dispositions ; it is the idea of
the fatherland. The Belgians have a
right not to be Frenchmen."

My Father. " That is absolutely as if
you said that the Franche-Comte and
Alsace have a right not to be a part of
France."

Charles Hugo. " Doubtless the
Franche-Comte and Alsace might easi-
ly form independent states ; then the
comparison is not absolutely just, for
the Belgians have their language, their
government. The Alsacians and the
Francs-Comtois speak French."

Paul Meurice. " I beg your pardon,
Charles, the Alsacians speak German at
Strasburg ; the usual language is not
French, it is German."

Charles Hugo. " That is possible, and
so do the Belgians speak Belgian."

Victor Hugo. " That is to be dis-
puted ; the Belgians generally speak
in French patois. Moreover, it would
render Belgium sacred to make of it a
French department. What has it ever
produced, in men, in writers, in thinkers ?
Besides, it is in the order of things that
the small states must disappear. We
shall have the United States of Europe,
then the United States of the World.
From the unity of France will issue that
of Europe ; from the unity of Europe,

that of the World. The United States
of the World will be governed by an in-
stitute ; an assembly of all the thinkers,
philosophers, writers. The century be-
longs to science and art."

One may call this dream a Utopia ;
but one may also see in it a prophe-
cy, the fulfilment of which is still afar
off.

More scientific and better founded,
perhaps, is this aperpu of the soul :

Victor Hugo. " In this century I am
the first who has spoken not only of the
soul of animals, but also of the soul of
things. All my Hfe I have constantly
said, when I saw a tree branch broken
or a leaf torn off, ' Leave that branch ;
leave that leaf. Do not disturb the
harmony of nature.' As for animals,
I have not only never denied their
souls, but I have always believed in
them."

Charles Hugo. "Lamartine also be-
lieved in the souls of animals. There
are in 'Jocelyn' admirable lines upon a
dog:

* O mon chien ! Dieu seul salt la distance ! — ' "

Victor Hugo. "Lamartine also had
this prescience. But to retui'n to what
I was saying a moment ago. I believe
in the soul of animals. But let us un-
derstand each other about this word
soul. When I say the soul of inorganic
matter I believe that the soul, enclosed,
buried, is completely passive. When I
say the soul of animals, I believe that
the soul, less enclosed and less bui'ied
than in the inorganic matter, is still
three-quarters passive, and allows in-
stinct alone to pass. The soul of the
beast assists, then, in a confused man-
ner, at the acts of the beast. Neverthe-
less I believe that in perfect strictness
it is permitted to the instinct of the
beast to arrive at so perfect a state that
it can guide the beast to a sublime ac-
tion. We have an example of it in the
lion of Androcles and in the Hon of
Florence. Then the beast, recompensed
for his sublime effort, passes from the
animal state to that of the archangel.
Man himself is only haK responsible.
He has but a relative will. The condi-
tion of animals is a hundred times more
painful than our owti. Their soul is in
the horrible position that a Paganini

CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS OF VICTOR HUGO. 575

would be in, enclosed in a tower, im-
mured, blind, deaf, with no instrument
but a stick. What, then, would be the
genius of Paganini ? It would perforce
remain unknown to us."

The " Journal de I'Exil " is less crowded
during the last two years, 1855 and
1856 ; several portions are only reports
of conversations taking place in 1853
or 1854. It contains, nevertheless, in-
teresting historical documents, and re-
markable discussions, such as that upon
suicide, which follows :

Charles Hugo. " Excessive sorrow ex-
cuses suicide."

Victor Hugo. "Sorrow excuses, but
does not absolve suicide, which is a
grave thing ; no one has the right to
break his fetters and leave life, to
abandon the dwelling God has given
him in putting him in this world. I
believe that the crime of the suicide
should be chastised by a penalty be-
yond this world, especially when the
suicide has quitted life without an im-
perative reason, without extreme trou-
ble. Then I believe God makes him
begin again, under harder conditions,
the existence that he has wilfully shat-
tered."

M. Auguste. "Gerard de Nerval, one
Monday when he replaced Theophile
Gautier, in his feuilleton de thedtre,
wrote for La Presse an article on sui-
cide. He analyzed a play with the ti-
tle of ' Le Mort vivant,' the subject of
which was this : A man despairing of
his wife, whom he loved, and weary of
being poor, finally blew his brains out ;
hardly was he dead and buried when
his soul was allowed to see the life he
would have led had he had the courage
to go on. The suicide saw a letter that
would have given him a considerable in-
heritance ; he saw the wife that he had
loved forgetting him for others, divers
accidents arrived, and, dead, he was a
witness of life."

Charles Hugo. " The idea is very fine."

Victor Hugo. " Yes, it's a fine idea and
novel. There is much to be got from
this subject. In 1838 I proposed to An-
tenor Jolly to make a Thedtre fantasque.
The thing fell through on account of
the stupidity of the directors, but noth-
ing is finer than the fantastic mingled

with the human drama. For example,
what is more amazing than the appear-
ance of the Commander in the 'Don
Juan ' of Moliere ? Only Moliere was
wrong to call his play ' Le festin de
pierre ' (The Feast of Stone) ; he should
have called it ' Le convive de pierre '
(The Guest of Stone), which is the lit-
eral translation of the Spanish. *Le
convive de pierre ' is more terrible than
' Le festin de pierre.' All this does not
prevent Moliere being the greatest poet
of the century of Louis XIV., which al-
lows Boileau to find in him talent as a
rhymer only, and the grands seigneurs
of his time to treat him as nothing but a
comic poet. Moreover, the characteris-
tic of the century of Louis XIV. — and
here I am going to astonish the classic
fogies — is Romanticism. What is more
romantic than this century, in which
Versailles was created, that palace, those
fountains where the writhing waters
springing from the stone wed what is
most solid to what is most liquid ; the
strange time when they cut their hair
to make a perruque of it, when they
played the tragedies of Racine half in
Greek costume, half in that of Louis
XIV., tragedies that Madame de Se-
vigne discussed in her letters, a smile
on her lips, for she esteemed but lightly
this literature on stilts. The century
of Louis XrV. is a century of fancy
dominated by the sombre and severe
figure of Moliere ; and poor Moliere,
obHged to laugh with his time, pro-
duced jesting dramas of which the
depth was really sinister. And as he
strewed them with the bright laughter
of the powdered marquises and the
eternal sobs of the human heart, he has
made a prodigious work, which partakes
of the age of Louis XIV. and of aU the
ages."

M. Auguste. " There is a new point
of view from the dramas of Moliere, and
in my judgment it is to be exploited ; it
is the infernal side, on which Moliere
sees humanity ; his dramas are the most
sinister ever created, for not only are
they sad in suffering but sad in infamy :
his characters are a collection not mere-
ly of wretched, but of rascally, persons.
Vice is complete, virtue is absent, the
sublime is never present. Moliere is
the demon of this hell. You hardlv

576

yjLLON.

catch a glimpse of the honest side of
humanity, and if vice is splendidly de-
veloped in Tartvffe and Gelim^ne, virtue
barely glimmers in Elmire and Henriette,
and the sublime personified is never
found as Shakespeare has given it in
Juliet and Desdemona. Shakespeare is
the god of his heaven ; he has perceived
an ideal superior to the humanity of
which Molicre has depicted the under
side, and the ceiling of his theatre, at

most, but touches the planets of the
human heart."

Let us cite, in closing, this neat say-
ing of Hugo d i^ropoH of the name of
Shakespeare, the orthography of which
Franyois Hugo wished to change ; a
saying which may serve as a close for
all these conversations: "Saturn turns
a name over a long time between his
teeth to make it what it should remain
for posterity."

Caricature of Hugo, made by Isabey, in 1840.

VILLON.

Francis B, Gummere.

**Au fort, je meurs amant martir,
Du nombre des ainoureux saints ! "

— Petit Testament.

Ah, my singer of olden daj'^s,

That tweaked your stupid time by the nose.
Taunted, tippled, and went your w^ays —
What did you care for laurels and bays?

Down from the balcony fluttered a rose.

High in the heaven of heavens afar.

Glittered your planet — "Glory," suppose;

And ways so foul should the wanderer bar !

What did you care for the mire — or the star?
Down from the balcony fluttered a rose.

The Winner " Weighing in."

RACING IN AUSTRALIA.

By Sidney Dickinson.

THE essentially British institution of
horse-racing, which other peoples
feebly imitate, though they cannot
understand the passion for it that glows
in the breast of the Anglo-Saxon, has at-
tained surprising proportions in the Au-
stralasian dependencies of the Empire.
Transplantation to a Southern soil of
English products seems always to have a
stimulating effect. The rabtjit, inoffen-
sive and even protected by law in his na-
tive islands, becomes in Australia a j^est
more devastating than the locusts of
Egypt, and is slaughtered in myriads an-
nually without any apparent effect. The
Scotch thistle, emblem of patriotism in
the Highlands, spreads itself like a de-
vastating lire, and is execrated by Scot
and Sassenach alike. In New Zealand,
the briar-rose, planted with home-long-
VoL. XII. -62

ing care by the missionaries from slips
brought across fifteen thousand miles
of sea, is become a nuisance ineradic-
able, and the water -cress, sown in the
rivers, grows a sturdy weed a dozen
feet in length, and is cut and dredged
out with infinite labor as an impediment
to navigation.

National traits, moral and immoral
impulses, ability to perform in matters
of strength and dexterity, all seem to
be intensified under the genial radiance
of the Austral sun ; in many respects
Australia is more English than England.
She has already instructed her mother
in the arts of rowing and pugilism, and
if she has not yet won the " Derby,"
it is the confirmed 02)inion of all her
sons that the distance by sea, rather
than any superiority of horse-flesh, has

578

RACING IN AUSTRALIA.

A Scene on the " Flat," Flennington Course, Melbourne, Australia.

withheld this triumph from the Anti-
podes.

Australia is, par excellence, the country
of the horse. The moderate climate,
which sends Australians out of doors
nine days in ten throughout the year,
and the comparatively unsettled condi-
tion of the country, which necessitates
long journeys over districts impractic-
able for wheeled vehicles, unite with
natural predisposition to bring the Aus-
tralian into close dependence upon his
horse. Riding, whether for business or
pleasure, is more general in Australia
than in any other country, and as a
natural result the practice of racing is
the strongest passion in the heart of
the people. The interest taken in the
sport is marked at once by the visitor,
and appears more wonderful and strange
the longer he remains in the country.
To treat of all its manifestations would
employ a volume, and little more can
be done here than to indicate briefly

a few of its most brilliant and represen-
tative features.

Victoria, the premier colony of Aus-
tralasia in wealth and enterprise, is
naturally foremost in all racing mat-
ters. Its principal sporting events, like
the contests for the "Melbourne Cup,"
the " Champion Stakes," the " Caulfield
Cup," and many others of only second-
ary importance, are followed with great
interest all over the country, and have
become to Australia what the " Derby "
and other classic races are to England.
The meetings of the Australian Jockey
Club, in Sydney, are next in importance,
but the attendance upon them is chiefly
local. The great races at Melbourne,
however, attract crowds of visitors, not
only from aP. parts of Australia, but also
from Tasmania, New Zealand, and even
such remote localities as New Caledo-
nia and Fiji, India and Mauritius. All
racing in Victoria is regulated by the
Victoria Eacing Club, which appoints

RACING IN AUSTRALIA.

579

the dates of all meetings within a fifty
miles' radius of INIelbourue, settles all
disputes, awards weights and penalties,
and by its energetic and capable man-
agement has had the princij^al influence
in bringing to Colonial racing the re-
putation for fairness which it almost
invariably enjoys. The Association, in
fact, occupies a position in Victoria fully
analogous to that of the Jockey Club in
England, and has developed the sport
of racing, both in respect to the conven-
ience of its participants and the enjoy-
ment of its patrons, to a degree un-
known in Europe or America.

Among the earhest records of every
Colonial city, we find accounts of horse-
racing holding a consj)icuous position.
The forces that controlled the peace
of Sydney during the days of convict
settlement, the gold-diggers at Bendigo
and Ballarat, and the Melbourne traders
who furnished supplies for the interior

tion in this as in other enterprises, and
at a very earl}' j)eriod we find the pres-
ent site of the Victoria Racing Club's
Grounds pitched upon as the most
convenient arena for the display of
equine prowess. Racing in the early
days of the Colony was of a certain
amateurish quality, where owners pitted
their horses against each other, and
often rode themselves, and had not as-
sumed the character it now enjoys of a
definite national institution. As time
passed on, however, and Victoria, cut-
ting loose from New South Wales, be-
came a sej)arate Colony, with Melbourne
as its capital, the sport grew rapidly in
importance, and two organizations were
formed to control it — The Victoria Turf
Club and the Victoria Jockey Club.
The former was established some ten
years before the latter, and the meet-
ings of both were held on the course
above referred to. The principal race

The Bird-cage, or Saddling-Paddock, Flemington Course.

and made fortunes by the export of under the auspices of the Victoria Turf

wool and hides, all sought relaxation Club was the St. Leger, which in 1850

and refreshment in this typical sport of was worth a hundred sovereigns to the

the Briton. It was not long before winner — a sum then considered worth

Melbourne took a commanding posi- running for,

but insignificant when

580

RACING IN AUSTRALIA.

comj^ared witli the j)rizes of such a throw open certain portions of tlie
race as the " Melboui-ne Cup " of 1890, grounds free to the 2^u!)Uc, to maintain
when the value to the winner of the prices to reserves and enclosui-es at a

Book-makers on the " Hill," Fleming+on Course, Melbourne.

trophy, sweepstakes, and added money,
amounted to £13,080.* This race, the
greatest and most typical of the Aus-
tralian year, was established in 1862 by
the Victoria Turf Club, and has been
run for annually without a break ever
since.

The rivalry between the two clubs
operated disastrously for both, and in
1864 they were united under the pres-
ent name of the Victoria Racing Club.
A title to the race - course which had
been so long in use was secured by Act
of Parliament, the Club agreeing, as a
consideration for the gratuitous posses-
sion of the property, to expend all its
receipts in prizes and improvements, to

* In this race, as in all others nncler control of the Vic-
toria Racing Club, 20 per cent, of the "added money"
goes to the second horse, and 10 per cent, to the third.

fixed rate, and to use the course for
public races only. Since this amalga-
mation took place, the popularity of
racing has greatly increased, and under
efficient management the Victoria Rac-
ing Club has taken a position which
may fairly be said to be second to no
other institution of the kind in the
world. Since its inauguration the Club
has had but two secretaries, who are,
in effect, managing directors. The first
w^as Mr. E. M. Bagot, who died about
nine years ago, and in whose honor still
exists the " Bagot Handicap," one of
the principal events of the New Year's
Day Meeting. The present incumbent
is Mr. H. Byron Moore, a gentleman of
great energy, wide popularity, and a re-
markable fertility of invention, to whose
skill are due nearlv all the conveniences

582

RACING IN AUSTRALIA.

Avliich make tlie Victoiia Raciiij^' Club's
«.;r()iiii(ls the pride of ]\[elbourne and the
admiration of visitors. His capacity for
orj^anization ainoinits ahnost to genius,
and his easy <^rasp of detail is seen in
an infinity of clever contrivances which
make the course and its surroundings
of absorbing interest, whether one is a
lover of the sport itself or not. Mr.
Moore is neither an owner of horses,
nor a speculator upon racing events,
but being one of the leading men of
Melbourne in social and commercial af-
fairs, he brings to his office that rare
combination of qualities which has
placed the management of the Victoria
Club above all its rivals. Nothing is
too unimportant to escaj^e his attention,
and from the Governor in his private
box to the "larrikin" on the "Flat,"
all visitors have reason to observe that
their comfort and pleasure are minis-
tered unto by an able hand.

The growth of the Club's operations
during the last twenty-five years is en-
ormous. In the year 1864-1865 the
amount of money which it distributed
in prizes was about $15,000 (£3,205), a
sum which has been steadily added to
until the record of the present year
(1890-1891) shows over $200,000 (£44,-
100), and brings the total offered by the
Club in a quarter of a century to up-
ward of $1,680,000 (£347,705). The
list of prizes in 1890-1891 is as follows :

1 Race of £10,000 and Trophy £150. £10,150

1 " 2,000 - 2,000

3 " 1,500 4,500

C " 1,000- 0,000

2 " 800 1,600

1 " 650 650

8 '' 500 4,000

11 " 400 4,400

1 " 350 350

34 " 300 10.200

1 " 250 250

Total £44,100

When it is considered that the Colony
of Victoria has only about a million of
inhabitants to draw upon, and that the
amount of money expended by the Club
in improvements during twenty -five
years has exceeded £200,000, besides
£25,000 paid for their quarters in Mel-
bourne, it is evident that racing has a
strong hold upon public interest. It
should be borne in mind, also, that the

sums al)ove mentioned comprise only
"added money," which is given directly
by the Club at their live annual meet-
ings, and does not include the sweep-
stakes which are a feature of eveiy race.
These range from five to fifty sovereigns
for each entry, and amount in the ag-
gregate to at least one-third the value
of the prizes. If, then, the value of the
sweepstakes paid in by owners is added
to the amount given by the Club, it will
be seen that the total sums paid over
on the Flemington Course alone in
twenty-five years would exceed $2,640,-
000. As the races on the Club's course
are less than one-ninth of all that are
run annually in the Colony, it is not an
extravagant estimate to say that the
above figures might be doubled without
expressing the financial measure of de-
votion which the Victorians offer to the
horse.

The encouragement of racing by the
Club is of the most liberal order. No
deductions are made or entrance fees
charged to owners of horses, but all
sums in prizes and swee2:)stakes are
handed over in full to the winners. In
conditions of membership and prices
of admission to the grounds, an equal
generosity is shown. The annual fee
for members is five pounds, and twenty
pounds on joining, and the subscription
allows admission for the member and
two ladies to all parts of the ground at
every meeting of the year. The mem-
bership is now about 1,200. For the
public, the charge of admission to all
enclosures except the sa-ddling-paddock
is 10s. M., to the "Hill" and HiU-
stand 2s. M., and to the " Flat," which
comprises the space within the race-
course, nothing at all. This liberality
is strikingly in contrast with the condi-
tions at such a track as the English
Epsom, where one pays a pound for a
seat in the Grand Stand, another for
access to the betting -ring, a third to
the saddling-paddock, and so on. The
only " extra " on the Victoria Eacing
Club's course is a charge of five shillings
for admission to the saddling-2)addock.

The betting fraternity also comes in
for a share of generous usage. There
are betw^een three and four hundred
book-makers registered by the Club,
who pay each an annual fee of ten guin-

RACING IN AUSTRALIA,

583

flillllllllllllllf II ^llllll U.ii|lil«Hi"\

Tattersall's Stand, and the " Hill," Flemington Course.

eas for permission to operate on the
" Hill " and twenty-five pounds for the
" Lawn," thus contributing some five
thousand pounds a year to the treasury'.
As no totalizators or Paris Mutuels are
allowed in the grounds, and sweepstakes,
except as between owners or of a pri-
vate nature, are forbidden by law, these
gentry drive a thriving trade, and are,
almost without exception, men of finan-
cial weight in the community.

The property of the Victoria Racing
Club is located at Flemington, a suburb
of Melbourne, about six miles from the
centre of the city, and easily accessible
by cab, cable-car, or railway. The grant
by the Government comprises 301 acres,
which has been increased to 325 acres
by purchase from private owners. The
course, which is used exclusively for
running races, although trotting is en-
couraged on certain of the other tracks
about Melbourne, is sixty yards less
than a mile and one-half in length, and
left-handed — that is to sa}', the rail is
at the left of the jockeys in the races.
It lies in a level and grassy plain upon
the edge of the Saltwater Eiver, and is

completely encircled by sloping hills,
which form a perfect natural amphi-
theatre, and could give an assembly of
all the inhabitants of Australia an unin-
terrupted view of every inch of the
track. A finer site for a race-course
could not be imagined, and the specta-
cle of the grounds at " Cup " time, when
the sward is in its freshest verdure, the
stands and Lawn are glowing with rich
costumes, and the distant spires of Mel-
bourne and the ships at the port are
shining under the brilliant rays of the
Australian sun, is one that is not easily
forgotten.

The Flemington Course is pear-shap-
ed, with the finish - post, the Grand
Stand, the weighing - rooms, and other
buildings and offices situated just above
the small end. The " straight," or fin-
ish, is about a quarter of a mile in
length, and is continued for half a mile
further at a tangent with the main course
to accommodate the five furlong and
three-quai'ters-of-a-mile races by which
two- and three-year old horses make
their first bids for fame at Flemington.
This portion of the course, being one

:^^^^

DRAWN BY V. PERARD.

Carbine" — winner of the Melbourne Cup, 1890.

ENGRAVED BY C. A. POWELL.

(From a photograph, by permission of the Melbourne Art Salon.)

RACING IN AUSTRALIA.

585

hundred and ninety-eight feet wide at
the start and eighty at the finish, per-
mits a large field to operate on equal
terms, and the short races that take
place upon it, although less interesting
to the general visitor than those upon
the main track, are most brilliantly con-
tested, and abound in those surprises
which are the delight of the book-mak-
ers. Speed, rather than staying power,
is the test in these events, and from
start to finish there is no slacking of
energy on the part either of horses or
jockeys.

Steeple - chasing, which is another
popular feature of every meeting, is
conducted upon a track just inside the
main course, although at the finish the
horses cross outside and end the race
in the "straight" before the Grand
Stand. This branch of the sport, as
conducted on the Flemington track, is
sufiiciently exciting and dangerous.
There is first presented to the horses a
five-rail fence ; then, in succession, a
rail and paling fence each four feet three
inches high ; a stone wall, capped with
solid timber of four feet three and a
half inches ; a log jump of three feet
eleven inches ; another post and rail of
four feet ; a double-over post and rails
of four feet and three inches, and, fol-
lowing in order, four feet four inches of
masonry, and five more rail fences each
four feet one inch in height. The fences
are of the strongest possible construc-
tion, heavily bound and braced with
iron, and absolutely rigid and immova-
ble. In the great steeple-chase of the
year — the " Grand National " — all these
jumps have to be negotiated twice, the
distance run being about three and
one-fifth miles. Few steeple-chases see
more than half the horses engaged com-
ing in at the finish, but serious accidents
are rare. The worst casualty in the
Australian racing field occurred on the
Caulfield Course, near Melbourne, in
1885, when " Too - Too," faUing in the
front rank of the field of forty-one
horses, tripped up fifteen others that
were following, and piled racers and
jockeys in a struggling mass. One man
was killed, and five others were terribly
injured, but finally recovered. One
horse also was killed, and several others
badly hurt. In the "Cup " race of 1888,

the year of the Centennial Exposition,
when a field of twenty-nine magnificent
thoroughbreds contested, two of the
finest horses, " Ensign " and " Spade
Guinea," broke each a leg, and were shot
in the paddock immediately after. Such
accidents are not attributable to bad
riding, or faulty construction of the
course, but to the energy and spirit with
which the races are run. There are no
better riders in the world than the
Austrahans, and a close race for a high
stake is fought out with a desperation
that is unknown elsewhere than on the
Victorian Turf. The Flemington train-
ing track cannot be surpassed in thor-
oughness of construction. It is built
upon a stone foundation, with earth
and tan above ; it is heavily turfed, and
a fall upon it, unless the horse rolls
over one, cannot be attended with
serious consequences. If a jockey is
injured anywhere in Australia, he is
supported by the Club until he recovers,
the cost of his maintenance and treat-
ment being defrayed from the " Dis-
tressed and Disabled Jockeys' Fund," to
the support of which all fines are de-
voted.

The accommodations for the public
on the Flemington Course are of three
degrees. The "Flat," which comprises
the space within the circular course, is,
as has been said, thrown open to all
comers without charge, and on the last
" Cup " day was occupied by at least
sixty thousand persons. Although the
location of the " Flat " is such that
only about one individual in twenty can
secure other than fleeting and unsatis-
factory glimpses of the contests, this
portion of the field is likely to remain
popular so long as the human mind
retains its fondness for getting some-
thing for nothing. To the student of
human nature the " Flat " is the most
interesting portion of the grounds.
Here are the promoters of half-crown
sweepstakes, the proprietors of "wheels
of fortune," air-guns, and other devices
whereby a stake may be won by modest
expenditure ; leather-lunged sellers of
oranges and bananas ; vendors of soda-
water and ginger-ale, innocent of ice,
who are patronized by the young bush-
men and " larrikins," in default of
stronger beverages forbidden to this

586

RACING IN AUSTRALIA.

l^jxrt of tlie f^roiinds by a stem com-
mittee ; stolid countrymen and Mel-
bourne roughs, costermongers and small
traders with their families — in short, all
the variegated and heterogeneous ele-
ments which go to make up the rural
and civic population of Australia.

What may be termed the "middle
class" of the Victoria Kacing Club's
patrons is found in the half-crown en-
closure of the " Hill." This includes a
reserve of 17 acres directly above the
Grand Stand, from which it is separated
by a fence and ditch. A covered stand,
accommodating over eight thousand
people, crowns the summit of the slope
and commands a magnificent view of
the course more than a hundred feet
below ; two brass bands play inces-
santly between the races for the de-
lectation of the " Hill " patrons ; bars,
tea- and luncheon-rooms and oyster-
counters, dispense refreshments in Swiss
chalets. Chinese pagodas, and other
picturesque buildings ; coat-rooms and
lavatories for men, and retiring-rooms
for women, are provided, and hot water
for tea-making is ready at all times
without charge. The attendance upon
the " Hill " is a shade more respectable
than that upon the " Flat," and is
composed of equally strange elements.
Here is the prognosticator of results
in the events of the day, selling cards
for five shillings each which bear the
names of the winners, and driving a
roaring trade — lie and his customers
seeming alike untroubled by the reflec-
tion that a man of such prophetic pow-
ers could make his fortune before the
day was out by keeping his knowledge
to his own benefit. Here, too, are the
tribe of " Hill " book - makers, a class
peculiar, loud - voiced, sharp in feat-
ure and eye, and clad in the extraordi-
nary habiliments which the artist has
described in his illustration. This in-
dividual is arrayed in coat and trousers
of crimson cretonne, embellished with
a floral pattern in yellow, and hat of
the same adorned with a white ostrich
feather. Among his compeers may be
seen a pair in coats and caps of cardinal-
red plush ; a second couple are gor-
geous in swallow-tail coats of cerulean
velvet, and tall hats plated with gold
leaf, presenting a splendid appearance

in the sun ; others are attired in gar-
ments of sateen, silk, or calico, in every
eccentricity of pattern and cut that a
lunatic designer could originate, or a
tailor with the delirium tremens con-
struct. Coujoled with the gaudy para-
sols and costumes which are affected by
many of the female visitors, the army of
" Hill " book-makers affords a display of
color that is more striking than agree-
able.

The accommodation for the humbler
classes at the races, although liberal and
comprehensive, is but modest, however,
when compared with that provided for
the Governor of Victoria, the members
and guests of the Club, and the visitors
to the Grand Stand and " Lawn." The
entrances to this exclusive portion of
the grounds are various, and separated
from the passages to the " Hill." If one
arrives by any of the twelve hundred
railway carriages that are incessantly
plying to and from Melbourne on " Cup "
day, between ten o'clock in the morning
and three in the afternoon, and again
after the races until all the patrons of
the course are returned to their homes,
one is set down within a few yards of
the Grand Stand, which accommodates,
below and above, some twelve thousand
people. If one arrives by carriage,
one finds accommodation for the vehicle
in a special reserve, wherein are tables
and benches for the unpacking of ham-
pers, and the discussion of lunch with-
out charge, together with stables for
five hundred horses. Driving upon the
course, one passes through a leaf}' lane
set with trees, flowering shrubs, and
fountains, like the entrance to some
private estate, and looks from the stop-
ping-place in the carriage-paddock upon
a verdant lawn about a quarter of a
mile long, adorned with parterres of
flowers, and scattered over with beds
of foliage plants and rustic settees. At
the upper end of the "Lawn," the
ground rises in a slope of one foot in
eight to the broad terrace of concrete
which fronts the Grand Stand. This
structure is five hundred and twenty
feet long by about thirty deep, the
seats being set in tiers, and so arranged
that every visitor can have an un-
obstructed view of the course. In the
front row are reserved spaces for the

RACING IN AUSTRALIA.

587

Governor and his party, the Committee
of the Club, and distinguished guests.
Among the latter, on " Cup " day, we
observe the dignitaries of every Colony,
whom, by a curious coincidence, the
consideration of weighty affairs of state
with the Victorian officials brings regu-
larly to Melbourne during the first week
of November. As the vessels of the
Australasian Squadron are also pretty
sure to rendezvous in Port Philip Bay
at this season, the august persons of the
Admiral and his commanders are gener-
ally conspicuous in the gathering.

The appointments of the '* Lawn " and
its adjacent enclosures are of admirable
completeness and bewildering variety.
At the finish, directly behind the judges'
box and fronting the Grand Stand, is a
large chronograph, whose pointer is
set in motion by electricity the moment
the horses leave the starting-post, and
stops as they cross the line. A gong
attached to the dial announces to the
spectators that the horses are off. On
the other side of the steeple - chase
course is a large structure, looking omi-
nously like a gallows with its beams and
ropes, upon which the numbers of the
horses and the names of their riders
are hoisted in skeleton iron frames, and
can be read without a glass an eighth
of a mile away. At the conclusion
of each race the times and numbers
of the three leading horses are dis-
played upon this contrivance, which
can hold the names of forty jockeys
at once, and cost in erection ^G,000
(£1,200). Other frames showing the
numbers of " scratched " and competing
horses, are erected in three conspicuous
positions on the ground, and changes
are indicated upon them simultaneously
by electricity from manipulation of a
similar frame in tlie Steward's Quar-
ters. Besides the Grand Stand, accom-
modation for the patrons of the
"Lawn "is afforded in the " Maribyr-
nong Stand," two hundred and forty-
three feet long by forty-seven feet deep,
with seats for three thousand, and, near
the betting-ring, on the opposite side of
the Grand Stand, "Tattersall's Stand,"
uncovered, with accommodations for
forty-five hundred more. The seating
capacity of the Flemington Course,
therefore, including the stands for

Members and the Press, is not less than
twenty-eight thousand. On " Cup "
day every seat is occupied, and in 1888
nearly one hundred and twenty thou-
sand persons besides witnessed the con-
tests.

The social features of horse-racing,
which are so marked upon the Aus-
tralian courses, are not lost sight of by
the indefatigable Secretary and Com-
mittee of the Victoria Kacing Club.
The refreshment and luncheon bars,
which are found in all parts of the
ground, are under strict supervision, the
feeding of the people is entrusted only
to caterers of established reputation,
who are held to fixed prices, and all
liquors and cigars sold on the course
are selected by the stewards themselves,
and show the influence of profound con-
noisseurship in such matters. The en-
tire space under the Grand Stand is
devoted to public and private dining-
rooms, ladies' retiring-rooms, and the
apartments of the Governor, the Earl of
Hopetoun, Lady Hoj)etoun, and their
attendants. The Governor's quarters
consist of a smoking - room and lava-
tory, and a richly furnished dining-
room, w^hich are entered through a mar-
ble vestibule set with costly vases, and
adorned with choice exotics from the
extensive conservatories of the Club.
The Governor's luncheon - room is a
superbly furnished apartment, and the
table is spread at each meeting with the
richest viands and choicest wines, and a
glittering array of glass and silver. The
room of the Lady of Government House,
which is still known as " Lady Loch's
Room," from its first occupant, is a
charming boudoir, furnished with every
convenience and richly decorated. All
the apartments in the Governor's suite
are provided with two automatic but-
tons in the wall, which, on being
pressed, allow a current of hot or cold
air to flow from ventilators in the ceil-
ing, as the exigencies of the season may
demand. The brightly lighted corridors
under the Stand are lined with potted
palms and ferns, and the waiting-rooms
for ladies are filled with luxurious so-
fas and easy chairs, and supplied with
attendants armed with smelling-bot-
tles, powder-puffs, and button-hooks, as
well as needles threaded with every con-

588

RACING IN AUSTRALIA.

ceivable shade of silk, for the repair of
damaj^es to dresses or gloves. One of
the i^leasantest features of " Cup " day
is the "Afternoon Tea " in the Members'
Lunch-room, near the " Maribyrnong
Stand," to which the ladies invite their
friends, and fill a half -hour's interval be-
tween two of the races with the charms
of social small-talk and discussion of the
events of the day.

The annual list of the Flemington and
Caulfield Courses includes eight sep-
arate meetings, and ninety - two races,
varying from three furlongs to over
three miles. Each of the four seasons
witnesses some important event, for the
equable Australian climate permits rac-
ing all the year round, and in itself is
chiefly responsible for the proportions
the sport has assumed. There are few
days in the year when racing is not go-
ing on in some part of the Colonies. In
Victoria alone there are, in the aggre-
gate, five hundred and seventy - three
days devoted annually to the sport.
The Victoria Racing Club does not
allow engagements within fifty miles of
Melbourne to be made on any day for
which the Metropolitan fixtures are
arranged, although outside that limit
there is no restriction.

The devotion of the Australian peo-
ple to out-of-door enjoyment gives to
horse-racing the peculiar social char-
acter which in other countries is held
by balls and the opera. Tailors adver-
tize their choicest specialties for the
"Cup," and dressmakers and milliners
exercise their greatest ingenuity in de-
vising new gowns and bonnets for the
same all-important event. The news-
papers on the morning following the
race contain columns of observations by
their fashion reporters, and costumes
described and commented upon as vo-
luminously as on the occasion of a state
ball at Government House. The result
is that the " Lawn " at Flemington on
" Cup " day presents the most elaborate
display of fashion that can be seen in
Australia, and as Colonial women are
noted for the richness of their attire,
the general effect is brilliant and fascin-
ating in the extreme.

No one who has not visited Austra-
lia can have any conception of the in-
terest which attaches to such a race as

the Melbourne Cup, which, with its
sweepstakes from the one hundred and
forty-nine entries that were made in
1890, its trophy of £150 value, and its
added money of £10,000, amounting
altogether to £13,080, is the most im-
portant money contest in the world.
On the day of its occurrence all busi-
ness is suspended by mutual consent
throughout Victoria, the banks and
Government ofiices are all closed, and
by twelve o'clock the streets of Mel-
bourne are as silent and deserted as if
the city were stricken with a plague.
For a week before the event, the rail-
way trains from Sydney, to the number
of seven or eight in a day, and all the
intercolonial and mail steamers from
that city and Adelaide, are taxed to
their utmost capacity, and the accom-
modations of Melbourne, as well as of all
the neighboring towns, are taken up by
the immense concourse of visitors. The
facilities for reaching Flemington are
so good, however, and the course itself
so spacious, that, even at the gi'eat race
of the Centennial Year, when more than
one hundred and forty thousand per-
sons were upon the grounds, one saw
the event with perfect comfort, and was
transported to and from the course with-
out five minutes' waiting at either end
of the line. The admirable temper and
sobriety of the great assembly is large-
ly responsible for such a result. Dur-
ing the four days' meeting of 1888 only
five arrests were made on the grounds,
and none of these were for serious of-
fences. The crowd at an Australian
race-meeting is often rough in appear-
ance, but in orderliness and good nat-
ure can hardly be excelled.

Mention of Australian racing would
be incomplete without allusion to its
inseparable concomitant of betting.
The universality and extent of this
practice are absolutely paralyzing to
the visitor, to whom the spectacle of
women openly negotiating with book-
makers in the betting-ring, and chil-
dren of tender years investing in sweep-
stakes with their parents and guardi-
ans, can never wholly become familiar.
Men and women of the highest social
standing do not hesitate to stake their
money, nor to proclaim their gains or
losses afterward, and it is difficult to

RACING IN AUSTRALIA.

589

find, even among one's acquaintances
in leading commercial and professional
circles, one who is not pecuniarily in-
terested in nearly every race that is run.
The general prosperity of the people,
and the easy methods of life, are un-
doubtedly responsible for this condition
of things, and it is worthy of remark
that, while embezzlements and defalca-
tions as a result of stock speculation
are not unknowTi in Australia, gam-
bling upon the turf seems generally
restricted by the extent of individual
ability to lose.

Although it is impossible to estimate
accurately the amount of money lost
and won on such a race as that for the
" Cup," it is evidently enormous.
Speculation upon the event begins a
month in advance, and is kept up until
the clang of the gong announces that
the horses have left the starting-post.
The most conspicuous feature of gam-
bling on the " Cup " is the " Tattersall's
Consultation Sweep," which is regular-
ly drawn in Sydney, where the laws do
not forbid the promotion of public
sweepstakes, as is the case in Victoria
and elsewhere. The sweepstakes is of
50,000 numbers at a sovereign each,
with a prize of £25,000 to the holder
of the winning horse, £3,000 to the sec-
ond, £2,000 to the third, and the re-
mainder to holders of horses that run
but are not " placed," and those that
are *' entered," but " scratched " before
the race occurs. In addition, there are
several supplementary sweeps aggre-
gating some £30,000 more, and as they
are all filled long before the event, and
their promoter takes ten per cent, of
the contributions for his trouble, there
is every reason why he should feel satis-
fied with his venture. There has never
been any question as to the fairness of
the drawings, although a wave of dis-
gust flowed all over Australia when it
was found that the capital prize of £25,-
000 in 1890 had been secured by a
syndicate of twenty Japanese pearl-
fishers at Thursday Island, who had
each contributed a shilling for the pur-
chase of a ticket. When £80,000 are
lodged with one man in a city nearly
six hundred miles from the event, and
when one observes the eager speculation
through book-makers and private bets

rise in Melbourne alone into the six-
figure region of pounds, the estimate
that the amount depending upon the
issue of the race exceeds a million dol-
lars (£200,000) seems quite within
bounds. The winner of the Tattersall's
grand prize takes at once the position
of a man of mark in the community,
and finds plenty of friends to congratu-
late him upon his success. The fortu-
nate investor of 1889 was a miner in
New South Wales, who was away from
home when the news of his good for-
tune was received. The "publicans"
and saloon-keepers at once threw their
establishments open to the public, and
all comers were gratuitously served with
drinks for a day or two, to pledge the
health of their townsman. When the
winner returned, he was presented with
a bill for the refreshments, and paid it
at once as a matter of course.

The records of Flemington abound in
remarkable achievements, all of which
are eclipsed by the performances of
" Carbine," the winner of the " Cup " of
1890. This horse, at present the prop-
erty of the Hon. D. S. Wallace, a
member of the Legislative Council of
Victoria, is progeny of the famous
imported " Musket," the sire of more
noted horses on the Colonial turf than
almost any other. *' Carbine," who was
foaled and bred in New Zealand, is an
instance of strict " in -breeding," with
which, as a rule, Australian sportsmen
are not in favor. It is doubtful if any
horse in the world has so remarkable a
record. He has started in thirty-two
races, in twenty-three of w^hich he has
been first ; in five, second ; in three,
third ; running only once unplaced, and
then stopping short from sudden lame-
ness. On four different occasions he
had won two races of one and two miles
each in the same afternoon, meeting in
every case the best horses in Australia.
Since he was a three-year-old (up to which
time he had won fourteen out of eigh-
teen races, and taken second place in
three others), " Carbine " has won aU
the principal weight-for-age races in
Australia, including the " Champion
Stakes " in 1889, and started in five
great handicaps under heavy penalties.
In the race for the " Cup " of 1889, he
carried ten stone (140 pounds) into

500 BETROTHAL,

second j^lacc, {ind won the Sydney Cuj)s " Cup" race of 1890 to be X30,000. In

of 1889 and 1890 under weights of appearance, "Carbine" has little that

nine stone (12G pounds) and nine stone suggests the tyj^ical racer. He is of a

eight (134 i)ounds), respectively. All his chestnut color, rather heavily built,

former exploits were surpassed, how- amiable and somewhat sleepy in expres-

ever, by his success in the last race for sion, and might readily be taken by any

the " Melbourne Cup," when, with the one not acquainted with his record for a

top weight of ten stone five (145 good family " roadster " rather than the

pounds), he beat a field of thirty-eight king of the Australian Turf. His action,

competitors over a course of two miles, however, is distinguished for its ease

winning easily by three lengths in 3 min- and power, and he never seems to exert

utes, 28^ seconds, and establishing a rec- himself even when at the top of his

ord for the world at this distance. His speed. As he is still in his prime, many

winnings in prizes up to date amount other triumphs may be expected of him,

to some $140,000 (£28,000), not count- and he is likely to hold for some time to

ing the amounts won in private bets by come his reputation as the greatest race-

his owner, which were set down in the horse that the Colonies have produced.

BETROTHAL.

A THOUSAND years ago, 'tis said,

In yonder castle dwelt a maid ;

Young was she, and in her face

Was light of heaven, and earth's own grace.

So old the castle, that its stone
With moss and myrtle overgrown ;
But fair was she, and young, so young
The songs lay in her heart unsung.

And so there came from every side
Gay knights to win the maid for bride,
Jousted and sang ; the maiden heard.
Her heart spake all the while no word.

And one was young and fair to see,
" I bring thee youth and love," sang he ;
And one brought dower of broad land ;
A third, a sceptre for her hand.

Then silent, as they ceased to sing.
Another came and spake, "I bring
Thee riches not, nor crown, nor wreath.
But more than these : I bring thee Death."

And while they marked his visage grim
The maiden rose and followed him. —
Some day they'll build the castle new —
A thousand years hath she been true.

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

HIS SECULAK EXCUKSION.

By Bliss Perry.

PART II.

V.

HE Saturday-night hops at
the Occidental were one
of the leading features of
that admirably conducted
hotel. They were not so
exclusive as the affairs
at the Pelican, nor were they by any
means so democratic as the dances at
Pibroch's ; a delightful informality pre-
vailed, and yet a great many people
from the Cuttyhunk and the Pelican
and the cottages were sure to be there.
The tiny orchestra played in excellent
time, and the ballroom floor was re-
puted to be the best in Bar Harbor.
Long French windows opened directly
from the ballroom upon the immense
veranda, where hundreds of people
could promenade at once, or sit in co-
sey groups before the windows to watch
the dancing. The gentlemen who ran
down to Mount Desert to spend Sun-
day with their families usually preferred
to lean against the piazza railing and
enjoy a tranquil cigar rather than to
make themselves useful to their wives
and daughters upon the floor ; and yet,
after all deductions, there was always a
greater number of available men at the
Occidental than anywhere else on the
island.

Salem Kittredge was hardly an avail-
able man, inasmuch as he had never
danced in his life ; but nevertheless,
upon the first Saturday night after his
arrival he appeared extremely early at
the ballroom, in evening dress. Why

he was there he scarcely knew. He had
had several wretched clays. On reach-
ing the hotel a telegram from J. Howard
Pitman had been handed him : " Have
just seen the doctor. Says this is the
week to watch him. Look out. God
bless you." Was the crucial test com-
ing, before they were even acquaint-
ed? Salem would have flung up his
commission in dismay, had it not been
for the fact that he had alread}^ spent
part of the salary, and for the " God
bless you " on the end of the despatch.
He tried to have a frank talk with his
protege^ but although Freddie Pitman
accepted the situation with the utmost
amiability, he absolutely refused to dis-
cuss it.

" We'll stick together, Kittie," he de-
clared— he had dubbed his comj^anion
Kittie in the course of the first fore-
noon— "and you can keep your e^^e
on me as much as you please. That's
what J. Howard is paying the bills for,
and much good may it do us all. But
if I have any little eccentricities of my
own, they are my own. Do you see ? "

Salem saw with great distinctness,
and the subject was dropped. But all
day long, for four days, the young men
kept together. They lounged ujDon the
broad veranda, or played feebly at ten-
nis. They drove to Spouting Horn,
and paddled a canoe over to Porcupine
Island. Hour after hour did the}' walk
around a billiard-table in a dingy sec-
ond-floor room on the main street of
the village, while the Inebriate gave
Kittredge forty points in a fifty-point

592

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

game and invariably beat him. Side
by side did they do ravage upon the
well-known cuisine of the Occidental,
and vainly try to bribe the head waiter
to give them one of the cool little ta-
bles by the window, where the Atter-
burys were always seated ; and nothing
occurred to mar the polished surface of
young Pitman's good-nature, nor to re-
lieve the wretched anxiety that preyed
upon Kittredge's mind. He had so lit-
tle to go by ; he wished he had asked
the Pellet man to send the doctor's de-
tailed statement of the phenomena of
the " convulsive form of acute alcohol-
ism," or whatever the thing was called,
which he might expect at any moment.
He made sure, by a shamefaced exam-
ination of Pitman's belongings, that
there were no intoxicants there. Even
the travelling flask was empty, and that,
as Salem ruefully reflected, had very
possibly been emptied by himself.

He remembered what J. Howard Pit-
man had remarked about the Maine
law, and one day, with some embarrass-
ment, he asked the livery agent who
always hung about the door of the Oc-
cidental whether there was any place at
Bar Harbor where liquor was sold. The
agent looked sharply at him from un-
der the visor of his cap.

"No," he said, "there ain't. And
yet," he added, in a lower voice and
with something of a twinkle, "if all
you want is a drink, I can set right here
on this stoop, 'n point you out seven-
teen places, not counting drug-stores
and hotels, where you can git it. But
what's the matter with right here at the
Occidental?"

Salem shrugged his shoulders, with
as much duplicity as he could muster,
and laughed the question off. But his
heart sank.

It was only at night, after young Pit-
man had turned out the gas in the inner
of the adjoining rooms that constitut-
ed No. 37, and called "Good-night, Kit-
tie ! " that Salem had any peace of mind.
Then he used to stretch himself com-
fortably in his own bed, and for a season
forget the Inebriate in meditation up-
on other subjects. There, for instance,
was Miss Atterbury. Kittredge had
seen but little of his acquaintances of
the Olivette. True to her promise, Mrs.

Atterbury had brought down the plans
for the cottage and had exhibited them
to him one morning upon a sheltered
corner of the piazza ; but what with
keeping one eye conscientiously on
Freddie Pitman, and the other, quite
unconsciously, on Miss Bachel, who
was promenading back and forth with
the stalwart Englishman he had noticed
in Boston, Kittredge did not win any
peculiar credit as a critic of domestic
architecture. He could trace the twink-
ling of Miss Atterbury's russet Oxford
ties down that immense veranda far
more accurately than the course of Mrs.
Atterbury's marvellous winding stair-
case. Even after that young woman
had dismissed her British admirer,
and, rejoining her aunt, had pointed out
with her own finger the music-room
and the loggia and the butler's pan-
try, Kittredge praised the blue sheets
confusedly, though at that moment it
could not even be urged in his excuse
that one eye was directed to Frederic
Pitman. It was after Mrs. Atterbury
had rolled up the plans, in some po-
litely disguised disappointment at Sa-
lem's perceptive faculties, that Miss
Atterbury made an observation about
the hops at the Occidental. The sea-
son before they had been very delight-
ful, she said ; the men almost always
dressed for them ; it was very good of
the men to take the trouble to dress ;
did not Mr. Kittredge think so?

Salem quoted this remark with some
impressiveness to Pitman, after dinner
on Saturday evening, when they were
both in No. 37.

" Is that so ? " said the Inebriate, look-
ing up from a novel by Gaboriau. " I
imagined those things were informal.
Over at the Pelican, you know, you
ought to dress for dinner ; that's why
I didn't go there. Nevertheless, I sup-
pose one might please the dear creat-
ures once a week. Make your toilet,
Kittie ; go ahead ; I want to finish this
first, and I've got to shave besides, so
don't wait. I'll be there to see you
home, my dear."

Several times during the next half-
hour did Pitman glance through the
door at the theologue, who was brush-
ing the wrinkles out of his rented coat,
nervovisly inserting shirt - studs, and

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

593

examining his tie despondently in the
mirror. Finally he hesitated in Lap-
ham-like wretchedness over the prob-
lem of gloves, and Freddie shut his nov-
el and lounged into the other room.

" Going down ? " he commented care-
lessly. "Look here, I don't proj^ose
to wear gloves unless I have to dance,
and perhaps not then. You'd better
back me up."

"Oh, all right," assented Kittredge,
with a promptness that repaid Pitman
for his effort. " Just as you say."

Pitman surveyed him critically.
" You're as fresh as a rose-bud. Kit tie.
And that reminds me I ought to have
ordered a bouquet for you. I wish I
had your color ! Plain living and high
thinking, eh? Au revoir ! "

Salem went down for once in the
elevator, to the edification of the bo}^,
and lingered awkwardly a moment at
the ballroom door. The orchestra was
playing, and some little girls were
practising polka steps over in one cor-
ner. A few matrons decorated the
benches at the sides. Kittredge took a
full breath, put his new dress shoes
down very cautiously upon the waxed
floor and steered obliquely across the
room and out upon the piazza, while the
matrons examined him interestedly,
and the little girls thought that now
surely the hop was going to begin.
Salem leaned against the window-cas-
ing ; his face had all the vacancy of a
professional leader of germans ; but
the hop did not begin. By and by he
dropped into a big rocking-chair out-
side. He was profoundly uncomforta-
ble. He wished Pitman would come ;
he wished that he smoked, so that he
might give himself at least a noncha-
lant air ; he wished that he could walk
up and down the veranda, but there was
no one to walk with, and he felt that his
full dress made him too conspicuous
to walk alone. Now and then a bevy of
young girls came waltzing down the
corridor from the card-rooms, circled
the big floor, and whirled back again.
A few extemporized couples stepped in
from the piazza, danced a few rounds,
and were once more lost in the groups
of on-lookers.

But gradually it began to seem more
like a hop. Two or three indefatigable

youths in tennis suits and sashes were
taking every dance. Young women
glided in from nowhere in particular ;
and when a party came over from the
Pelican — all of the men in irreproach-
able toilet, and one with a cravat of ex-
actly the same extreme style as his own
— Kittredge commenced to feel not so
much out of place after all. His great
mistake, he reflected, had been in com-
ing down so early. He still sat there
in his rocker, and waited, in a vague
way, for Miss Atterbury. He had a
sort of instinct that they would drift
together, and that she would be pleased
to see him in evening dress. He could
not dance with her, he did not even
hope to walk with her, and yet he felt
sure that they would meet. An hour
passed. At last she came ; Salem rec-
ognized her the instant she emerged
from the office door with her aunt.
They paused a moment, looking down
the veranda ; then they advanced slow-
ly, the girl in front, threading her way
among the crowded chairs close by the
railing, where the breeze blew the hang-
ing Virginia creeper against her shoul-
ders, and the electric lamps, blended
with the moonlight, shone full upon
her face. People turned to look at her
as she went by. She passed the first
window and then the second ; Salem
was waiting by the third. He sprang
up eagerly as the ladies reached it.

" Good-evening ! " he exclaimed. " I
have been hoping for you. Mrs. At-
terbury, take this chair. Miss Atter-
bury, allow me." But the aunt saw an
old acquaintance just inside the ball-
room, and would not sit down.

" Rachel may stay if she likes," she
graciously permitted. " Don't catch
cold, my dear ; take this wrap. Thank
you, Mr. Kittredge."

The girl leaned forward in her chair,
and Kittredge dropped the soft wool
wrap around her shoulders. Her gown
was a delicate blue gauze, and she drew
the wrap tightly about her as she sat
back again and looked up at him. He
was finer-looking than she had thought :
clear -eyed, dark -haired, mth a fresh
color in his honest face ; as cleanly
built, wholesome a fellow of twentj^-six
as Bar Harbor could exhibit. She was
pleased to think that someone had been

591

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE,

l)lannmg for licr comiii^^ — a young
woman of twenty-five knows that the
tinier may arrive when these small at-
tentions will be held at their due price
— and she resolved to be very nice to
him.

Tliey talked of the breeze, the White
Squadron, and the house plans ; of the
people from the Pelican, now thick
upon the ballroom floor, and of the
fabulous table d'hote at the Cuttyhunk ;
they discussed their personal likes and
dislikes, the perils of American democ-
racy, and the spread of ritualism in the
Episcoj^al Church ; and still he did not
ask her to dance. She wondered if he
knew how. She had not supposed him
a dancing man, but his full dress puz-
zled her ; she had not the remotest
idea that he had acted upon her chance
remark about the gentlemen of the pre-
vious season. He was talking well, and
she was conscious of liking him, of
really liking him very much, and yet
she was dying to dance ; it was a deli-
cious waltz the orchestra was playing —
one of Delibes's things. She glanced
occasionally at the Honourable Planta-
genet, as he circled past the window in
a gorgeous waistcoat. He w^ould ask
her, she knew.

Yet she made Salem feel that she
utterly ignored what was going on in
the ballroom. He would have sworn
that one could not converse so earnest-
ly about ritualism with a mind inclined
at the same moment to a mundane
pleasure. Her grave blue eyes did not
seem for an instant to be wandering
from his own. He was perfectly at his
ease now ; he was in fairyland.

It was one of those ardent youths in
white flannel, who had been whispering
together and looking toward Miss At-
terbury, that finally broke the spell, for
he crossed to the threshold where she
was sitting, and made her his best
dancing-school bow. The music w^as
just beginning again. " Good - even-
ing, Richard," she said, smilingly ; " are
you sure jon are not too tired ? " And
with a deprecating glance at Kittredge,
as if to say, " You see I do not wish to
disappoint the boy," she glided off. It
took Salem a minute to realize the sit-
uation : a boy had carried her away
from him, an accursed boy wdth grass-

stains on his tennis trousers and a rent
in his rumpled sash !

He rose helplessly to his feet. Some-
one touched his elbow ; it was the lit-
tle fellow who ran the elevator. " The
clerk wants to see you in the office,
sir," he whispered. Salem groaned.
He had forgotten Pitman for tAvo whole
hours, and hurriedly he shouldered his
way up the veranda to the office, with a
certainty that something was wrong.

The clerk leaned over the desk con-
fidentially. " The head waiter says he
has had to send a good deal of liq-
uid up to 37 to-night. Can you keep
that young fellow quiet ? " Kittredge
dashed up the two flights and down the
corridor to the door of No. 87. He
listened a moment ; the Inebriate's
husky tenor was meandering gently
through the second stanza of Bishop
Heber's missionary hymn. He entered
firmly. Ui:)on the centre-table, flanked
by a little pitcher of shaving water and
the glasses from both dressing-tables,
stood a beautiful illustration of the
working of the Maine law, w4iile in
front of Salem's mirror w^as Freddie
Pitman in his shirt- sleeves. He was
trying to shave, but his hand was no
steadier than his voice, and he wiped
the bloody lather from his razor onto
the back cover of the Gaboriau novel,
as he turned to greet Kittredge with
an oath.

VI.

At ten o'clock Sunday morning Kitt-
redge, who had shortly before dawn
flung himself upon his bed without
undressing, was wakened by a famil-
iar voice. He opened his eyes with a
nervous start, stared a moment at his
disordered evening dress, and then at
Freddie Pitman, w^ho was perched in
dishabille upon the foot of the bed.
The Inebriate's pert little face w^as
rather white and preternaturally seri-
ous.

''Kittie," he began, "you tell me
about last night, will you ? " Salem
shook his head, as if to get rid of a
memory.

" Look here," continued Pitman, " it
may not be very pleasant for you, and
it isn't so peculiarly pleasant for me,
but I want to know just what happened.

SALEM KITTRRDGE, THEOLOGUE.

595

You came in while I was shaving, didn't
you?"

Kittredp^e nodded.

" Well, I'll shave the other side by
and by. You can give the bell-boy a
quarter to y^o around and pick up that
razor. It's too good a one to throw
out the window. You must have been
a trifle nervous at that stage of the
game, Kittie."

The Inebriate himself was certainly
cool enough at present. " And then,
let me see," he continued ; " no, before
that you threw out some other articles,
didn't you ? Yes ; well, you needn't say
anything to the bell-boy about that.
And then you locked the door and
tipped your chair back against it, con-
found you — I mean bless you — and
that's about as far as I can get."

" That's far enough," said Salem, rais-
ing himself upon one elbow.

" No, it isn't," persisted Freddie. '' I'll
tell you pretty soon why I want to
know. I suppose I — used some strong
expressions ? "

" Tolerably."

" Pernicious effect of early education.
I take them all back, Kittie. Did I
show fight ? "

" Rather."

" Well, I was outclassed, wasn't I ?
I got the feather-weight sparring out
at Cambridge, but I guess I wasn't in
it with you."

"I began to think, once, that you
were." It was when the razor had gone
out of the window.

" Thank you," said Pitman, apprecia-
tively, and then he lowered his voice,
and there was an uneasy curiosity in his
eyes. " Did I roll on the floor much ? "

Kittredge sat up straight, and
smoothed out the wrinkles in his shirt-
bosom before replying : " I don't see
why you should want to go into these
details, Pitman."

• " Exactly. I don't want to, Kittie ;
but if the symptoms aren't improving
the doctor tells me I'm a gone case —
done for. You grasp it, I suppose ?
Now answer me four questions — it's
for the doctor, you know — and I'll let
you off"

Kittredge shuddered a little, as one
image after another — pitiful, horrible,
grotesque — rose afresh before his eyes ;

but he answered the questions, where-
upon Freddie sprang to his feet with a
delighted cry.

" Better ! Every one of them better !
Kittie, if man, woman, or dog would
stand by me when this thing comes on,
I could beat it ! I know it. You see,
the interval was five days longer than
before. Will you believe me if I tell j^ou
something ? " He scrambled up near-
er to Kittredge and put out his hand.
" For seven weeks, if we stay together,
you needn't worry about me at all. I
won't want a drop of anything. I never
take a nip at my own travelling-flask,
even. I'm a regular Temperance Band,
all by my little self. But the eighth
or ninth week, look out ; don't leave
me, man, will 3^ou ? I didn't intend to
fool you last night ; I honestly meant
to come down-stairs, but symptom No.
1 struck me and I couldn't help my-
self. If someone would stick right by
me then, I'd be all solid in two years
more, the doctor said so. And," he ad-
ded, with a queer quavering smile, "I'm
blessed if I'm not worth saving, if I do
say it."

Kittredge wrung his hand. For the
first time since he met the Inebriate he
felt heart- certain that the young felloAV
was honest with him. And then Pit-
man shivered.

" I'm going back to bed ; I'll sleep
till dinner-time ; two-thirty, you know,
Sundays. You must have caught cold,
man, lying there just before that win-
dow. You'd better take a hot bath
right away and get some breakfast.
Good-by ! ''

Church-bells were ringing some-
where as he closed the door. Kitt-
redge lay a moment with his eyes shut,
listening to them, before getting up.
He had been right, after all, he thought,
in coming to Bar Harbor. Then, with
joints stiff from the chilly fog that had
all night overwrapped the village and
still clung about the bare summit of
Green Mountain, he rose, and followed
Pitman's advice about the bath and
breakfast.

Three-quarters of an hour afterward
he left the hotel and blundered by mis-
take into the Chapel of St. Anastasia.
The usher set a chair in the aisle for
him, and as he had come in so late, he

596

SALFM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE,

(lid not wish to withdraw, though he
felt no particular interest in the unim-
peachable platitudes about " The Moral
Uses of Courtesy," which a great bishop
was delivering. In the course of his
brief frontier experience, Salem had
written too many poor sermons himself
not to know one when he heard it, and
his eyes wandered. He had never seen
so many perfectly dressed people in his
life, and they all seemed listening de-
voutly. Doors and windows were wide
open, and a breeze from the pine for-
ests crept through the chapel, soothing
every sense to a delicious calm. He
wondered if he should go to sleep if he
closed his eyelids a little — ever so little
— they felt so hot. He found himself
nodding once, twice, then with a virtu-
ous e£fort he sat bolt upright, and from
this vantage ground discovered Rachel
Atterbury's bonnet.

It was directly in front of one of the
open windows, and he had the absurd
fancy that the blue-winged lace might
fly out at any instant if he did not
watch. He bent forward a trifle ; no,
it was fastened by velvet ribbons be-
neath her chin, and they were pinned
there with a glistening moonstone.
Shamelessly he moved his chair, that
he might see her face. It was turned
reverently to the bishop ; all its delicate
lines were subdued into a gracious har-
mony of expectant feeling. There was
a grave, mystic rapture in her eyes that
smote Kittredge with a sense of awe.
She must believe herself in the house
of the Lord ; he had been tarrying all
the time in the Chapel of St. Anastasia.
He looked away from her to the preach-
er and listened for a few sentences,
then he glanced back at her with a sort
of wonder ; yet to have had her gaze at
him as she did at the bishop, Salem
would have been quite willing to preach
the sermon.

When the service was over he waited
for her in the porch, just as he had seen
the swains do in his native town of Bur-
ridge, and they strolled back to the Oc-
cidental, down the narrow plank -walks,
side by side. He felt more at ease in
his old black Sunday suit than in white
flannel. He felt that it even gave his
conversation a certain weight. Not
that their talk was peculiarly profound ;

it turned first upon Mrs. Atterbury,
who had preferred to attend the Uni-
tarian service, as was her wont ; then
back upon the growth of ritualism, un-
til both rememloered they had already
argued the question the evening before ;
and finally upon Frederic Pitman. She
asked, innocently enough, where Mr.
Pitman was, and when Salem remarked
inadvertently that he had not yet risen,
her face clouded, as if a hint had been
given of some irregularity of life. She
even went so far as to admit that there
had been rumors at Magnolia that he
was not entirely "nice." Salem tried
to explain, found it a trifle embarrass-
ing, and then, his honest soul filled
with sympathy for the boy's effort to
reform, he frankly told her the facts
concerning Pitman's peculiar malady.
She listened, at first uncomfortably,
then eagerly, at last with something of
that passion for reforming things and
people without which a good American
woman is incomplete.

" So you see how it is. Miss Atter-
bury," he concluded. " He isn't a bad
fellow. A kinder, more thoughtful man
doesn't exist ; and he has ability, too.
As he told me," and Salem's voice trem-
bled as he quoted words that had made
a deep impression upon himself, " ' if
man, woman, or dog would stick by
me, I could beat it.' "

She looked up at him, with a quick
glance of s^^mpathy. He had never
seen her eyes so lovely. "May I tell
my aunt ? " she asked. They w^ere just
passing between the stone gate-posts
of the Occidental grounds. " She will
be so glad to hear this. She knows
Mr. Pitman's mother — the sweetest lit-
tle woman, she says. And perhaps, if
we could make it pleasanter for Mr.
Pitman, we might help you now and
then. It is a very noble thing you are
doing, may I say so ? It is quite worth
devoting one's whole summer to, Mr.
Kittredge."

He had said nothing about that trip
around the world.

VII.

At dinner that afternoon the head
waiter assigned to Kittredge and Pit-
man seats at one of the side tables, at

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE. 597

the very one, indeed, where the Atter- down behind the Occidental, on the
bury ladies ah-eady had places. Pitman thick -wooded rocky shore. The tim-
considered this advancement as the bers were already raised, and the
slowly ripening fruit of the fee he had ground-plan of the rooms could easily
given on arrival, but Salem inferred, and be traced. Salem and Miss Atterbury
rightly, that Mrs. Atterbury had con- picked their way over the unfloored
sented to join the informal league for joists for awhile, but she declined to
the moral amelioration of the Inebriate, mount the ladder to the second story,
and had taken this initial stej). Young and the result was that they soon took
Pitman's deportment was certainly shelter upon the shady side of the
such as to repay all efforts taken in his structure, where they sat upon a couple
behalf. His manners were irreproach- of lime barrels and talked about the
able ; indeed, Miss Rachel could not fail " Golden Legend." Mrs. Atterbury and
to notice that he understood some tri- the Inebriate were meantime settling
fling technicalities better than Mr. Kit- the stair problem from an advantageous
tredge. No professional diner-out had position upon the second floor. It all
a richer fund of anecdote, or a more proved very informal and agreeable,
charming fluency. Salem was immense- and Salem was thoroughly confident,
ly proud of him, and throughout din- as the four sauntered home together
ner endeavored with entire success to toward sundown, that such companion-
keep himself in the background. ship would do a great deal for young

Mrs. Atterbury in particular was de- Pitman — indeed for anybody. As for

lighted with Frederic Pitman. She had himself, this whole day, after such a

reached that age when she wanted to night, had been Paradise following the

have bright talkers around her, espec- Inferno. He could almost fancy that

ially if they were good - natured young he saw, anywhere in the swiftly chang-

men with a turn for practical affairs, ing tints of that northern sunset, the

She liked to see a young fellow effi- mystic rose.

cient ; she enjoyed knowing that Pit- In the course of the next week or
man had been so successful in pushing two the young men fell into the habit
the Primitive Pellets ; she even gave a of strolling down to the Atterbury cot-
decided Pellet contour to the conver- tage of an afternoon, and chatting with
sation, to Miss Rachel's dismay. Mrs. the ladies, who were almost sure to be
Atterbury had absolutely none of the there. The proprietor of the billiard-
romanticism that threw a vague but de- room they had patronized supposed
lightful haze over some of her niece's they had taken to playing at the Peli-
projects. What she saw at all, she saw can tables, and was grieved at heart,
very clearly, and she flattered herself but even Pitman enjoyed himself better
that in every -day matters she usually watching the workmen, and allowing
knew the end from the beginning. In the ladies to elevate his moral tone,
her way, too, she was democratic. If the than he did playing billiards against an
Pitmans could do with Pellets what the opponent like Kittredge. For Salem
Atterbury s, from the old Colonel down, this period marked an epoch. It is a
had done with Leather, why should distinct stage in a man's social evolu-
tliey not ? And, finally, she was quite tion when he acquires the proper use
sure that if young Pitman had discov- of the word " charming," and the theo-
ered the specific for fever and ague, he logue, in the stimulating atmosphere of
would be bright enough to know wheth- Mount Desert, learned to prolong the
er her architect had made a mistake in first syllable with a tender enthusiasm
that winding staircase. that assured his social success.

Dinner over, she announced an inten- Occasionally the four took long

tion of inspecting the cottage, and in- buckboard drives together over the

vited the young men to accompany her. perfect roads of the little island. Mrs.

"The cottage again — and Sunday, too, Atterbury usually preferred the front

Auntie ! " exclaimed Miss Rachel — but seat, just behind the driver, where she

she went for her bonnet. The new could jump easily in case of accident ;

summer home of the Atterburys was and the Inebriate sat with her, partly

598

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

because she rather petted him, and
partly, as he said, out of a general dis-
position to see the wheels go round.
He had that inquisitive temper, that
presence of mind and immediateness of
interest that fitted him admirably for
the companionship of a woman who
liked to feel herself a part of this pres-
ent world — even when driving through
the odorous, lonely woods of Mount
Desert ; while as for the two young
people on the back seat, so far as their
joining in the stream of talk was con-
cerned, they might as well have been —
where in fact Salem most often was —
in the seventh heaven. When the con-
versation of this pair grew too tran-
scendental, Mrs. Atterbury was wont to
insist upon a change of seats, and then
young Pitman, more pleased than he
would have cared to show, did his best
to entertain the niece. He was some-
what afraid of her. He admired her
face and the elaborate simplicity of her
gowns ; she did not bore him with
Ibsen and Buddhism and University
Extension ; and yet he knew very well
that she was the sort of girl who " or-
ganized " the poor and worked altar-
cloths and looked askance upon Inebri-
ates, and he held her therefore in proj)er
awe.

Miss Rachel, if the truth were known,
was often quite willing to relinquish the
misty uplands where she had been wan-
dering with the theologue for a more
commonj^lace conversational saunter
with the heir to the Primitive Pellets.
She was amused with the Inebriate, as
was every one else, and in addition to
that she was conscious of a sort of ma-
ternal pity for him — being a whole two
years older. Then, too, she had a
chivalric sympathy for the eftbrts Kit-
tredge was making to save him from
his one error. It seemed to her, as she
had said, a very noble thing to do, and
she felt a glow of ardor at the thought
that she also might be an instrument.
Miss Atterbury was something of a
saint, and had all the potentialities of
a martyr. She was full, for instance,
of those renunciatory ideas which cause
high-bred girls to throw themselves
away on half-bred ministers ; but one
is not always equal to one's highest de-
votion, and it was with some positive

comfort — under a lesser heat, as it
were, of the sacrificial flame — that she
endeavored to be very nice to Freddie
Pitman.

Kittredge, overhearing scraps of her
friendly talk with the young fellow,
was delighted to see them get on so
well together. He had, perhaps, been
a little jealous of Pitman, that morning
upon the Olivette, but now that he
knew Miss Atterbury better, he could
afford to smile at the memory. He re-
signed Freddie to her, as one gives ujd
the reins to a better driver than him-
self ; his responsibility for the Inebri-
ate had been lightened by so much
since he had walked home from church
with Miss liachel and had had intuition
enough to tell her frankly about Pit-
man's malady !

There w^ere but two things that really
troubled Kittredge, as those delicious
weeks went by. One of them was the
Honourable Plantagenet. This interest-
ing specimen of his order j)ersisted in
promenading the Occidental veranda
with Miss Atterbury, deej) in the dis-
cussion of Americanisms — a harmless
recreation of which Salem thought him
altogether too fond. Once or twice
he was asked to join their buckboard
parties, and Mrs. Atterbury had con-
sulted him about the cjuartered oak
wainscoting of her dining-room, having
a sort of idea that quarterings was a
familiar term to the British aristoc-
racy. The day that Kittredge and Pit-
man rowed the ladies out to inspect
the White Squadron, the Honourable
Plantagenet was on board the flagship,
renewing a Washington acquaintance
with a multitude of lovely lieutenants ;
and he presented all of them to Miss
Atterbury and her aunt, leaving their
civilian escorts to examine the new guns
at their leisure. Even the imperturb-
able Pitman growled upon this occa-
sion, and when the burly Englishman,
at his own request, steered their boat
back to the wharf, Kittredge was quite
consoled for his otvti awkwardness as
an oarsman by observing how thor-
oughly he had succeeded in wetting
him down.

One evening, too, when the Sleighton-
Crushtons gave a huge reception at
their cottage in honor of somebody or

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

599

other, and Mrs. Atterbury had secured
cards for the two young men, Kittredge
felt again a sudden sus^^icion of the at-
tache. When the dancing began, Sa-
lem retreated to a dark little balcony,
and grimly watched a more brilliant
scene than he had ever witnessed, car-
ing only to see how often Plantagenet
was dancing with Miss Atterbury.
Once, seeing him advance toward her,
and the Inebriate, who was doing his
duty like a man, approach from an op-
posite direction, Salem pushed his way
awkwardly across the ball-room and
succeeded in keeping himself between
the Englishman and Miss Rachel, un-
til Freddie had carried her off ; where-
upon Salem beat a triumphant retreat
to his balcony. She came out there
afterward, with her fingers uj)on Pit-
man's elbow, and chatted a moment with
Kittredge in most delightful intimacy,
the light gleaming from her arms and
shoulders ; but she shivered in the sea-
air, and Pitman folded a swan's-down
wrap about her, and took her back.

The occupants of No. 37 rarely dis-
cussed Mrs. Atterbury's niece, but after
their return from the reception that
night Salem asked the Inebriate con-
fidentially if he thought that Plan-
tagenet was paying Miss Atterbury
*' serious attention." Young Pitman
answered, with encouraging prompt-
ness :

"He looked like paying serious at-
tention to you, Kittie, I can tell you,
when you shipped that cold water into
his waistcoat the other day ! Serious
about the other matter ? " A quizzical
smile passed over Freddie's pert, sun-
burned face, and he leaned over to untie
his shoestrings. " Doubted ; it's the
summer season, my dear, and he has
nothing else to do. Besides, he hasn't
a sovereign in the world, you know,
and not much chance of ever succeed-
ing to any. Mrs. Atterbury would
never let her niece be picked off by a
man who had nothing but an attache's
salary."

*' But does she understand about the
Honourable ? "

" Hm — humph ! " asserted Pitman,
gathering up his shoes and other arti-
cles of his faultless attire, preparatory
to retiring to the inner room.

"How do you know?" persisted
Salem.

" I may have told her myself," said
the Inebriate, carelessly. "Everybody
knows it. Good -night, Kittie." And
Salem went to sleep comforted, though
he woke up in the middle of the night
and tried to calculate the probable dif-
ference between an attache's salary and
a minister's.

From his second subject of anxiety,
also, he was relieved by a word of his
protege. As the sailing day of the
Richard H. Gulick drcAV near, Salem
found himself shrinking from the idea
of that trip around the world as from
something unthinkable. So much had
changed since he had promised J. How-
ard Pitman to make a trial with the
boy ! Every Monday there had come a
letter from the proprietor of the Primi-
tive Pellets, closing invariably with
" God bless you," and Salem had a sore
struggle between his sense of responsi-
bility and his new dreams. He could
not go around the world ; yet perhaps
he might stay with young Pitman
awhile longer, if he was wanted, and if
— Ah ! there w^ere so many " ifs," and
his heart was all in a tumult.

One evening in the second week of
August the two young men strolled
over to the Atterbury cottage after
dinner, there to await the ladies, who
had proposed building a drift-wood fire
down by the rocks. The workmen were
making rapid progress, in spite of Mrs.
Atterbury's frequent changes in the
plans, and Salem said something about
the attractiveness of the building.

" Of course it is," assented the Inebri-
ate, as they sat do^vn upon a pile of
lath. " Mrs. Atterbury ought to have
a fine house. She can pay for it, and
she deserves it. She's getting too old
to knock around from pillar to post
every summer ; she ought to settle
do^vn."

"It's a great thing," said Salem ear-
nestly, though somewhat vaguely.

"Correct you are, Kittie. Ill be
hanged if I haven't about made up my
mind to settle down mj^self."

He had a whimsical look that made
Salem answer " Yes ? " Avithout know-
ing exactly how to take him.

" Well, why not V I'm sick of the

GOO

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE,

road, thouf^li J. Howard doesn't sus-
j)ect it. He'd like nothing better than
to give me a half- interest at the Works,
and I don't know but I shall be just
filial enough to let him be haj)py in the
way he likes best, eh ? "

"And the R H. Gulick ?" ventured
Kittredge, his heart beating fast.

Pitman fluently consigned the R. H.
Gulick to Halifax.

"Kittie, do you really see us going
round the world together on a brig ? "

"No," Salem confessed, with an im-
mense relief.

" Nor I either. We couldn't even
play billiards." Then the sardonic
amusement faded out of his face as he
added, seriously : "It isn't necessary,
Kittie. You know what I mean. If
I'm not on the road, I can — there can
be somebody to look out for me, as you
did, and stick by me. See ? "

His eager confidence in himself was
hard to resist. Salem could not help
wondering why he had never been will-
ing to try so simple a plan before, and
yet the boy's new purpose furnished a
ready way out of his own perplexity.
" I'll write your father to-morrow and
resign," he said, rather awkwardly.
" My six weeks are about up."

" It's been a great six weeks for me,"
said the grateful Inebriate. " I never
had any one stand right by me at the
very dot the way you did."

" It's been a great six weeks for me,"
murmured Salem, but he was not think-
ing of the aid rendered to young Pit-
man. A straight path seemed opening
before his vision, and a long, long vista
down it.

Miss Atterbury appeared over the
brow of the hill, followed by her aunt,
and the Inebriate rose, threw away his
cigar, and joined her, while Salem sat
there two or three minutes longer, in a
sort of rapture. Then he helped Mrs.
Atterbury pick her way through the
debris behind the cottage, down to a
cosey nook among the rocks by the
shore — his heart reproaching him some-
what for not having always shown Mrs.
Atterbury quite the attention deserved
by a person so kind and bright — and
motherly.

All four set to work gathering drift-
wood, but they waited till deep dusk

before lighting the pile, and then found
that the dead seaweed was too damp to
burn. Salem struck match after match
in vain. At last Miss Atterbury de-
clared that she had set her heart upon
having this fire, and that she was going
up to the cottage for some shavings.
Pitman politely insisted upon accom-
panying her. Kittredge remained on
his knees, blowing ineffectually at the
smoking seaweed, while Mrs. Atter-
bury, wrapped in a big shawl, was
perched not unpicturesquely upon a
bowlder.

" Haven't you any paper?" she asked.

Kittredge felt through his pockets.
His new flannel suit had grown unpre-
sentable, and he was wearing that night
the ministerial garb in which he had
left Boston. "Here seems to be some-
thing," he said, pulling a pamphlet
from the inside pocket. "Hullo ! " He
tore off the cover and touched a match
to it ; the impervious face of J. Howard
Pitman crinkled and shrivelled into
flame.

Salem tore out page after page, and
laid them carefully above the first.

"It isn't anything you care for ? " in-
quired Mrs. Atterbury.

" Hardly ; " he smiled. " Look
there ! " The ghastly portraits of
Southern sufferers from fever and
ague, before and after using the Primi-
tive Pellets, were writhing into dis-
torted and horrible shapes, and the
driftwood was catching fire from them.
"It's the Pitman catalogue," he ex-
plained. "I'm glad Frederic wasn't
here " — and he thought of the delicate
way in which Miss Rachel had turned
Pitman's back upon the advertisement,
that morning on the Olivette.

"Really!" said Mrs. Atterbury, in
some amusement. "I should have
liked to see it. I am told that the Pel-
lets are a very valuable property."

" I suppose so," rejoined Kittredge,
with the indifferent air of a man whose
interests are beyond the reach of moth
and rust.

" Oh, yes," she continued. " Mr. Pit-
man told me the other day that a syndi-
cate had offered a certain sum to buy
them out. It was very large indeed.
He has a lovely mother," she added,
rather inconsequentially.

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

601

"I dare say," replied Kittredge ab-
sently. It had dawned upon him that
here was the time and place to speak to
Mrs. Atterbury, and the blood flamed
into his temples at the thought. He
did not know how to begin, but he felt
that to take her niece from her with-
out warning would be hardly honest.

" She is something of an invalid,"
Mrs. Atterbury proceeded, " and I
think privately that she is too strong a
churchwoman. Kachel, now, wouldn't
be jarred by that at all. Is Mr. Pit-
man an Episcopalian ? "

" Do you mean J. Howard ? " He was
still wondering how to begin.

" No, no. Mr. Frederic."

*' He ! Oh — Excuse me, yes — I think
so." Her mind seemed to dwell upon
Pitman, and he thought he might use
this fact to lead up to his own suit.

" Pitman and I were looking at the
cottage to-night before you came," he
began. His voice trembled in spite of
him. "It seemed very pretty — and
homelike, you know."

"Yes," she said, enthusiastically,
" and I believe the architect was right
about that staircase, after all ! Mr.
Pitman said he was, the moment he saw
it."

" Pitman thought it was very home-
like," he repeated. " The house, I
mean — not the staircase. It really
made him think of settling down — and
I thought so too. Don't you think a
young man needs a — sort of — home ? "

" Of course," she responded, cheer-
fully. "I hope you will preach that
doctrine when you get into the pulpit,
Mr. Kittredge. And he told you some-
thing about settling down ? "

" Oh, he mentioned it," said Salem,
bent now upon getting her attention
away from Pitman, " but I must say I
feel much as he does. I want to settle
down myself."

•There was a long pause, and he threw
a couple of old boat-ribs upon the fire
before going on. "I feel as if the

time had come " He hesitated, and

she broke in cordially :

"Well, I should think you would,
Mr. Kittredge, after studying all these
years a system of theology tliat no one
really believes, you see. It must be a
great pleasure to get at practical work.
Vol. Xn.— 6i

We think it has been a wonderful thing
for Mr. Pitman to have you with him.
It has done so much for him ! "

" It isn't about Pitman that I wanted
to speak," he began once more, impa-
tiently ; it's about "

"Hullo, Kittie!" called out the In-
ebriate's gay voice from the top of the
cliff. " Stir up your fire, so that we can
see the way down."

Kittredge gave a savage thrust at his
bonfire, and the two young people came
scurrying down the narrow path into
its circle of light.

" Where are the shavings ? " inquired
Mrs. Atterbury.

" We saw Mr. Kittr edge's fire, and so
we didn't bring them down," answered
Freddie.

Mrs. Atterbury nodded, and moved
along upon her bowlder to make room
for her niece. But the girl seemed to
be shivering : she knelt on the other
side of the fire, and drawing off her
gloves, held out her slender hands to
the blue and green flame of the drift-
wood, and as she smiled across at Sa-
lem through the blazing smoke, he
knew he had never seen her so beauti-
ful.

"It was so good of you, Mr. Kit-
tredge," she said ; " you are always do-
ing something for us."

He made no answer, except to look
into her eyes, and he forgot all about
her aunt and Freddie Pitman.

They sat a long time around the fire,
but no one talked much. It was
enough to watch the driftwood burn-
ing, and to breathe the pine odors that
the land breeze brought down to greet
the sea. They waited till the fire had
died quite away, and then scrambled up
the cliff-path toward home. Kittredge
offered his help to Miss Atterbury, and
the very instant he felt her light, firm
touch upon his arm he knew that he
should speak to her on the morrow.

VIII.

When the morrow came fate favored
him. He wrote a letter to J. Howard
Pitman, explaining respectfully that
Frederic had plans which rendered it
imperative that the trip around the

602

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

world should be given up. The youn^
man would himself communicate them
shortly ; for the present it was enough
to say that Frederic was contemplat-
ing a step which would give his father
great pleasure. Salem added that
though it scarcely seemed necessary
that the peculiar relation between Fred-
eric and himself should continue lon-
ger, he nevertheless felt so grateful that
his lot had been cast in Bar Harbor
that summer that he would cheerfully
put himself at the service of the Pit-
mans at any time, should the young
man again desire a companion, and pro-
vided his own circumstances would in
any way allow him to do so. Kittredge
was rather pleased with this note ; it
seemed to say enough without saying
too much.

He went to the hotel office to mail it
and found there a letter which was
singularly opportune. It was an in-
vitation to preach as a candidate in a
desirable church near Boston upon the
following Sunday. He had known be-
fore that his name had been mentioned
there, but had supposed the church and
parish would prefer an older man. It
was a most cordial letter ; he felt that
it meant a call ; and he strode up and
down the side veranda of the Occi-
dental with a nervous smile upon his
lips. He told himself to keep steady ;
he had seen his Andover friends do such
fatuous things just because they were
sure of an income and knew they could
marry someone at once ! Yet here was
the call plainly in sight ; it was a strong
church, even a rich church ; Mrs. At-
terbury would know all about it ; he
could give the letter to Mrs. Atter-
bury, or read it to her himself, and
she would perceive that her niece was
not to be asked to starve in a country
parish. As for Rachel, he believed she
understood him already, and that a
word would be enough. Women had
such a wonderful knack at guessing !

The ladies were out sketching that
morning, and Salem paced the veranda
a long time. The Honourable Plantag-
enet took a few turns with him, and
Kittredge found the Englishman not
so bad a fellow after all ; he was amused
that he had ever been jealous of him.
Pitman was deep in a novel ; he seemed

rather ill-temporod — for a wonder — and
Kittredge did not disturb him. They
had a dull lunch together. Mrs. Atter-
bury and her niece were lunching at
the Sleighton-Crushtons, and afterward
went directly to a tennis party. The
afternoon seemed interminal:)le. The
Inebriate stuck moodily to his novel
and his cigar, while Kittredge v/alked
to Spouting Horn and back, to com-
pose his mind — and his speech to Mrs.
Atterbury.

At dinner the young men were again
alone. Pitman volunteered the infor-
mation that the ladies were dining
at the Cuttyhunk ; there were some
friends of his mother over there ; he
supposed he would have to go over
there himself. Until dark, Kittredge
sat in the office, trying to read the
Boston papers. Then he remembered
that the Olivette was lying at her wharf
for some repairs, having run down a
schooner in the fog the night before ;
and he sauntered down to the boat to
inquire if she would be ready to make
the return trip the following evening.
It occurred to him that this would give
him time Saturday to run up to An-
dover and select one of his written ser-
mons. The j)urser answered his ques-
tions and still he lingered upon the
Olivette's immaculate deck. He found
the place by the rail where he had stood
that wonderful morning with Miss At-
terbury, and he looked over into the
black water lapping against the wharf-
piles, and saw again her hand and arm
as she pointed out the nautilus.

Loud talking and laughter at the bow,
together with brilliant flashes of light,
roused him from his dream, and he
strolled forward. The quartermaster
and second officer were descanting to
a few Mount Desert cronies upon the
virtues of their electric search-light ;
why, at Port Tampa, the winter be-
fore, they had sighted a fish-line clear
at the other end of the big pier ; there
would be no use trying to run a block-
ade nowadays if those duffers on the
White Squadron had search-lights half
as good ; and then the quartermaster
began to flash the slender cone of daz-
zling light hither and thither on the
water and the wharf, out upon the ca-
noes and yachts lying at anchor, up

SALEM KITTREDGE, THEOLOGUE.

603

against the rocky path under the Keho
Valley Club House, and even far over
to the huge side of the Occidental,
which it illuminated with a pale circle.
Suddenly the quartermaster turned the
projector upon the wharf again ; it
smote blindingly in the faces of a sailor
and a woman who was talking confiden-
tially with him. The crowd laughed,
but the woman kept his arm, and Salem
liked her for it.

" Try for them folks on the Cutty-
hunk piazza," suggested some one ; " it
ain't much over a hundred yards."

The quartermaster turned to adjust
the screws, and even as he did so, an
unaccountable presentiment took pos-
session of Kittredge's mind. He felt
horribly certain that he was to see
Miss Atterbury with the Honourable
Plantagenet at her elbow ; the thought
seized him that he knew but one side
of her, that the world ^of germans and
tennis parties and dinners and cottages
was one into which he had scarcely
had a glimpse, that she belonged to
that world in spite of herself, and that
she would marry the Honourable Plan-
tagenet after all ! He grasped hard
at the capstan to stop his trembling ;
the voices of the men buzzed in his
ears ; then the white rays were flashed
full upon the Cuttyhunk, and he saw
her.

She was standing quite at the end
of the veranda, with the swan's-down
wrap about her shoulders, and seemed
as if she were smiling straight at him.
The Honourable Plantagenet was no-
where in view. Of those near her, Sa-
lem recognized only the diminutive fig-
ure and amiable countenance of the Ine-
briate, and a tumultuous joy swej)t over
him. He might still claim her ; she be-
longed to no man else !

He walked the Corniche road for an
hour, to give her time to get back to
the Occidental. He abandoned all idea
of speaking first to the aunt ; she
went utterly out of his mind ; he saw
only Rachel's slender figure wrapped in
swan's-down, and her eyes seemed still
smiling into his.

Miss Atterbury had gone to her
room, the clerk told him when he came

in, and he hurried to No. i37 to get a
card to send up to her. Slie would
come down to the drawing-room, he
knew ; they had sat there togeth(!r a
dozen times ; there was a door leading
out to the dark side veranda ; he
could ask her to walk a little with him,
and then

He opened the door of No. 37. A
man was sitting on the bed, with face
buried in his hands. In a startled mo-
ment Salem recognized the Inebriate,
and he struck a match and lighted the
gas. Pitman looked at him ; there
were tears in his eyes.

" I guess I'm rather broken up," he
said. " Sit down, Kit tie ; I want to
tell you something. I proposed to
Miss Atterbury last night, and she has
just given me her answer. It takes
hold of me pretty hard ; I haven't been
just the sort of man I might, you see.
You know all about it, and of course
she does. I told her everything ; every
blessed thing ; a fellow ought to, with
that sort of girl. And it's knowing all
that — and that she knows it — that — it
breaks me all up ! "

It was getting too incoherent for
the amazed theologue to follow. "You
mean," he broke in, a certain righteous
hardness mingling with the sympathy
in his shaking voice, " that she refused
you on account of your record."

" No ! " cried Pitman, leaping up,
with the queerest smile around his
mouth, " that's just what she ought to
have done, but she didn't. She ac-
cepted me in spite of my record ! She
believes in me ! I'm an engaged man,
Kittie ; queer, isn't it ? Put it there ! "

But Kittredge's hands were griping
the back of a chair, and his rosy face
was gray.

"I can't," he groaned, "I can't. The
fact is "

He stopped. Pitman stared at him
an instant, then nodded as if to him-
self, with a sudden comprehension.

"I didn't suppose that," he mur-
mured, slowly. " Of course I knew you
liked her. I'm — I'm awfully sorry.
It's hard luck, Kittie. Please," and
with a boyish timidity the Inebriate
put out his hand again.

The End.

FRENCH ART.

III.— REALISTIC PAINTING.
By IV. C. BrownelL

I.

"O an intelligence fully and
acutely alive, its own time
must, I think, be more in-
teresting than any other.
The sentimental, the scho-
lastic, the speculative tem-
perament may look before
or after with longing or
regret ; but that sanity of mind which
is practical and productive must find
its most agreeable sensations in the
data to which it is intimately and
inexorably related. The light upon
Greek literature and art for which we
study Greek history, the light upon
Roman history for which we study
Latin literature and art, are admira-
ble to us in very exact proportion as
we study them for our ends. To ev-
ery man and every nation that really
breathes, true vitality of soul depends
upon saying to one's self with an emo-
tion of equivalent intensity to the emo-
tion of patriotism celebrated in Scott's
familiar lines. This is my own, my native
era and environment. Culture is impos-
sible apart from cosmopolitanism, but
self-respect is more indispensable even
than culture. French art alone at the
present time possesses absolute self-
respect. It possesses this quality in an
eminent, in even an excessive degree ;
but it possesses it, and in virtue of it is
endued with a preservative quality that
saves it from the emptiness of imita-
tion and the enervation of dilettanteism.
It has, in consequence, escaped that re-
crudescence of the primitive and in-
choate known in England and among
ourselves as pre-Raphaelitism. It has
escaped also that almost abject worship
of classic models which Winckelmann
and Canova made universal in Germany
and Italy — not to speak of its echoes
elsewhere. It has always stood on its
own feet, and, however lacking in the
higher qualities of imaginative initia-

tive, on the one hand, and however ad-
dicted to the academic and the tradi-
tional on the other, has always both
respected its aesthetic heritage and con-
tributed something of its own thereto.

Why should not one feel the same
quick interest, the same instinctive
pride in his time as in his country?
Is not sympathy with what is modern,
instant, actual, and apposite a fair par-
allel of patriotism ? Neglect of other
times in the " heir of all the ages " is
analogous to chauvinism, and indicative
of as ill-judged an attitude as that of
provincial blindness to other contem-
porary points of view and systems of
philosophy than one's own. Culture is
equally hostile to both, and in art cult-
ure is as important a factor as it is in
less special fields of activity and en-
deavor. But in art, as elsewhere, cult-
ure is a means to an actual, present
end, and the pre-Raphaelite sentiment
that dictates mere reproduction of what
was once a genuine expression is as
sterile as servile imitation of exotic
modes of thought, dress, and demeanor
is universally felt to be. The past —
the antique, the renaissance, the classic,
and romantic ideals — are to be used,
not adopted ; in the spirit of Goethe,
at once the most original of modern
men and the most saturated with cult-
ure, exhibited in his famous saying :
"Nothing do I call my ow^n which hav-
ing inherited I have not reconquered
for myself."

It would indeed be a singular thing
were the field of aesthetics the only one
uninvaded by the scientific spirit of the
time. The one force specially character-
istic of our era is, I suppose, the scienti-
fic spirit. It is at any rate everywhere
manifest, and it possesses the best intel-
lects of the century. A priori one may
argue about its hostility, essential or
other, to the artistic, the constructive
spirit ; but to do so is at the most to
beat the air, to waste one's breath, to

Vol. XII.— 65

GOG

FRENCH ART-REALISTIC PAINTING.

After the Hunt. — Courbet.
(By permission of Messrs. Cottier & Co.)

Ruskinize, in a word. Interest in life
and tlie world, instead of speculation or
self-expression, is the " note " of the day.
The individual has withered terribly.
He is supplanted by the type. Mate-
rialism has its positive gospel ; it is
not at all the formulated expression of
Goethe's " spirit that denies." Nature
has acquired new dignity. She cannot

be studied too closely, nor too long.
The secret of the universe is now pur-
sued through observation, as former-
ly it was tnrough fasting and prayer.
Nothing is sacred nowadays because
everything receives resj)ect. If absolute
beauty is now smiled at as a chimera, it
is because beauty is perceived every-
where. Whatever is mav not be risht

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC FAINTING.

607

Hagar and Ishmael. — Cazin.

— the maxim lias too much of an ex
cathedra sovind — but whatever is is iu-
terestin<j^. Our attitude is at once hum-
"bler and more curious. The sense of
the immensity, the immeasurableness
of things, is more intimate and pro-
found. What one may do is more
modestly conceived ; what might be
done, more justly appreciated. There
is less confidence and more aspiration.
The artist's e^-e is "on the object" in
more concentrated gaze than ever here-

tofore. If his sentiment, his jioetry,
is no longer " inevitable," as Words-
worth complained Goethe's was not,
it is more reverent, at any rate more
circumspect. If he is less exalted he is
more receptive — he is more alive to im-
j^ressions for being less of a philoso-
pher. If he scouts authority, if even
he accepts somewhat weakly the thral-
dom of dissent from traditional stand-
ards and canons, it is because he is
convinced of the superiority to all can-

608

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

ons and standards of the material Avitli
which he has to deal. If he esteems
truth more than hcanty, it is because
what he thinks truth is more beautiful
in his eyes than the stereotyped beauty
he is adjured to attain. In any case,
the distinction of the realistic painters
— like that of the realists in literature,
where, also, it need not be said, France
has been in the lead — is measurably
to have got rid of solecisms ; to have
made, indeed, obvious solecisms, and
solecisms of conception as well as of
execution, a little ridiculous. It is, to
be sure, equally ridiculous to subject
romantic productions to realistic stand-

view. Tlie f^reat difficulty with a prin-
ciple is that it is universal, and that
when we deal with facts of any kind
whatever, universality is an impossible
ideal. Scott and Gericault are, now-
adays, in what we have come to deem
essentials, distinctly old-fashioned. It
might be well to try and imitate them,
if imitation had any salt in it, which it
has not ; or if it Avere possible to do
what they did with their different in-
spiration, which it is not. Mr. Steven-
son is, I think, an example of the dan-
ger of essaying this latter in literature,
just as a dozen eminent painters of less
talent — for no one has so much talent as

"The Shepherds," from the Foyer of the Grand Opera, Paris. — Baudry.

ards, to blind one's self to the senti-
ment that saturates such romantic
works as Scott's and Dumas's, or Geri-
cault's and Diaz's, which is wholly ap-
posite to its own time and point of

Mr. Stevenson — are examples in paint-
ing. But there are a thousand things,
not only in the technic but in the whole
attitude toward their art and their ma-
terial of the romanticists, that are now-

FRENCH ART—KRALISTIC PAINTING.

609

Portrait.— Ribot.
(By permission of M. Durand-Ruel.)

adays impossible to sincere and spon-
taneous artists. Details which have no
importance whatever in the ensemble of
the romantic artist are essential to the
realist. Art does not stand still. Its
canons change. There is a constant
evolution in its standards, its require-
ments. A conventional background is
no more an error in French classic
painting than in tapestry ; a perfunc-
tory scheme of pure chiaroscuro is no
blemish in one of Diaz's splendid forest
landscaj^es ; such phenomena in a work
of Raffaelli or Pointelin would jar, be-

cause, measured by the standards, to
which modern men must, through the
very force of evolution itself, subscribe,
they can but seem solecisms. In a dif-
ferent set of circumstances, under a dif-
ferent inspiration, and with a different
artistic attitude, solecisms they certainly
are not. But, as Thackera}' makes Ethel
Newcome say, " We belong to our belong-
ings." Our circumstances, inspiration,
artistic attitude, are involuntary and
possess us as our other belongings do.
In Gautier's saying, for instance, "I
am a man for whom the visible world

610

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

Thiers. — Bonnat.

exists," Avliicli I have quoted as express-
in"^ the key-note of the romantic epoch,
it is to he noted that the visible world
is taken as a spectacle simply — signifi-
cant, suggestive or merely stimulant,
in accordance with individual bent.
Gautier and the romanticists generallv
had little concern for its structure. To
many of them it was indeed rather a
canvas than a spectacle even — just as
to many, if not to most, of the realists it

is its structure rather than its signifi-
cance that altogether appeals ; the ro-
manticists in general sketched their
ideas and impressions upon it, as the
naturahsts have in the main studied its
aspects and constitution, careless of
the import of these, pictorially or other-
wise. Indeed one is tempted often to in-
quire of the latter. Why so much in-
terest in what apparently seems to you
of so little import ? Are we never to

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

Gil

liave your skill, your observation, your
amassiiij»* of " documents " turned to
any account ? Where is the realistic
tragedy, comed}^ epic, composition of
any sort? Courbet's " Cantonniers,"
Manet's " Bar," or Bastien -Lepage's
"Joan of Arc," perhaps. But what is
indisputable is, that we are irretrievably
committed to the present general aesthe-
tic attitude and inspiration, and must
share not only the romanticists' impa-
tience with academic formuLe and con-
ventions, but the realists' devotion to
life and the world as they actually ex-
ist. The future may be difterent, but
we are living in the present, and what is
important is, after all, to live. It is also
so difficult that not to take the line of
least resistance is fatuity.

II.

Ascriptions of the kind are at best
approximations, but it is at least an ap-
proximation to ascribe the primacy of

realism to Courbet. Not only was he
the first, or among the first, to feel the
interest and importance of the actual
world as it is and for what it is rather
than for what it suggests, but his feel-
ing in this direction is intenser than
that of anyone else. Manet was pre-
occupied with the values of objects
and sj^aces. Bastien- Lepage, while
painting these with the most scrupu-
lous fidelity, was nevertheless always
attentive to the significance and im-
port of what he painted. Courbet was
a pure pantheist. He was possessed
by the material, the j^hysieal. the act-
ual. He never varies it a hair's-
breadth. He never lifts it a fraction
of a degree. But by his very absorp-
tion in it he dignities it immensely.
He illustrates magnificently its possi-
bilities. He brings out into the plainest
possible view its inherent, integral, aes-
thetic quality, independent of any ex-
traneity. No painter ever succeeded
so well with so little art, one is tempted

The Orphans' School. — Bonvin.
(By permission of J. S. Inglis, Esq.)

612

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

to say. Beside liis, the love of nature
which we ascribe to the ordinary realist
is a snperfici X emotion. He had the
sentiment of reality in the hi<^hest de-
gree ; he had it intensely. If he did
not re2:)resent nature with the search-
ing!^ subtlety of later painters, he is cer-
tainly the forerunner of naturalism.
He has absolutely no ideality. He is
blind to all intimations of immortal-
ity, all unearthly voices. Yet it would
be wholly an error to suppose him a
mere literalist. No one is farther re-
moved from the painstaking, grubbing
imitators of detail so justly denounced
and ridiculed by Mr. Whistler. He has
the generalizing faculty in very distin-
guished degree, and in very large meas-
ure. Every trait of his talent, indeed, is
large, manly ; but for a certain quali-
fication— which must be made — one
might add, Olympian. This qualifica-
tion perhaps may be not unfairly de-
scribed as earthiness — never an agree-
able trait, and one to which probably is

due the depreciation of Courbet that
is so popular even among appreciative
critics. It is easy to characterize Cour-
bet as brutal and material, but wliat
is easy is generally not exact. What
one glibly stigmatizes as brutality and
grossness may, after all, be something
of a particularly strong savor, enjoyed
l)y the painter himself with a gusto
too sterling and instinctive to be justi-
fiably neglected, much less contemned.
The first thing to do in estimating an
artist's accomplishment, which is to
place one's self at his point of view,
is, in Courbet's case, unusually diffi-
cult. We are all dreamers, more or
less — in more or less desultory fash-
ion— and can all appreciate that pris-
matic turn of what is real and actual
into a position wherein it catches glints
of the imagination. The imagination
is a universal touchstone. The sense
of reality is a special, an individual fac-
ulty. When one is poetizing in an
amateur, a dilettante way, as most of

Still Life.— Vollon.
(By permission of Messrs. Knoedler & Co.)

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

G13

Vintage. — L'Hermitte.
(By permission of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

US poetize, a picture of Courbet, wliicli
seems to flaunt and challenge tlie im-
agination in virtue of its defiant reality,
its insistence on the value and signifi-
cance of the prosaic and the actual,
appears coarse and crude. It is not,
however. It is ver}^ far from that. It
is rather elemental than elementary —
in itself a prodigious distinction. No
modern painter has felt more intensely

and reproduced more vigoroush' the
sap that runs through and vivifies the
various forms of natural phenomena.
To censure his shortcomings, to regret
his imaginative incompleteness, is to
miss him altogether.

It is easy to say he had all the
coarseness without the sentiment of the
French peasantry, whence he sprang ;
that his political radicalism attests a

614

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

bick of the serenity of spirit iii(lisi)eii-
sable to the sincere artist ; that he had
no ('(nu'option of the beautiful, the ex-
{juisito — tlie fact remains that he tri-
umphs over all liis deficiencies, and in

reality without the technic ; Bastien-
Lepa^i^e the technic without the sen-
timent. In Courbet, at all events,
the sentiment of reality dominates the
realism of the technic ; in Bastien-Le-

A Bar at the Folies-Bergere. — Manet.

very S2)lendid fashion. He is, in truth,
of all the realists for whom he discov-
ered the way, and set the pace, as it
were, one of the two naturalistic paint-
ers who have shown in any high de-
gree the supreme artistic faculty — that
of generalization. However impressive
Manet's picture may be ; however brill-
iant Monet's endeavor to reproduce
sunlischt may seem ; however refined
and elegant Degas's delicate selection
of pictorial material — for broad and
masterful generalization, for enduing
what he painted with an interest deeper
than its surface and underlyin"- its as-
pect, Courbet has but one rival among
realistic painters. I mean, of course,
Bastien-Lepage.

There is an important difference be-
tween the two. Approximately speak-
ing, Courbet had the sentiment of

page the technic is realistically carried
infinitely farther, but the sentiment
quite transcends realism. Imagine
Courbet essaying a " Jeanne d'Arc ! "
Bastien - Lej)age j^ainting Courbet's
" Cantonniers " would not have stopped,
as Courbet has done, with expressing
their vitality, their actual interest, but
at the same time that he represented
them in far greater technical complete-
ness he would also have occupied him-
self with their psychology. He is in-
deed quite as distinctly a psychologist
as he is a painter. His favorite j^roblem,
aside from that of technical perfection,
which perhaps equally haunted him, is
the rendering of that resigned, bewil-
dered, semi-hypnotic, vaguely and yet
intensely longing spiritual expression
to be noted by those who have the
eyes to see it in the faces and attitudes

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

615

now of the peasant laborer now of the
city pariah. All his peasant women are
potentially Jeannes d'Are — "Les Foins,"
"Tired," '"Petite Fauvette," for exam-
ple. The " note " is still more evident
in the " London Bootblack " and the
" London Flower-girl," in which the out-
cast "East End" spiritlessness of the
British capital is caught and fixed with
a Zola-like incisiveness and foi'ce. Such
a phase as this is not so much pictorial
or poetic, as ps^^chological. Bastien-
Le23age"s happiness in rendering it is a
proof of the exceeding quickness and
sureness of his observation ; but his
preoccupation with it is equally strong
proof of his interest in the things of the

to be in anywise associated with the ro-
manticists. Degas's acid characteriza-
tion of him, as " the Bouguereau of the
modern movement," is only just, if we
remember what very radical and funda-
mental changes the "modern move-
ment " implies in general attitude as
well as in special exj^ression. I should
be inclined rather to ajjply the analogy
to M. Dagnan-Bouveret, though here,
too, with many reserves looking mainly
to the difference between true and va-
2)id sentiment.

It is interesting to note, however, the
almost exclusively intellectual charac-
ter of this imaginative side of Bastien-
Lepage. He does not view his material

The Ballet in "Robert Le Diable." — Degas.
(By permission of M. Durand-Ruel.)

mind as well as in those of the senses.
This is his great distinction, I think.
He beats the realist on his own ground
(except perhaps Monet and his fol-
lowers— I remember no attempt of his
to paint sunlight), but he is imaginative
as well. He is not, on the other hand,

with any apparent sympath}-, such as
one notes, or at all events divines, in Mil-
let. Both were French 2)easants ; but
whereas Millet's interest in his fellows
is instinctive and absorbing, Bastien-
Lepage's is curious and detached. If
his pictures ever succeed in moving

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING,

617

us, it is impersonally, in virtue of the
camera-like scrutiny he brin^^s to bear
on his subject, and the eflectiveness
with which he renders it, and of the re-
flections which we institute of ourselves
and which he fails to stimulate by even
the faintest trace of a loving touch or
the betrayal of any sympathetic losin^^
of himself in his theme. You feel just
the least intimation of the doctrinaire,
the systematic aloofness of the spec
tator. In moral attitude as well as
in technical expression he no more as-
similates the various phases of his
material, to reproduce them afterward
in new and original combination, than
he expresses the essence of landscape
in general, as the Fontainebleau paint-
ers do even in their most photographic
moments. Both his figures and his
landscapes are clearly portraits — typi-
cal and not merely individual, to be
sure, but somehow not exactly crea-
tions. His skies are the least success-
ful portions of his pictures, I think ;
one must generalize easily to make
skies effective, and perhaps it is not
fanciful to note the frequency of high
horizons in his work.

The fact remains that Bastien-Le-
page stands at the head of the modern
movement in many ways. His friend,
M. Andre Theuriet, has shown, in a
brochure published some years ago,
that he was himself as interesting as
his pictures. He took his art very se-
riously, and spoke of it with a dignity
rather uncommon in the atmosphere
of the studios, where there is apt to
be more enthusiasm than reflection. I
recall vividly the impatience with which
he once spoke to me of painting "to
show what you can do." His own
standard was always the particular
ideal he had formed, never within the
reach of his ascertained powers. And
whatever he did, one may say, illus-
trates the sincerity and elevation of
this remark, whether one's mood in-
cline one to care most for this psycho-
logical side — undoubtedly the more
nearly unique side — of his work, or for
such exquisite things as his " Forge "
or the portrait of Mme Sarah Bern-
hardt. Incontestably he has the true
tradition, and stands in the line of the
great painters. And he owes his per-
VoL. XII.— 66

manent place among them not less to
his perception that painting has a mor-
al and significant, as well as a represent-
ative and decorative sanction, than to
his perfect harmony with his own time
in his way of illustrating this — to his
happy fusion of aspect admirably ren-
dered with profound and stimulating
suggestion.

III.

Of the realistic landscape painters,
the strict impressionists apart, none is
more eminent than M. Cazin, whose
work is full of interest, and if at times
it leaves one a little cold, this is per-
haps an affair of the beholder's temper-
ament rath^ than of M. Cazin's. He
is a thoroughly original painter, and,
what is more at the present day, an
imaginative one. He sees in his own
way the nature that we all see, and
paints it not literally but personally.
But his landscapes invariably attest,
above all, an attentive study of the
phenomena of light and air, and their
truthfulness is the more marked for
the personality they illustrate. The
impression they make is of a very clair-
voyant and enthusiastic observation
exercised by an artist who takes more
pleasure in appreciation than in expres-
sion, whose pleasure in his expression
is subordinate to his interest in the ex-
ternal world, and in large measure con-
fined to the delight every artist has in
technical felicity when he can attain it.
Their skies are beautifully observed —
graduated in value Avith delicate veri-
similitude from the horizon up, and
wind-swept, or drenched with mist, or
ringing clear, as the motive may dic-
tate. All objects take their places with
a precision that is, nevertheless, in no-
wise pedantic, and perfectly free. Ca-
zin's palette is, moreover, a thoroughly
individual one. It is very pure, and if
its range is not great, it is at any rate
not grayed into insipidity and ineffec-
tualness, but is as positive as if it were
more vivid. A distinct air of elegance,
a true sense of style, is noteworthy in
many of his pictures ; not only in the
important ones, but occasionally when
the theme is so slight as to need hardly

618

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

any composition whatever — the mere
placing of a tree, its outline, its rela-
tion to a bank or a roadway, are often
unmistakably distinguished. Cazin is
not exclusively a landscape-painter, and
though the landscape element in all his
works is the dominant one, even in his
" Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert,"
and his " Judith Setting out for Holo-
fernes's Camp " (in which latter one can
hardly identify the heroine at all), the
fact that he is not a landscape painter,
pure and simply like Harpignies and
Pointelin, perhaps accounts for his in-
feriority to them in landscape senti-
ment. In France it is generally as-
sumed that to devote one's self exclu-
sively to any one branch of painting is
to betray limitations, and there are few
painters who would not resent being
called landscapists. Something, per-
haps, is lost in this way. It witnesses
a greater pride in accomplishment
than in instinctive bent. But however
that may be, Cazin never penetrates
to the sentiment of nature that one
feels in such a w^ork as Harpignies's
" Moonrise," for example, or in almost
any of Pointelin's grave and impressive
landscapes. Hardly less truthful, I
should say, though perhaps less inti-
mately and elaborately real (a roman-
ticist would say less superficially real)
than Cazin's, the work of both these
painters is more pictorial. They have
a quicker sense for the beautiful, I
think. They feel very certainly much
more deeply the suggestiveness of a
scene. They are not so dehonnaires in
the presence of their problems. In a
sense, for that reason, they understand
them better. There is very little feel-
ing of the desert, the illimitable space,
where, according to Balzac, God is and
man is not, in the "Hagar and Ish-
mael ; " indeed there seems to have been
no attempt on the part of the painter
to express any. True as his sand-heap
is, you feel somehow that there may be
a kitchen-garden or the entrance to a
coal-mine on the other side of it or a
little farther along. And the landscape
of the " Judith," line as its sweep is,
and admirable as are the cool tone and
clear distance of the picture, might
really be that of the " south meadow "
of some particular " farm " or other.

The contrast which Guillaumet prts
sents to Fromentin affords a very strik-
ing illustration of the growth of the
realistic spirit in recent years. Fro-
mentin is so admirable a painter that
I can hardly fancy any appreciative per-
son wishing him different. His devot-
ed admirer and biographer, M. Louis
Gonse, admits, and, indeed, records
Fromentin's own lament over the in-
sufficiency of his studies. Fond as he
was of horses, for instance, he does not
know them as a draughtsman with the
science of such a conventional painter
in many other respects as Schreyer.
But it is not in the slightly amateur-
ish nature of his technical equipment —
realized perfectly by himself, of course,
as the first critic of the technic of
painting among all who have ventured
upon the subject — that his painting
differs from Guillaumet's. It is his
whole point of view. His Africa is
that of the critic, the litterateur, the
raffine. Guillaumet's is Africa itself.
You feel before his Luxembourg can-
vases, as in looking over the slightest
of his vivid memoranda, that you are
getting in an acute and concentrated
form the sensations which the actual
scenes and types rendered by the paint-
er would stimulate in you, supposing,
of course, that you were sufficiently
sensitive. Fromentin, in comparison, is
occupied in picture-making — giving you
a beautifully colored and highly intelli-
gent pictorial report as against Guil-
laumet's actual reproduction. There is
no question as to which of the two paint-
ers has the greater personal interest ;
but it is just as certain that for abiding
value and enduring charm personal in-
terest must either be extremely great
or else yield to that inherent in the ma-
terial dealt with, an interest that Guil-
laumet brings out wdth a felicity and
a puissance that are wholly extraordi-
nary, and that nowadays meet with a
readier and more sympathetic recogni-
tion than even such delicate personal
charm as that of Fromentin.

IV.

So thoroughly has the spirit of real-
ism fastened upon the artistic effort of
the present that temperaments least in-

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

619

clined toward interest in the actual feel
its influences and show their eftects.
The most recalcitrant illustrate this
technically, however rigorously they
may preserve their point of view. They
paint at least more circumspectly, how-
ever they may think and feel. An his-
torical painter like Jean Paul Laurens,
interested as he is in the memorable
moments and dramatic incidents of the
past, and exhibiting as he does, first of
all, a sense for what is ideally forceful
and heroic, is nevertheless clearly con-
cerned for the realistic value of his rep-
resentation far more than a generation
ago he would have been. When Lumi-
nais paints a scene from Gaulish legend
he is not quite, but nearly, as careful to
make it pictorially real as he is to have
it dramatically effective. M. Franyois
Flameng, expanding his book illustra-
tion into a mammoth canvas commemo-
rative of the Vendean insurrection, is
almost daintily fastidious about the
naturalistic aspect of his abundant de-
tail. M. Benjamin Constant's artifi-
cially conceived seraglio scenes are as
realistically rendered as is indicated by
a recent caricature depicting an aston-
ished sneak-thief foiled in an attempted
rape of the jewels in a sultana's diadem,
painted with such deceptive illusoriness
by M. Constant's clever brush. The
military painters, Detaille, De Neuville,
Berne-Bellecour, do not differ from Yer-
net more by painting incidents instead
of phases of warfare, by substituting
the touch of dramatic genre for epic
conceptions, than they do by the scru-
pulously naturalistic rendering that in
them supplants the old academic sym-
bolism. Their dragoons and fantassins
are not merely more real in what they
do, but in how they look. Vernet's look
like tin soldiers by comparison ; certain-
ly like soldiers de convenance. Aime
Morot evidently used instantaneous
photography, and his magnificent cav-
alry charges suggest not only carnage
but Muybridge as well.

The great portrait-painters of the
day — Carolus-Duran, Bonnat, Ribot —
are realists to the core. They are very
far from being purely portrait-painters
of course, and their realism shows it-
self with splendid distinction in other
works. Few painters of the nude have

anything to their credit as fine as the
figure M. Carolus-Duran exhibited at
the Paris Exposition in 1889. Ribot's
" Saint Sebastian " is one of the most
jDOwerful pictures of modern French
art. Bonnat's " Christ " became at once
famous. Each picture is painted with
a vigor and point of realistic detail
which is peculiar to our own time ;
painted to-day Bonnat's fine and sculp-
tural "Fellah Woman and Child," of
the Metropolitan Museum, would be ac-
cented in a dozen ways in which now it
is not. But it is perhaps in portraiture
that the eminence of these painters is
most explicit. They are at the head of
contemporary portraitists at all events.
And their portraits are almost defiantly
real, void often of arrangement, and as
little artificial as the very frequently
prosaic atmosphere appertaining to
their sometimes very stark subjects
suggests. A portrait by Bonnat blinks
nothing in the subject ; its aim and ac-
complishment are the rendering of the
character in a vivid fashion — including
the reproduction of cobalt cravats and
creased trowsers even — which would
have mightily embarrassed Van Dyck
or Velasquez. Ribot is a little like Rem-
brandt, but he deals with fewer exter-
nals, taken in the widest sense. Caro-
lus-Duran, the " swell " portrait-painter
of the day, artificial as he may be in
the quality of his mind, nevertheless
seeks and attains, first of all, the sense
of an even exaggerated life-likeness in
his charming sitters. They are, first of
all, people ; the pictorial element takes
care of itself ; sometimes even — so over-
mastering is the realistic tendency — the
plush of the chair, the silk of the robe,
the cut of the coat, seems, to an ob-
server who thinks of the old traditions
of Titian, of Raphael, of Moroni, unduly
emphasized, even for realism.

V.

One element of modernite is a cer-
tain order of eclecticism. It is not
the eclecticism of the Bolognese paint-
ers, for example, illustrating the really
hopeless attempt to combine the sup-
posed excellences, always dissociated
from the essence, of different points

620

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

of view. It is a free choice of atti-
tude, rather, clue to the release of
the individual from the thraldom of
conformity that ruled during the ro-
mantic epoch. Hence a great deal of
admirable work, of which one hardly
thinks whether it is realistic or not,
side by side with the more emphatic ex-
pressions of the realistic spirit. And
this work is of all degrees of realism,
never, however, getting very far away
from the naturalistic basis on which
more and more every one is coming
to insist as the necessary and only solid
pedestal of any flight of fancy. Bau-
dry is perhaps the nearest of the really
great men to the Bolognese order of
eclecticism. I suppose he must be
classed among the really great men, so
many painters of intelligence place him
there, though I must myself plead the
laic privilege of a slight scepticism as
to whether time will approve their en-
thusiasm. He is certainly very effective,
and in measurably his own way, idle
as it is to say that his drafts on the
great Italians are no greater than those
of Raphael on the antique frescos. His
reflections of Tintoretto and attenuated
expansions of Michael Angelo's con-
densed grandiosity are in the man-
ner of the eclecticism of the Carracci
far more than in that of Raphael.
But his manner is the modern man-
ner, and it is altogether more effect-
ive, more "fetching," to use a modern
term, than anything purely academic
can be. Elie Delaunay, another decora-
tive painter, is, on the other hand, as
real as the most rigorous literalist could
ask of a painter of decorative works.
Chart ran, who has an individual charm
that both Baudry and Delaunay lack, in-
ferior as he is to them in sweep and
power, is perhaps in this respect mid-
way between the two. Clairin is, like
Mazerolles, a pure fantaisiste. Dubufe
fils, whose at least equally famous father
ranks in a somewhat similar category
with Couture, shows a distinct advance
upon him in reality of rendering, as the
term would be understood at present.

In other departments of painting the
note of realism is naturally still more
universally apparent ; but as in the
work of the painters of decoration it is
often most noticeable as an undertone,

indicating a point of departure rather
than an aim. Bonvin is a realist only as
Chardin, as Van der Meer of Delft, as
Nicholas Maes were, before the jargon
of realism had been thought of. He is,
first of all, an exquisite artist, in love
with the beautiful in reality, finding in
it the humblest material and expressing
it with the gentlest, sweetest, aesthetic
severity and composure imaginable.
The most fastidious critic needs but a
touch of human feeling to convert any
characterization of this most refined
and elevated of painters into pure pan-
egyric. Vollon's touch is felicity itself,
and it is evident that he takes more
pleasure in exercising and exploiting it
than in its successful imitation, striking
as its imitative quality is. Gervex and
Duez are very much more than impres-
sionists, both in theory and practice.
There is nothing polemic in either.
Painters extol in the heartiest way the
color, the creative coloration of Ger-
vex's " Rolla," quite aside from its dra-
matic force or its truth of aspect. Per-
sonal feeling is clearly the inspiration
of every work of Duez, not the demon-
stration of a theory of treating light
and atmosphere. The same maj^ be
said of Roll at his best, as in his superb
rendering of what may be called the
modern painter's conception of the
myth of Europa. Compared with Paul
Veronese's admirable classic, that vio-
lates all the unities (which Veronese,
nevertheless, may readily be pardoned
by all but literalists and theorists for
neglecting), this splendid nude girl in
plein air, flecked with splotches of sun-
light filtered through a sieve of leafage,
with her realistic taurine companion,
and their environment of veridically
rendered out-of-doors, may stand for
an illustrative definition of modernite ;
but what you feel most of all is Roll.
It is ten chances to one that he has
never even been to Venice or thought
of Veronese. He has not always been
as successful; as w^hen in his "Work"
he earned Degas's acute comment : " A
crowd is made with five persons, not
with fifty." (II y a cinquante figures,
mais je ne vols pas la f oule ; on fait une
foule avec cinq et non pas avec cinq-
uante). But he has always been some-
one. Compare with him L'Hermitte, a

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING. 621

painter who illustrates sometimes the very eminent painters. Daumier, who
possibility of being- an artificial realist, passed in general for a contributor to
His "Vintage" at the Metroj^olitan Mu- illustrated journals, even such journals
seum, his " Harvesters " at the Luxem- as Le Petit Journal pour Eire, was not
bourg, are excellently real and true in only a genius of the first rank, but a
detail, but in idea and general expres- painter of the first class. Monvel and
sion they might compete for the prix de Montenard at present are masterly
Rome. The same is measurably true painters. But in their illustrations, as
of Lerolle, whose pictures are most well as in their painting, they show a
sympathetic — sometimes they are very notable change from the illustration of
sympathetic — but on the whole display the days of Daumier and Dore. The
less power. But in each instance the difference between the elegant (or per-
advocate d outi^ance of realism may haps rather the handsome) drawings of
justly, I think, maintain that a painter Bida, an artist of the utmost distinction,
with a natural predisposition toward and that of the illustrators of the pres-
the insipidity of the academic has been ent day who are comparable with him
saved from it by the inherent sanity — their name is not legion — is a special
and robustness of the realistic method, attestation of the influence of the real-
Jean Beraud, even, owes something to istic ideal in a sphere wherein, if any-
the way in which his verisimilitude of where, one may say, realism reigns
method has reinforced his artistic pow- legitimately, but wherein also the con-
ers. His delightful Parisiennes — mo- ventional is especially to be expected,
diste's messengers crossing wet glisten- One cannot indeed be quite sure that
ing pavements against a background the temptations of the conventional are
of gray mist accented with poster-be- resisted by the ultra-realistic illustrat-
dizened kiosks and regularly recur- ors of our own time, Rossi, Beaumont,
ring horse-chestnut trees ; elegantes at Albert Lynch, Myrbach. They have
prayer, in somewhat distracted mood, certainly a very handy way of express-
on priedieus in the vacant and vapid ing themselves ; one would be justified
Paris churches ; seated at cafe tables on in suspecting the labor-saving, the art-
the busy, leisurely boulevards, or posing sparing Kodak, behind many of their
tout bonnement for the reproduction of most unimpeachable successes. But
the most fascinating feminine ensemble the attitude taken is quite other than it
in the world — owe their charm (I may used to be, and nowhere can the change
say again their " fetchingness ") to the which has come over French aesthetic
faithfulness with which their portraitist activity be noted in sharper definition
has studied and the fidelity with which than in comparing a book illustrated
he has reproduced their differing types, twenty years ago by Albert Lynch with,
more than to any personal expression for example, Maupassant's " Pierre et
of his own view of them. Fancy Be- Jean," the distinguished realism of
raud's masterpiece, the Salle Graffard whose text is adequately paralleled —
— that admirable characterization of and the implied eulogy is by no means
crankdom embodied in a socialist re- trivial — by the pictorial commentary,
union — painted by an academic painter, so to speak, which this first of modern
How absolutely it would lose its pith, illustrators has supplied,
its force, its significance, even its true
distinction. And his Jesus at the house

of Levi, which is almost equally im- VI.
pressive — far more impressive of course

in a literary and, I think, legitimate. But to go back a little and consider

sense — owes even its literary eft'ective- the puissant individualities, the great

ness to its significant realism. men who have really given its direction

What the illustrators of the present to and, as it were, set the pace of, the

day owe to the naturalistic method, it realistic movement, and for whom, in

is almost superfluous to point out. order more conveniently to consider

"Illustrators" in France are, in gen- impressionism pure and simple by it-

eral, painters as well, some of them self, I have ventured to disturb the

622

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

chronological sequence of evolution in
French painting — a sequence that, even
if one care more for ideas than for
chronology, it is more temerarious to
vary from in things French than in any
others. To go back in a word to Manet ;
the painter of whom M. Henri Houssaye
has remarked : " Manet sowed, M. Bas-
tien-Lepage has reaped."

Manet was certainly one of the most
noteworthy painters that France or any
other country has produced. His is
the great, the very rare, merit of hav-
ing conceived a new point of view.
That he did not illustrate this in its
completeness, that he was a sign-post,
as Albert Wolff very aptly said, rather
than an exemplar, is nothing. He was
totally unheralded, and he was in his
way superb. No one before him had
essayed — no one before him had ever
thought of — the immense project of
breaking, not relatively but absolutely,
with the conventional. Looking for the
first time at one of his pictures, one
says that customary notions, ordinary
brushes, traditional processes of even
the highest authenticity, have been
thrown to the winds. Hence, indeed,
the scandal which he caused from the
first and which went on increasing,
until, owing to the acceptance, with
modifications, of his point of view by
the most virile and vigorous painters of
the day, he became, as he has become,
in a sense the head of the corner.
Manet's great distinction is to have
discovered that the sense of reality is
achieved with a thousand-fold greater
intensity by getting as near as possible
to the actual, rather than resting con-
tent with the relative., value of every
detail. Everyone who has painted since
Manet has either followed him in this
effort or has appeared jejune.

Take as an illustration of the contrary
practice such a masterpiece in its way
as Gerome's "Eminence Grise." In this
picture, skilfully and satisfactorily com-
posed, the relative values of all the
colors are admirably, even beautifully
observed. The correspondence of the
gamut of values to that of the light and
dark scale of such an actual scene is
perfect. Before Manet, one could have
said that this is all that is required
or can be secured, arguing that exact

imitation of local tints and general tone
is impossible, owing to the difference
between nature's highest light and low-
est dark, and the potentialities of the
palette. In other words, one might have
said, that inasmuch as you can squeeze
absolute white and absolute black out
of no tubes, the thing to do is first to
determine the scale of your picture and
then make every note in it bear the
same relation to every other that the
corresponding note in nature bears to
its fellows in its own corresponding but
different scale. This is what Gerome
has done in the " Eminence Grise " — a
scene, it will be remembered, on a
staircase in a palace interior. Manet
inquires what would happen to this
house of cards shored up into verisi-
militude by mere correspondence, if Ge-
rome has been asked to cut a window in
his staircase and admit the light of out-
of-doors into his correspondent but
artificial scene. The whole thing would
have to be done over again. The scale
of the picture running from the highest
palette white to the lowest palette dark,
and yet the key of an actual interior
scene being much nearer middle-tint
than the key of an actual out-of-doors
scene, it would be impossible to paint
with any verisimilitude the illumination
of a window from the outside, the re-
sources of the palette having already
been exhausted, every object having
been given a local value solely with re-
lation, so far as truth of representation
is concerned, to the values of every
other object, and no effort being made
to get the precise value of the object as
it would appear under analogous cir-
cumstances in nature.

It may be replied, and I confess I
think with excellent reason, that Ge-
rome's picture has no window in it,
and therefore that to ask of him to
paint a given picture as he would if
he were painting a different picture, is
pedantry. The old masters are still
admirable, though they only observed
a correspondence to the actual scale
of natural values, and were not con-
cerned with imitation of it. But it is
to be observed that, successful as their
practice is, it is successful in virtue of
the unconscious co-operation of the be-
holder's imagination. And nowadays

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING,

623

not only is the exercise of the imagina-
tion become for better or worse a little
old-fashioned, but the one thing that is
insisted on as a starting-point and basis
at the very least, is the sense of reality.
And it is impossible to exaggerate the
way in which the sense of reality has
been intensified by Manet's insistence
upon getting as near as possible to the
individual values of objects as they are
seen in nature — in spite of his aban-
donment of the practice of painting
on a parallel scale. Things now drop
into their true place, look as they
really do, and count as they count in
nature, because the painter is no longer
content with giving us change for nat-
ure, but tries his best to give us nature
itself. Perspective acquires its actual
significance, solids have substance and
bulk as well as surfaces, distance is per-
ceived as it is in nature, by the actual in-
terposition of atmosphere, chiaroscuro
is abolished — the wa^^s in which reality
is secured being in fact legion the mo-
ment real instead of relative values are
studied. Something is lost, very likely
— an artist cannot be so intensely pre-
occupied with reality as, since Manet,
it has been incumbent on painters to
be, without missing a whole range of
qualities that are so precious as rightly
perhaps to be considered indispensable.
Until reality becomes in its turn an
effect unconsciously attained, the paint-
er's imagination will be held more or
less in abeyance. And perhaps we are
justified in thinking that nothing can
quite atone for its absence. Meantime,
however, it must be acknowledged that
Manet first gave us this sense of reality
in a measure comparable with that which
successively Balzac, Flaubert, Zola gave
to the readers of their books — a sense
of actuality and vividness beside which
the traditionary practice seemed abso-
lutely fanciful and mechanical.

Applying Manet's method, his inven-
tion, his discovery, to the painting of
out-of-doors, the plein air school imme-
diately began to produce landscapes of
astonishing reality by confining their
effort to those values which it is in the
power of pigments to imitate. The
possible scale of mere correspondence
being of course from one to one hun-
dred, they secured greater truth by

painting between twenty and eighty, we
may say. Hence the grayness of the
most successful French landscapes of
the present day — those of Bastien-Le-
page's backgrounds, of Cazin's pictures.
Sunlight being unpaintable, they con-
fined themselves to the representation
of what they could represent. In the
interest of truth, of reality, they nar-
rowed the gamut of their modulations,
they attempted less, upheld by the cer-
tainty of accomplishing more. For a
time French landscape was pitched in
a minor key. Suddenly Claude Monet
appeared. Impressionism, as it is now
understood, and as Manet had not
succeeded in popularizing it, won in-
stant recognition. Monet's discovery
was that light is the most important
factor in the painting of out-of-doors.
He pushed up the key of landscape
painting to the highest power. He at-
tacked the fascinating, but of course
demonstrably insolvable, problem of
painting sunlight, not illusorily, as
Fortuny had done by relying on con-
trasts of light and dark correspondent
in scale, but positively and realistically.
He realized as nearly as possible the
effect of sunlight — that is to say, he did
as well and no better in this respect
than Fortuny had done — but he created
a much greater illusion of a sunlit land-
scape than anj^one had ever done before
him, by painting those parts of his pict-
ure not in sunlight with the exact truth
that in painting objects in shadow the
palette can compass.

Nothing is more simple. Take a
landscape with a cloudy sky, which
means diffused light in the old sense
of the term, and observe the effect
upon it of a sudden burst of sun-
light. What is the effect where con-
siderable portions of the scene are sud-
denly thrown into marked shadow, as
well as others illuminated with intense
light ? Is the absolute value of the
parts in shadow lowered or raised ?
Raised, of course, by reflected light.
Formerly, to get the contrast betw^een
sunlight and shadow in proper scale,
the painter would have painted the
shadows darker than they were before
the sun appeared. Relatively they are
darker, since their value, though height-
ened, is raised infinitely less than the

624

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

value of the parts in sunlight. Abso-
lutely, their value is raised consider-
ably. If therefore they are painted
liohter than they were before the sun
appeared, they in themselves seem
truer. The part of Monet's picture
that is in shadow is measurably true,
far truer than it would have been if
painted under the old theory of corre-
spondence, and had been unnaturally
darkened to express the relation of con-
trast between shadow and sunlight.
Scale has been lost. What has been
gained ? Simply truth of impressionis-
tic effect. Why ? Because we know
and judge and appreciate and feel the
measure of truth with which objects in
shadow are represented ; we are insen-
sibly more familiar with them in nature
than with objects directly sun-illumi-
nated, the value as well as the defini-
tion of which are far vaguer to us on
account of their blending and infinite
heightening by a luminosity absolutely
overpowering. In a word, in sunlit
landscapes objects in shadow are what
customarily and unconsciously we see
and note and know, and the illusion
is greater if the relation between them
and the objects in sunlight, whose
value habitually we do not note, be neg-
lected or falsified. Add to this source
of illusion the success of Monet in giv-
ing a juster value to the sunlit half of
his picture than has even been system-
atically attempted before his time, and
his astonishing trompe-Voeil is, I think,
explained. Each part is truer than
ever before, and unless one have a spe-
cially developed sense of ensemble in
this very special matter of values in
and affected by sunlight, one gets from
Monet an impression of actuality so
much greater than he has ever got be-
fore, that he may be pardoned for feel-
ing, and even for enthusiastically pro-
claiming, that in Monet realism finds its
apogee. To sum up : The first realists
painted relative values ; Manet and his
derivatives painted absolute values, but
in a wisely limited gamut ; Monet paints
absolute values in a vein/ wide range,
2)lus sunlight, as nearly as he can get it
— as nearly as pigment can be got to
represent it. Perforce he loses scale,
and therefore artistic completeness, but
lie secures an incomparably vivid effect

of reality, of nature — and of nature in
her gayest, most inspiring manifesta-
tion, illuminated directly and indirect-
ly, and everywhere vibrant and palpi-
tating with the light of all our physical
seeing.

Monet is so subtle in his OAvn way,
so superbly successful within his own
limits, that it is time wasted to quarrel
with the convention-steeped Philistine
who refuses to comprehend even his
point of view, who judges the pictures
he sees by the pictures he has seen.
He has not only discovered a new way
of looking at nature, but he has justi-
fied it in a thousand particulars. Con-
centrated as his attention has been
upon the effects of light and atmos-
phere, he has reproduced an infinity of
nature's moods that are charming in
proportion to their transitoriness, and
whose fleeting beauties he has caught
and permanently fixed. Bousseau made
the most careful studies, and then com-
bined them in his studio. Courbet
made his sketch, more or less perfect,
face to face with his subject, and elab-
orated it afterward away from it. Co-
rot painted his picture from nature,
but put the Corot into it in his studio.
Monet's practice is in comparison dras-
tically thorough. After thirty minutes,
he says — why thirty instead of forty or
twenty, I do not know ; these myste-
ries are Eleusinian to the mere amateur
— the light changes ; he must stop and
return the next day at the same hour.
The result is immensely real, and in
Monet's hands immensely varied. One
may say as much, having regard to
their differing degrees of success, of Pis-
saro, who influenced him, and of Caille-
botte, Renoir, Sisley, and the rest of the
impressionists who followed him. He
is himself the prominent representa-
tive of the school, however, and the fact
that one representative of it is enough
to consider, is eloquent of profound crit-
icism of it. For decorative purposes a
hole in one's wall, an additional window
through which one may only look sat-
isfactorily during a period of thirty
minutes, has its drawbacks. A walk in
the country or in a city park is after
all preferable to anyone who can really
appreciate a Monet — that is, anyone
who can feel the illusion of nature

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

625

which it is his sole aim to produce.
After all, what one asks of art is some-
thing diflferent from imitative illusion.
Its essence is illusion, I think, but illu-
sion taken in a different sense from op-
tical illusion — trompe-VcEil. Its func-
tion is to make dreams seem real, not
to recall reality. Monet is enduringly
admirable mainly to the painter avIio
envies and endeavors to imitate his
wonderful power of technical expres-
sion— the thing that occupies most the
conscious attention of the true painter.
To others he must remain a little un-
satisfactory, because he is not only not
a dreamer, but because he does noth-
ing with his material except to show it
as it is — a great service surely, but
largely excluding the exercise of that
architectonic faculty, personally direct-
ed, which is the very life of every truly
aesthetic production.

VII.

In fine, the impressionist has his own
conventions ; no school can escape
them, from the very nature of the case
and the definition of the term. The
conventions of the impressionists, in-
deed, are particularly salient. Can any-
one doubt it who sees an exhibition of
their works ? In the same number of
classic, or romantic, or merely realistic
pictures, is there anything quite equal-
ling the monotony that strikes one in a
display of canvases by Claude Monet
and his fellows and followers ? But
the defect of impressionism is not
mainly its technical conventionality.
It is, as I think everyone except its
thick-and-thin advocates must feel, that
pursued d outrance it lacks a serious-
ness commensurate with its claims —
that it exhibits indeed a kind of under-
tone of frivolity that is all the nearer
to the absolutely comic for the earnest-
ness, so to speak, of its unconsciousness.
The reason is, partly no doubt, to be
ascribed to its debonnaire self-satis-
faction, its disposition to '* lightly run
amuck at an august thing," the tradi-
tions of centuries namely, to its bump-
tiousness, in a word. But chiefly, I
think, the reason is to be found in its
lack of anything properly to be called a

philosophy. This is surely a fatal flaw
in any system, because it involves a con-
tradiction in terms ; and to say that to
have no philosophy is the philosophy of
the impressionists, is merely a word-jug-
gUng bit of question-begging. A theory
of technic is not a philosophy, however
systematic it may be. It is a mechani-
cal, not an intellectual, point of view.
It is not a way of looking at things, but
of rendering them. It expresses no
idea and sees no relations ; its claims
on one's interest are exhausted when
once its right to its method is admitted.
The remark once made of a typically
literal person — that he cared so much
for facts that he disliked to think they
had any relations — is intimately applic-
able to the whole impressionist school.
Technically, of course, the impression-
ist's relations are extremely just — not
exquisite, but exquisitely just. But
merely to get just values is not to oc-
cupy one's self with values ideally, emo-
tionally, personally. It is merely to re-
cord facts. Certainly any impression-
ist rendering of the light and shade
and color relations of objects seems
eloquent beside any traditional and
conventional rendering of them ; but it
is because each object is so carefully
observed, so truly painted, that its rela-
tion to every other is spontaneously
satisfactory ; and this is a very different
thing from the result of truly pictorial
rendering with its constructive appeal,
its sense of ensemble, its presentation
of an idea by means of the convergence
and interdependence of objects focussed
to a common and central effect. To
this impressionism is absolutely insen-
sitive. It is the acme of detachment,
of indifference.

Turgenieff, according to Mr. George
Moore, complained of Zola's Gervaise
Coupeau, that Zola explained how she
felt, never what she thought. " Qu'est
que 9a me fait si elle suait sous les
bras, ou au milieu du dos ? " he asked,
with most pertinent penetration. He
is quite right. Really we only care for
facts when they explain truths. The
desultory conglomeration of never so
definitely rendered details necessarily
leaves the civilized appreciation cold.
What distinguishes the civilized from
the savage appreciation is the passion

626

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

for order. The tendency to order, said
Senancour, should form " an essential
part of our inclinations, of our instinct,
like the tendencies to self-preservation
and to reproduction." The two latter
tendencies the savage possesses as com-
pletely as the civilized man, but he
does not share the civilized man's in-
stinct for correlation. And in this
sense, I think, a certain savagery is
justly to be ascribed to the impression-
ist. His productions have many attrac-
tions and many merits — merits and at-
tractions that the traditional painting
has not. But they are really only by
a kind of automatic inadvertence, pic-
tures. They are not truly pictorial.

And a picture should be something
more than even pictorial. To be perma-
nently attaching it should give at least
a hint of the painter's philosophy — his
point of view, his attitude toward his
material. In the great pictures you
can not only discover this attitude, but
the attitude of the painter toward life
and the world in general. Everyone
has as distinct an idea of the philoso-
phy of Raphael as of the qualities of
his designs. The impressionist not
only does not show you what he thinks,
he does not even show you how he feels,
except by betraying a fondness for vio-
lets and diffused light, and by exhibit-
ing the temper of the radical and the
rioter. The order of a blithe, idyllic
landscape by Corot, of one of Dela-
croix's pieces of concentric coloration,
of an example of Ingres's purity of out-
line, shows not only temperament, but
the position of the painter in regard to
the whole intellectual world so far as
he touches it at all. What does a can-
vas of Claude Monet show in this re-
spect ? It is more truthful but not less
impersonal than a photograph.

Degas is the only other painter
usually classed with the impression-
ists, of whom this may not be said.
But Degas is hardly an impressionist
at all. He is one of the most personal
painters, if not the most personal paint-
er, of the day. He is as original as
Puvis de Ohavannes. What allies him
vrith the impressionists is his fondness
. for fleeting aspects, his caring for
nothing beyond aspect — for the look of
things and their transitory look. He

is an enthusiastic admirer of Ingres
— who, one would say, is the antithesis
of impressionism. He never paints
from nature. His studies are made
with the utmost care, but they are ar-
ranged, composed, combined by his
own sense of what is pictorial — by, at
any rate, his own idea of the effects he
wishes to create. He cares absolutely
nothing for what ordinarily we under-
stand by the real, the actual, so far as its
reality is concerned ; he sees nothing
else, to be sure, and is probably very
sceptical about anything but colors and
shapes and their decorative arrange-
ment ; but he sees what he likes in real-
ity and follows this out with an inerran-
cy so scrupulous, and even affectionate,
as to convey the idea that in his re-
sult he himself counts for almost noth-
ing. This at least may be said of him,
that he shows what, given genius, can be
got out of the impressionist method
artistically and practically employed to
the end of illustrating a personal point
of view. A mere amateur can hardly
distinguish between a Caillebotte and a
Sisley, for example, but everyone iden-
tifies a Degas as immediately and as
certainly as he does a Whistler. His
work is perfectly sincere and admirably
intelligent. It has neither the pose
nor the irresponsibility of the impres-
sionists. His artistic apotheosis of the
ballet -girl is merely the result of his
happy discovery of something delight-
fully, and in a very true sense natu-
rally, decorative in material that is in
the highest degree artificial. His im-
pulse is as genuine and spontaneous as
if the substance upon which it is exer-
cised were not the acme of the exotic,
and already arranged with the most
elaborate conventionality. Nothing in-
deed could be more opposed to the ele-
mentary crudity of impressionism than
his distinction and refinement, which
may be said to be carried to a really
fin de siecle degree.

vni.

Whatever the painting of the future is
to be, it is certain not to be the paint-
ing of Monet. For the present, no
doubt, Monet is the last word in paint-

FRENCH ART— REALISTIC PAINTING.

G27

ing. To belittle him is not only whim-
sical, but ridiculous. He has plainly
worked a revolution in his art. He has
taken it out of the vicious circle of con-
formity to, departure from, and return
to abstractions and the so-called ideal.
No one hereafter who attempts the rep-
resentation of nature — and for as far
ahead as we can see with any confidence,
the representation of nature, the pan-
theistic ideal if one chooses, will in-
creasingly intrench itself as the paint-
er's true aim — no one who seriously at-
tempts to realize this aim of now uni-
versal appeal will be able to dispense
with Monet's aid. He must perforce
follow the lines laid down for him by
this astonishing naturalist. Any other
course must result in solecism, and if
anything future is certain, it is certain
that the future will be not only inhos-
pitable to, but absolutely intolerant
of, solecism. Henceforth the basis of
things is bound to be solid and not su-
perficial, real and not fantastic. Bat —
whether the future is to commit itself
wholly to prose, or is to preserve in new
conditions the essence of the poetry
that, in one form or another, has persist-
ed since plastic art began — for the su-
perstructure to be erected on the sound
basis of just values and true impres-
sions it is justifiably easy to predict a
greater interest and a more real dignity
than any such preoccupation with the
basis of technic as Monet's can possibly
have. And though, even as one says it,
one has the feeling that the future is
pregnant with some genius who will
out-Monet Monet, and that painting
mil in some now inconceivable way
have to submit hereafter to a still more
rigorous standard than it does at pres-

ent— I have heard the claims of binoc-
ular vision urged — at the same time the
true " child of nature " may console
himself with the reflection that accuracy
and competence are but the accidents,
at most the necessary phenomena, of
what really and essentially constitutes
fine art of any kind — namely, the ex-
pression of a personal conception of
what is not only true but beautiful as
well. In France less than anywhere
else is it likely that even such a j)ower-
ful force as modern realism will long
dominate the constructive, the architec-
tonic faculty, which is part of the very
fibre of the French genius. The ex-
position and illustration of a theory
believed in with a fervency to be found
only among a people with whom the in-
telligence is the chief element and ob-
ject of experiment and exercise, are a
natural concomitant of mental energy
and activity. But no theory holds them
long in bondage. At the least, it speed-
ily gives place to another formulation
of the mutinous freedom its very ac-
ceptance creates. And the conformity
that each of them in succession im-
poses on mediocrity, is always varied
and relieved by the frequent incarna-
tions in masterful personalities of the
natural national traits — of which, I
think, the architectonic spirit is one of
the most conspicuous. Painting will
again become creative, constructive,
personally expressive. Its basis having
been established as scientifically impec-
cable, its superstructure will exhibit
the taste, the elegance, the imaginative
freedom, exhibited within the limits of
a cultivated sense of propriety, that are
an integral part of the French painter's
patrimony.

^ l' '< i

On"

ij (3

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

By Octave Thanet.

IV.— MOTHER EMERITUS.

'HE Loaders lived on the
second floor, at the head
of the stairs, in the Loss-
ing Building. There is a
restaurant to the right ;
C^^ and a new doctor, every

six months, who is every kind of a healer
except "regular," keeps the permanent
boarders in gossip, to the left ; two or
three dressmakers, a dentist, and a dia-
mond merchant up - stairs, one flight ;
and half a dozen families and a dozen
single tenants higher — so you see the
Louders had plenty of neighbors. In
fact, the multitude of the neighbors is
one cause of my story.

Tilly Louder came home from the
Lossing factory (where she is a type-
writer) one February afternoon. As
she turned the corner, she was face to
the river which is not so full of ship-
ping in winter that one cannot see
the steel blue glint of the water. Back
of her the brick paved street climbed
the hill, under a shapeless arch of trees.
The remorseless pencil of a railway has
drawn black lines at the foot of the
hill ; and, all day and all night, slender
red bars rise and sink in their black
sockets, to the accompaniment of the
outcry of tortured steam. All day, if
not all night, the crooked pole slips up
and down the trolley wire, as the yellow
cars rattle, and flash, and clang a spite-
ful little bell, that sounds like a soprano
bark, over the crossings.

It is customary in the Lossing Build-
ing to say, " We are so handy to the
cars." The street is a handsome street,
not free from dingy old brick boxes of
stores below the railway, but fast re-
placing them with fairer structures.
The Lossing Building has the wide
arches, the recessed doors, the balconies
and the colonnades of modern business
architecture. The occupants are very
proud of the balconies, in particular ;
and, summer days, these will be a mass
of greenery and bright tints. To-day,
it was so warm, February day though

it was, that some of the potted plants
were sunning themselves outside the
windows.

Tilly could see them if she craned her
neck. There were some bavadias and
fuchsias of her mother's among them.

" It is a pretty building," said Tilly ;
and, for some reason, she frowned.

She was a young woman, but not a
very young woman. Her figure was
slim, and she looked better in loose
waists than in tightly fitted gowns. She
wore a dark green gown with a black
jacket, and a scarlet shirt-waist under-
neath. Her face was long, with square
chin and high cheek-bones, and thin,
firm lips ; yet she was comely, because
of her lustrous black hair, her clear,
gray eyes, and her charming, fair skin.
She had another gift : everything about
her was daintily neat ; at first glance
one said, " Here is a person who has
spent pains, if not money, on her toilet."

By this time Tilly was entering the
Lossing Building. Half-way up the
stairway a hand plucked her skirts.
The hand belonged to a tired -faced
woman in black, on whose breast glit-
tered a little crowd of pins and thread-
ed needles, like the insignia of an Or-
der of Toil.

" Please excuse me. Miss Tilly," said
the woman, at the same time presenting
a flat package in brown paper, " but
ivill you give this pattern back to your
mother. I am so very much obliged.
I don't know how I would git along
without your mother, Tilly."

" I'll give the pattern to her," said
Tilly, and she pursued her way.

Not very far. A stout woman and a
thin young man, with long, wavy, red
hair, awaited her on the landing. The
woman held a plate of cake which she
thrust at Tilly the instant they were
on the same level, saying : " The cake
was just splendid, tell your mother ;
it's a lovely recipe, and will you tell her
to take this, and see how well I suc-
ceeded?"

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN,

629

" And — all — Miss Louder," said the
man, as the stout woman rustled away,
" here are some Banner of Lights ; I
think she'd be interested in some of
the articles on the true principles of the
inspirational faith — " Tilly placed the
bundle of newspapers at the base of her
load — " and — and, I wish you'd tell your
dear mother that, under the angels, her
mustard plaster really saved my life."

" I'll tell her," said Tilly.

She advanced a little space before a
young girl in a bright blue silk gown
flung a radiant presence between her
and the door. "Oh, Miss Tilly," she
murmured, blushing, " will you just
give your mother this ? — it's — it's Jim's
photograph. You tell her it's all right ;
and she was exactly right, and / was
wrong. She'll understand."

Tilly, with a look of resignation, ac-
cepted a stiff package done up in white
tissue paper. She had now only three
steps to take : she took two, only two,
for — " Miss Tilly, please I " a voice
pealed around the corner, while a flush-
ed and breathless young woman, with a
large baby toppling over her lean shoul-
der, staggered into view. " My ! " she
panted, "ain't it tiresome lugging a
child ! I missed the car, of course, com-
ing home from ma's. Oh, say, Tilly,
your mother was so good, she said
she'd tend Blossom next time I went to
the doctor's, and "

" I'll take the baby," said Tilly. She
hoisted the infant on to her own shoul-
der with her right arm. " Perhaps
you'll be so kind's to turn the handle of
the door," said she in a slightly caustic
tone, " as I haven't got any hands left.
Please shut it, too."

As the young mother opened the
door, Tilly entered the parlor. For a
second she stood and stared grimly
about her. The furniture of the room
was old fashioned but in the best repair.
There was a cabinet organ in one cor-
ner. A crayon portrait of Tilly's father
(killed in the war of the Rebellion)
glared out of a florid gilt frame. Per-
haps it was the fault of the portrait, but
he had a peevish frown. There were
two other portraits of him, large ghast-
ly gray tin-types in oval frames of rose-
wood, obscurely suggesting coffins. In
these he looked distinctly sullen. He

was represented in uniform (being a
lieutenant of volunteers), and the artist
had conscientiously gilded his buttons
until, as Mrs. Louder was wont to ob-
serve, "It most made you want to cut
them off with a scissors." There were
other tin-types and a flock of photo-
graphs in the room. What Mrs. Lou-
der named " a throw " decorated each
framed picture and each chair. The
largest arm-chair was drawn up to a
table covered with books and maga-
zines ; in the chair sat Mrs. Louder,
reading.

At Tilly's entrance she started and
turned her head, and then one could see
that the tears were streaming down her
cheeks.

" Now, mother ! " exploded Tilly.
Kicking the door open, she marched
into the bed-chamber. An indignant
sweep of one arm sent the miscellany of
gifts into a rocking-chair ; an indignant
curve of the other landed the bab}^ on
the bed. Tilly turned on her mother.
" Now, mother, what did you promise —
hush ! will you ? " (The latter part of
the sentence a fierce " aside " to the in-
fant on the bed.) In a second Mrs.
Louder's arms were encircling him, and
she was soothing him on her broad
shoulder, where I know not how many
babies have found comfort.

Jane Louder was a tall woman — tall
and portly. She had a massive repose
about her, a kind of soft dignity ; and
a stranger would not guess how ten-
der was her heart. Deprecatingly she
looked up at her only child, standing in
judgment over her. Her eyes were fine
still, though they had sparkled and wept
for more than half a century. They
were not gray, like Tilly's, but a deep
violet, with black eyelashes and eye-
brows. Black once had been the hair
under the widow's cap, now streaked
with silver ; but Jane Louder's skin was
fresh and daintily tinted like her daugh-
ter's, for all its fine wrinkles. Her voice
when she spoke w^as mellow and slow,
with a nervous ^dbration of apology.
"Never mind, dear," she said, "I was
just reading 'bout the Russians."

"I knew it ! You promised me you
wouldn't cry about the Russians any
more."

"I know, Tilly, but Alma Brown lent

630

STORIES OF A IVESTERN TOIVN.

this to me, herself. There's a beautiful
article in it about ' The Horrors of Hun-
ger.' It would make your heart ache.
I wish you would read it, Tilly."

"No, thank you. I don't care to
have my heart ache. I'm not going to
read any more horrors about the Rus-
sians, or hear them either, if I can help
it. I have to write Mr. Lossing's letters
about them, and that's enough. I've
given all I can afford, and you've given
more than you can afford ; and I helped
get up the subscription at the shops.
I've done all I could ; and now I ain't
going to have my feelings harrowed up
any more, when it won't do me or the
Russians a mite of good."

" But I cayn't help it, Tilly. I cayn't
take no comfort in my meals thinking
of that awful black bread the poor chil-
dren starve rather than eat ; and, Tilly,
they ain't so dirty as some folks think !
I read in a magazine how they have got
to bathe twice a week by their religion ;
and there's a bath-house in every village.
Tilly, do you know how much money
they've raised here ? "

" Over three thousand. This town is
the greatest town for giving — give to
the cholera down South, give to Johns-
town, give to Grinnell, give to cyclones,
give to fires. The Freeman always starts
up a subscription, and Mr. Bayard runs
the thing, and Mr. Lossing always gives.
Mother, I tell you he makes them hustle
when he takes hold. He's the chair-
man here, and he has township chair-
men appointed for every township.
He's so popular they start in to oblige
him, and then, somew^ay, he makes them
all interested. I must tell you of a
funny letter he had to-day from a Cap-
tain Ferguson, out at Baxter. He's a
rich farmer with lots of influence and a
great worker, Mr. Lossing says. But
this is 'most word for word what he
wrote : ' Dear Sir : I am sorry for the
Russians, but my wife is down with the
la grippe, and I can't get a hired girl ;
so I have to stay with her. If you'll get
me a hired girl, I'll get you a lot of
money for the Russians.' "

"Did he git a girl? I mean Mr.
Lossing."

" No, ma'am. He said he'd try if it
was the city, but it was easier finding
efold - mines than girls that would go

into the country. See here, I'm forget-
ting your presents. Mother, you look
real dragged and — queer ! "

" It's nothing ; jist a thought kinder
struck me 'bout — 'bout that girl."

Tilly was sorting out the parcels and
explaining them ; at the end of her task
her mind harked back to an old griev-
ance. " Mother," said she, " I've been
thinking for a long time and I've made
up my mind."

" Yes, dearie." Mrs. Louder's eyes
grew troubled. She knew something
of the quality of Tilly's mind, which re-
sembled her father's in a peculiar im-
mobility. Once let her decision run
into any mould (be it whatsoever it
might), and let it stiffen, there was no
chance, any more than with other iron
things, of its bending.

" Positively I could hardlj^ get up
the stairs to-day," said Tilly — she was
putting her jacket and hat away in
her orderly fashion ; of necessity her
back was to Mrs. Louder — "there was
such a raft of people wanting to send
stuff and messages to you. You are
just working yourself to death ; and,
mother, I am convinced we have got to
move ! "

Mrs. Louder dropped into a chair and
gasped. The baby, who had fallen
asleep, stirred uneasily. It was not a
pretty child ; its face was heavy, its
little cheeks were roughened by the
wind, its lower lip sagged, its chia
creased into the semblance of a fat old
man's. But Jane Louder gazed down
on it with infinite compassion. She
stroked its head as she spoke.

"Tilly," said she, "I've been in this
block, Mrs. Carleton and me, ever since
it was built ; and, some w^ay, between
us we've managed to keep the run of
all the folks in it ; at least when they
were in any trouble. "We've worked
together like sisters. She's 'Piscopal,
and I guess I'm Unitarian ; but never a
word between us. We tended the Wil-
larclses through diphtheria and the
Hopkinses chrough small-pox, and we
steamed and fumigated the rooms to-
gether. It was her first found out the
Dillses were letting that twelve year
old child run the gasoline stove, and
she threatened to tell Mr. Lossing,
and they begged off; and when it ex-

STORIES OF A IVESTERN TOJVN.

631

ploded we put it out together with
flour out of her ilour-barrel, for the
poor, shiftless things hadn t half a sack
full of their own ; and her and me, we
took half the care of that little neg-
lected Ellis baby that was always sit-
ting down in the sticky fly-paper, poor
innocent child. He's took the valedic-
tory at the High School, Tilly, now.
No, Tilly, I couldn't bring myself to
leave this building, where I've married
them, and buried them, and born them,
you may say, being with so many of
their mothers ; I feel like they was all
my children. Don't ask me."

Tilly's head went upward and back-
ward with a little dilatation of the nos-
trils. "Now, mother," said she in a
voice of determined gentleness, " just
listen to me. Would I ask you to do
anything that wouldn't be for your
happiness ? I have found a real pretty
house up on Fifteenth Street ; and we'll
keep house together, just as cosey ; and
have a woman come to wash and iron
and scrub, so it won't be a bit hard ;
and be right on the street-cars ; and
you won't have to drudge helping Mrs.
Carleton extra times with her restau-
rant."

" But, Tilly " eagerly interrupted Mrs.
Louder, " you know I dearly love to
cook, and she pays me. I couldn't feel
right to take any of the pension money,
or the little property your father left
me, away from the house expenses ; but
what I earn myself, it is such a comfort
to give away out of that."

TiUy ran over and kissed the agitated
face. "You dear, generous mother,"
cried she, " I'll give you all the money,
you want to spend or give. I got an-
other rise in my salary of five a month.
Don't you worry."

"You ain't thinking of doing any-
thing right away, Tilly ? "

"Don't you think it's best done
and over with, ayfter we've decided,
Mother ? You have worked so hard all
your life I want to give you some ease
and peace now."

" But, Tilly, I love to work ; I wouldn't
be happy to do nothing, and I'd get so
fleshy ! "

Tilly only laughed. She did not
crave the show of authority. Let her
but have her own way, she would never

flaunt her victories. She was imperious,
but she was not arrogant. For months
she had been pondering how to give
her mother an easier life ; and she set
the table for supper, in a filial glow of
satisfaction, never dreaming that her
mother, in the kitchen, was keeping her
head turned from the stove lest she
should cry into the fried ham and
stewed potatoes. But, at a sudden
thought, Jane Louder laid her big
spoon down to wipe her eyes.

"Here you are, Jane Louder" — thus
she addressed herself — " mourning and
grieving to leave your friends and be
laid aside for a useless old woman, and
jist be taken care of, and you clean for-
getting the chance the Lord gives you
to help more'n you ever helped in your
life ! For shame ! "

A smile of exaltation, of lofty resolu-
tion, erased the worry Knes on her face.
" Why, it might be to save twenty lives,"
said she ; but in the very speaking of
the words a sharp pain wrenched her
heart again, and she caught up the baby
from the floor, where he sat in a wall of
chairs, and sobbed over him : " Oh,
how can I go away when I got to go for
good so soon ? I want every minnit ! "

She never thought to dispute Til-
ly's wishes. " It's only fair," said Jane.
" She's lived here all these years to
please me, and now I ought to be willing
to go to please her."

Neither did she for a moment hope
to change Tilly's determination. " She
was the sett est baby ever was," thought
poor Jane, tossing on her pillow, in the
night watches, "and it's grown with
every inch of her ! "

But in the morning she surprised her
daughter. "Tilly," said she at the
breakfast-table — "Tilly, I got something
I must do, and I don't want you to op-
pose me."

" Good gracious, ma ! " said TiUy ; " as
if I ever opposed you ! "

" You know how bad I have been
feeling about the poor Russians "

" W^ell ? "

" And how I've wished and wished I
could do something — something to
count ? I never could, Tilly, because I
ain't got the money or the intellect ; but
s'posing I could do it for somebody else,
like this Captain Ferguson who could do

632

STORIES OF A IVESTERN TOWN.

so much if he just could get a hired girl
to take care of his wife. Well, I do
know how to cook and to keep a house
neat and to do for the sick "

Tilly could restrain herself no longer ;
her voice rose to a shout of dismay —
" Mother Louder, you ainH thinking of
going to be the Fergusons' s hired girl ! "

" Not their hired girl, Tilly ; just their
help, so as he can work for those poor
starving creatures." Jane strangled a
sob in her throat. Tilly, in a kind of
stupor of bewilderment, frow^ned at her
plate. Then her clouded face cleared.
If Mrs. Louder had surprised her daugh-
ter, her daughter repaid the surprise.
*'Well, if you feel that way, mother,"
said she, "I won't say a word ; and I'll
ask Mr. Lossing to explain to the Fer-
gusons and fix everything. He will."

"You're real good, Tilly."

*'And while you're gone I guess it
wiU be a good plan to move and git
settled "

For some reason Tilly's throat felt
diY\, she lifted her cup. She did not in-
tend to look across the table, but her
eyes escaped her. She set the coffee
down untasted. The clock was slow,
she muttered ; and she left the room.

Jane Louder remained in her place,
with the same pale face, staring at the
table-cloth.

" It don't seem like I could go, now,"
she thought dully to herself ; " the time's
so awful short, I don't s'pose Maria
Carleton can git up to see me more'n
once or twice a month, busy as she is !
I got so to depend on seeing her every
day. A sister couldn't be kinder ! I
don't see how I am going to bear it.
And to go away beforehand "

For a long while she sat, her face
hardly changing. At last, when she did
push her chair away, her lips were
tightly closed. She spoke to the little
pile of books lying on the table in the
corner. " I cayn't — these are my own
and you are strangers ! " She walked
across the room to take up the same
magazine which Tilly had found her
reading the day before. When she be-
gan reading she looked stern — poor
Jane, she was steeling her heart — but in
a little while she was sniffing and blow-
ing her nose. With a groan she flung
the book aside. "It's no use, I would

feel like a murderer if I don't go ! " said
she.

She did go. Harry Lossing made all
the arrangements. Tilly was satisfied.
But, then, Tilly had not heard Harry's
remark to his mother : "Alma says Miss
Louder is trying to make the old lady
move against her will. I dare say it
would be better to give the young w^om-
an a chance to miss her mother and
take a little quiet think."

Tilly saw her mother off on the train
to Baxter, the Ferguson s's station. Be-
ing a provident, far-sighted, and also in-
experienced traveller, she had allowed
a full half-hour for preliminary passages
at arms with the railway officials ; and,
as the train happened to be an hour
late, she found herself with time to
spare, even after she had exhausted the
catalogue of possible deceptions and
catastrophes by rail. During the silence
that followed her last warning, she sat
mentally keeping tally on her fingers.
"Confidence men " — Tilly began with
the thumb — " Never give anybody her
check. Never lend anybody money.
Never write her name to anything.
Don't get out till conductor tells her.
In case of accident, telegraph me and
keep in the middle of the car, off the
trucks. Not take care of anybody's
baby while she goes off for a minute.
Not take care of babies at all. Or
children. Not talk to strangers — good
gracious ! "

Tilly felt a movement of impatience ;
there, after all her cautions, there was
her mother helping an old woman, an
utterly strange old woman, to pile a
bird-cage on a bandbox surmounting
a bag. The old woman was clad in a
black alpaca frock, made with the volu-
minous draperies of years ago, but with
the uncreased folds and the brilliant
gloss of a new gown. She wore a bonnet
of a singular shape, unknown to fashion,
but made out of good velvet. Beneath
the bonnet (which was large) appeared
a little, round, agitated old face, with
bobbing white curls and white teeth set
a little apart in the mouth, a defect
that brought a kind of pal23itating
frankness into the expression.

"Now, who has mother picked up
now ? " thought Tilly. " Well, praise be,
she hasn't a baby, anyhow ! "

STORIES OF A IV FS TERN TOIVN.

633

She could hear the talk between the And, then, nothing would do but I must

two ; for the old woman being deaf, go to her — why, Mrs. Louder, she's my

Mrs. Louder elevated her voice, and the child ! But they wouldn't hark to it.

old woman, herself, spoke in a high, ,' Fraid to have me travel alone "

"The cake was just splendid." — Page 628.

thin pipe that somehow made Tilly think
of a lost lamb.

" That's just so," said Mrs. Louder,
" a bod}" caynt help worrying over a
sick child, especially if they're away from
you."

" Solon and Minnie wouldn't tell me,"
bleated the other woman, " they knew
I'd worry. Kinder hurt me they should
keep things from me ; but they hate to
have me upset. They are awful good
children. But I suspicioned something
when Alonzo kept writing. Minnie, she
wouldn't tell me. but I pinned her down
and it come out, Eliza had the grip bad.
Vol. Xir.-f)7

" I guess they take awful good care of
you," said Mrs. Louder ; and she sighed.

" Yes, ma'am, awful." She, too, sighed.

All the while she talked her eyes were
darting about the room, eagerly fixed
on every new arrival.

"Are you expecting anyone, Mrs.
Higbee ? " said Jane. They seemed, at
least, to know each other by name,
thought Tilly ; it was amazing the num-
ber of people mother did know !

" No," said Mrs. Higbee, " I— I— fact
is I'm kinder frightened. I — fact is, Mrs.
Louder, I guess I'll tell you, though I
don't know 3'ou very well ; but I've

€34

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

known of you so long — I run away and
didn't tell 'em. I just couldn't stay way
from Liza. And I took the bird — for
the children ; and it's my bird, and I
was 'fraid Minnie would forget to feed
it and it would be lonesome. My chil-
dren are awful kind good children, but
thev don't understand. And if Solon
sees me he will want me to go back. I
know I'm dretful foolish ; and Solon
and Minnie will make me see I am.
There won't be no good reason for me to
go, and I'll have to stay ; and I feel as if
I should fly — ^Oh, massy sakes ! there's

Solon coming down the street "

She ran a few steps in half a dozen

herself up to her full height, " you «/<«//
go if you want to ! "

" Solon will find me, he'll know the
bird-cage ! Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! "

Then a most unexpected helper
stepped upon the stage. What is the
mysterious instinct of rebellion to au-
thority that, nine cases out of ten, sends
us to the aid of a fugitive ? Tilly, the
unconscious despot of her own mother,
prom^^tly aided and abetted Solon's
rebel mother in her flight.

" Not if / carry it," said she, snatch-
ing up the bird-cage ; "run inside that
den where they sell refreshments ; he'll
see me and go somewhere else."

" We put it out together with flour out of her flour-barrel." — Page 631.

ways, then ran back to her bag and her It fell out precisely as she planned.

cage. They heard Solon demanding a lady

" Well," said Mrs. Louder, drawing with a bird - cage of the agent ; they

STORIES OF A IVBSTEJiN TOIVN.

G35

— i'llL

heard the agent's reply given with of-
ficial indifference, " There she is, in-
side." Directly Solon, a small man with
an anxious mien, ran into the waiting-
room, flung a glance of disappointment
at Tilly, and ran out again.

Tilly w^ent to her client. " Did he
look like he was anxious ? " was the
mother s greeting. " Oh, I just know he
and Minnie will be hunting me ever}'-
where. Maybe I had better go home,
'stead of to Baxter."

"No, you hadn't," said Tilly, with de-
cision. " Mother's going to Baxter, too,
and if you like, minnit you're safely off,
I'll go tell your folks." '

"You're real kind, I'd be ever so
much obliged. And you don't mind
your ma travelling alone ? ain't that nice
for her ! " She seemed much cheered

by the prospect of company and warmed
into confidences.

" I am kinder lonesome, sometimes,
that's a fact," said she, " and I kinder
wish I lived in a block or a flat like your
ma. You see, Minnie teaches in the
public school and she's away all day, and
she don't like to have me make company
of the hired girl, though she's a real
nice girl. And there ain't nothing for
me to do, and I feel like I wasn't no use
any more in the world. I remember
that's what our old minister in Ohio
said once. He was a real nice old man ;
and they had thought everything of him
in the parish ; but he got old and his
sermons were long ; and so they got a
young man for assistant ; and the}' made
him a imstor emericus, they called it —
some sort of Latin. Folks did say the

630

STOKIHS OF A IVES TERN TOIVN.

youn^ feller was stuck iij) and snubbed
the old man ; anyhow, lie never i)reached
after youn<>" Lisbon come ; and only
made the first i)rayers. But when the
old folks would ask him to preach some
of the old sermons they had liked, he

better'n me. Say, Mrs. Louder, be you

goin<^ to visit relatives in Baxter V "

" No, ma'am, I'm going to take care
of a sick lady," said Jane, "it's kinder

queer. Her name's Ferguson, her "

" For the land's sake ! " screamed

Mr. Ferguson was doing wonders for the Russians." — Page 637.

onl}' would say, ' No, friends, I know
more about my sermons, now.' He
didn't live very long, and I always
kinder fancied being a emericus killed
him. And some days I git to feeling
like I was a kinder emericus myself."

" That ain't fair to your children,"
said Tilly, "you ought to let them know
how you feel. Then they'd act differ-
ent."

" Oh, I don't know, I don't know.
You see, miss, they're so sure they know

Mrs. Higbee, "why, that's my 'Liza!"
She was in a flutter of surprise and de-
light, and so absorbed was Tilly in get-
ting her and her unwieldy luggage into
the car, that Jane's daughter forgot to
kiss her mother good-by.

" Put your arm in quick," she yelled,
as Jane essayed to kiss her hand through
the window ; " don't ever put your arm
or your head out of a train ! " — the train
moved away — " I do hope she'U remem-
ber w^hat I told her, and not lend any-

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

637

body money, or come home lugging
somebody else's bab}' ! "

With such reflections, an ugly sen-
sation of loneliness creeping over her,
Tilly went to assure Miss Minnie Hig-
bee of her mother's safety. She de-
scribed her reception to Harry Lossing
and Alma, later. " She really seemed
kinder mad at me," says Tilly, " seemed
to think I was interfering somehow.
And she hadn't any business to feel
that way, for she didn't know how I'd
fooled her brother with that bird-cage.
I guess the poor old lady daren't call
her soul her own. I'd hate to have my
mother that way — so 'fraid of me. My
mother shall go where she pleases, and
stay where she pleases, and do as she
pleases."

*' That makes me think," says Alma,
" I heard you were going to move."

" Yes, we are. Mother is working too
hard. She knows everybody in the
building and they call on her all the
time ; and I think the easiest way out is
just to move."

Alma and Mr. Lossing exchanged
glances. There is an Arabian legend of
an angel whose trade it is to decipher
the language of faces. This angel must
have perceived that Alma's eyes said,
with the courage of a second in a duel,
" Go on, now is the time ! " and that
Harry's answered, with masculine pusil-
lanimity, "I don't like to !"

But he spoke. " Very likely, your
mother does sometimes work too hard,"
said he. " But don't you think it would
be harder for her not to work ? Why,
she must have been in the building ever
since my father bought it ; and she's
been a janitor and a fire inspector and
a doctor and a ministering angel com-
bined ! That is why we never raised
the rent to you when we improved the
building, and raised it on the others.
My father told me your mother was the
best paying tenant he ever had. And
don't you remember how, when I used
to come with him, when I was a little
boy, she used to take me in her room
while he went the rounds. She was
always doing good to everybody, the
same way. She has a heart as big as
the Mississippi, and I assure you. Miss
Louder, you won't make her happy, but
miserable, if you try to dam up its chan
Vol. XII.— 68

nel. She has often told me that she
loved the building and all the people
in it. They all love her. I hope. Miss
Louder, you'll think of those things be-
fore you decide. She is so unselfish
that she would go in a minute if she
thought it would make you happier."
The angel aforesaid, during this speech
(which Harry delivered with great en-
ergy and feeling), must have had all his
wits busy on Tilly's impassive features ;
but he could read ardent approval, suc-
ceeded by indignation, on Alma's coun-
tenance, at his first glance. The indig-
nation came when Tilly spoke. She said :
" Thank you, Mr. Lossing, you're very
kind, I'm sure " — Harry softly kicked
the waste-basket under the desk — " but
I guess it's best for us to go. I've been
thinking about it for six months, and I
know it will be a hard struggle for
mother to go ; but in a little while she
will be glad she went. It's only for her
sake I am doing it ; it ain't an easy or a
pleasant thing for me to do, either — "
As Tilly stopped her voice was unsteady,
and the rare tears shone in her eyes.

" What's best for her is the only ques-
tion, of course," said Alma, helping Har-
ry off the field.

In a few days, Tilly received a long
letter from her mother. Mr. Ferguson
was doing wonders for the Russians ;
the family were all very kind to her and
" nice folks " and easily pleased. ( " Of
course they're pleased with mother's
cooking ; what would they be made of
if they weren't ! " cried Tilly.) It was
wonderful how much help Mrs. Higbee
was about the house, and how happy it
made her. Mrs. Ferguson had seemed
real glad to see her, and that made her
happy. And then, maybe it helped a
little, her (Jane Louder's) telling Mrs.
Ferguson ( " accidental like " ) how Tilly
treated her, never trying to boss her, and
letting her travel alone. Perhaps if Mrs.
Ferguson kept on improving, they might
let her come home next week. And the
letter ended : "I will be so glad if they
do, for I want to see you so bad, dear
daughter, and I want to see the old home
once more before we leave. I guess the
house you tell me about will be very nice
and convenient. I do thank vou, dear
daughter, for being so nice and consid-
erate about the Russians. Give my love

638

STORIES OF A IVESTERN TOIVN.

to Mrs. Carleton and all of them ; and if
little Bobby Green hasn't missed school
since I left, give him a nickel, please ; and
please give that medical student on the
fifth lioor — I forget his name — the stock-
ings I mended. They are in the first
drawer of the walnut bureau. Good-by,
my dear, good daughter.

" Mother, Jane M. Louder."

When Tilly read the letter she was
surrounded by wall-paper and carpet
samples. Her eyes grew moist before
she laid it down ; but she set her mouth
more firmly.

" It is an awful short time, but I've
just got to hurry and have it over before
she comes," said she.

Next week Jane returned. She was
on the train, waiting in her seat in the
car, when Captain Ferguson handed
her TiUy's last letter, which had lain in
the post-office for three days.

It was very short.

*' Dear Mother : I shall be very glad
indeed to see you. I have a surprise
which I hope will be pleasant for you ;
anyhow, I truly have meant it for your
happiness.

" Your affectionate daughter,

"M. E. Louder."

There must have been, despite her
shrewd sense, an obtuse streak in Til-
ly ; else she never would have written
that letter. Jane read it twice. The
paper rattled in her hands. " TiDy has
moved while I was gone," she said ;
" I never shall live in the block again."
She dropped her veil over her face. She
sat very quietly in her seat ; but the
conductor who came for her ticket
watched her sharply, she seemed so
dazed by his demand and was so long
in finding the ticket.

The train rumbled and hissed through
darkening cornfields, into scattered yel-
low lights of low houses, into angles of
white light of street-arcs and shop-win-
dows, into the red and blue lights danc-
ing before the engines in the station.

" Mother ! " cried Tilly's voice.

Jane let her and Harry Lossing take
all her bundles and lift her out of the
car. Whether she spoke a word, she
could not teU. She did rouse a little at

the vision of the Lossing carriage glit-
tering at the street corner ; but she had
not the sense to thank Harry Lossing,
who placed her in the carriage and lilt-
ed his hat in farewell.

" What's he doing all that for, Tilly ? "
cried she ; " there ain't — there ain't no-
body dead — Maria Carleton " She

stared at Tilly wildly.

Tilly was oddly moved, though she
tried to speak lightly. *' No, no, there
ain't nothing wrong, at all. It's because
you've done so much for the Russians
— and other folks ! Now, ma, I'm going
to be m^^sterious. You must shut your
eyes and shut your mouth until I tell
you. That's a dear ma."

It was vaguely comforting to have
Tilly so affectionate. " I'm a wicked,
imgrateful woman to be so wretched,"
thought Jane ; " I'll never let Tilly know
how I felt."

In a surprisingly short time the car-
riage stopped. " Now, ma," said Tilly.

A great blaze of light seemed all about
Jane Louder. There were the dear fa-
miliar windows of the Lossing block.

" Come up-stairs, ma," said Tilly.

She followed like one in a dream ;
and like one in a dream she was pushed
into her own old parlor. The old parlor,
but not quite the old parlor ; hung with
new wall-paper, shining with new paint,
soft under her feet with a new carpet, it
looked to Jane Louder like fairyland.

*' Oh, Tilly," she gasped ; " oh, Tilly,
ain't you moved ? "

" No, nor we ain't going to move,
ma — that's the sui'prise ! I took the
money I'd saved for moving for the new
carpet and new dishes ; and the Loss-
ings they papered and painted. I was
so 'fraid we couldn't get done in time.
Alma and all the boarders are coming
in pretty soon to welcome you, and
they've all chipped in for a little ban-
quet at Mrs. Carleton's — why, mother,
you're crying ! Mother, you didn't
really think I'd move when it made you
feel so bad. I know I'm set and stub-
born, and I didn't take it well when Mr.
Lossing talked to me ; but the more I
thought it over the more I seemed to
myself like that hateful Minnie. Oh,
mother, I ain't, am I ? You shall do
just exactly as you like all the days of
your life ! "

SPONGE AND SPONGERS OF THE FLORIDA REEF.

By Kirk Miinroe,

LTHOUGH sponges,
in one form or an-
other, are among the
most common arti-
cles of domestic use,
it is doubtful if one
person in ten thou-
sand of those who
are familiar with the appearance of a
sponge could tell where it comes from,
or how it is procured ; certainly most
of them would hesitate before ventur-
ing to name the natural kingdom to
which it belongs. Nor would this hesi-
tation be at all surprising ; for, while
half of the sponge - fishers who have
given the subject a thought, affirm
that it is a member of the animal king-
dom, the other half are tenacious of
their belief that it is a marine plant.
Even science is in doubt, and as a safe
compromise calls the sponge a " con-
necting link." Whatever it is, whether
of the lowest order of animal, or the
highest form of vegetable, life, certain
it is that the sponge is one of the most
valuable of sea products, and is well
worth more attention than it now re-
ceives.

While the sponge family is an im-
mense one, inhabiting all tropical and
temperate waters, only a few of its in-
numerable members have a commercial
value. Such as are valuable are found
in warm and shallow sea-waters on the
edge of the tropics, and very nearly all
the sponge used in this country comes
from the Gulf of Mexico, within a few
miles of the Florida coast. Here the
sponge is what the oyster is to Chesa-
peake Bay, the salmon to Puget Sound,
or. the lobster to New England, and the
business of sponging is so rapidly in-
creasing in volume and importance, that
it has more than quadrupled within the
past five 3'ears.

The headquarters of the industry in
this country is Key West, a city built
on a small coral island seventy miles
from the main land, and the most
southerly point within the territorial

limits of the United States. Here the
business of sponging ranks second in
importance only to that of cigar mak-
ing, and provides steady employment
the year through, to several thousands
of the most ablebodied male inhabitants
of the place. The present sponging fleet
of Ke}"" West numbers three hundred
and fifty vessels, of all sizes, from the
well appointed 50-ton schooner, with its
crew of fourteen men and towing half a
dozen boats, down to the tiny sloop that
affords scant room for three men and
their meagre stock of provisions, but in
which they will set out on a month's
cruise a hundred miles or more from
home with the utmost confidence in
their boat and themselves.

The Key West sponger has a choice
of two distinct fishing - grounds — the
"Bay" and the "Reef." The former
includes all the waters of the Gulf of
Mexico washing the western coast of
Florida, but more particularly those ly-
ing in the vicinity of St. Marks, between
Cedar Keys and Apalachicola. From
this locality, near a headland known to
spongers as Rock Island, come the bulk
of the fine sheep 's-wool, or ordinary
bath-sponges. Further south, near the
mouth of Tampa Bay, grow the large
and highly prized Anclote grass-sponges,
which are destined to undergo a curious
transformation of name and character
before reaching their ultimate market.

Most of the larger sponge boats go
into the Bay, to reach which they must
traverse several hundred miles of open
sea, exposed to the fury of Gulf gales.
There is however little danger to be ap-
prehended even here ; for the coming
storm is always heralded by unmistak-
able signs, and the innumerable reefs
and islands of the coast, offer a wide
choice of snug harbors. Besides these
there are in the Gulf, miles from land,
several vast springs of fresh water, that
boil up from the bottom of the sea with
an appearance and effect similar to that
of a light oil. In these fresh water
areas, seas do not break, and the great

640

SPONGE AND SPONGERS OF THE FLORIDA REEF.

salt water combers are robbed of tbeir
terror, so that within their limits a
vessel provided with good anchors and
stout cables may ride out the severest
gale in safety.

Such vessels of the sponging fleet as
are not fitted for long sea voyages, and
these number nearly three hundred,
head to the eastward from Key West,
and seek the somewhat inferior sponges
that flourish among the countless keys of
the great Florida reef. This marvellous
barrier of coral forms the northern bank
of that mighty ocean - river the Gulf
Stream, and extends from Cape Florida
on the east coast, southwesterly, for two
hundred miles, to the Tortugas ; while
its adjacent waters offer one of the safest
and most delightful cruising grounds in
the world. Rising from the wellnigh
fathomless depths of the Gulf Stream is
the outer ledge of glistening coral, often
showing above the surface and pierced
by numberless deep water - channels.
Inside of it flows the broad Hawk Chan-
nel, offering plenty of water for large
vessels along its entire length, well
buoyed and well lighted. Then come
the keys fringed with the perennial
green of interlacing mangroves, and
ranged in a line exactly parallel to that
of the outer reef. Behind them, and
reached by a multiplicity of navigable
channels, lies the broad expanse of shal-
low water known as the Bay of Florida,
stretching away to the mainland, filled
with low keys, sand-bars, coral-reefs, and
mud-banks. These are threaded by a
bewildering maze of tortuous channels,
unsurveyed and unchartered, but all
known to, and used by the reef-sponger.
In these warm shallows lie the sponge-
beds, and here the smaller boats of the
fleet glean their harvests in safety. If
the wind blows from any point of north
they find a smooth lee outside the keys ;
if from the south, they run in behind
them.

Although the sponger cares little for
nature's beauties or novelties, he is con-
stantly surrounded by such a bewilder-
ing profusion of both as would arouse
the keenest enthusiasm of a naturalist.
The waters abound in corals, exquisite
algae, myriads of vividly colored fish,
and uncouth sea-monsters. The gleam-
ing beaches are thickly strewn with

rare shells ; curious birds are to be
noted on every sand-bar ; while the
waters, themselves as transparent as
crystal springs, present such an infinity
of tint as to be a source of constant
delight. So distinct and significant are
these water colors that navigation is
largely dependent upon them, and the
sponger guides the course of his little
vessel with unerring precision by the
hue of the proximate waters. To his
experienced eye black water indicates
rocks or grass lumps, while white marks
shallows and a coral bottom. A tinge of
red betokens a sand-bar that he may
not cross ; but where it merges into
green or yellow is the narrow channel
that a boat of light draught may thread
with safety. Dark-green water is from
two to four fathoms deep, while all
shades of blue indicate a depth suffi-
cient for large ships. Thus to the reef-
sponger these colors with all their gra-
dations are as pregnant with meaning
as are the ripples on the surface of the
Mississippi to a pilot of that tawny flood.

While the water is thus replete with
curious interest, the land, as repre-
sented by the low -lying keys, is not
less so. Here are birds and butterflies,
insects and flowers, as yet unknown and
unnamed. Here are palms found no-
where else in the world, besides groves
of cocoanuts, broad fields of pineapples,
and large areas of dagger -like fibre
plants. Here grow nearl}' all the fruits
known to tropic climes, while the ever-
present mangroves, with mastics, ma-
hogany, and a bewildering variety of
other forest trees, spring from pre-
historic coral that still bears the im-
print of its builders as sharply outlined
as when it was created.

Of all these the sponger knows little
and cares less. To be sure, the cocoa-
nuts and pineapi^les arouse a slight
interest on account of their money
value ; but potatoes or cabbages would
exert the same influence. He is invari-
ably a " Conch " or native of the Ba-
hama Islands, attracted to this country
by its better prices for sponge, and has
been familiar with similar surroundings
from infancy. Thus while his eye is
always turned upon the water, it is not
to note with delight its rich coloring,
nor the exquisite forms that inhabit its

Vol. XII. -69

642

SPONGE AND SPONGERS OF THE ELORIDA REEF.

depths ; but iu searcli of certain black, The vessel has towed astem just half
shapeless objects that lie beneath it, and as many boats as she has men in her
which represent his livelihood. Yet he crew, and now two men are assigned to

Searching for Sponges through a Water-glass.

pa,33es over acres and miles of these,
ranging in size from that of a cocoanut
to the bigness of a hogshead, and all of a
symmetrical roundness, before pausing.
Apparently he is throwing away the
chance of a lifetime ; but if you suggest
this to him he will laugh in scorn at
your ignorance, and answer : " Them's
honly logger 'eads, vot hain't no good.
Hi could load a fleet o' wessels vith them
an' not go hout hof sight hof Key Vest."

A Conch is as reckless of his h's as a
Cockney, and invariably supplants a w
with a V, or vice versa.

The loggerhead is the most common
of all sponges, and attains the greatest
size ; but it is of too coarse fibre to be
valuable save as a fertilizer.

Arrived at what he fancies may prove
a profitable ground the captain of a
sponging schooner sends out a boat to
investigate, meantime standing off and
on until a discovery is reported. Then
all hands, save only the cook, or, if she
is a large vessel, the captain and cook,
tumble into the small boats and the fish-
ing— if fishing it can be called — is be-
gun.

each boat. One of them stands well aft
and sculls with a long oar, while the
other bends low over one of the gun-
wales in a most constrained position,
and with his head buried in a water-
glass eagerly scans the bottom as he is
moved slowly over it. The water-glass
is simply a wooden bucket, having a
glass bottom, that is held an inch or so
below the ruffled surface, and in these
clear waters plainly reveals all sub-
merged objects to a depth of forty or
fifty feet. As a further aid in over-
coming rijiples or moderate waves each
small boat is provided with a bottle of
oil so hung over the bow as to slowly
drip its contents into the water.

Through his magic glass the observer
sees darting fish, richly tinted sea-fans
and feathers, branching coral, gorgeous
anemones, bristling sea-porcupines, and
the myriad other curious tenants of
these tropic waters. While seeing these
he makes no sign until a small dark ob-
ject, that, to the untrained eye, difi'ers
in no respect from the loggerheads sur-
rounding it, comes within his range of
vision. Then, without removing his

SPONGE AND SPONGERS OF THE FLORIDA REEF.

G43

gaze, he reaches for the long - handled
sponge-hook or rake lying behind him,
and using it with one hand, quickly
tears from the bottom a black, slimy
mass, that he triumjjhantly pronounces
to be a shecp's-wool or grass sjionge of
the first (quality.

The hook that he has just used is of
iron, and has three long curved teeth
attached to a slender wooden handle.
This is ordinarily about thirty feet long,
though the more expert spongers use
handles fifty or sixty feet in length, and
fish successfull}' in water from forty to
fifty feet deep. To realize the difficulty
of such a feat one has but to thrust an
oar into the water and attempt to strike
some object within its reach. Appar-
ently the oar breaks at the surface, and
the submerged portion darts off at a
most unexpected angle. Thus the skill
of the sponger lies in his ability to over-
come or ignore this bewildering effect
of refraction, and to detect at a glance
the character of tlie dim objest toward
which he directs his hook. When the
small boat is loaded, as with good luck
she w^ill be several times during the
day, she returns to the schooner and
transfers her slimy cargo. Heaped on
deck in the heat of a tropic sun the mu-
cilaginous animal matter with which the
sponge-cells are filled quickly decom-
poses and emits an odor so powerful
and offensive that the presence of a
sponge-boat can be detected a mile or
more from the leeward, and a wise sail-
or will always pass one to windward if
possible. To the spongers themselves
this vile smell might be the spicy odors
of Araby the blest for aught they care.
They apparently enjoy it, and at least
are so indifferent to it that I have seen
them eating their dinner on deck with
the rotting sponges piled high about
them, and unconcernedly devouring food
taken from a temporary resting-place
on. the disgusting mass beside them.
Nor do they hesitate, if the harvest is
so bountiful as to overflow the deck, to
stow a portion of the slimy cargo in the
tiny cabin that contains their sleeping
bunks. Here they will sleep soundly
and peacefully with every aperture that
might admit fresh air or mosquitoes
tightly closed, and apparently suffer no
ill effect from so doing. In fact a spon-

ger seems perfectly willing and able
to spend any length of time without
air if by foregoing it he can also elude
the insect pests with which the man-
groves of the keys are infested. To
prove this he not only closes his cabin
and fills it with a dense cloud of tobacco-
smoke ; but, in the insect season, he
provides his bunk with a mosquito bar
that is oftener made of calico than of

^>"

Using the Sponge Hook.

any other material. Carefully tucking
the edges of this air-tight canopy under
his bJanket, he will stretch himself out
with a sigh of satisfaction at having
thus effectually baffled his tormentors,

644

SPONGE AND SPONGERS OF THE FLORIDA REEF.

and will spend the night in blissful un-
consciousness that he is violating a sin-
gle hygienic law.

One of the first duties of the spon-
ger on reaching his fishing - ground is
to construct a "crawl" (corral?) or pen
about ten feet square, of wattled stakes,
in shallow water, close behind some shel-
tering key. To this he returns, and in
it deposits his catch of fresh sponges
as often as it overflows the limits of
his schooner's deck. In the crawl the
sponges lie and rot for several days,
when they are taken out and beaten
with wooden " bats " until all animal
matter is thoroughly extracted ; then
they are washed, strung in bunches on
bits of rope-yarn having an arbitrary
length of five feet four inches, and laid
on sand or grass in the hot sun to bleach
and dry. Finally, reduced to about one-
tenth of their original weight, and offer-
ing but slight resistance to almost limit-
less compression, the}' are stowed away
in the hold of the schooner, which by
the time its limit of capacity is reached
often contains a cargo valued at several
thousand dollars. Of this sum one-half
goes to the vessel, which is also charged
with all expenses of the trip, and the
other is shared, or " sheered," accord-
ing to Conch vernacular, among the
crew.

As a rule the Key West sponger,
white or black, and in this business
the races are very evenly represented,
is the most simple-minded, honest, and
inoffensive of seafaring men. He sel-
dom swears, rarely drinks, is as truth-
ful as he is ignorant, and is above all
supers titiously religious. The one form
of social dissipation in which he in-
dulges is attendance at church or other
gatherings for religious exercises. His
only songs are hymns, and these he
renders with a heartiness that is in no-
wise diminished by a lack of musical
knowledge or ability. He would no
more think of lifting the finest sponge
of the reef on a Sunday, if he should
happen to discover it on that day, than
he would of loading his vessel with
worthless loggerheads. Nor would he
fish on a Sunday, even though fish
abounded and the bread locker was
empty. In this connection the story is
still told, with bated breath, of a hun-

gry man who, a few years ago, caught a
fish on the holy day, and was punished
by a stroke of lightning on the Mon-
day following. If there is to be preach-
ing on any of the inhabited keys, all the
S23ongers within a dozen niiles of the
place will attend it ; but if nothing of
this kind ofi'ers they will repair to the
key beside which their crawl is located,
and spend Sunday in sleeping, talking,
smoking, or gathering under the shade
of a clump of mangroves and singing
hymns.

On one of the uninhabited keys
stands a large shed-like building, erect-
ed by the builders of a lighthouse a doz-
en years ago for the storage of mate-
rial. As there is a cistern connected
with it, from which water-kegs may be
filled, this key is a favorite resort for
spongers on Sundays or on such days
as rough water enforces idleness. As I
ran in toward it one dark night last
winter I was puzzled to account for a
tremendous racket inside of the old
building. It sounded like a riot or a free
fight at least, and to satisf}' my curiosi-
ty concerning it I took the skiff and
rowed ashore the moment our anchor
was dropped. No light ^^■as visible un-
til I was close beside the building, when
I saw that a small area of its cavernous
interior was dimly illumined b}'^ a sin-
gle lantern hung just within the door-
way. By this uncertain light a score of
spongers, full-grown men wearing pal-
metto hats as broad-brimmed as a Mex-
ican sombrero, calico shirts, and jean
trousers tucked into great cowhide
boots, were playing tag. It was a gen-
uine romp, such as would have been
enjoyed by any boy of ten years, and
the noise the}' made could be heard for
miles out at sea. The moment the}- de-
tected my presence the game came to
an abrupt ending, and they gathered
breathlessly about me to inquire if I
were the new preacher whom they had
heard was coming up the reef. They
were greatly disappointed to find that I
was not a preacher, and after a half
hour of conversation I fell low in their
estimation by asking why they could
not have a dance, as I noticed that one
of them had a mouth organ and another
a violin. Several at once hastened to
assure me that their preacher did not

SPONGE AND SPONGERS OF THE FLORIDA REEF.

G45.

^ i^^^ fjj'^^^-^^^^^

Spongers' Homes.

aliow them to dance ; while the owners
of the musical instruments disclaimed
an ability to play anything except hymn
tunes. So I asked them to i^lay some
of those, and of all lugubrious musical
performances I ever heard I think the
long - drawn wailings of those two in-
struments, attuned to sacred melody,
was the worst. During the progress of
the concert one of the tag-players took
occasion to confide to me that " Hi fer
one don't see no great 'arm in darncing,
seeing has Hi was borned an' briing
hup a Puseyite ; but Hi'm the onliest
one 'ere has his."

It seemed absurd to see these great
clumsy six-footers playing tag ; but af-
ter all it was one of the most sensible
things they could do. After days of
being packed like sardines on their
over-crowded little schooners, with the
only variant of long hours of painfully
cramped positions while at work in the
small boats, some vigorous exercise of
this kind was an absolute necessity.

Sometimes a sponge-boat is out two
or three months before " filling," though
occasionally the same happy result is at-
tained in as many weeks. Whenever the

joyful day arrives that not another
sponge can be squeezed into hold or
cabin, and when at the same time the
'•grub" is so low that necessity de-
mands a return to Cayo Hueso (Key
West), then is the sponger as jubilant
as a school -boy homeward bound for
the long vacation, or a Grand Banker
whose fish-laden schooner is headed to-
ward Gloucester. He is all spring and
activity as he hoists the small boats
in on deck, hangs the now idle hooks
over the side in bundles that reach from
stem to stern, or sends aloft every rag
of light canvas that can be packed on
the bending masts, top-sails, stay-sail,
flying -jib, and all. Although the car-
go is a full one, it is not heav}*, and be-
fore the steady northeast trade, the evil-
smelling little schooner sj^eeds merrily
down the reef past the low-lyiiig keys,
leaving the empty crawls, the shining
beaches, and the envious unfortunates
whose holds still show vacant room, far
behind. Stretched in easy attitudes
wherever they can find space for their
long limbs, these homeward-bound toil-
ers of the shallow seas sing their livehest
hymns, discuss the prospect of finding a

646

SPONGE AND SPONGERS OF THE FLORIDA REEF.

rising market, or eagerly hail outward-
bound vessels with the never varying
(juery of " Vots sponge a-fetching in Key
Vest now ? " For this day's dinner the
cook prepares a special cluft* well filled
with plums that have been carefully hid-
den away for the occasion ; or perhaps the
treat may be "turtle yellows ' — unlaid
eggs taken from the body of some tur-
tle captured during the cruise. These,
after being salted and hung for a few
days in the hot sun, resemble bunches
of dried grapes, big, weazened, and yel-
low. Raw or cooked, they are esteemed
a delicacy by all Conches, although one
not to the manner born would probably
find snakes, snails, or train-oil equally
palatable.

To the stranger the s2:)onge market of
Key West is as curious as are most of
the sights in this quaint out of -the- world
town. Here, where, as in Nantucket,
nearly everj^thing, including meat, vege-
tables, fruits, clothing, jewelry, and sew-
ing-machines, is sold at auction, sj)onges
prove no exception to the rule. The
sponge auction is held every day at
three o'clock on the city wharf, beyond
which the fleet is anchored. This wharf
is really an open area of made land re-
claimed from the sea, and composed
largely of sponge clippings. Here the
several cargoes are disj^layed in piles,
each of which represents a grade of
sponge. With a commendable ingenuity
of economy these auctions are conducted
without the assistance, and consequent
commissions, of an auctioneer, the bids
being made on folded slips of j^aper and
pinned to the several piles by individ-
ual buyers. Among these are repre-
sentatives of all the larger wholesale
drug-houses of the North, and between
them until recently competition was very
keen ; for, although handled by drug-
liouses, sponge is never a drug on the
market. At present, however, the Key
West business is very nearly controlled
by one man, Mr. A. J. Arapian, a Greek,
who has been in this country long
enough to acquire the title of " Sponge
King," and whose annual sales aggre-
gate half a million of dollars.

While the bids are being made, each
pile of sponge is surrounded by eager
groups of the bronzed and brawny toilers
who have torn it from the bottom of the

sea. To them it represents all that is
worth living for, and they will be pass-
ing rich or comparatively poor accord-
ing to the price it brings. This 2)rice
is regulated more by size and quality of
the sponges than by the quantity of-
fered, those of medium size command-
ing a better price than the very large or
smaller.

Within an hour after the bids have
been opened and the new ownership of
the piles thus determined, they have dis-
appeared in the various sponge-lofts of
the vicinity where the commodity is in
trade parlance to be "manufactured" for
its final market. In the loft, each variety
is first sorted into grades depending
upon size, shape, quality, and the local-
ity from which it was obtained, and to
each grade is assigned a bin reaching
from floor to ceiling of the spacious
room. In front of these bins sit the
clippers, all men and all Conches, who,
with sheep-shears, trim the sponges and
remove whatever coral may still cling
to their roots. After being clipi3ed, the
finer grades are treated to a bleach-
ing batii, the comj)osition of which is a
trade secret. From it they go to the
drying frames, where they remain for
several daj^s, and on which they become
nearly as wdiite as the fleeces whose
name they bear.

From the bleachery the sponges are
borne in peculiar shaped baskets, large
at the bottom and smaller at the top,
made in the Bahamas from palm-leaves,
to the presses, where, by means of
powerful screws, they are forced into
bales of the smallest possible compass.
These bales, neatly enveloped in a fine
bagging and tightly corded, weigh fif-
teen, thirty, sixty, or one hundred and
twenty pounds, according to their desti-
nation, which is not always the bath-
room, as many persons suj^pose.

Among the larger consumers of sponge
are hospitals in which surgical opera-
tions are performed. This is nearly al-
ways the destination of the great An-
clote grass sponges, though they do
not reach it under that name. While
they have the size and texture of the
well-known Mediterranean ear -sponge,
so called from its fancied resemblance
to elephants' ears, and used, the world
over, for stanching blood in large, open

SPONGE AND SPONGERS OF THE FLORIDA REEF.

047

wounds, they have not the shape pre-
scribed by custom. Consequently they
are ex2)orted to Europe as '• Anelote
^rass sponj^es ; " and are there cut into
the required shape before bein<^- sent

is utiUzed and nothin**' remains in the
loft but the dust of powdered lime that
was once the coral to which the sponges
were attached.

Thousands of bales of the finest toilet

The Sponge-wharf, Key West.

back to this country as "Mediterranean
ear- sponges." Quantities of sheeps'-
wool and other smaller sponges are also
used for surgical ^^urposes. Many of
these after having seen service, and be-
ing discarded in the hosj^itals, fall in-
to the hands of unscrupulous dealers,
who w^ash them in an acid that not only
cleanses and bleaches them, but renders
them w^orthlessly tender. Tliey are then
hawked about the streets of large cities
by curbstone pedlars, who find a ready
sale for their fine -looking but utterly
valueless wares.

Many of the larger sheeps' - wool
sponges find their way to currying es-
tablishments, where they play an im-
portant part in the manufacture of leath
er, and to stables, where they are used
for washing carriages. Coarser sj^onges
and the small sj^onge chirpings are
worked up into "felt" roofing paper;
while the larger clippings find their
way into bottles of liquid shoe-polish, to
the tips of nuicilage bottles, and to a
score of other places where they are
made equally useful. Not long ago these
were thrown away ; but now every scrap

sponges, W'Orth from ten to sixty dollars
per pound, are used in potteries all
over the world, for imparting that ab-
solute smoothness of finish to delicate
ware that can be attained by no other
means. In most electrical machines
sponge is used as an insulator, while
in many other lines of manufacture its
value is well established.

There are at present but four centres
of sponge supply and distribution
known to the commercial world, and of
these the most important is Key AVest.
In the waters tributary to this port the
sheeps'- wool, wdiich outranks all others
as a general - utility sponge, attains a
perfection of form and texture unknov.n
elsewhere. Here too are to be found
any number of sailors, trained to the
business from boyhood, with whom to
man the sponging fleet. Thus although
the American sponge industry is only
about sixty years old, it already leads
the world in the volume of its business,
the equipment of its vessels, and the in-
telligence with which it is conducted.

When a sponge is torn from its na-
tive bed by hooks, certain fragments or

SPONGE AND SPONGERS OF THE FLORIDA REEF.

649

germs are left adhering to the bottom.
These so speedily reproduce new sponges
that the old beds may be profitably re-
visited at least every two years, and in
some cases oftener. As an old sponger
aptly expressed it to me, "they grows just
liie melons." Where, as in the Mediter-
ranean, diving machines instead of hooks
are used in the fisheries, there is no
chance for the beds to thus recuperate,
as the machines destroy the germs and
leave only barren rocks behind them.
For this reason diving for sponges is
prohibited by law in the waters of the
State of Florida.

A similar law is now in force in the
Turkish and Grecian Archipelagoes,
where sponge has been taken from time
immemorial, and its result has been to
send the European and Asiatic sponge-
divers far down on the African coasts in
search of new fields. The headquarters
of the Mediterranean operations is Ca-
laimo in the Grecian Archipelago, which
is second only to Key West in the volume
of its business. The general distribu-
ting point for all European and Asiatic
sponges is Trieste, whence come the
delicate Turkish sponges so indispen-
sable to my lady's toilet and invaluable
to surgeons.

Sponging is also an important in-
dustry to the Bahamians, who extend

their operations as far south as Turk's
Island. Nassau is the receiving and
distributing port for all sponges taken
from this vast territory, and the Baha-
mian fisheries rank in importance with
those conducted on the southern coast
of Cuba, the central port of which is
Batabano.

These are the present commercial
sponging centres of the world, though a
fine article of sponge is said to exist
in Brazilian waters, and the Chinese
supply their own Hmited demand from
native beds. Sponge is also found on
the Mexican and Central American
coasts, so that there is no reason to
doubt its existence in the South Pacific
and other tropic waters in which it has
not yet been sought.

From the foregoing statements it will
be readily understood that the Ameri-
can sponge industry is still in its in-
fancy. It is, however, an infant of most
promising growth, destined in the near
future to attain the proportions and
command the attention it so well de-
serves. Then from many a Southern
port besides that of Key West will the
nimble schooners sail forth with flags
flying, guns firing, and crews cheering
as they head toward the shallow seas
and coral - reefs of the distant sponge-
banks.

Vol. XII.— 70

MISS DANGERLIE'S ROSES.

By Thomas Nelson Page.

HENKY FLOYD was a crank,
at least so many people said ; a
few tliouglit he was a wonderful
person, these were mostly children, old
women, and people not in the directory,
and persons not in the directory do not
count for much. He was in fact a singu-
lar fellow. It was all natural enough to
him ; he was just like what he believed
his father had been, his father of whom
his mother used to tell him, and whom
he remembered so vaguely except when
he had suddenly loomed up in his uni-
form at the head of his company, when
they went away on that march from
which he had never returned. He meant
to be like him, if he was not, and he re-
membered all that his mother had told
him of his gentleness, his high courtesy,
his faithfulness, his devotion to duty,
his unselfishness. So it was all natural
enough to Floyd to be as he was. But
a man can no more tell whether or not
he is a crank than he can tell how old
he looks. He was, however, without
doubt, different in certain ways from
most people. This his friends admit-
ted. Some said he was old-fashioned ;
some that he was " old timey ; " some
that he was unpractical, the shades of
criticism ranging up to those who said
he was a fool. They did not mean in-
tellectually, for none denied his intel-
lect. He drove a virile pen, and had
an epigrammatic tongue. He had had
a hard time. He had borne the yoke
in his youth. This, we have strong au-
thority for saying, is good for a man ;

but it leaves its marks upon him. He
had been desperately poor. He had
not minded that except for his mother,
and he had approved of her giving up
every cent to meet the old security
debts. It had cut him off from his
college education ; but he had worked
till he was a better scholar than he
might have been had he gone to col-
lege. He had kept his mother comfort-
able as long as she lived, and then had
put up a monument over her in the old
churchyard, as he had done before to his
father's memory. This, everyone said,
was foolish, and perhaps it was, for it
took him at least two years to pay for
them, and he might have laid up the
money and got a start, or, as some
charitable persons said, it might have
been given to the poor. However, the
monuments were put up, and on them
were epitaphs which recorded at length
the virtues of those to whom they were
erected, with their descent, and declared
that they were Christians and Gentle-
people. Some one said to Floyd that
he might have shortened the epitaphs,
and have saved something. " I did not
want them shortened," said he.

He had borne the yoke otherwise also.
One of the first things he had done
after starting in life, was to fall in love
with a beautiful woman. She was very
beautiful and a great belle. Everyone
said it was perfect nonsense for Henry
Floyd to expect her to marry him, as
poor as he was, which was natural
enough. The only thing was that she

MISS DANGERLIE'S ROSES.

G51

led Floyd to believe she was goin^ to
marry him when she did not intend to
do it, and it cost him a great deal of
unhappiness. He never said one word
against her, not even when she married
a man much older than himself, simply,
as everyone said, because he was very
rich. If Floyd ever thought that she
treated him badly, no one ever knew it,
and when finally she left her husband,
no one ever ventured to discuss it be-
fore Floyd.

Henry Floyd, however, had suffered,
that everyone could see who had eyes ;
but only he knew how much. Gener-
ally grave and dreamy, when quiet as
calm as a dove, as fierce as a hawk
when aroused ; moving always in an ec-
centric orbit, which few understood ;
flashing out now and then gleams
which some said were sparks of genius
but which most people said were mere
eccentricity, he had sunk into a recluse.
He was in this state when he met her.
He always afterward referred to her so.
He was at a reception when he came
upon her on a stairway. A casual word
about his life, a smile flashed from her
large, dark, luminous eyes, lighting up
her face, and Henry Floyd awoke. She
had called him from the dead. It was a
case of love at first sight. From that
time he never had a thought for any-
one else, least of all for himself. He
lived in her and for her. He blossomed
under her sympathy as a tree comes
out under the sunshine and soft breath
of spring. He grew, he broadened.
She was his sun, his breath of life ; he
worshipped her. Then one day she
died — suddenh' — sank down and died
as a butterfly might die, chilled by a
blast. With her Henry Floyd buried
his youth. For a time people were
sympathetic ; but they began immedi-
ately to speculate about him, then to
gossip about him. It made no differ-
ence to him or in him. He was like a
man that is dead, who felt no more.
One thing about a great sorrow is that
it destroys all lesser ones. A man with
a crushed body does not feel pin-j^ricks.
Henry Floyd went on his way calml}-,
doggedly, mechanically. He drifted on
and was talked about continually. Gos-
sip would not let him alone, so she did
him the honor to connect his name with

that of every woman he met. In fact,
there was as much reason to mention
all as one. He was fond of women, and
enjoyed them. Women liked him too.
There was a certain gentleness mingled
with firmness, a kind of protecting air'
about him which women admired, and
a mystery of impenetrable sadness which
women liked. Every woman who knew
him trusted him, and had a right to'
trust him. To none was he indifferent,
but in none was he interested. He was
sim2)ly cut off. A physician who saw
him said, " That man is dying of loneli-
ness." This went on for some years.
At last his friends determined to get
him back into society. They made
plans for him and carried them out to
a certain length ; there the plans failed.
Floyd m.ight be led up to the water,
but none could make him drink ; there
he took the bit in his teeth and went
his own way. He would be invited to
meet a girl at a dinner got up for his
benefit, that he might meet her, and
would sjDend the evening hanging over
a little unheard-of country cousin with
a low voice and soft eyes, entertaining
her with stories of his country days or
of wanderings ; or he would be put by
some belle, and after five minutes ho-
mage spend the time talking to some old
lady about her grandchildren. " You
must marry," they said to him. " When
one rises from the dead," he replied.
At length, his friends grew tired of
helping him and gave him up, and he
dropped out and settled down. Com-
miseration is one of the bitter things of
life. But Floyd had what is harder to
bear than that. It did not affect his
work. It was only his health and his
life that suffered. He was like a man
who has lost the senses of touch and
taste and sight. If he minded it, he did
not show it. One can get used to being
bedridden.

One thing about him was that he
always appeared poor. He began to
be known as an inventor and writer.
It was known that he received high
prices for what ho did ; but he ap-
peared to be no better off than when he
made nothing. Some persons supj^osed
that he gambled. ; others whispered
that he spent it in other dissipation.
In fact, one lady gave a circumstantial

652

MISS DANGERUE'S ROSES.

account of the way he squanderer^ his
money, and declared herself very glad
that he had never visited her daughters.
When this was repeated to Floyd, he
said he fortunately did not have to ac-
count to her for the way he spent his
money. He felt that the woman out
under the marble cross knew how his
money went, and so did the little cousin
who was named after her, and who was
at school. He had a letter from her
in his pocket at that moment. So he
drifted on.

At length one evening he was at a re-
ception in a strange city. The rooms
were filled with light and beauty. Floyd
was standing chatting with a child of
ten years, whom he had found standing
in a corner, gazing out with wide ques-
tioning eyes on the throng. They were
friends instantly, and he was telling her
who the guests were, as they came sail-
ing in, giving them fictitious names and
titles. "They are all queens," he told
her, at which she laughed. She pointed
out a tall and stately woman with a sol-
emn face, and with a gleaming bodice
on like a cuirass, and her hair up on
her head like a casque. " Who is that ? "

"Queen Semiramis."

" And who is that ? " It was a stout
lady with a tiara of diamonds, a red
face, and three feathers.

" Queen Victoria, of course."

"And who am I?" She placed her
little hand on her breast with a pretty
gesture.

" The Queen of hearts," said Floyd,
quickly, at which she laughed outright.
"Oh! I must not laugh," she said,
checking herself and glancing around
her with a shocked look. " I forgot."

" You shall. If you don't, you sha'n't
know who another queen is."

"No, mamma told me I must not
make a bit of noise ; it is not style, you
know, but you mustn't be so funny."

" Good heavens ! " said Floyd.

" Oh ! who is this coming ? " A lady
richly dressed was making her way to-
ward them. "The Queen of Sheba —
coming to see Solomon," said Floyd, as
she came up to him. " Let me intro-
duce you to a beautiful girl, Sarah Dan-
gerlie," she said, and drew him through
the throng toward a door, where he
was presented to a tall and strikingly

handsome girl and made his bow and a
civil speech, to which the young lady
responded with one equally polite and
important. Other men were pressing
around her, to all of whom she made
apt and cordial speeches, and Floyd fell
back and rejoined his little girl, whose
face lit up at his return.

" Oh ! I was so afraid you were going
away with her."

" And leave you ? Never, I'm not so
easily disposed of."

" Everyone goes with her. They call
her the Queen."

"Do they?"

"Do you like her?"

"Yes."

" You don't," she said, looking at him
keenly.

" Yes, she is beautiful."

"Everyone says so."

" She isn't as beautiful as someone
else I know," said Floyd, pleasantly.

" Isn't she ? As whom ? "

Floyd took hold of the child's hand
and said, "Let's go and get some supper."

" I don't like her," said the little girl,
positively.

"Don't you!" said Floyd. He
stopped and glanced across the room
toward where the girl had stood. He
saw only the gleam of her white shoul-
ders as she disappeared in the crowd
surrounded by her admirers.

A little later Floyd met the young
lady on the stairway. He had not rec-
ognized her, and was passing on when
she spoke to him.

"I saw you talking to a little friend
of mine," she began, then — "over in
the corner," she explained.

" Oh ! yes. She is sweet. They in-
terest me. I always feel when I have
talked with a child as if I had got as
near to the angels as one can get on
earth."

" Do you know, I was very anxious
to meet you," she said.

" Were you ? Thank you. Why ? "

"Because of a line of yours I once
read."

" I am pleased to have written only
one line that attracted your attention,"
said Floyd, bowing.

" No, no — it was this —

"The whitest soul of man or saint is black be-
side a girl's."

MISS DANGEKUE'S ROSES.

653

'Beside a child's," said Floyd, cor-
recting her.

" Oh ! yes, so it is — ' beside a child's.' "

Her voice was low and musical.
Floyd glanced up and caught her look,
and the color deepened in her cheek as
the young man suddenly leant a little
toward her and gazed earnestly into
her eyes, which she dropped, but in-
stantly raised again.

*'Yes — good-night," she held out her
hand, with a taking gesture and smile.

" Good-night," said Floyd, and passed
on up the stairs to the dressing-room.
He got his coat and hat and came down
the stairway. A group seized him.

" Come to the club," they said. He
declined.

'Roast oysters and beer," they said.

" No, I'm going home."

" Are you ill ? " asked a friend.

"No, not at all. Why?"

" You look like a man who has seen a
spirit."

"Do I? I'm tired, I suppose. Good-
night, good-night, gentlemen," and he
passed out.

" Perhaps I have," he said as he went
down the cold steps into the frozen
street.

Floyd went home and tossed about
all night. His Kfe was breaking up,
he was all at sea. Why had he met her ?
He was losing the anchor that had held
him. "They call her the queen," the
little girl had said. She must be. He
had seen her soul through her eyes.

Floyd sent her the book which con-
tained the poem from which she had
quoted ; and she wrote him a note
thanking him. It pleased him. It was
sympathetic. She invited him to call.
He went to see her. She was fine in
grain and in look. A closely fitting scar-
let gown ornamented by a single glori-
ous red rose which might have grown
where it lay, and her soft hair coiled on
her small head, as she entered tall and
straight and calm, made Floyd invol-
untarily say to himself, " Yes " —

" She was right," he said, half to him-
self, half aloud, as he stood gazing at
her with inquiring eyes after she had
greeted him cordially.

" What was right ? " she asked.

"Something a little girl said about
vou."

"What was it?"

" I will tell you some day, when I
know you better."

" Was it a compliment ? "

"Yes."

" Tell me now."

"No, wait."

He came to know her better ; to know
her very well. He did not see her very
often, but he thought of her a great
deal. He seemed to find in her a sym-
pathy which he needed. It reminded
him of the past. He awoke from his
lethargy ; began to work once more in
the old way ; mixed among men again ;
grew brighter. " Henry Floyd is grow-
ing younger, instead of older," some-
one said of him. " His health has been
bad," said a doctor. " He is improving.
I thought at one time he was going to
die." "He is getting rich," said a
broker, who had been a schoolmate of
his. " I see he has just invented a new
something or other to relieve children
with hip or ankle-joint disease."

" Yes, and it is a capital thing too, it
is being taken up by the profession. I
use it. It is a curious thing that he
should have hit on that when he is not
a surgeon. He had studied anatomy
as a sort of fad, as he does everything.
One of Haile Tabb's boys was bedrid-
den, and he was a great friend of his,
and that set him at it."

"I don't think he's so much of a
crank as he used to be," said someone.

The broker who had been his school-
mate met Floyd next day.

"I see you have been having a great
stroke of luck," he said.

"Havel?"

" Yes, I see in the papers, that you>
discovery, or invention, or whatever it
was, has been taken up."

" Oh ! yes— that. It has."

" I congratulate you."

"Thank you."

"I would not mind looking into
that."

" Yes, it is interesting."

" I might take an interest in it."

"Yes, I should think so."

" How much do vou ask for it."

" Ask for it ? Ask for what ? "

"For an interest in it, either a part
or the whole."

"What!"

G54

MISS DANGERLIE'S ROSES,

"You ought to make a good thing
out of it — out of your patent."

"M}' j3atent ! I haven't any patent."

"What! No patent!"

" No. It's for the good of people gen-
eraUy."

" But you got a patent ? "

"No."

" Couldn't you get a patent ? "

"1 don't know."

"Well, I'll be bound I'd have got a
patent."

" Oh ! no, I don't think so."

" I tell you what, you ought to turn
your talents to account," said his friend.

" Yes, I know I ought."

"You could be a rich man."

" But I don't care to be rich."

" What ! Oh ! nonsense. Everyone
does."

" I do not. I want to live."

" But you don't live."

" Well, maybe I shall some day.''

" You merely exist."

"Why should I want to be rich ? "

" To live — to buy what you want."

" I want sympathy, love ; can one buy
that?"

" Yes — even that."

" No, you cannot. There is only one
sort of woman to be bought."

" Well, come and see me sometimes,
won't you ? "

" Well, no, I'm very much obliged to
you ; but I don't think I can."

" Why ? I have lots of rich men
come to my house. You'd find it to
your advantage if you'd come."

"Thank you."

" We could make big money together
if -"

He paused. Floyd was looking at
him.

"Could we? If— what?"

" If you would let me use you."

"Thank you," said Floyd. "Perhaps
we could."

" Why won't you come ? "

" Well, the fact is, I haven't time. I
shall have to wait to get a little richer
before I can afford it. Besides I have
a standing engagement."

" Oh ! no, we won't squeeze you. I
tell you what, come up to dinner to-
morrow. I'm going to have a fellow
there, an awfully rich fellow — want to
interest him in some things, and I've

invited him down. He is young Rout-
er, the son of the great Router, you
know who he is ? "

"Well, no, I don't believe I do.
Good-by. Sorry I can't come ; but I
have an engagement."

" What is it ? "

" To play mumble the peg with some
boys. Haile Tabb's boys."

" Ob ! hang the boys ! Come up to
dinner. It is an opportunity you may
not have again shortly. Router's awful-
ly successful, and you can interest him.
I tell you what I'll do "

" No, thank you, I'll keep my engage-
ment. Good-by."

" That fellow's either a fool or he is
crazy," said his friend, gazing after him
as he walked away. "And he's got
some sense too. If he'd let me use him
I could make money out of him for both
of us." .

It was not long before Floyd began
to be known more widely. He had
schemes for the amelioration of the
condition of the poor. They were pro-
nounced quixotic ; but he kept on. He
said he got good out of them if no one
else did.

He began to go oftener and oftener
to the City, where Miss Dangerlie lived.
He did not see a great deal of her ; but
he wrote to her. He found in her a
ready sympathy with his plans. It was
not just as it used to be in his earher
love affair, where he used to find him-
self uplifted and borne along by the
strong spirit which had called him from
the dead ; but if it was not this that he
got, it was what contented him. What-
ever he suggested, she accepted. He
found in her tastes a wonderful simi-
larity with his, and from that he drew
strength.

Women in talking of him in connec-
tion with her said it was a pity ; men
said he was luck}'.

One evening, at a reception at her
house, he was in the gentlemen's dress-
ing-room. It was evidently a lady's
apartment which had been devoted for
the occasion as a dressing-room. It
was quite full at the time. A man, a
large fellow, with sleek, short hair, a
fat chin, and dazzling waistcoat pulled
open a lower drawer in a bureau.
Articles of a lady's apparel were dis-

MISS DANGERLIE'S ROSES.

655

covered, spotless and neatly arranged.
" Shut that drawer instantl}^" said
Floyd, in a low, imperious tone.

" Suppose I don't, what then ? "

"I will pitch you out of that win-
dow," said Floyd, quietly, moving a
step nearer to him. The drawer was
closed, and the man turned away.

" Do 3'ou know who that was?" asked
someone of Floyd.

" No, not the slightest idea."

" That was young Router, the son of
the great Eouter."

" Who is the great Router?"

" The great pork man. His son is
the one who is so attentive to Miss
Dangerlie."

" I am glad he closed the drawer,"
said Floyd, quietly.

" He is said to be engaged to her,"
said the gentleman.

" He is not engaged to her," said
Floyd.

Later on he was talking to Miss
Dangerlie. He had taken her out of
the throng. "Do you know who intro-
duced me to you ? " he asked.

"Yes, Mrs. Drivington."

"No, a little girl."

"Who? Why, don't you remember!
I am surprised. It was just in the
doorway ! "

" Oh ! yes, I remember well enough.
I met a beauty there, but I did not care
for her. I met you first on the stair-
way, and a child introduced me."

" Children interest me, they always
admire one," she said.

" They interest me, I always admire
them," he said. "They are true."

She was silent, then changed the sub-
ject. " A singular little incident befell
me this evening," she said. " As I was
coming home from a luncheon-party, a
wretched woman stopped me and asked
me to let her look at me."

" You did it, of course," he said.

She looked at him with her eyes wide
open with surprise.

" What do you suppose a man said to
me upstairs ? " he asked her.

" What ? "

" That you were engaged to someone."

"What ! That I was engaged ! To
whom, pray ? " She looked incredulous.

"To a fellow I saw up there — Mr.
' Router,' I think he said was his name."

" The idea ! Engaged to Mr. Router !
You did not believe him, did you ? "

" No, of course I did not, I trust you
entirely."

She buried her face in the roses she
held in her hand, and did not speak.
Her other hand rested on the arm of her
chair next him. It was fine and white.
He laid his on it firmly, and leaning to-
ward her, said, "I beg your pardon for
mentioning it. I am not surprised that
you are hurt. Forgive me. I could
not care for you so much if I did not
believe in you."

"It was so kind in you to send me these
roses," she said. " Aren't they beauti-
ful ? " She turned them round and gazed
at them with her face slightly averted.

" Yes, they are, and yet I hate to see
them tied that way, I ordered them sent
to you loose. I always like to think of
you as arranging roses."

" Yes, I like to arrange them myself,"
she said.

" The fact is, as beautiful as those are,
I believe I like better the old-fashioned
roses right out of the dew. I suppose
it is old association. But I knew an
old garden up at an old country place,
where my mother used to live as a girl.
It used to be filled up with roses, and I
always think of the roses there as sweet-
er than any others in the world."

" Yes, I like the old-fashioned roses
best too," she said, with that similarity
of taste which always pleased him.

" The next time I come to see you I
am going to bring you some of those
roses," he said. "My mother used to
tell me of my father going out and get-
ting them for her, and I would like you
to have some of them."

" Oh ! thank you. How far is it from
your home ? "

" Fifteen or twenty miles."

" But you cannot get them there."

" Oh ! yes, I can ; the fact is, I own
the place." She looked interested. " Oh !
It is not worth anything as land," he
said, " but I love the association. My
mother was brought up there, and I
keep up the garden just as it was. You
shall have the roses. Some day I want
to see you among them." Just then
there was a step behind him. She rose.

" Is it ours ? " she asked someone over
her shoulder.

656

MISS DANGEKLIE'S ROSES.

" Yes, come along."

Floyd glanced around. It was the son
of the great llouter.

She turned to Floyd, and said, in an
earnest undertone, " I am very sorry ;
but I had an engagement. Good-by."
She held out her hand. Floyd took it
and pressed it.

"Good-by," he said, tenderly. "That
is all right."

She took the-son-of-the-great-Eouter's
arm.

One afternoon, a month after Miss
Dangerlie's reception, Henry Floyd was
packing his trunk. He had just looked
at his watch, when there was a ring at
the bell. He knew it was the postman,
and a soft look came over his face as he
reflected that even if he got no letter
he would see her within a few hours.
A large box of glorious old-fashioned
roses was on the floor near him, and a
roll of money and a time-table lay be-
side it. He had ridden thirty miles that
morning to get and bring the roses him-
self for one whom he always thought of
in connection with them.

A letter was brought in, and a pleased
smile lit up the young man's face as he
saw the handwriting. He laid on the
side of the trunk a coat that he held,
and then sat down on the arm of a chair
and opened the letter. His hand stroked
it softly as if it were of velvet. He wore
a pleased smile as he began to read.
Then the smile died away and a startled
look took its place. The color faded out
of his face, and his mouth closed firmly.
When he was through he turned back
and read the letter all over again, slow-
ly. It seemed hard to understand ; for
after a pause he read it over a third
time. Then he looked straight before
him for a moment, and then slowly tore
it up into thin shreds and crumpled

them up into his hand. " * An enjoy-
able episode,' " he quoted under his
breath. Ten minutes later he rose
from his seat and dropped the crum-
pled letter into the fireplace. He
walked over and put on his hat and
coat, and going out, pulled the door
firmly behind him. The trunk, partly
packed, stood open with the half-folded
coat hanging over its edge and with the
roses lying by its side.

Floyd walked into the Club and re-
turning quietly the salutations of a
group of friends, went over to a rack
and drew out a newspaper file with
which he passed into another room.

" Announcement of engagement : Rou-
ter and Dangerlie," was the heading on
which his eye rested. "It is stated," ran
the paragraph, " that they have been en-
gaged some time, but no announcement
has been made until now on the eve of
the wedding, owing to the young lady's
delicacy of feeling."

That night Henry Floyd wrote a let-
ter. This was the close of it :

"Possibly your recollection ma}^ here-
after trouble you. I do not believe it
will, but I may have misjudged you in
this as I did in other things. I wish to
say that I do not hold you accountable
in any way. I simply made a mistake."

That night a wretched creature, half
beggar, half worse, was standing on the
street under a lamp. A man came
along. She glanced at him timidly. He
was looking at her, but it would not do
to speak to him, he was a gentleman go-
ing somewhere. His hands were full of
roses. He posted a letter in the box,
then to her astonishment he stopped at
her side, and spoke to her. " Here are
some roses for you," he said, " and here
is some money. Go home to-night."
He pushed the roses and money into
her hands, and turning, went back up
the dim street.

THE POINT OF VIEW.

In its eulogy of a famous and beloved
American, who died the other day, a con-
temporary newspaper remarked that "he
was one of those fortunate creatures who
seem never to be compelled to do any-
thing that is contrary to their inclinations."
That Mr. Curtis should have so impressed
a coeval observer recalls Lowell's estimate
of his friend,

Whose Wit with Fancy, arm in arm.
Masks half its muscle in its skill to charm.

If he seemed to do nothing that he did
not wish to do, no doubt it was partly be-
cause he brought a gracious performance
to even unacceptable tasks ; but the other
reason may well have been that his incli-
nations were so uplifted and disciplined
that he could afford to follow them, and
that in following straightly after duty he
had approached that enviable elevation

where

Love is an unerring light.
And joy its own security.

Hardly any better fortune can come to a
conscientious man than to find his inclina-
tions fit and feasible to follow. In many
cases it happens, through no fault of his,
that he cannot do what he wants to. Obli-
gations are laid upon him that he is bound
to discharge, and in discharging them he
has to turn his face whither he would not
choose to go, and do the work that is put
before him rather than that his heart is in.
But in very many other cases the choice is
within his reach, if only he has the man-
hood to make it and the resolution to stick
Vol. XII.— 71

to it. If there are lions in his path he
must have grit enough to drive them out
of it, even though that is a tedious process.
When the choice is a high choice, and the
man is a strong man in earnest, the lions
have to move out. The average man, of
course, prefers to go round them, even
though the d6tour gets him into byways
that are not of his choice.

By far the most potent factor in these
days in luring high-minded and able men
from doing the work of their choice, is the
superior opportunity of money-making in
other directions. That avails too often to
win born-writers away from letters, and to
keep born-statesmen out of politics, and
born-preachers out of the pulpit. To most
Americans poverty is not absolute but rela-
tive ; not a matter involving the necessa-
ries and reasonable comforts of life, but
the question of living on an equal scale of
luxury with one's associates. Many men to
whom high-thinking might have been pos-
sible have suff'ered an aversion to plain -
living to turn their intellectual energies
into more commonplace channels. Many
others, who cared little for luxuries for
themselves, have drudged and humbled
their talents to procure them for their
families. It was said not long ago of Bea-
cousfield, in contrasting him with Salis-
bury, that *'He possessed nothing, and he^
did not want to possess anything. He never
really owned an acre of land in his life,
and if he had just enough money for cur-
rent expenses he was thankful not to be
troubled with more."

658

THE POINT OF VIEW,

If that was truly his dispositiou it was
a superlatively fortunate endowment for an
intellectual man who had no mind to do
what was contrary to his inclinations.

Inclinations of so high an order that
their fulfilment brings contentment and
honor, and of so stanch a quality that they
can withstand allurements of wealth, ease,
or office bought at any cost of indepen-
dence, are so essentially a part of the indi-
vidual who possesses them, that they may be
accurately and more succinctly defined as
character. Men who have such inclinations
are not common, but men who follow them
out are rare. If Mr. Curtis followed his, it
was up the hill and over it. He even vol-
untarily placed between himself and their
fulfilment the gratuitous obstacle of a great
debt for which he was neither in law nor
in equity responsible. They led him away
from allies of life-long association, through
much that was hazardous and much that
was disagreeable. He followed them with
admirable constancy. To have possessed
such inclinations was not an incident but
an achievement, and to have followed them
out was victory — a victory whose richest
fruit was that it gave to American citizen-
ship an ideal Independent.

A FAVORITE contemporary explanation of
Imman abilities that are so far out of com-
mon that they seem occult, is the sugges-
tion that they indicate the survival of senses
or instincts that belonged to man in his
earlier stages of development, and were lost
as he progressed. The signs of such lost
faculties, it is averred, are still to be seen
in the lower animals, as when the carrier-
pigeon shapes its flight without a compass,
or a dog comes home a hundred miles across
country without asking the ^vay. The rea-
son why such faculties have been lost to
humanity is understood to be that men have
ceased to need them. The development of
language has permitted some to decay, and
the decreased hazards of human existence
have made others unnecessary, and they
have disappeared through disuse. In their
place have come special aptitudes suited
to the new conditions of existence, such as
the reading faculty, a miracle of optical
training, but too common to be wondered
at. That, though, fails a little of being a

perfect illustration of these substituted fac-
ulties, because it is deliberately and me-
thodically acquired. There are other fac-
ulties, and the signs and promise of still
others, which are more nearly analogous to
the lost animal instincts in being a sub-con-
scious development, incident to the con-
veniences or the peculiar perils of contem-
porary human life. One such curious fac-
ulty is the familiar ability to awaken at a
set time, which is an outgrowth of the mul-
tiplication of time-pieces and of the need
of acting on the minute.

The existence of a still newer and more
curious faculty was noted the other day by
a newspaper correspondent, in a disserta-
tion on contemporary existence as studied
in the exceptionally contemporaneous city
of Chicago. He remarks two developments
of it, which he calls the bridge and cable-
car instinct. A vast amount of daily local
travel in Chicago crosses the Chicago River.
But commerce makes constant use of the
Chicago River, and the travel across it goes
over draw-bridges. The well-known pro-
pensity of draw-bridges to be open when
you want to cross them is reported to have
developed, in some of the inhabitants of
Chicago, an instinct that admonishes them
when a bridge that they are approaching
is about to turn, so that they can hurry and
cross it in time. What has stimulated the
development of the bridge instinct is that,
in Chicago you must usually cross a bridge
to catch a train, and to be " bridged " means
usually to miss the train.

"In the same way," says the correspond-
ent, "the man with the cable-car instinct
can tell when a cable-car is coming, even
when the bell does not ring, and so save
his life." Of course there is a suggestion
of humor about these cases, but there is
nothing scientifically amiss about the de-
velopment they attest. The growth of a
cable-car instinct (which in many Ameri-
can cities will be a trolley-car instinct) is
likely to be promoted as other instincts are,
by the survival of the fittest. Just as the
infant monkey who doesn't clutch the limb,
falls and is killed, so the American street-
babe, whose trolley-car instinct is defect-
ive, fails to grow up. Nor is it more to ex-
pect of the sub -conscious intelligence to
take note of passing cars while the con-
scious mind is otherwise engrossed, than to

THE POINT OF VIEW.

659

expect the faculties of a sleeper to measure
the lapse of time.

It is only within the present generation
that the inability to see an electric current
has been a source of peril to man. Surely
we are entitled to look for an instinct that
will meet that case too, so that a man may
perceive what is going through a stray wire
before he takes hold of it and gets killed.

The way in which the word " Pessimism "
gets flung about of late shows how much
like children the maturest of us are in our
relish of a new one. Even short memories
run back to a time when it was never heard
in speech and seldom met with in writings.
But now one encounters it at every turn,
in both talk and print ; and it is m^ade to
serve as the label of almost every expres-
sion of discontent with the existing order
of things, and of almost every degree of
the disposition to contemplate aught in life
that is sorrowful.

Of course the abuse of a word is no new
fault ; and it is one that may easily have
too much to do made over it. Never got
proportion a scanter courtesy than in some
of the exhortations of the purists. But this
continued crying out of "Pessimism,"
"Pessimism," has a gravity much beyond
mere verbal extravagance. Agreed as most
men are, and as most men always must be,
unless the race sinks into utter listlessness,
that strict pessimism is a paralyzing phil-
osophy, to clap the term upon every pro-
duction in art or letters that leaves the
reader or beholder at all saddened, is to
set a stigma on many things that do not
deserve it. And more and worse than this,
it is to encourage people to shun consid-
eration of everything but what keeps them
individually comfortable and complaisant.
Indeed, intimations are not lacking that a
state of public opinion is already coming
to pass which accounts it an offence to be
serious.

It is perhaps in respect of literature that
the sensitiveness to pessimism exhibits it-
self most strikingly. From the prevailing
tone of literary criticism one might infer
that the first, and often the only question,
asked concerning a new book is, *' Is it
pessimistic ? " And in the majority of in-
stances the verdict is one of conviction ; so

that the complaint is frequently heard that
the literature of to-day is tainted with pes-
simism through and through. Moreover,
appeals begin to be addressed to it to purge
itself and strive to become cheerful, more
like the literature of other times. But the
large number of convictions is due, I am
persuaded, to the vagueness of the general
conception of the crime ; and three- fourths
of the convicts, had they been examined
with more insight, would have been let off.

We have a leading case in that of Thomas
Hardy. Since the publication of " Tess "
Mr. Hardy has been brought to bar by
friend as well as foe, and condemned by
both. ** Nothing but an abominable pessi-
mist," says the foe. "A genius of great
power," says the friend, " but pessimistic."
Yet the worst that any observer not grown
a little distraught over pessimism will be
able to discover in Mr. Hardy is an ar-
tist who is much attracted, for purposes of
portrayal, to those phases of life which,
once accepted as the whole of life, must
make men fatalists and may make them
pessimists ; but which Mr. Hardy himself
does not so accept. Unquestionably Mr.
Hardy's fondest choice for his canvas is
men and women whose fate is almost, or
quite, taken out of their own hands by
force of temperament and circumstances.
Very likely this choice is dictated in part
by a cool professional sense that these are
the men and women whom he can make
most of; that, with powers of the nature
and measure that he judges his to be these
are the material with which he can best
deal. And when not dictated thus, by de-
liberate selection, his choice is probably
made for him by the people themselves.
As he sits thinking whom he will next por-
tray, people of the fated sort first press up-
on him and catch his attention. In other
words, Mr. Hardy, like many another ar-
tist, is most impressed with the fated sec-
tion of mankind. But I do not find that he
anywhere gives us to understand that this
part which most impresses him is the very
whole.

If it be anything more than leaving the
reader uncomfortable that the charge of
pessimism, as commonly laid against current
literature, comprises, I am unable to dis-
cover on what it is grounded. As with
Mr. Hardy, so with most other notable cul-

660

THE POINT OF HEPV,

prits ; their actual commission has not
gone beyond this, which, as I have aimed
to show in Mr. Hardy's case, is a good safe
distance from absolute pessimism. As for
absolute pessimism, indeed, I doubt if it is
possible for a creative writer ever to come
to that. He becomes a creative writer from
a natural bent, amounting at its best to a
genius for separating men from the mass
and individualizing and vivifying them.
Under a settled sense that men are mere
atoms, and life a mere whirlwind snatching
them up and casting them away to destruc-
tion, must not his creations grow ridiculous
to him the moment they are begun ? What
folly it would seem to be depicting even a
fool, if the artist did not have lurking in
him a sense that not all the world are fools,
and that for the generality of men it rests
with themselves to determine whether they
should be fools or not. It is hard to con-
ceive of a novelist writing, for example,
from an honest conviction in himself to a
like conviction in his readers, that love is,
a flattering illusion, and lovers the jades of
a relentless fate, whipped on, without lib-
erty of choice, to bring new creatures into
a world from which it is desirable only to
escape. The novelist must needs be keenly
alive to the deficiencies of men and to the
confusions and perplexities of life ; but
without a rather exalted conception of hu-
mankind, his pen, I should think, must be
paralyzed. While seeing " what fools these
mortals be," he must still feel, " how like
a god."

As to cheerfulness in literature : it would
be interesting to know to what particular
period people look back who are zealous
to restore to literature its cheerier days.
The nearest approach to a cheerful period
that literature has heretofore enjoyed was
the eighteenth century. If it was not then
always cheerful, it was at least unfailingly
lively and gay. But the eighteenth-cen-
tury literature pulled down thrones and
threw society into the bloodiest revolu-
tions. And it is because only of its de-
structiveness that a pessimistic literature
is deemed so dreadful.

The Elizabethan literature is sometimes
described as more than cheerful, even joy-
ous. And so under one aspect it is. It
discovers in its makers a relish of life as
keen as children's. But so far is it from

shunning the dark and sorrowful that it
fairly gorges on blood and woful wail.
Nor is it in the least solicitous for happy
endings ; rather oftener than not, the close
of the tale leaves the scene piled high with
hapless slain. Indeed, a little consideration
of the Elizabethan would help very greatly
to an apprehension of the shallowness of
many of the objections raised against the
literature of to-day. No one thinks now
of accounting it anything but great ; yet
it cared as little to leave the reader with
pleasant emotions, or to openly put in the
hearer's hand at the end of the play, for
a souvenir of the performance, a dainty
packet of hope, as any literature could.

The truth is that much the larger num-
ber of the great i^roductions in literature,
of whatever period, exhibit life in its
darker phases. They are permeated by a
profound sadness. Even the " Iliad," which
we commend for its swift, lusty, wholesome
sweep and movement, its freedom from mor-
bid introspection, leaves as the deepest
of its impressions a melancholy sense of
the pitifulness of man. No modern novel
searches out life's nethermost blackness as
"Measure for Measure," "King Lear," and
"Hamlet" do. We class Molifere among
the comic writers ; yet he brings the reflec-
tive reader nearer to tears than to laughter.
One of the intensest lovers of spiritual
beauty was Hawthorne. And yet what new-
er writer puts a suit of deeper sables on our
spirits. Fate nowhere shows sterner and
more implacable than with him.

In the matter of mere cheerfulness, then,
there is, on the whole, not much diff'erence,
I fancy, between the literature of our day
and that of other days. In the matter of
animation, though, we shall have to allow
ourselves to have suffered a loss. Unques-
tionably literature commands now no such
copious flow of animal spirits as it com-
manded formerly. Still many a reader
who accounts himself entirely innocent of
a pessimistic disposition, but who has
never had his reflections sobered by ex-
cursions into the confessedly sportive pas-
sages in the older literature, will be quite
reconciled to have the vacancy go unfilled.
It would be well for the people who are so
sensitive to all excesses of gravity to re-
member that no other part of literature has
proved so perishable as the fun.

JtA tv, 1 K i rt^.—

PAINTED FOR SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE BY U.MARCHETT

■Simile bv GAST

"YOU MUST LEARN TO FORGET."

— See . IpjiU's of (intft.

SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XII.

DECEMBEE, 1892.

No. G.

THE MURAL PAINTINGS IN THE PANTHEON AND
HOTEL DE VILLE OF PARIS.

By IVill H. Low,

HE surprise of the av-
erage citizen may be
imagined who in read-
ing his morning paper
should find, between a
racy Presidential cam-
paign scandal and an
account of the latest record - beating
performance of a transatlantic steamer,
or a transcontinental train, a record of
the proceedings of his local Board of
Alderman like that which follows :

Whereas, The city of has now

arrived at a stage of progress where it
is one of the most important centres
of civilization, and it behooves us as
good citizens, animated by a just sense
of our position, to keep before us and
give forth to the world at large evi-
dence of our prosperity and impor-
tance ; be it

Resolved, That the city of shall

employ the most skilful architects, the
most competent builders, and, as their
services may be required, the most cim-
ning artificers of various kinds, to de-
sign and erect a building which shall
stand as a symbol to our people and to
the world of our greatness and enlight-
enment. And be it further

Resolved, That on the completion of
the building proper, the most famed
artists, sculptors, and painters of our
country shall be invited to perpetuate, by
their art, the history of our past, the rec-
ord of our present, and the aspirations

Copyright, 1892, by Charles Scr
Vol. XII.— 72

of our future within said building, in
order that he who runs may read the
cause and the effect of this our great-
ness.

The imaginary citizen, on reading this
extra -imaginary resolution, would rub
his eyes, would probably question the
right of the city father to squander the
inheritance of his son ; but through it
all would, we may be sure, run a thread
of conviction that the world was mov-
ing at a ra]3id pace, and that there w^as
much that was new under the sun.

Nevertheless, if in point of intelli-
gence such a resolution would denote
progress, in point of time it would be
as old as the first step taken toward the
erection of the Cathedral of Florence,
seven or eight centuries ago ; for the im-
agined resolution is but a free transla-
tion, from memory, of one passed by the
Syndics of Florence before proceeding
to erect the proud dome which soars
above their happy valley. Their town
was commercial in its trend ; they were
simple, practical merchants ; but having
arrived at a period of great material
prosperity, they recognized the neces-
sity, which is as great in the new" marts
of the world as in the old, as necessary
now as then, of giving place to the higher
ennobling idealism which finds its best
material exponent in spacious temples
and adorning works of art. The intel-
lectual aspiration of a people cannot in
truth be held to be embodied in its lit-

ibner's Sons. All rights reserved.

G62

MURAL PAINTINGS IN PARIS.

erature, whether it be the prose or poe-
try of iinagiiiatioii, or the recorded in-
vestigation of its philosophers or its
scientists. No matter how wide-sj)read
mav be the diffusion of knowledge, no
matter how multiplied may be the
means of instruction, so that the printed
book may be in the hands of every citi-
zen, there yet remains the fundamental
need of the intuitive absorption of an in-
telligence through the eyes. Nor is this
by any means confined to him who, hav-
ing opportunities of education placed be-
fore him, neglects to avail himself of his
privileges ; the student lifts his study-
dimmed eyes from the printed page and
receives through another sense a vision
which uplifts him in another, but no less
greater, manner above the momentary
and material accidents of life. The Old
World has long recognized this truth,
and throughout political vicissitudes,
throughout social and economic changes,
it had held it to be a part of civilized
life, without which it would retrograde
toward the savage who, once his stom-
ach filled, sleeps. France, where many
things are managed " better," has al-
ways managed this particularly^ well. At
least from the Gascon king who, prac-
tical spirit, not only wished every
Frenchman to have his poule au pot,
but who made his Paris, his France,
beautiful, down to M. Carnot, under
whose reign we have seen the new Sor-
bonne built and decorated, the useful-
ness of beauty has been recognized.

From this j^oint of view, therefore,
rather than from one more purely
artistic or critical, I am glad of the
opportunity afforded in these pages
to describe some of the more recent,
and consequently less generally known,
manifestations of the civic pride and
dignity of Paris.

Before proceeding, however, and in
order to show how far-reaching is the
demonstration of this sentiment, it may
be well to explain that the city of Paris
is subdivided into twenty wards (or
arrondissements), that in each ward is
a city hall in miniature, known as
the Mairie. In these buildings various
civil acts — marriages, declarations of
births or deaths, etc. — are performed,
and almost every building is decorated
by statues or mural paintings, many of

them of great merit, and all of them
giving opportunity for the manifesta-
tion of that artistic sense which Paris
rightly judges to be one of her most
precious possessions. In addition to
these are the countless churches, the
schools of various kinds, buildings for
the transaction of public business —
even the Louvre, wdiere the walls being
covered with framed pictures, the de-
corative artists have found constant
emj)loyment for more than a century
on the ceilings and along the stairways.
In fact, every civil or governmental
building in Paris is more or less deco-
rated ; all attest the greatness of the
country, and all its citizens feel a glow
of honest pride as they pass by or under
this pictured history or allegory, and
engaged perhaps in the transaction of
the most commonj)lace business, have,
by the means of their beautiful envi-
ronment, a momentary surcease of care,
a moment's uplifting to higher, nobler
thought.

It is difficult for an artist to agree
altogether with the natural deduction
to be drawn from the sight and the
influence of such works of art ; for
to one not an artist, who follows the
great throngs of people who flock to
the Pantheon to read their history writ-
ten on the painted wall, the thought
is paramount that this is art's true,
highest function. To tell a story, to
make visible a memory or a thought,
is, in effect, from a non - artistic point
of view, the function of art ; to do all
this with due regard to the prosody of
technical requirements, to give latitude
for the expression of the temperament
of the artist, is the exception to which
an artist would lay claim. It goes
without saying that in the choice of ar-
tists, and in their more or less fitness
for their task, there is abundant room
for criticism — a criticism which can only
be lightly touched ui3on in an article
like this. We will rather, therefore,
approach the works described in the
humor of the public for whom they are
destined, and entering the great portal
of the Pantheon, experience the feeling
which, to an American at least, even
Westminster in London, with its thou-
sand memories with which we can
claim relationship, or Santa Croce in

The Sanctification of Saint Genevieve.
(From the painting by Puvis de Chavannes, in the Pantheon.)

ENCRAvEO Lf

ENGRAVED BY C. A. POWELL.

The Death-bed of Saint Genevieve.
(From the painting by Jean Paul Laurens, in the Pantheon.)

MURAL PAINTINGS IN PARIS,

665

Florence, with the threat
names eushrined therein,
fails to give. For the Pan-
theon, despite its first des-
tination as the cliurch of
Saint Genevieve in 1764,
takes its real character as a
purely civic monument from
the decree by the Legislative
Assembly, which set it apart
as a last resting - place for
the citizens who had achieved
distinction, and wrote across
its pediment Aux grands
homines la Palrie reconnais-
sante.

A more simple and grand
recognition of the principles
for which our forefathers
fought, and the fruits of
which w^e are supposed to
enjoy, would be difficult to
find than this great edifice,
set apart, not for the rulers
or the nobility, but for the
great men to whom the coun-
try acknowledged its indebt-
edness. The Restoration
having more nobles in its
hierarchical Church than
sympathy with its citizens,
promptly effaced the inscrip-
tion, which the French peo-
ple, in their touching strug-
gle for liberty, replaced after
1830. The citizen -king re-
spected the destination given
to the building by the peo-
ple, but in 1851 the third
Napoleon gave it back to the
Church, in whose hands it
remained until 1885, wdien it
again became the Pantheon,
which, from the apparent
temper of France, it is likely
to remain. Throughout its
checkered existence, how-
ever, and despite the fact
that the main and modern
decoration was commenced while the
building was a church (or perhaps be-
cause of that fact, since the Church,
even in France, has a more human sen-
timent in these days than at the com-
mencement of the century), the building
has an eminently republican aspect. It
must be confessed that the dust of Vic-

The Coronation of Charlennagne.
(From one of the panels of Henri Levy's painting in the Pantheon.)

tor Hugo seems more of and with us
than that of Edward the Confessor ;
hence the feeling which the contemjjo-
raneous, cosmopolitan, average Ameri-
can must experience in this vast edifice.
Of the building i:)roper, however, it
is neither the province nor the pur-
pose of this article to treat, beyond

GGG

MURAL PAINTINGS IN PARIS,

the mere mention of the sentiment in-
spired by its large, well-lighted spaces ;
a sentiment intensified by the study of
the mural paintings which it contains.
The most remarkable of these is that by
Puvis de Chavannes, which, like most of
the others, consists of one large com-
position divided into three panels by
the interposition of columns, a fourth
panel, contained in the space between
two columns, forming a separate com-
position. The larger triptychal panel
represents Saint Genevieve, who, the
child of humble parents according to
the legend, was remarked by the good
bishops of the early Church as they
journeyed to England to convert the
heathen. The scene represents a land-
scape which has many characteristics of
the present environing country around
Paris, with Mont Valerien in the back-
ground. The good bishops, in their
episcopal garb, have singled out from
the people who crowd around them a
little child, who gravely looks up at them
as she is blessed and her future destiny
prophesied. In the foreground mari-
ners apj)roach the boat which is to carry
the missionaries on their journey, and
around and about are gathered the
country people, some kneeling and in-
voking the blessing of the holy men,
others bringing the sick to be cured,
and others still, occupied in their daily
tasks. This, and the accompanying
panel, which represents two peasants
who, from the vantage-ground of a lit-
tle hillock, observe the child Genevieve
engaged in prayer, and who, with the
simple devotion of simple peasants, stop
the plough to make the sign of the
cross, are easily described as to subject.
It is less easy to convey an idea of the
charm of the work itself, a charm so
greatly dependent on color, and perhaps
still more so on the harmony between the
painting and the place it occupies, that
the accompanying engraving [page 663]
may fail to give it. It is an almost prim-
itive world that one looks on in M. Puvis
de Chavannes's decoration, a world hav-
ing little in common with ours, except
the forms of nature and the atmosphere
depicted. Yet the types are essentially
human, modern even ; but, modern or
human, with the trivial, the local char-
acteristics suppressed. We no longer

flock around our missionaries with the
unquestioning simple faith with which
these good folk surround Saint Gene-
vieve and the bislioi:)s ; but there is
in us all a chord of belief, which, shred
from the complex strings which vibrate
to the touch of our century', this gifted
painter has been able to find.

With a knowledge of the after-life of
this sim23le little girl, more of which we
shall see dejoicted further on, I can well
understand that her prototype, in some-
one of the little orphan asylum children
who often j^ass before these paintings
under the guidance of their instructors,
may find the inspiration of a life in the
painted image. Of the decorative qual-
ity, of the exquisite marriage of light
and color, of the gravely subdued, al-
most archaic but thoroughly typical,
character of the drawing, many have
borne testimony since these panels, the
first of the new decorations, were placed
here in 1877. Puvis de Chavannes was
then but little known except to the
few, and his talent found but little
sympathy ; but anyone who was in Pa-
ris at that time, and who was interest-
ed in art, will remember the instant tri-
umph which greeted these works.

Another painter of another stamp has
affixed the sign-manual of his tempera-
ment in the panels which form j)endants
to those of Puvis de Chavannes. Within
similar spaces Jean Paul Laurens has
painted the death -bed of Saint Gene-
vieve [page 664]. In a vast hall of mas-
sive architecture, the dying saint, raised
on her pillow, dominates the faithful who
surround in orderly and decent confu-
sion the death-bed of their patron saint.
It is a fine page of history, and M. Lau-
rens, proceeding contrariwise from M.
Puvis de Chavannes, has, by an array of
archaeological precision, of insistance uj)-
on local types, reconstituted for this lat-
ter day a dramatic scene. Decoratively
it is less in keej^ing with the tone of the
building, though as a detached painting
it is of a fine, sombre harmony, and the
sturdy, constructive character of the
drawing shows us Jean Paul Laurens at
his best. Between these we have, on the
wall nearest the Puvis de Chavannes,
" The Coronation of Charlemagne " [page
665], a somewhat confused and theatrical
rendering of the subject by Henri Levy.

Jeanne d'Arc Burned at the Stake, Rouen, 1431.
(From the painting by J. E. Leuepveu, in the Pautheou.)

ENGRAVED BY C. I. BUTLER.

068

MURAL PAINTINGS IN PARIS.

It is not without a certain vividness of
color and a most savant ordonnance in
respect to composition, but it is most de-
cidedly unmural and unsuited to its po-
sition. This matters little apparently,
and perhaps hapjiily, to the average cit-
izen. With Charlemagne — "protector

whole it is perhaps as fine an example
as can be found of what an ultra-aca-
demic art education will produce on a
nature apt to receive its lessons. M.
Josejih Blanc, the author of this work,
is a Prix de Rome, and has evidently
taken to heart all that an academy can

Return of the Victorious Clovis from Tolbiac.
(Frieze of the painting by Joseph Blanc, in the Pantheon.)

of letters," the device reads -^ exists
another glorious episode in the history
of his patrie, and from seven to seventy
this work finds its admirers. Two small-
er panels near by, the work of Th. Mail-
lot, represent local Parisian customs of
other times in connection with the ven-
eration of Saint Genevieve. They are
rather uninspired works, full of a curi-
ous erudition like enlarged missal-paint-
ings, but again, from a non artistic point
of view, they interest and instruct.

The wall opposite the painting by Levy
contains a large panel representing the
battle of Tolbiac, where Clovis, seeing
his army on the point of defeat, vows to
become a Christian if victory is vouch-
safed ; and a smaller panel of his baj)-
tism after the battle. It is a composi-
tion rather scattered in character, Clovis
being made prominent by a display of
extraordinary movement, and on the

teach. Here is superb drawing ; com-
position studied, and, within limits, full
of invention ; a tone which, while it gives
little sense of color, keeps well within
the boundaries of mural decoration, and
yet the result artistically is feeble and
meaningless. One can hardly look at
this work without feeling that, with a
nature endow^ed with sentiment, such a
superb technical equipment would have
produced great work ; but, as it is, nei-
ther the battle nor the baptism move one
greatly ; the one sensation of curiosity
being aroused by the frieze, in which M.
Blanc has introduced contemj^oraneous
portraits, and we may admire M. Cle-
menceau, M. Lockroy, M. Arago, and M.
Coquelin, decked in the costumes of
Clovis and his companions, while Gam-
betta leads the procession [above]. Yet
with the criticism, w^hich I promised to
spare my reader, comes the thought that

ENGRAVED BY W. B. WITTE.

Saint Louis, King of France, Founding the Sorbonne.
(From the painting by Alexander Cabanel, in the Pantheon.)

G70

MURAL PAINTINGS IN PARIS.

The Martyrdom of Saint Denis.
(From the panel by Bonnat, iu the Pantheon.)

if one were a boy, with a prospect of be-
ing drafted into a standing army in a few
years, the sight of M. Blanc's great work
would fill one with joy. This brave ar-
ray of lances, or I know not what archaic
weapons, the horses (albeit, to quote an
irreverent art student, " a little india-
rubbery "), and the general melee of bat-
tle, to an eye not easily offended by too
evident reminiscences of older masters
must seem far more warlike and inspir-
ing than the curious modern warfare

represented by Meissonier. Crossing
to the other side of the building, we
come to four episodes in the life of
Jeanne d'Arc, by Lenepveu, which con-
stitute one of the " attractions' of the
Pantheon, so great is the power of
subject, but which have given rise to
very serious murmuring on the part
of the artistic public. With one of
the best subjects which could inspire a
French j^ainter, M. Lenepveu, to whom
we owe a really admirable ceiling in

MURAL PAINTINGS IN PARIS.

G71

Saint Denis Preaching.
(From the painting by P. V. Galland, in the Pantheon.)

the auditorium of the Grand Opera, has
chosen to represent his heroine and the
episodes in which she figures very much
as they might be represented on the
stage. It adds to the distress which
these works inspire to think that the
space filled by them was destined to be
decorated by Paul Baudry. Had Baudry
lived to carry out his designs, which
w^ere partially made at the time of his
death, the Pantheon w^ould probably
have had a worthy companion-piece to the

Puvis de Chavannes ; for he had studied
his subject thoroughly from all obtain-
able sources, and looked ujjon his work
as about to be the crowning effort of
his illustrious career. There has been,
in fact, a most unfortunate connection
between the deaths of some of the great
painters of France and the commissions
w^hich their death prevented from adorn-
ing the walls of the Pantheon. Jean
Franyois Millet, Paul Baudry, and Elie
Delaunay all held commissions for the

672

MUKAL PAINTINGS IN PARIS.

Pantlit'on at the time of their death.
Delaunay had so far finished his that
another hand will be able to complete
it, so that we shall not altogether lose
what, it is to be inferred from other work
by Delaunay, may be among the most
interesting of the Pantheon decorations.
In the cases of Baudry and Millet, how-
ever, the loss is irreparable ; and for the
latter there is no representation of what
his admirers can well believe would
have revealed a new phase of his talent.
Of Baudry w^e have the superb decora-
tions in the Nouvel Opera, which, though
hardly seen in their tasteless and pon-
derous surroundings, are yet known, to
those who saw them exhibited at the
Ecole des Beaux- Arts in 1874, to be the
capital decorative work of this century.
Meissonier, for many years previous to
his death, held a commission to paint a
great panel representing Sainte Gene-
vieve saving Paris from famine during
a time of siege. He made sketches for
the subject, one of which has, I think,
been exhibited ; but perhaps wisely, or
for some reason best known to himself,
this great autocrat of art never put his
project into execution.

To return to the present Jeanne d'Arc
of Lenepveu for a moment, to accentu-
ate the point which I am constrained to
acknowledge. These four panels, which
represent Jeanne at Domremy listening
to the voices, the assault of Orleans, the
coronation at Reims, and the death at
Rouen [page 667], are perhaps the most
popular in the Pantheon with the masses.
A wiser administration may in the fut-
ure (when their author has departed
to the rest which is accorded to the
laurel-crowned members of the Insti-
tute) change these panels for others
which, representing the same subjects,
will be more in consonance wdth the sur-
rounding decoration in point of dignity
of treatment. But as from their sub-
ject they touch the popular heart, so, as
before a shrine, we can always find a
devout assemblage. Sometimes it is a
little group of children with a teacher,
lay or clerical ; at others an in valid e,
one-armed, who has wandered from his
palace with its memories of another con-
queror ; and again two peasant women,
mother and daughter, the j^ounger,
flushed with pride of education, spelling

out the legends of the pictures, writ-
ten in a rather difficult text, to be sure.
The discovery of the dove escaping with
the expiring breath of Jeanne d'Arc fills
these last with awe ; and across this
comes the rasping voice of the per-
sonal conductor, who in English diffi-
cult to qualify runs through his bo/ii-
ment. " This now, ladies and gentlemen,
is the best thing here ; it's the history
of Jo-ann of Arc, and everything authen-
tic. When Sarah Bernhardt played
Jo-ann of Arc she came here and copied
the costumes. It is by four of the most
celebrated painters of France, and you'll
find their names in the corner ! " With
a patter of feet on the stone flooring
the personally conducted are led away
and others fill their place. The art might
be better, but this great picture-book
teaches a lesson of patriotism w^hich,
whether the beholder comes fromMont-
reuil-les-Peches or Oklahoma, strikes
home. The Pantheon holds, moreover,
beyond certain places boarded in where
Delaunay's work is being carried on from
the point where he laid down the brush,
and where Humbert's "Great Women of
France " are promised to be, a series of
panels by Alexandre Cabanel represent-
ing the life of Saint Louis, king of
France. Here we have perhaps a repre-
sentation more academic than sponta-
neous ; but there are many beautiful
features in the work w^hich, commencing
with the young prince learning at the
knees of Blanche of Castille, carry us
through the life of the wise monarch
and lawgiver, who founded the Sorbonne
[page 669], who abolished judicial tort-
ure, down to the point of his death at
Jerusalem. More history — easily re-
tained by "him who runs" and carry-
ing its lesson — "the Martyrdom of St.
Denis " [page 670], a vigorous but un-
poetical and undecorative panel of Bon-
nat, forms a panel near the door ; and
facing it on the other side is " St. Denis
Preaching," by Galland [page 671], which
has quite the opposite qualities, and of
which the main fault seems to be a cer-
tain over-individuality in the various fig-
ures which tends to distract and makes
the subject difficult to grasj).

Nothing has been said in this rapid
review of the sculj^ture, which counts
at least one masterpiece in the "St. Vin-

■&

-^^^*)

ENGRAVED BY FRANK FRENCH.

Music.

(From the panel in the ceiling of the Salle des Fetes, in the HOtel de Ville, painted by Gervex.)

G74

MUKAL PAINTINGS IN PARIS.

cent de Paul " of Falguiore. There are
other sculi^tures by Fremiet ("St. Gre-
goire de Tours ") and Hiolle ; a group
by Chapu ("St. Gerniam and St. Gene-
vieve") and at the end, where there is a
good mosaic from a design by Hubert
representing " Christ Showing to the
Guardian Angel of France the Great
Destiny of the French Peoj^le," there is
to be a monument commemorative of
the Revolution, by Falguiere. In fact,
all the decoration of the Pantheon, with
the exception of the central dome by
Gros, a survival of its earlier destination,
has been accomplished since 1876, and
is still in progress. The monument to
Victor Hugo, who was of yesterday, is
not yet in place, and that of the next
who shall be judged worthy is not yet
thought of. Thus the sculptors of to-
day are working for their country, as
behind the wooden partitions already
spoken of the painters are joining their
names to those of events which make
up history. This is one, and the great-
est, element of French art, which makes
it, instead of being a mere plaything of
the rich, who have framed pictures on
their walls as they have other objects of
laxury, a vital force walking hand in
hand with Literature and Science.

It is a curious fact that with the rapid
communication of to-day, and with the
vogue that French art has enjoj^ed
among our picture-dealer-led amateurs,
that in many cases the painters who en-
joy the most national reputation in
France, who in the eyes of their fellow-
citizens occupy the highest positions,
are almost unknown in the United
States. The reason is not far to seek :
While Chose and Machin were making
agreeable little pictures for purposes of
exportation, Baudry and Puvis de Cha-
vannes were decorating the walls of
national monuments. As I write this
in Paris, the whole of one page and a
portion of another of the principal
evening paper, Le Temps, is filled with
accounts of the unveiling of three stat-
ues in different portions of France.
The interest here is not exclusively ar-
tistic— far from it — but it is so welded
into and joined to the national life that
it serves in the cause of good govern-
ment, and thus demonstrates the use of
beauty.

A more purely municipal undertaking
is the new Hotel de Yille, or city hall
of Paris, which stands to-day complete-
ly rebuilt within fifteen years, not by any
means a fiawless work of art, since such
exist not, but one which to any think-
ing s^^ectator from our mighty new
republic carries a query, as he reflects
on the efforts made in wrong directions,
on the waste of monej'', and the usual
result in our great cities of any munici-
pal undertaking. The answer that they
manage those things better here in Paris
conies to the query ; and yet, to be fair,
it is easy to see how things might be
much better here in these very direc-
tions. There are numberless critics well
founded in their criticisms of the meth-
ods employed here, and of the results
achieved. But the one important thing
which the}^ do is to make a beginning ;
mistakes come as they do in most hu-
man affairs, but here and there results
a masterpiece, and an art which is not
impeccable is better than to be without
an outward and visible sign of the be-
lief in art inherent in us all, from the
savage who scratches a rude ornament
on his war-club to him w ho moulded the
Medicean tomb, the dome of St. Peter,
and painted the Sistine Chapel.

The city hall of Paris stands on the
site of the old Hotel de Ville, w'hich in
the ferment of 1871 was burned. The
principal fa9ade is, in fact, a reproduc-
tion of the old one, bat the building, as
resjDonding to the needs of a modern
city, is considerably larger. For a de-
scription of the building proper I can
refer my reader to any guide-book, or
some one of the monographs w^hich have
been published on the subject. From it
one would learn that the statues of emi-
nent men and women, most of them Pa-
risians, on the building number one hun-
dred and ten, and in addition there are
perhaps as many more personifying sis-
ter cities, or various arts, trades, or qual-
ities which the municipality of Paris
considers itself more or less obliged to
acknowledge, xlmong this great mass
of sculptured people all are not master-
pieces ; but it is safe to say that there
is not among them a single figure so
absolutely devoid of art as our familiar
friend, the Soldier's Monument, average
quality, furnished by the Granite

MURAL PAINTINGS IN PARIS.

G75

Ph

&H

or Marble Compauy,
which confronts us at
every turn at home.

In the maze of
courts a n d turrets,
abundantly, and, in
the main, tastefully,
decorated, it is simply
impossible to take a
step without the feel-
ing that a great cit}"
is at home here ; that,
the i^ride which every
good citizen holds as
a birthright finds ex-
pression in this sump-
tuous j^ile. When w^e
come to the interior,
even in its incomplete
condition, this feeling
gains in volume, and
the conviction finds
place that, whatever
its faults, this brave
building is finely typi-
cal of the 23resent city
of Paris. A consider-
able portion of the
building is given up
to various offices to
which the public is
not admitted, but
which are no less ap-
proj^riately, if some-
what less sumptuous-
ly, decorated than the
Salles des Fetes, which
are always open under
slight restrictions.

It is difficult to
undertake a detailed
description of the
Grande Salle des
Fetes, as a number of
the painted ceilings
and other decorations
are not in place. I
will therefore tran-
scribe a list furnished
by the Municipal
Commission of Dec-
oration for the Hotel
de Ville, and then de-
scribe some few of
the works already in
l^lace. The list, which
states that "aconsid-

G76

MUKAL PAINTINGS IN PARIS.

enable number " of the principal artists
have been conniiissioned to do the dec-
oration, adds that it will take some years
to finish. This is probable ; but from the
number of works already in j^lace, or
shortly to be there, the period is not like-
ly to be a long one. The list is as fol-
lows : Grande Salle des Fetes, 3 great
ceiling panels : " Paris Welcoming the
AVorld to her Festivals," by Benjamin
Constant ; " The Dance," by Aime Morot ;
" Music," by Henri Gervex ; 2 smaller
ceiling panels ("Flowers and Jewels"),
by Gabriel Ferrier ; 16 large figures rep-
resenting the provinces of France, by
Humbert, Milliet, Bertaux, and Weerts ;
stairway panels, by Luc Olivier Merson ;
domes and pendentives, by Joseph Blanc
and Schommer ; 16 landscape panels,
by various painters ; 2 antechambers to
the Salle des Fetes, panels covering
the wall spaces, by Puvis de Chavannes
and Boll ; great stairway to the Salle
des Fetes, ceiling and fifteen panels
("The Glory of Paris"), by £lie De-
launay ; three salons, called Salons a
arcades : First salon, ceiling composed
of three panels, by Leon Bonnat, " The
Arts ; " second salon, ceiling, three
panels, by Jules Lefebvre, " Letters ; "
third salon, ceiling, three panels, by
Besnard, " Science." In these three
rooms there are, in addition, 6 friezes,
by Leon Glaize, Commere, and LeroUe ;
36 triangular corner-pieces over the ar-
cades, by Chartran, Maignan, and Car-
rere ; 12, by Rivey, Collin, Marchal, and
Mile Forget ; 12 large figure panels, by
Tony Robert-Fleury, Ranvier, Dagnan-
Bouveret, Layraud, E. Thirion, H. Le-
roux, J. J. Henner, G. Callot, Jeanniot,
Buland, Armand Berton, Bixens ; 12
landscape panels, by Collin, Franyais,
Billet, Lapostolet, Henri Saintin, Ber-
thelon, Lansyer, Guillemet, Barrau,
Pierre Vauthier, and Luigi Loir. Lat-
eral gallery, ceiling, by Galland. Salon
at the angle of the rue Lobau, decora-
tion covering entire wall, by J. P. Lau-
rens, representing the history of Paris
and its municipal liberties. Vestibules :
2 large panels, by L'Hermitte and Tat-
tegrain ; 4 smaller panels over doors,
by Monginot, Quost, Jeannin, and Ces-
bron.

I have carefully copied these names,
many of which are familiar to us in the

United States, in order to show on what
a scale Paris has invited her great fam-
ily of artists to dignify her home. The
list of sculptors would be even longer.
The effect of all this is not one of too
great magnificence, for the spaces to be
filled are vast. Once in a while, as in
the decoration of the third Salon de I'ar-
cade, the only one which is comj^letely
finished, the ceiling, by Besnard, is so
startlingly rich in color that it seems a
pity that the whole room was not con-
tided to him to carry out in the same
scheme. In the Grande Salle des Fetes,
however, where in addition to the vari-
ous ceilings and painted decoration
there is considerable decorative sculpt-
ure, the effect is admirable. The ceil-
ing, by Benjamin Constant, is not yet
in place, and it is said that after seeing
it in the last Salon he has wisely modi-
fied it somewhat, so that it may take its
place between "The Dance," by Aime
Morot, and "Music," by Gervex [page
673], which, now that it is in place, pro-
duces a much better effect than when
seen last year in the Salon. Detached
pieces of the decoration were seen in
the Salon of this year, notably " The
Winter " of Puvis de Chavannes, for one
of the antechambers of the Salle des
Fetes. This forms a companion to the
" Summer " already in place, and proves
that which has already been proved, that
this painter is past-master in the art of
decoration. Like his other work, it is
admirably simple, synthetic to the last
degree, but full of poetry and sentiment.
"The Voiite d'Acier" (the Arch of Steel)
[page 675], by Jean Paul Laurens, who,
as in the Pantheon, is here in contrast
with Puvis de Chavannes, is less happy
in decorative conception. It is an ad-
mirable genre picture, magnified out of
its proper dimensions, more interesting
historically or anecdotically than as a
decoration. Still — the point which is
never missed — it is history made plain.
Not enough can be said at this time of
the final general effect of this magnifi-
cent demonstration of a city's greatness
and power, but enough has been accom-
plished already to make the heart of
every citizen of Paris swell with pride
as he looks on it ; and the effect, as the
work is finally finished, and with festi-
val and reception going hand in hand

APPLFS OF GOLD,

677

with the more sober business of a city's
administration, the city settles down in
its new house, will be cumulative.

The citizen of another great city, swell-
ing with pride of wealth and meagre in
pride of dignified representation, can

hardly look on this great building with-
out envy. The query arises and the an-
swer lags : When shall we arrive at a
point when, in our turn, we can point to
a great building and say, If you would
sea my monument, look about you ?

APPLES OF GOLD.

By Margaret Sutton Briscoe.

"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." — Proverbs xxv. 11.

" Disreputable weather ! — simply dis-
reputable ! " murmured Mr. Atwood.

He looked out from under the shelter
of his umbrella comfortably as he spoke.

The rain was falling from the heav-
ens in whirling sheets of silver. From
a roof just ahead of him the spouting
had given up carrying off the flow as
hopeless. The water ran over it in
streams, which the wind caught again
and flung aside in the air, breaking
them into rain-drops once more.

Mr. Atwood paused and watched the
tangle for a moment ; then shrugging
the collar of his heavy overcoat still
higher, and dexterously grasping his
umbrella handle close by the ribs, he
struggled on.

Around the street corner, and ap-
proaching the point of the angle which
Mr. Atwood was nearing, another fig-
ure was battling against the weather ;
but where the man showed a certain
vigor and enjoyment in resistance, the
woman — for it was a woman, and a
young one — walked with a nervous
rapidity, and an apparent heedlessness
of the wind's efforts to turn her light
umbrella inside out.

At the street corner the big, steadily
advancing umbrella and the little waver-
ing one met with a crash which brought
the respective owners to an abrui:)t
stand. They disengaged their weapons,
and peered out at each other through
the mist.

" Celeste ! Why, my dear child ! "
exclaimed Mr. Atwood.

He raised his hand quickly to his
Vol. XII.— 73

hat, but only to hold it in place, not in
salute.

Civilities die a natural death in a
whirlwind.

The gust of air seized the girl's bob-
bing umbrella, and settled the question
of turning it wrongside out once and
forever. In the same moment Mr. At-
wood's covering swept over her like a
great sheltering wing.

" Come here, child," he said ; " there
is room for one more in the ark. Throw
that wreck of silk and whalebone in the
gutter, and come under gingham for
once in your life."

Celeste obeyed, taking his offered
arm. Conversation was impossible un-
til the corner was passed where the four
winds of heaven seemed to have ap-
pointed a rendezvous. Then Mr. At-
wood looked down at his companion's
costume and smiled.

" Thin shoes, new gloves, and a silk
sieve waterproof ! May I ask, madam,
where you are going ? "

" I am taking a walk," said the girl,
speaking for the first time.

Mr, Atwood laughed. " Were, Ce-
leste," he corrected — " were. You are
being taken home now, my dear. There,
I trust, to be well scolded, as these
many moons have lapsed since the
honeymoon."

He looked down suddenly at the
hand on his arm — then into the face
by his side, where there were drops of
water which he did not think were rain,
and the lips were as tremulous as the
hand.

()78

APPLES OF GOLD,

" Old ! Heavens, how old you make
me feel," said Mr. Atwood, anxiously
examining the ribs of his umbrella.
" Here you are, a sedate matron, and I
remember the first day I visited your
family, and caught you, a little tot,
with long shaving curls pinned to your
yellow pigtails to eke them out. You
don't remember it, but I do. You were
a pretty child. Celeste. You might have
been a good one too, if we had spoiled
you less."

A great drop, which again was not
rain, fell on Mr. Atwood's sleeve.
Without turning he talked on. " What
business have you to be out a day like
this ? The wind is enough to make
you hoarse for a week, let alone the
dampness. Here, take my handker-
chief and tie it about your throat."

Celeste took the handkerchief he
offered, with a little hysterical laugh.

" That is just like you," she said,
openly drying her eyes. "Ignore, ig-
nore, always ignore — appearances, al-
ways appearances ! "

" I don't think you can quite quarrel
with me on that score. Here I am walk-
ing up a thoroughfare, with a weeping
young woman clinging to my arm, and
all the ' Quaker ladies ' in the puddles
staring at us. Could Mrs. Grundy ask
for more ? "

" Don't laugh," cried Celeste, hysteri-
cally, " pray don't ! "

Mr. Atwood turned and stood quite
still for a moment, looking into her
face.

Then he lifted the umbrella slightly,
and looked out from under it. They
had been walking in the teeth of the
storm, but now he altered their course
to a cross street, where the inner edge
of the farther pavement was compara-
tively sheltered.

"Now," he said, "we have miles of
way before us. My handkerchief is a
large one, and my reputation can stand
it. You may tell me what it is, if you
wish, and if I can help you ; if not, you
may cry your cry out with the weather,
and then I will take you home."

They walked on in silence. At last
Celeste spoke.

"I think," she said, thoughtfully, "I
think that I shall tell you. I am so
sorely in need of help, and the wind has

blown you to me. My trouble is about
my husband."

Mr. Atwood laid his hand quickly on
the one in his arm. He shook his head,
half smiling.

" No," he said, " the wind never
meant that. It blew you to me because
it knew I could be heartless enough
to send you away without letting you
speak. No, whatever it be, whether
great or small, if it concerns your mar-
ried life, tell no one. Fight it down —
put it behind you — do anything but
talk."

" Then you too fail me," said Celeste,
bitterly.

Mr. Atwood's voice grew graver, his
manner more serious.

" You must not misunderstand me.
You know me as always devoted to
your interests. I have no wdsh to learn
your secret. My advice to you is to
keep it. At the same time if you need
help, if you need me, I am here."

"I must have help," she answered, in
a choked voice ; " I have just discovered
that my husband is a liar."

Mr. Atwood uttered an exclamation
of incredulity. "A liar! Impossible,
Celeste."

"You thought it a lovers' quarrel,
did you not ? Now, will you listen ?
As you are a lawyer and a man of the
world you may understand."

"I am your old friend, and your
husband's," he answered gravely.
" Someone has misled you malicious-

"What I know I discovered myself."

" Then you are mistaken."

"No, I tell yoa I know it. He has
been deceiving me for months. Do
you suppose I accepted light evi-
dence ? "

Mr. Atwood was silent for a moment ;
then he spoke simply.

"You mean," he said, "that he has
been unfaithful to you ? "

Celeste lifted her head proudly, her
color rising.

" No, that humiliation I am spared.
My husband is still my husband."

The expression of troubled gravity
on Mr. Atwood's face lightened.

"Then," he replied, with decision,
"his wife must be his wife."

"I have made up my mind. I shall

APPLES OF GOLD.

679

return to my mother," said Celeste,
qviickly.

Apparently Mr. Atwood did not hear
her.

" What is it that has happened ? " he
asked.

Celeste flushed j^ainfuUy. Her eyes
dropped.

" How can I bring myself to tell it ? "
she cri§d, bitterly. " I am so ashamed.
If it were not so contemptible ! — its
hideousness lies in its smallness."

There was almost a smile in Mr. At-
wood's eyes as he looked down at her.

"Child," he said, half sadly, half
whimsically, "men are not great."

She glanced up quickly.

"Ah, you have not heard yet. I have
not told you. You know how my for-
tune is left to me ? "

" Yes — by your father's will it was
left you outright, was it not ? "

" Leaving me outright you had bet-
ter say," corrected the girl, with a laugh
which was not good to hear. " I wish
I had never seen a penny of it."

It was not a pretty story which she
had to tell and he to hear.

"I have been reinvesting," said Ce-
leste. "My father's investments were
too old-fashioned. You have no idea
how easy it was ; I had only to si^n
papers and my husband did all the rest.
I was to be troubled with nothing."

The umbrella brushed a long icicle
from a gateway which they passed to
the pavement at their feet. Its icy
tinkle seemed to find its echo in her
voice.

" Yesterday — it is the old story — my
husband gave me a box of papers to
assort, and among them I stumbled on
a letter which I read twice before I
understood. It was an acknowdedg-
ment of almost the exact amount I had
last reinvested, dated the same day —
one of my husband's debts of honor.
His honor ! I understood then why I
was not to be troubled."

Whatever were Mr. Atwood's
thoughts, they were not expressed in
his face. His eyes were fastened on
the lower points of his umbrella, from
which the water dropped ceaselessly.
His countenance was inscrutable.

" Had you no further evidence ? " he
asked, quietly.

" In plenty. It rolled up like a snow-
ball. I have an unfortunate memory
for dates and sums. Each one of my
reinvestments antedated some settle-
ments. Do you suppose I was easier
to convince than you ? Comparatively
speaking they all agreed."

" With what ? "

" The other papers."

" The other papers ! Ah, Eve — Eve.
It has been so since the first little red
apples were made. Child, I could al-
most wish you had remained ignorant :
the tree of knowledge bears such bit-
ter fruit. Yet, sooner or later it must
have come."

" I have been thinking that it would
be best for me to go first to my moth-
er's house, and from there make my
plans," said Celeste, with the same high-
strung composure.

"Once," answered Mr. Atwood,
thoughtfully, " I knew a woman — a de-
voted wife — whose husband was the
most scientific brute with whom I ever
came in contact. After years of tor-
ture I induced her to sue for divorce
for her children's protection. His
party — he inevitably has one, you know
— maintained that the root of all the
trouble lay in the fact that she did not
care for him, — and they found listen-
ers."

"I shall go to my mother," repeated
Celeste, firmly.

"And your children ? "

" I shall take them with me."

" And if your husband claim them ? "

" I should contest it."

"In court?"

"In court, if necessary."

" And are you sure that in after-years
they will thank you — even if by so
doing you rescue their property ? "

" That would not be my motive," she
interrupted.

Mr. Atwood went on, unheeding.
"They might, perhaps, prefer their
mother's and father's unspotted name
to riches. Children have an odd habit
of resenting these things in after-life.
I have heard parents complained of as
handicaps often enough to Avisli that
children could select them for them-
selves."

Celeste's lip curled.

" How civilized we are ! " she said.

680

APPLES OF GOLD.

scornfully. "You make your little bon-
mots ; I smile ; we walk on with my
life's problem under discussion, and it
strikes neither of us as odd."

*' Yes, we are very civilized, but
would you have us otherwise ? Would
it be better if I told you with brutal
directness that the w^orld draws small
distinction between a woman who re-
turns of choice to her family and a
woman returned? Suppose I pointed
out to you baldly that there are always
two sides told to a story ; that tongues
in plenty would say that you should
have given the money ; and finally, that
your children might live to curse the
day when their mother published their
father's shame — would that be bet-
ter?"

He could feel that she winced.

" Exposure would not be necessary.
He could trust to my silence. I am in
a position to dictate terms, I think.
Let him take the bulk of the property.
All I ask of him is that I may be al-
lowed to go quietly and take my chil-
dren with me."

" And what has he answered ? "

" Nothing as yet. When I met you
I had come out from it all to breathe
and think how best to speak to him."

Mr. Atwood turned so sharply that
he almost faced his companion.

" Do you mean that you have not yet
spoken to your husband ? "

" Not yet— I shall to-night."

" Thank Heaven," said Mr. Atwood,
fervently. " Thank Heaven, my dear
child. Celeste, your good angel has
watched over you."

She laughed mirthlessly.

" Over me ! Me ! If I have such an
one ' peradventure he sleepeth or he is
on a journey.' If an innocent woman
was ever delivered into the hands of
the unrighteous I have been that one."

" No, you are saved, you and your
children. Celeste, your husband must
never know of your discovery."

Celeste looked up in amazement.
" Leave him and give him no reason !
It would not be possible."

" No, that would not be possible, but
this will. You must go back to your
home and your husband, resolved to
pick up your life in silence where you
meant to lay it down. It is your only

chance for happiness, and for your
children's future."

As she grasped his meaning Celeste
withdrew from him with a gesture
almost of abhorrence.

" Do you realize what this is that you
are telling me to do ? " she asked. " I,
who have never known what a lie was !
You are telling me to live one from now
until I die — to make my whole life a
mask — to act a part day by day and
hour by hour."

Her eyes filled with passionate tears.
Her voice broke.

"It is your hard part to play," said
Mr. Atwood, slowly, " but you will play
it."

"Never."

"You will play it for your children
and for your children's father. Where
others love to remember, you must learn
to forget. Where others unfold their
hearts' secrets, you must wrap yours
away. It will be cruelly hard at first.
It will tax all your strength, all your
high spirit ; but you will succeed."

" Let me understand," said Celeste,
in a repressed voice, "just what this is
which you are mapping out for me."

" I want you to wipe yesterday and
to-day out of your life, letting no one
suspect — hardly admitting to yourself
— that they have made a difference.
Train yourself to forget, and forgive-
ness will follow."

Celeste shook her head.

"No, I could never forget. I can
forgive, but it must be from a distance.
I cannot live with him. I cannot be his
wife and the mother of his children."

" Yet you are both, irreparably. You
have put your hand to the plough and
you may not look back. You have come
out from your people and formed a
household of your own. You have no
moral right now to let it drop apart."

" And you think it could be bound
together with a lie ? "

Mr. Atwood smiled.

"There spoke your Puritan grand-
parents. The Truth — the Te-ruth, in
two syllables — a trifle through the nose
— and at any cost. Why not the Truth
of Saint Francis : ' Better to withhold
than to sjDeak unkindly ' ? Let me ask
you one question. You have assured
me that your husband cares for no

APPLES OF GOLD.

681

other woman — but does he still care
for you ? "

" Can you call this caring ? "

" Perhaps. I know that yours was a
love-match, to begin with. Would you
have said yesterday, before this discov-
ery, that there had been a change in
your husband ? "

"No-o," she answered, hesitatingly,
" there had been no change on the sur-
face."

"And you?"

He felt her arm tremble in his. There
was no answer, and he repeated his
question. Her voice faltered percepti-
bly.

" Can you wonder that my respect is
dead?"

" And your affection ? "

" I told you that my respect was dead.
My love could never live without respect
to'feed it."

"And yet I have known fatally nu-
merous cases that throve on less, and
without the excuse of marriage. I am
not asking if you forgive or if you re-
spect. I ask if you still care for your
husband as he is ? "

The rain dropping monotonously on
the umbrella was the only break in the
silence. Celeste spoke wearily, at last.

" Yes, I still care. But it only makes
it all harder — more impossible — more
miserable."

She broke down suddenly, weeping
softly,

" Oh, I have loved him — and, indeed,
he loved me. I Avould have given him
everything. How could he — ah ! How
could he wreck it all ! "

Mr. Atwood let her weep on in silence,
until her self-control again asserted it-
self. Then he spoke.

" There shall be no wreck, dear child.
Take courage : you will come to the
rescue. If I could promise you your
first ideal of love and life, I would. As
it is, I can only help you to a second
best, and with narrower limits, per-
haps. But then the worm has to be
content in its chestnut, and what are
we but worms ? "

"How good you are, and how you
understand," she whispered. "I will
try — indeed, I will try. Whatever you
tell me I will do," she added, humbly.

Mr. Atwood's eyelids dropped for a

moment. He bent over Celeste's bowed
head, and opened his lips to speak ;
then, with a sudden change, laid his hand
on hers, drawing it further through his
arm. He turned in the opposite direc-
tion to the one which they were taking.
" Then our first steps in the right path
will be toward home," he said, cheer-
fully. "We can reach it quickly from
here by cross-streets, and my first or-
ders are very practical. You are to put
on dry slippers and a warm gown, and
to send for a cup of hot tea."

She smiled sadly. " If that were all !
And then?"

"Then the next is practical also, if
not so easy. This leakage of your prop-
erty must be stopped at once."

Celeste made an impatient gesture. —
"That is the last point to consider."

"No, it is the first. Bemember, I
have known your husband as long as
you have, perhaps longer, and I know
him as one man knows another. He
will not enter into obligations with no
means of meeting them ; he did not be-
fore marrying you. When he comes to
you again, you must speak as lovingly
and gently as you can, but with deci-
sion. Tell him you feel it is wronging
his children to transfer so large sums
on the judgment of one mind ; that
you would be more content if someone
else were consulted — anyone he chooses
to name, provided he have knowledge
on such subjects. The objection would
be too reasonable, the condition too
generous, to be cavilled at. He will
consent, and, if I know him at all, sug-
gest that you name a friend of your
own. In that case the person most
natural for you to mention would be
myself. He will not be likely to lay
a reinvestment before me of which I
would not approve."

There was no sarcasm in his voice,
and she looked up with quick humilia-
tion to read it in his face, but in vain.
With a sudden realization that this was
the initiation of her part, she uttered a
broken exclamation, as of physical pain.
" No, no, it is impossible — you overrate
my strength."

As Mr. Atwood looked down at what
had been a face formed for all that was
hopeful and loving, and saw it now,
twisted with emotion, his eyebrows con-

682

APPLES OF GOLD.

tracted, and a curious deep cleft grew
between them. He spoke with extreme
gentleness.

" Celeste, if there were any other way
in the world, I should never insist on
one which is so repugnant to you, but
there is no other. If you destroy your
husband's belief in your belief in him,
you rob him of anything to live up to
in life. When you withdraw the cope-
stone of his self-respect, you set that of
his ruin. He could never look you in
the face again. You would lose every-
thing and gain nothing. Your strength
is to sit still. And besides "

He paused and hesitated, then smiled
the kindly, half-whimsical smile pecu-
liar to him.

" I may as well say it. Suppose, to-
day, every loving wife in the world
confessed to her husband the exact
estimate at which she rated his charac-
teristics in the tribunal of her secret
soul, how many homes would be left
standing to-morrow do you think?
We demand that our women admire us,
Celeste. It is an innocent vanity, but
I wonder if you know how deep its
roots are ? "

Again Celeste smiled sadly.

"You have conquered once more,"
she said, sighing, "and none too soon.
There are my door-steps. Yes, I will
try, and if I fail, or if I succeed, I shall
be ever grateful to you."

"You will not fail. Nature did not
give you that prominent little chin for
nothing, my child."

" No," she answered, thoughtfully, " I
think that I shall not fail."

They walked up the wet marble steps
in silence. Mr. Atwood rang the bell
and they stood in the sheltered ves-
tibule, with that strangeness already

cree2)ing in w^hich must come sooner or
later after hearts have been laid open.

" There is one thing more," said Mr.
Atwood ; " all that has been said by you
to me and by me to you under this cir-
cle of gingham must be closed with its
closing — and forever. I shall never re-
fer to it again, nor must you."

"I understand," she answered, simply.

The servant's footsteps sounded with-
in, coming down the hallway toward
the door. Celeste held out her hand,
and as he took it in his, with a gesture
which had no touch of gallantry in it,
Mr. Atwood raised it to his lips.

" You will succeed," he repeated.
The door opened — the harness of con-
ventionality was adjusted.

" You will come in ? " said Celeste,
with an interrogation which meant
nothing.

"No," he responded in the same
manner, "not now. Remember, Celeste,
dry shoes and a warm gown and a cup
of hot tea."

" I shall forget nothing."

He hurried her gently through the
open door.

" And you are not to stand in the
draught either," he added, smiling.
" Farewell "

"Farewell," she replied. Her lips
opened as if she would have spoken
further, but the door was closed.

Mr. Atwood stood for a moment on
the door-steps outside. His lower lip
was caught between his teeth, and the
upper one curled slightly. The same
curious cleft appeared between his
brows.

"No, I shall never forgive him," he
muttered as he descended the steps ;
" never — but you will. It was not
about a woman that he lied to you."

A SHADOW OF THE NIGHT.

By Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

Close on the edge of a midsummer dawn

In troubled dreams I went from land to land,

Eacli seven-colored like the rainbow's arc,

Regions where never fancy's foot had trod

Till then ; yet all the strangeness seemed not strange,

Whereon I wondered, reasoning in my dream.

At last I came to this our cloud-hung earth,

And somewhere by the sea-shore was a grave,

A woman's grave, new-made, and heaped with flowers ;

And near it stood an ancient holy man

That fain would comfort me, who sorrowed not

For this unknown dead woman at my feet.

But I, because his sacred office held

My reverence, listened ; and 'twas thus he spoke :

" When next thou comest thou shalt find her still

In all the rare perfection that she was.

Thou shalt have gentle greeting of thy love !

Her eyelids will have turned to violets,

Her bosom to white lilies, and her breath

To roses. What is lovely never dies.

But passes into other loveliness,

Star-dust, or sea-foam., flower, or winged air.

If this befalls our poor unworthy flesh,

Think thee what destiny awaits the soul !

What glorious vesture it shall wear at last ! "

While yet he spoke, sea-shore and grave and priest

Vanished, and faintly from a neighboring spire

Fell five slow solemn strokes upon my ear.

Then I awoke with a keen pain at heart,

A sense of swift unutterable loss.

And through the darkness reached my hand to touch

Her cheek, soft-pillowed on one restful palm —

To be quite sure !

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

By Octave Thanet.
v.— AN ASSISTED PEOVIDENCE.

was the Christmas turkeys
that should be held re-
sponsible. Every year
\., the Lossings give each
head of a family in their
employ, and each lad
helping to support his
mother, a turkey at
Christmastide. As the
business has grown, sc has the number
of turkeys, until it is now well up in the
hundreds, and requires a special con-
tract. Harry, one Christmas, some five
years ago, bought the turkeys at so good
a bargain that he felt the natural reac-
tion in an impulse to extravagance. In
the very flood-tide of the money-spend-
ing yearnings, he chanced to pass Dea-
con Hurst's stables and to see two Saint
Bernard puppies, of elephantine size
but of the tenderest age, gambolling on
the sidewalk before the ofiice. Deacon
Hurst, I should explain, is no more a
deacon than I am ; he is a livery- stable
keeper, very honest, a keen and solemn
sportsman, and withal of a staid de-
meanor and a habitual garb of black.
Now you know as well as I any reason
for his nickname.

Deacon Hurst is fond of the dog as
well as of that noble animal the horse
(he has three copies of Black Beauty in
his stable, which would do an incal-
culable amount of good if they were
ever read !) ; and he usually has half a
dozen dogs of his own, with pedigrees
long enough for a poor gentlewoman
in a New England village. He told
Harrj^ that the Saint Bernards were
grandsons of Sir Bevidere, the " finest
dog of his time in the world, sir ; " that
they were perfectly marked and very
large for their age (which Harry found
it easy to believe of the young giants),
and that they were "ridiculous, sir, at
the figger of two hundred and fifty ! "
(which Harry did not believe so read-
ily) ; and, after Harry had admired and
studied the dogs for the space of half

an hour, he droj^ped the price, in a kind
of spasm of generosity, to two hundred
dollars. Harry was tempted to close
the bargain on the spot, hot-headed,
but he decided to wait and prepare his
mother for such a large addition to the
stable.

The more he dwelt on the subject
the more he longed to buy the dogs.

In fact, a time comes to every healthy
man when he wants a dog, just as a
time comes when he wants a wife ; and
Harry's dog was dead. By conse-
quence, Harry was in the state of sen-
sitive affection and desolation to which
a promising new object makes the most
moving appeal. The departed dog
(Bruce by name) was a Saint Bernard ;
and Deacon Hurst found one of the
puppies to have so much the expres-
sion of countenance of the late Bruce
that he named him Bruce on the spot
— a little before Harry joined the
group. Harry did not at first recog-
nize this resemblance, but he grew to
see it ; and, combined with the dog's
affectionate disposition, it softened his
heart. By the time he told his mother
he was come to quoting Hurst's adjec-
tives as his own.

" Beauties, mother," says Harry, with
sparkling eyes ; " the markings are per-
fect — couldn't be better ; and their
heads are shaped just right ! You
can't get such watch-dogs in the world !
And, for all their enormous strength,
gentle as a lamb to women and chil-
dren ! And, mother, one of them looks
Hke Bruce ! "

"I suppose they would want to be
house-dogs," says Mrs. Lossing, a little
dubiously, but looking fondly at Harry's
handsome face ; " you know, somehow,
all our dogs, no matter how properly
they start in a kennel, end by being so
hurt if we keep them there that they
come into the house. And they are
so large, it is like having a pet lion
about."

DRAWN BY A. B. FROST. ENGRAVED BY E. H. DEL'ORME.

The Puppies — " Ridiculous, sir, at the figger of two hundred and fifty ! " — Page 684.

Vol. XTI— 74

G8G

STORIES OF A WESTERN TOWN.

" These (lo^s, mother, shall never put especially important political person-

a paw in the house." a^e to an especially important political

•' AVell, I hope just as I get fond of council. The day 'following was a 8un-

" Beside him skipped a little man in ill-fitting black." — Page 687.

them they will not have the distemper
and die ! " said Mrs. Lossing ; which
speech Harry rightly took for the white
flag of surrender.

That evening he went to find Hurst
and clinch the bargain. As it hap-
pened, Hurst was away.

driving

an

day ; but, by this time, Harry was so
bent upon obtaining the dogs that he
had it in mind to go to Hurst's house
for them in the afternoon. When Harry
wanted anything, from Saint Bernards
to purity in politics, he wanted it with
an irresistible impetus ! If he did

STORIES Of A WESTERN TOWN,

687

Tvronfi;', his error T\'as linked to its own
2)unisliment. But this is anticipating-,
if not presuniino- ; I prefer to leave
Harry Lossin<2^'s experience to paint its
own moral without pushing-. ' The event
that happened next "svas Harry's pull-
ing out his check-book and beginning
to write a check, remarking, with a
slight drooping of his ej-elids, "Best
catch the tleacon's generosity on the
fly, or it may make a home run ! "

Then he let the pen fall on the blot-
ter, for he had remembered the day.
After an instant's hesitation he took a
couple of hundred -dollar bank-notes
out of a drawer (I think the}^ were gifts
for his two sisters on Christmas - day,
for he Avas a generous brother ; and
most likely there w^ould be some small
domestic joke about engravings to go
with them) ; these he placed in the
right-hand pocket of his waistcoat. In
his left-hand waistcoat pocket were two
five-dollar notes.

Harr}" was now arrayed for church.
He was a figure to j^lease any woman's
eye, thought his mother, as
she walked beside him, and
gloried silentty in his six feet
of health and muscle and
dainty cleanliness. He was
in a most amiable mood, what
with the Saint Bernards and
the season. As they ap-
proached the cathedral close,
Harry, not for the first time,
admired the pure Gothic lines
of the cathedral, and the soft
blending of the grays in the
stone with the brown network
of Virginia creeper that still
fluttered, a remnant of the
crimson adornings of au-
tumn. Beyond were the bare,
square outlines of the old
college, with a wooden cupola
perched on the roof, like a
little hat on a fat man, the
dull-red tints of the profess-
ors' houses, and the withered
lawns and bare trees. The
turrets and balconies and
arched window^s of the boys'
school displayed a red back-
ground for a troop of gray
uniforms and blazing buttons ; the boys
were forming to march to church. Op-

posite the bo^'s' school stood the mod-
est square l)rick house that had served
the first bishop of the diocese dur-
ing laborious years. Now it was the
dean's residence. Facing it, just as you
approached the cathedral, the street
curved into a half-circle on either side,
and in the centre the granite soldier
on his shaft looked over the city that
would honor him. Harry saw the tall
figure of the dean come out of his
gate, the long black skirts of his cas-
sock fluttering under the wind of his
big steps. Beside him ski2:)i3ed and
ran, to keej^ step with him, a little man
in ill-fitting black, of whose appear-
ance, thus viewed from the rear, one
could only observe stooping shoulders
and iron-gray hair that curled at the
ends.

" That must be the poor missionary
who built his church himself," Mrs.
Lossing observed ; " he is not much of
a preacher, the dean said, but he is a
great worker and a good pastor."

" So much the better for his peojDle,

Invented a

little oven or something to steam mattresses and things."

— Page 690.

and the worse for us ! " says Harry,
cheerfully.

688

STORIES OF A IVES TERN TOIVN.

*'Wliy?" nomination. It seemed quite out of

*' Naturally. We shall get the poor kecpin*^ witli his liomely manner and
sermon and they will get the good pas- crumpled surplice that this particular
toring ! " reader should intone. Intone, never-

Then Harry caught sight of a worn- theless, he did ; and as badly as mortal
an's frock and a profile that he knew, man well could ! It was not so much

that his voice or his ear went
wrong ; he Avould have had a
musical voice of the heavy
sort, had he not bellowed ;
neither did his ear betray
him ; the trouble seemed to
be that he could not decide
when to begin ; now he began
too early, and, again, Avith a
startled air, he began too late,
as if he had forgotten.

*' I hope he will not preach,"
thought Harry, who was ab-
sorbed in a rapt contempla-
tion of his sweetheart's back
hair. He came back from a
tender reverie (by way of a
little detour into the furni-
ture business and the estab-
lishment that a man of his
income could afford) to the
church and the j^reacher and
his own sins, to find the
strange clergyman in the pul-
pit, plainly frightened, and
bawling more loudly than
ever under the influence of
fear. He preached a sermon
of wearisome j)latitudes ;
making uj) for lack of thought
by repetition, and shouting
himself red in the face to ex-
press earnestness. "Fourth-class Meth-
odist effort," thought the listener in
.the Lossing pew, stroking his fair mus-
tache, " with Episcopal decorations !
That man used to be a Methodist min-
ister, and he was brought into the fold
by a high- churchman. Poor fellow,
the Methodist church polity has a i3lace
for such fellows as he ; but he is a
stray sheep with us. He doesn't half
catch on to the motions : vet I'll war-

"I do believe it was better tl-ian the puppies." — Page 691

and thought no more of the preacher,
whoever he might be.

But he was in the chancel in plain
view, after the procession of choir-boys
had taken their seats. He was an el-
derly man with thin cheeks and a large
nose. He had one of those great oro-
tund voices that occasionally roll out
of little men, and he read the service
with a misjudged effort to fill the build-
ing. The building happened to have
peculiarly fine acoustic properties ; and rant he is proud of that sermon, and
the unfortunate man roared like him of his wife thinks it one of the great ef-
Bashan. There was nothing of the cus- forts of the century." Here Harry
tomary ecclesiastical dignity and mo- took a short rest from the sermon, to
notony about his articulation ; indeed contemplate the amazing moral phe-
it grew plain and plainer to Harry that nomenon : how robust can be a wife's
he must have " come over " from some faith in a commonplace husband !
more emotional and unrepressed de- "Now, this man," said Harry, be-

STORIES OF A IVESTERN TOIVI^.

(589

coining interested in his own fancies,
"this man never can have lived! He
doesn't know what it is to suffer, he
has only vegetated ! Doubtless, in a
prosaic way, he loves his wife and chil-
dren ; but can a fellow who talks like
him have any delicate sympathies or
any romance about him ? He looks
honest ; I think he is a right good fel-
low and works like a soldier ; but to be
so stupid as he ought to hurt ! "

Harry felt a whimsical sjTnpathy with
the preacher. He wondered why he
continually made gestures with the left
arm, never with his right.

"It gives a one-sided effect to his
eloquence," said he. But he thought
that he understood when an unguarded,
movement revealed a rent which had
been a mended place iij his surplice.

" Poor fellow," said Harry. Then he
recalled how, as a boy, he had gone to a
fancy-dress ball in Continental small
clothes, so small that he had been
strictly cautioned by his mother and
sisters not to bow except with the
greatest care, lest he rend his magnifi-
cence and reveal that it was too tight to
allow an inch of underclothing. The
stockings, in particular, had been
short, and his sister had providently
sewed them on to the knee-breeches,
and to guard against accidents still
further, had pinned as well as sewed,
the pins causing Harry much anguish.

"Poor fellow ! " said Harry again, "I
feel like giving him a lift ; he is so
prosy it isn't likely anyone else will
feel moved to help."

Thus it came about that when the
dean announced that the alms this
day would be given to the parish of
our friend who had just addressed us ;
and the plate paused before the Loss-
ing pew, Harry slij^ped his hand into
his waistcoat pocket after those two
five-dollar notes.

I should explain that Harry, being
a naturally left-handed boy who had
laboriously taught himself the use of
his right hand, it is a family joke that
he is like the inhabitants of Nineveh,
who could not tell their right hand
from their left. But Harry himself
has always maintained that he can tell
as well as the next man.

Out drifted the flock of choir-boys
Vol. XII.— 75

singing, " For thee, oh dear, dear coun-
try," and presently, following them,
out drifted the congregation ; among
the crowd the girl that Harry loved,
not so quickly that he had not time
for a look and a smile (just tinged
^vith rose), and because she was so
sweet, so good, so altogether adorable,
and because she had not only smiled
but blushed, and, unobserved, he had
touched the fur of her jacket, the
young man walked on air.

He did not remember the Saint Ber-
nards until after the early Sunday din-
ner, and during the after-dinner cigar.
He was sitting in the library, before
some blazing logs, at peace with all the
world. To him, thus, came his moth-
er and announced that the dean and
"that man who preached this morning,
you know," were waiting in the other

room

They seem excited," said she, "and
talk about your munificence. What
have you been doing ? "

"Appear to make a great deal of fuss
over ten dollars," said Harry, lightly,
as he sauntered out of the door.

The dean greeted him with some-
thing almost like confusion in his cor-
diality ; he introduced his companion,
as the Rev. Mr. Gilling.

" Mr. Gilling could not feel easy un-
til he had "

"Made sure about there being no
mistake," interrupted Mr. Gilling ; " I
— the sum was so great "

A ghastly suspicion shot like a fever-
flush over Harry's mind. Could it be
possible ? There were the two other
bills ; could he have given one of them ?
Given that howling dervish a hundred
dollars ? The fear was too awful !

" It was really not enough for you
to trouble yourself," he said ; "I dare
say you are thanking the wrong man."
He felt he must say something.

To his surprise the dean colored,
while the other clergyman answered, in
all simplicity :

" No, sir, no, sir. I know very well.
The only other bill, except dollars, on
the plate, the dean here gave, and the
warden remembers that you put in two
notes — I — " he grew quite pale — " I
can't help thinking you maybe intend-
ed to put in only one ! " His voice

690

STORIES OF A IVESTERN TOJVN.

broke, he tried to control it. "The
sum is so very Large ! " quavered he.

"I have given him both bills, $200,"
thought Harry. He sat down. He was
accustomed to read men's faces, and
plainly as ever he had read, he could
read the signs of distress and conflict
on the prosaic, dull features before him.

*'I intended to put in two bills," said
he. Gilling gave a little gasp— so little,
only a quick ear could have caught it ;
but Harry's ear is quick. The clergy-
man twisted one leg around the other,
a further sign of deliverance of mind.

"Well, sir, well, Mr. Lossing," he re-
marked, clearing his throat, "I cannot
express to you properly the — the ap-
preciation I have of your — jour princely
gift ! " (Harry changed a groan into a
cough and tried to smile.) "I would
like to ask you, however, how you would
like it to be divided. There are a num-
ber of worthy causes : the furnishing of
the church, which is in charge of the
Ladies' Aid Society ; they are very hard
workers, the ladies of our church. And
there is the Altar Guild, which has the
keeping of the altar in order. They
are mostly young girls, and they used to
wash my things — I mean the vestments "
(blushing) — "but they — they were
so young they were not careful, and
my wife thought she had best wash the
— vestments herself, but she allowed
them to laundry the other — ah, things."
There was the same discursiveness in
his talk as in his sermon, Harry thought ;
and the same uneasy restlessness of
manner. "Then, we give to — various
causes, and — and there is, also, my own
salary "

"That is what it was intended for,"
said Harry, " I hope the $200 will be of
some use to you, and then, indirectly it
will help your church."

Harry surprised a queer glance from
the dean's brown eyes ; there was both
humor and a something else that was
solemn enough in it. The dean had
believed that there was a mistake.

" All of it ! To me ! " cried Gilling.

" All of it. To you,'' Harry replied,
dryly. He was conscious of the dean's
gaze on him.

"I had a sudden impulse," said he,
" and I gave it ; that is all."

The tears rose to the man's eyes ; he

tried to wink them away, then he tried
to brush them away with a quick rub
of his fingers, then he sprang uj:) and
walked to the window, his back to
Harry. Directly he wac facing the
young man again, and speaking.

" You must excuse me, Mr. Lossing ;
since my sickness a little thing upsets
me."

" Mr. Gilling had diphtheria last
spring," the dean struck in, "there was
an epidemic of diphtheria in Matin's
Junction ; Mr. Gilling really saved the
place ; but his wife and he both con-
tracted the disease, and his wife nearly
died."

Harry remembered some story that
he had heard at the time — his eyes
began to light up as they do when he
is moved.

"Why, you are the man that made
them disinfect their houses," cried he,
"and invented a little oven or some-
thing to steam mattresses and things.
You are the man that nursed them and
buried them when the undertaker died.
You digged graves with your own
hands — I say, I should like to shake
hands with you ! "

Gilling shook hands, submissively,
but looking bewildered.

He cleared his throat. " Would you
mind, Mr. Lossing, if I took up your
time so far as to tell you what so over-
came me ? "

" I should be glad "

"You see, sir, my wife was the
daughter of the Episcopal minister^I
mean the rector, at the town — well, it
wasn't a town, it was two or three towns
off in Shelby County where I had my
circuit. You may be surprised, sir, to
know that I was once a Methodist
minister."

" Is it possible ? " said Harry.

"Yes, sir. Her father — my wife's, I
mean — was about as high a churchman
as he could be, and be married. He
induced me to join our communion ;
and very soon after I was married. I
hope, Mr. Lossing, you'll come and see
us some time, and see my wife. She —
are you married ? "

"I am not so fortunate."

" A good wife cometh from the Lord,
sir, sure ! I thought I appreciated
mine, but I guess I didn't. She had

STORIES Of A IVESTERN TOWN,

691

two things she wanted, and one I did
want myself ; but the other — I couldn't
seem to bring my mind to it, no — any-
how ! We hadn't aiiy children but one
that died four years ago, a little baby.
Ever since she died my wife has had a
longing to have a stained-glass window,
with the picture, you know, of Christ
blessing little children, put into our
little church. In Memoriam, you know.
Seems as if, now we've lost the baby, we
think all the more of the church. May-
be she was a sort of idol to us. Yes,
sir, that's one thing my wife fairly
longed for. We've saved our money,
what we could save ; there are so many
calls ; during the sickness, last winter,
the sick needed so many things, and it
didn't seem right for us to neglect them
just for our baby's window ; and — the
money went. The other thing was dif-
ferent. My wife has got it into her
head I have a fine voice. And she's
higher church than I am ; so she has
always wanted me to intone. I told
her I'd look like a fool intoning, and
there's no mistake about it, I do ! But
she couldn't see it that way. It was
'most the only point wherein we dif-
fered ; and last spring, when she was so
sick, and I didn't know but I'd lose her,
it was dreadful to me to think how I'd
crossed her. So, Mr. Lossing, when
she got well I promised her, for a thank-
offering, I'd intone. And I have ever
since. My people know me so well, and
we've been through so much together,
that they didn't make any fuss — though
they are not high — fact is, I'm not high
myself. But they were kind and con-
siderate, and I got on pretty well at
home ; but when I came to rise up in
that great edifice, before that cultured
and intellectual audience, so finely
dressed, it did seem to me I could not
do it ! I was sorely tempted to break
my promise. I was, for a fact." He
drew a long breath. " I just had to
pray for grace, or I never would have
pulled through. I had the sermon my
wife likes best with me ; but I know it
lacks — it lacks — it isn't what you need !
I was dreadfully scared and t felt mis-
erable when I got up to preach it — and

then to think that you were — but it is
the Lord's doing and marvellous in our
eyes ! I don't know what Maggie will
say when I tell her we can get the
window. The best she hoped was I'd
bring back enough so the church could
pay me eighteen dollars they owe on
my salary. And now — it's wonderful !
Why, Mr. Lossing, I've been thinking
so much and w^anting so to get that
window for her, that, hearing that the
dean wanted some carpentering done,
I thought maybe, as I'm a fair carpen-
ter— that was my trade once, sir — I'd
ask him to let me do the job. I was
aware there is nothing in our rules — I
mean our canons — to prevent me, and
nobody need know I was the rector of
Matin's Junction, because I would come
just in my overalls. There is a cheaj)
place where I could lodge, and I could
feed myself for almost nothing, living
is so cheap. I was praying about that,
too. Now, your noble generosity will
enable me to donate what they owe on
my salary, and get the window too ! "

" Take my advice," said Harry, " do-
nate nothing, say nothing about this
gift ; I will take care of the warden, and
I can answer for the dean."

" Yes," said the dean, " on the whole,
Gilling, you would better say noth-
ing, I tliink ; Mr. Lossing is more
afraid of a reputation for generosity
than the small-pox."

The older man looked at Harry with
glistening eyes of admiration ; with
what Christian virtues of humility he
was endowing that embarrassed young
man, it is painful to imagine.

The dean's eyes twinkled above his
handkerchief which hid his mouth, as
he rose to make his farewells. He
shook hands, warmly. " God bless
you, Harry," said he. Gilling, too,
wrung Harry's hands ; he was seeking
some parting word of gratitude, but he
could only choke out, " I hope you will
get married some time, Mr. Lossing,
then you'll understand."

"Well," said Harry, as the door
closed, and he flung out his arms and
his chest in a huge sigh, " I do be-
lieve it was better than the puppies ! "

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION.

By F. D. Millet.

'HE grand style,
the perfect pro-
portions, and
the magnificent
dimensions o f
the buildings of
the World's Co-
lumbian Expo-
sition, excite a
twofold senti-
ment in the
mind of the vis-
itor— wonder and admiration at the
beauties of the edifices, and regret and
disappointment that they are not to re-
main as monuments to the good taste,
knowledge, and skill of the men who
built them, and as a permanent memo-
rial of the event which the Exposition
is intended to celebrate. This complex
feeling is a natural one, and is perfect-
ly comprehensible in the presence of
the noble porticos and colonnades, the
graceful towers, superb domes, and im-
posing fa9ades. Previous exhibitions,
with the possible exception of that in
Vienna in 1873, have been confessedly
ephemeral in the character of their con-
struction, and have shown a distinctly
playful and festal style of architect-
ure, with little attempt at seriousness
or dignity of design. The monumental
character of the group of Exposition
buildings in Chicago is not the result
of accident, but of deliberate fore-
thought and wise judgment.

In the heat of the fever of construc-
tion, which has spread like a contagion
from the rocks of Mount Desert to the
white sands of the Pacific coast, a new
race of architects has sprung up, fer-
tile in resources and clever in execu-
tion, but with little well - grounded
knowledge of the real principles of
their art. Beginning with the bulbous
conglomerations of material which have
been forced upon a long-suffering pub-
lic by the Government architects, and
ending with consciously picturesque
structures that hint more of the ter-

rors of mediaeval dungeons than of the
comforts of domestic life, and bear the
title of villa but the aspect of milita-
ry strongholds, the architecture of the
past two decades has, with some nota-
ble exceptions, been distinguished by in-
creasing ingenuity in imitation rather
than the development of skill in adap-
tation. It would be worse than fool-
ish to demand that an architect should
be thoroughly original, as it would be
to ask an artist to cut loose from all
the proven principles and traditions of
his profession, and invent an entirely
new method and a novel system. What
may be reasonably asked of an archi-
tect is that he have an individual point
of view, and modernize the adaptation
of old principles without disturbing
the real spirit of the same ; that he de-
velop and extend these principles to
meet the requirements of modern life ;
that, in fact, he work as nearly as pos-
sible in the same direction that the
masters of ancient architecture would
have done if they had been dealing
with modern problems of design, plan,
and construction. There are certain
immutable laws of harmony and pro-
portion which have always governed
and will always rule in architecture as
in art, and though they are disregard-
ed and tampered with for the sake of
novelty and so-called originality, this
faithlessness always meets its just pun-
ishment in the result. The majority of
modern architects have, in these days
of abundant photographs, models, and
measurements, been led to cater to the
vanity of half-educated clients, and have
engrafted French chateaux on Roman-
esque palaces, have invented wonder-
fully ingenious but viciously hybrid
combinations, one of which has been
aptly described as " Queen Anne in
front and Mary Ann in the back." The
precept and example of the scholarly
men in the profession have been power-
less to stem this tide of ill-considered
design, and nothing short of gradual

iaihUi:uiuuiliiiuiiiiiUiJhHi!iiuiiiii,,iiiiiiiiiliiii;;Miiiiiiui^^ iljlj^

ENGRAVED BY J. W. EVANS

Figure Emblematic of the Textile Arts, by Robert Reid, in One of the Domes of the Manufactures Building.

Vol. XII.— 76

694

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION,

reg"eneratioii and slow revulsion of sen-
timent a<J5"ainst this tendency lias been
hoped for until the present year.

Mr. D. H. Burnhani, the Director of
"Works of the World's Columbian Ex-

decided on the adoption of a general
classical style for the Imildings, sub-
ject, of course, to such modifications as
were found necessary by the require-
ments of each individual case. The re-

position, took the first important step suit is a satisfactory and sufficient proof
toward the renaissance of the true si)irit of the w^isdom of Mr. Burnham's action,

and there is now before the coun-
try a more extensive and instruc-
tive object-lesson in architecture
than has ever been j)resented to
any generation in any countiy
since the most flourishing period
of architectural eflbrt. The edu-
cational importance of this feat-
ure of the great Exposition can
scarcely' be over - estimated, and
its salutary influence on the fut-
ure architecture of this country
can be j^i'ophesied wdth absolute
certain t}^ The scheme has not
been considered complete, how-
ever, nor the lesson properly em-
phasized, without the necessary
adjuncts of the two arts so close-
ly allied to architecture, sculpt-
ure and painting, both of which
have been drawn upon with free-
dom and good judgment to sup-
plement and enrich the archi-
tectural features. Sculpture has
been employed far more exten-
sively than its sister art, for the
very good reason that few^ of the
buildings have been constructed
with any intention of carrying
the interiors to any high degree
of finish. It would have been
impracticable, under the circum-
stances, to bring the interiors up
to the same perfection as the ex-
teriors, even with the cheapest
material, for it would have added
an enormous per cent, to the cost
of construction. The architects
have, therefore, in most cases
frankly accepted the situation
and confined their efforts at em-
bellishment to the facades, con-
sidering the buildings simply as
great sketches of possible permanent
structures, confessedly utilitarian as to
the interior, but as sumptuous and sug-
gestive in exterior treatment as the con-
ditions permitted. Indeed, this w as the
only reasonable view to take, both be-
cause of the enormous size of the build-

Autumn," Panel by G. W. Maynard, in the Agricultural Building

of architecture in this country by ignor-
ing all precedents of competition, and
selecting as associates certain archi-
tects and firms whose records estab-
lished their position as true leaders of
the profession. These architects, after
studious contemplation of the situation.

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION.

G95

nrJTni'iMi

Allegorical Figure of " Needle-work," by J. Alden Weir, in One of the Domes of the Manufactures Building.

ings and the complex uses for which
they are intended. The exhibits them-
selves are necessarily such prominent
features of the interiors that they only
need a background of more or less sim-
ple character to complete, with the
elaborate installation which is being
carried on, quite as agreeable a decora-
tion scheme as might be reasonably ex-
pected on such an enormous scale.

Without going into details of con-
struction, it is proper to call attention

to one feature of the interiors, notably
of the Machinery and Manufactures
and Liberal Arts buildings, where the
architect and the engineer have joined
forces and produced a result far ahead
of anything before accomplished. I re-
fer to the wonderfully beautiful iron-
work of these buildings, which satisfies
to an eminent degree both the utilita-
rian and aesthetic requirements. Mr.
C. B. Atwood, Designer in Chief, co-
operated with Mr. E. C. Shankland,

696

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION.

Forging," Figure by E. E. Simmons, in tine Dome of the East Portal, Manufactures Building.

Chief Engineer, in working out a plan
of construction of the immense trusses
with the connecting girders, purlins,
and braces, which has been carried out
in great perfection. The ugly forms of
ordinary bridge builders' construction,
which have hitherto been endured as
necessary for rigidity and strength,
have been largely eliminated, and

graceful curves, well-balanced propor-
tions, and harmonious lines unite to
make the iron-work beautiful in itself,
a distinctly ornamental feature of the
interiors. Thus, without flourish of
trumpets, a great advance has been
made, and the great truth promulgated
that the useful may be beautiful even
in engineering. Painting of an artistic

t' /

ENGRAVED BY VAN NESS.

Ceramic Painting," by Kenyon Cox, in a Donne of the East Portal, Manufactures Building.
(From an unfinished sketch.)

698

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION.

r-^

lli|i||lililll!liilliliiil»M^

" Pearl," by Walter Shirlaw, in a Dome of the North Portal, Manufactures Building.

character has been confined for the
most part to a few domes and panels in
various j^avilions, to wall spaces under
colonnades and porticos, and to the
two or three interiors in which there is
sufficiently high finish to permit of mu-
ral decoration.

The Administration Building, by Mr.
Richard M. Hunt, which was built for
the uses of the World's Columbian Com-

mission with the numerous branches of
its executive force, is the real focus of
the group of buildings, not only from
its position in the centre of a grand
plaza of enormous extent, but on ac-
count of its monumental character.
The portals and the angles of this build-
ing are adorned with groups of sculpt-
ure by Mr. Carl Bitter, of New York,
and spandrels and panels, both outside

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION.

G99

"y

A_^^_

The Telephone," by J. Carroll Beckwith, in a Dome of the North Portal, Manufactures Building.

and inside, are enriched by designs by
the same sculptor. Tlie dome, which
is two hundred and sixty-five feet hi<2^h,
is truncated at the top and is lighted
by a great eye forty feet in diameter.
The interior of this dome around the
great eye, a surface of the approximate
dimensions of 35 x 300 feet, is to be cov-

ered with a figure composition painted
by Mr. W. L. Dodge, representing in
general terms the figure of a god on a
high Olympian throne crowning with
wreaths of laurel the representatives
of the arts and sciences, and flanked by
figures of Agriculture, Commerce, and
Peace. A Greek canopy, supported by

700

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION,

flying female ligureH, coiitraKts a<^ree-
ably with the clear blue of the sky
background, against which the princi-
pal groui)S are shown in strong relief.
Three winged horses drawing a vehicle
with a model of the Parthenon, troops
of warriors cheering the victors in the
peaceful strife of the arts, and a wealth
of minor figures, make up the compo-
sition, which is bold and imposing not
only in magnitude but in line [pj). 705-
6-8]. The interior Avails of the great
Rotunda are tinted so as to give the ef-
fects of colored marbles and mosaics, and
under the outside the massive white Dor-
ic columns have a background of Pom-
peian richness of tone. With the excep-
tion of Mr. Dodge's composition in the
Administration Building, neither of the
other buildings fronting on the grand
plaza has any purely artistic decora-
tion, although the hemicycle and por-
tions of the Electricity Building, and
the extensive arcades of the Machinery
Building, are all treated with flat colors
to supplement this architectural orna-
ment, the former by Mr. Maitland Arm-
strong, the latter by Mr. E. E. Garnsey,
of F. J. Sarmiento & Co. Across the
south canal, however, a blaze of richly
colored panels in the 2:)avilions of the
Agricultural Building, with here and
there a figure of an animal half hidden by
the superb Corinthian columns, shows
where Mr. G. W. Maynard and his as-
sistant, Mr. H. T. Schladermundt, have
converted, by the magic of their art,
the uninteresting plaster surfaces into a
series of elaborate pictures. This de-
coration has been planned with great at-
tention to the appropriate character of
its individual features. There are two
pavilions at either end of the building,
with a large doorway breaking the wall
into two panels, each one of which has
a dado of elaborate ornament, a narrow
border of conventionalized Indian corn
on each side, and great garlands of fruit
on top framing an oblong rectangle of
rich Pompeian red with a colossal fe-
male figure of one of the seasons [p.
694]. Above the two panels, and con-
necting them by a band of color, is a
frieze with rearing horses, bulls, oxen
drawing a cart of ancient form, and
other small groups of agricultural sub-
jects. The focus of the decorative

scheme is naturally at the main jjortico,
the entrance to the liotunda, called the
Temple of Ceres, with the statue of the
goddess in the mysterious twilight of
the graceful and impressive interior.
The portico is treated on much the same
plan as the side pavilions, but as it
provides a much greater area of wall
surface, Mr. Maynard has been able to
introduce a richer combination of col-
ors and a greater variet}^ of figures.
" Abundance " and " Fertility," tAvo co-
lossal female figures, occup}^ Avith the
richly ornamented borders, great flat
niches on either side of the entrance,
and are flanked in turn on the side-walls
by the figure of King Triptolemus, the
fabled iuA^entor of the plough, and the
goddess Cybele, symbolical of the fer-
tility of the earth, the one in a chariot
draAvn by dragons, the other leading a
pair of lions. These figures, as well as
those in the four porticos, are treated
in a broad, simple manner, so that they
carry perfectly to a great distance and
at the same time lose nothing by close
inspection.

The sumptuousness of the color dec-
oration is balanced by the laAish abun-
dance of sculpture Avork AA^iich fills the
pediments and crowns the piers and
pylons, and, in general terms, the main
features of the facades. The main ped-
iment is by Mr. Larkin G. INIead ; and
the other statues — figures of abundance
with cornucopige, a series of graceful
maidens holding signs of the Zodiac,
groups of four females representing the
quarters of the globe supporting a hor-
oscoj^e, and various colossal agricultu-
ral animals — are all by the hand of Mr.
Philip Martiny, Avho joins Mr. Olin L.
Warner in supplementing the architect-
ural ornamentation of the Art Build-
ing Avith A^arious figures and bas-reliefs.
Dominating the grand outlines of the
edifice, perched high on the flat dome,
is the gilded figure of Diana, by Mr.
Augustus St. Gaudens, familiar as the
finial of the tower of the Madison
Square Garden in NeAv York, a fitting
apex of the monumental structure.

The north front of the Agricultural
Building, with tlie peristA'le and the
south facade of the Manufactures and
Liberal Arts Building, form a grand
court of honor, so to speak, facing the

Decoration," Figure by C. S. Reinhart.

702

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION.

Administration Building, which may be
apin'opriately termed the GateAvay of
the Exhibition, for it rises directly in
front of the Terminal Station, a build-
ing of vast proportions and noble as-
pect, designed to accommodate the
thousands of visitors who reach the
Fair by the numerous lines of railways
concentrated at this point. Six rostral
columns, surmounted by a figure of
Neptune, by Mr. Johannes Gelert, ac-
cent this court at different points. Mr.
Frederick MacMonnies's fin-de-siecle
colossal fountain fills the west end of
the basin with a busy group of symbol-
ical figures and a flood of rushing water.
Opposite, at the east end of the glitter-
ing sheet of water which reflects the
architectural glories of the colonnades,
the dignified, simple statue of the Re-
public, by Mr. D. C. French, towers
high in air, relieved against the beau-
tiful screen of the Peristyle, Avith its
forest of columns showing clear cut
ao-ainst the blue waters of the lake.
Every column and every pier of the
Peristyle has its crowning figure, the
work of Mr. Theodore Baur, and the
great central arch, or Water-Gate sup-
ports a colossal Quadriga executed by
Mr. D. C. French and Mr. Edward C.
Potter, the former undertaking the fig-
ure work, and the latter the horses.
Two pair of horses, led by classical fe-
male figures, draw a high chariot with
a male figure symbolizing the - spirit of
discovery of the fifteenth century, and
pages on horseback flank the chariot on
either side, enriching the comj^osition
so that it presents a well- sustained mass
from every possible point of view. This
group is an achievement well worthy
of its situation as the dominating em-
bellishment of the great court with its
wealth of sculpture and ornament.

The terraces afford another inviting
field for open-air decoration. Numer-
ous pedestals have tempted the skill of
the sculptors of the Quadriga to pro-
duce distinguished types of the horse
and the bull, and formal antique vases
on the balustrade and reproductions
of the masterpieces of ancient statu-
ary break the long lines of parapet
and greensward. The graceful bridges
spanning the canals are guarded by
sculptured wild animals native of the

United States, part of them by Mr. Ed-
ward Kemeys, others by Mr. A. P. Proc-
tor, in a2)propriate contrast to the clas-
sicality of their surroundings and sug-
gesting future possibilities in sculpture
inspired by similar motives. The eye
cannot take in at a glance the sumptu-
ous beauties of this grand court, even
in its ragged state of partial finish, but
roves from statue to column, portal
to terrace, resting agreeably on broad
masses of rich color and on the gleam-
ing reflections in the basin. Imagina-
tion can scarcely picture the scene with
the addition of the festal features of
fluttering banners, rich awnings, gayly
decorated craft giving life and move-
ment to the water front, and every-
where the crowd of visitors all on recre-
ation bent.

The casual observer might well be
pardoned for failing at first to mark
how the grand pavilions and porticos
of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts
Building are accented by frequent
spaces covered with artistic decoration.
In each of the four corner pavilions
there are two tympana, those on the
south side having been given to Mr.
Gari Melchers and Mr. "Walter Mac-
Ewen to fill with a decorative design.
Both these artists have made elaborate
compositions representing, in general
terms, "Music" and "Manufactures"
and the " The Arts of Peace," and
" The Chase and the Manufacture of
WeajDons," respectively.

In the foreground of "Music," at
the left, a group of Satyrs pipes to a
dancing cluster around the Muse Eu-
terpe, and with various other person-
ages make up a composition of great
distinction of live and skilful arrange-
ment. The second panel, which illus-
trates manufactures or textiles, is
equally rich in groups, and in the back-
ground of both compositions is con-
tinued a procession in the honor of
Pallas Athena, who was credited by the
Greeks with the invention of spinning.
The geneial color gamut is light with
an intricate harmony of delicate tones.
The procession is silhouetted in bluish
tones against a warm sky with the col-
ors of early evening, the golden reflec-
tions touching the figures with beauti-
ful lines of light. Mr. Melchers has fol-

i?^

s

^^

/ ^

ENGRAVED BY J, CLEMENT.
The Armorer's Craft," one of four figures by E. H. Blashfield, representing the Arts of Metal Working.

704

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION.

it+

a^,

Banner adopted fronn the Standard of
Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella.

lowed out much the same general plan of color in a
varied but well sustained composition, so that the four
tympana make, in a sense, a series of harmonious pict-
ures.

The four grand central portals of the Manufactures
and Liberal Arts Building recall triumphant arches of
Roman times. Each of these portals has a lofty central
entrance with rich bas-reliefs by Mr. Bitter and smaller
side arches under pendentive domes. These eight domes
have been filled with figure decorations, each by a dif-
ferent artist. Those on the south front of the building
have been painted by Mr. J. Alden Weir and Mr. Rob-
ert Reid, who, with distinctly individual compositions,
have harmonized their designs in a remarkably agree-
able and skilful manner. Mr. Weir has chosen allegori-
cal female figures of "Decorative Art" [p. 695], "The
Art of Painting," "Goldsmith's Art," and the "Art of
Pottery." Each of these figures is seated on a balustrade
and is relieved against a sky of pale broken blue tones.
Flying draperies and capitals of four orders of archi-
tecture serve to connect the lines of the composition,
which is further enriched by a cupid holding a tablet
inscribed with the different arts and decorated with a
wreath. The figures are large and simple in line, and
the general scheme of color is j)ale blue varied with
purple and green, a combination suggested by the evan-
escent hues of Lake Michigan. Mr. Reid has also se-
lected seated allegorical figures to carry out his ideas,
with the addition of four youths, one on the keystone
of each arch, holding high above their heads wreaths
and palm branches which meet and cross so as to form
a band of decorative forms around the upper part of
the dome. A semi-nude figure of a man with an anvil
and w^rought-iron shield rej)resents " Iron working ; " a
young girl in white resting one arm on a pedestal and
the hand of the other arm touching a piece of carved
stone, signifies " Ornament ; " another in jourple, finish-
ing a drawing of a scroll, suggests the principle of
"Design," as applied to mechanical arts, and the fourth
figure is readily interpreted as honoring the " Textile
Arts " [p. 693]. In the east portal Mr. E. E. Simmons has
placed a single figure of a man in each pendentive of the
dome, symbolizing "Wood Cawing," "Stone Cutting,"
" Forging " [p. 696], and " Mechanical Aj^pliances." The
general scheme is pale gray and flesh-colored tones re-
lieved and accentuated by the forms of the tools and ac-
cessories appropriate to each figure. The composition
is bold in line, firm in outline, and original in conception.
Mr. Kenyon Cox in the adjacent dome has worked so
far in harmony with Mr. Simmons that he has decorated
the pendentives rather than the upper part of the vault,
placing a standing female figure in each against a bal-
ustrade and foliage. Above the heads, graceful bande-
roles, bearing the subjects illustrated, convert each pen-
dentive into a shield-shaped space. A robust woman in
buff jacket testing a sword, suggests "Steel Working."
A graceful girl in blue and wiiite drapery holding a rare

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION,

705

vase needs no title to show that she rep-
resents "Ceramic Painting" [p. 697].
" Buikling- " is symbolized by a tall
and shapely damsel in golden
green robes, standing near an
uncompleted wall, and " Spin-
ning " by a stately maiden of
fair complexion dressed in
rose-colored stuffs, with the
significant accessory of a spi-
der web. In the north por-
tal Mr. J. Carroll Bcckwith
has illustrated the subject of
Electricity as applied to Com-
merce. Four female figures
occupy the pendentives. The
" Telephone " and the " Indi-
cator " are personified by a
woman standing hoi fling a
telephone to her ear a. d sur-
rounded by tape issuing from
the ticker [p. 699] ; "The
Arc Light" by a figure kneel-
ing holding aloft an arc light ;
"The Morse Telegraph" by
a woman in flying draperies
seated at a table upon which
is the operating machine,
while she reads from a book ;
and "The D^^namo" by a
woman of a type of the
working - class seated upon
the magnet with a revolving-
wheel and belt at her feet.
Above, in the upper dome, is
placed the " Spirit of Electric-
ity," a figure of a boy at the
top of the dome from which
radiate ra^'S of lightning, to
w4iich he points. Mr. Walter
Shirlaw, who has decorated
the neighboring dome, shows distinct
originality of conception in his four al-
legorical figures, " Gold" [p. 698], " Sil-
ver," "Pearl," and " Coral," symbolizing
the abundance of the land and the sea.
The maiden representing "Gold" steps
forward freely, her mantle of yellow fall-
ing as she advances. A silver-gray cloak,
fastened with silver disks, distinguishes
the figure of " Silver." " Pearl " stands
erect with glistening pearls around her
neck and on her garments. " Coral,"
with raised arms, places a coral orna-
ment in her hair. A spider's web in dec-
orative pattern connects the figures and
occupies the central surface of the dome.

White, green, and gold, treated in mon-
otones, form the color plan.

The figure on page 701 is taken from

'ClS^^c

Musicians,"

Fragment fronn the Procession, by W. L. Dodge,
Dome of the Administration Building.

the

a sketch of one of Mr. C. S. Keinhart's
figures in the south dome of the AVest
Portal, and has been materially changed
in the enlargement, and improved in ac-
tion and accessories. The effort of the
artist has been to bring all the separate
tones into harmony with each other,
making the design and color approj^ri-
ate to the purposes of the building, the
architecture, and the construction of
the pendentive dome itself. A white-
marble terrace describes a complete cir-
cle just above the four arches of the
dome, the railing of which is a repetition
of the actual one which finishes the top
of the walls of the building itself ; above

706

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION.

a vibratiiif? blue sk}', Avith touches of
sabiion ^^bik ; in the pendentives four
seated female figures, representing the

IP

by a hchiicted figure ; the "Brass
Founder " and " Iron Worker " by two
half-nude youths, one holding an em-
bossed trencher, the
other a hammer, while
a maiden, in the close-
ly clinging gown of
the fifteenth century,
with a statuette in her
hand, symbolizes the
"Art of the Gold-
smith." The extreme
points of the penden-
tives are filled by ap-
propriate attributes, a
pair of gauntlets, brass
workers' tools, a liorse-
shoe, and a medal.
\ Behind the figures, and

'r ^^ a little above their

, Y heads, is a frieze of Be-

'n^^ naissance scroll work,

and the whole compo-
sition is bound togeth-
er by flying banderoles
and by the sweep of
the widely extended
wings. The centre of
the dome is occupied
by two winged infants
supporting a shield.
The general color
scheme comprises a se-
ries of peacock blues,
greens, and purples,
brilliant white tones in
wings and frieze, and
pale blue of the sky as
a background to the

Female Figure from W. L. Dodge's Decora-tion in the Administration Building,

Arts of Sculpture, Decoration, Em-
broidery, and Design. Between the fig-
ures and above the arches are urns with
cactus, from which vines and flowers
are trailing, thus uniting the composi-
tion. The treatment is mural — broad,
flat tones within the severe contours.
Above, in the sky, faint in color and
harmonizing with the sky itself, four
cherubs are having a merry-go-round
with pale ribbons.

The pendentives of the adjacent dome,
painted by Mr. E. H. Blashfield, are filled
by four winged genii, representing the
"Arts of Metal Working." The "Ar-
morer's Craft " [p. 703] is personified

composition.

The list of figure
decorations briefly described above in-
cludes, with the exception of those in
the Woman's Building, by Miss Mary
Cassatt and Mrs. Frederick MacMon-
nies, all the work of this special artistic
nature which has, at present writing,
been decided upon ; but there is every
reason to hope that the j^anels in the
Art Building may receive some adorn-
ment worthy of the noble structure,
that the frieze around the dome of the
Horticultural Building may also be ar-
tistically treated, that the Music Hall
of the Peristyle may have various wall-
spaces decorated with figure work, and
that the scheme laid out for the Manu-

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION,

101

factures and Liberal Arts Building may be completed
by the paintin*^ of the four remaining tympana in the
corner pavilions on the north end.

The sculpture groups on the roof of the AVoman's
Building, and the elaborate pediments executed by
Miss Alice Rideout, witli the Caryatides, by Miss Enid
Yandell, have already long been in place. The same is
true of Lorado Taft's graceful groups and friezes which
adorn the Horticultural Building, and of Mr. John J.
Boyle's realistic and expressive embodiments of ideas
suggested by the fertile theme of Transportation, and
ranged in almost bewildering profusion around the
building which bears that name. The much-desired
statue of Columbus, probably to be executed under
the direction of Mr. St. Gaudens, the regiment of stat-
ues on the Machinery Building, by Mr. M. A. Waagen
and Mr, Robert Kraus, those on the Electricity Build-
ing, by Mr. J. A. Blankingship and Mr. Henry A. Mac-
Neil, the statue of Franklin, by Mr. Carl Rohl-Smith,
together with scores of other works of more or less
importance, would, if listed, make a long catalogue of
interesting objects of the sculj^tor's art. The immense
numbers of these Avorks, proportionate, of course, to
the colossal magnitude of the Exposition, forbid even
the bare mention of them in detail. In addition to
this great mass of sculpture work executed for the spe-
cial ]Durpose of sujjplementing the architecture, it is in-
tended to place at different places, notably in the Grand
Court and on the grounds, and in the colonnades of the
Art Building, selected examples of ancient sculpture,
various reproductions of antique monuments, and prob-
ably also a certain number of works offered for exhibi-
tion.

An essential part of the decoration of the building
is, of course, the architectural details, the models of
which have been executed by various parties, notably
Ellin & Kitson, of New York, and Evans, of Boston,
with distinguished taste and skill. The capitals, mould-
ings, and ornaments of Greek and Roman buildings
have been accurately copied on a scale and in a man-
ner never before attempted. A few short months ago
there was in this country but a very limited number
of full-sized reproductions of any of the notable de-
tails of ancient architecture. The cast of the great
Jupiter Stator capital was, it is said, found in but a
single architect's office. Noav the whole range of de-
tails, from the beautiful Ionic capitals of the Temple
of Minerva Polias to the mouldings of the Arch of
Titus, are practically at the command of any architect
and student.

Much, has been said and much written about the
proper color to be given to the exteriors of the great
edifices. Experience shows, even if reason had not
already dictated the decision, that the nearer they are
kept to white the better for the architecture. Every
experiment which has been made to produce aesthetic
effects of texture suggested by the usual treatment of

ffi

ler adopted
ary Flag

I the Expedition-
Columbus.

708

THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION.

qlipcMl"*^

Riders of Winged Horses, from W. L. Dodge's Decoration in tlie Adnninistration Building.

plaster objects lias resulted in partial
or ill total failure, and ev^ery time tlie
warm white of tlie staff lias been med-
dled with, its glory has departed. But
the conditions imposed by the climate,
by the impossibility of securing a ho-
mogeneous surface, and by the expos-
ure and consequent discoloration of a
certain portion of the work have made
it necessary to apply some sort of paint
to all the buildings. Ordinary white-
lead and oil have been found to give the
best results, for the irregular absorp-
tion of the staff and the weathering
rapidly produce an agreeable, not too
monotonous an effect, and the surface
deteriorates less rapidly after this treat-
ment. The single notable exception to
this simple scale of color is found on
the Transportation Building, which has
been given to Healy and Millet, of Chi-
cago, to cover with a polychromatic dec-
oration, carrying out the original inten-
tion of the architects, and making it
unique and splendid in appearance.
All the statuary of this building is to be
treated with bronze and other metals,
the great portal, commonly called the
"Golden Door," will be exceedingly rich
and gorgeous in effect, and the intricate

ornamentation of the architectural relief
decoration will have an echo in the flat
surfaces covered with rich designs.

The decoration of the Exposition
would be incomplete without careful
attention to the informal and festive
features, such as flags and awnings.
Every building presents new conditions
and demands special study and design.
A large proportion of the flag -staffs
will bear gonfalons or banners, but a
certain number will be reserved, natur-
ally, for the United States flag and the
flags of all nations. At various points
large poles will be planted in the
ground, most of them for the purpose
of displaying the Stars and Stripes, and
a grouj) of three poles, with ornate
bases, elaborate flutings, and proper
finials will be placed in front of the
Administration Building. The middle
pole will carry a United States flag of
large dimensions, and it will be flanked
on either side by a large and sumptu-
ous banner, one adapted from the expe-
ditionary banner of Columbus [p. 707],
the other from the standard of Spain
[p. 704] at the time of the discovery of
America. The finishing touches of the
Exposition can only be given after the

A WEST INDIAN SLAl^E INSURRECTION,

709

storms of winter are over and the spring
fairly sets in, and on the perfection of
the finish will depend a great part of the
charm of the place to the visitor and
to the exhibitor. It was recorded in
the first pages of this article that lit-
tle could be expected of the interiors
to compare with the elaboration of the
fayades. But the white -wash brush
which converts the interior of a hovel
into an attractive dwelling can also
nietajnorj)hose the rough timber-work
into a near semblance of finished con-
struction and give the great naves and

aisles a tidy and agreeable aspect. As
far as this work has already proceeded
it has surpassed the expectations of all
concerned. A few simple tints, selected
with care, give the best results and
form a most satisfactory background
for the installation of exhibits.

In the enormous perspectives ordi-
nary means of decoration with bunting
and banners fail entirely, for they are
annihilated by the colossal size of the
surroundings. Therefore the j^i'oblem
is a new one, and the future will show
whether it can be satisfactorily solved.

A WEST INDIAN SLAVE INSURRECTION.
By George W, Cable.

I. — Stage and Actors.

■■•HIS is a true story. But it
is not mine ; I take it all
from a friend's manuscript,
which I have had for years
and which lies before me
now. It tells of a beautiful
island lying some twelve
hundred miles southeast-
ward from the southern end of Florida ;
the largest of the Virgin group ; the isl-
and of the Holy Cross. Columbus, on
his second voyage of American discov-
ery, sailing into the marvellous waters
of the Caribbean sea, found this won-
derful island. Its inhabitants called it
Aye-Aye ; but he piously changed its
title to Santa Cruz, and bore away a
number of its people to Spain as slaves,
to show them what Christians looked
like in quantity, and how they behaved
to one another and to strangers. You
can hear more about Santa Cruz from
anybody in the rum business.

It has had many owners. As with
the woman of numerous husbands, in
the Sadducee's riddle, seven political
powers have had this mermaid as bride.
Spain, the English, the Dutch, the Span-
iards again, the French, the Knights of
Malta, the French again, who sold her to
the Guinea Company, who in 1734 trans-
ferred her to the Danes, from whom the
English captured her in 1807, but re-
stored her again at the close of Napo-
leon's wars, in 1815. Thus, at last, Den-
VOL. XII.— 77

mark prevailed as the ruling power ;
but the English language remained the
speech of the people. The two towns of
the island are Christiansted on the north
and Fredericksted on the south. It is
about twentj'-three miles long and six
miles wide. Christiansted is the capital.

In 1848 there lived on Kongensgade,
that is King Street, in Frekericksted, a lit-
tle maiden named Dora. I have known
her these many years, though I did not
know her as a child or in the island. She
is the author of the manuscript now ly-
ing before me, from the facts of which I
shall not go aside from first to last, even
though I have to end the story tamely
without births, deaths, or marriages.

She dwelt with her aunts, Marion,
Anna, and Marcia, and her grandmother,
and was just old enough to begin taking
care of her dignity. I wish the story
were even more about her than it is.
Whether she was Danish, British, or
United Statesish, she was often puz-
zled to know. When her grandmother,
whose husband had belonged to a family
which had furnished a signer of our
Declaration, told her stories of the
American Revolution, Dora felt the glow
of an American patriotism. But her
grandmother had stories of English
valor and renown as well, and when in
telling these she warmed up to their
heroic or momentous nature, she would
remind Dora that her, the damsel's,
father and mother were born on this
island under British sway, and "once

710

A WEST INDIAN SLAFE INSURRECTION.

a Briton always a Briton." And yet
again, Dora's playmates would say —

"But you, yourself, were born when
the island was already Danish ; you are
a subject of King Christian VIII."

One of her playmates, much beloved
of her, was invariably silent on this sub-
ject. He was a large and beautiful
white cat, much more important to
Dora than he is to this story, in which
he appears but once, momentarily and
quite parenthetically.

Kongensgade, though narrow, was
one of the main streete that ran from
the walls of an estate at the northeast-
ern end of the town, to the lagoon and
fort at the southwestern end. Dora's
home was a long, low cottage on the
street's southern side, its rear facing
southward, seaward, on grounds that
sloped downward to the street in front
and rose and widened out extensively
at the back, until they suddenly fell
away in bluffs to the beach. It had been
built for the grandmother, a bridal gift
from her rich husband. But now in her
widowhood the wealth was gone, and
only refinement and inspiring traditions
remained.

At her husband's death the estate left
her was mainly slaves, whose sale or hire
might have kept her in comfort. But
a clergyman lately come from England
convinced her that no Christian should
hold a slave, and setting them free, she
accepted a life of self-help and of no
little privation. She was his only con-
vert ; his ow^n zeal soon quieted ; and
there being no adequate public freedom
provided either by law or custom for
those whom private hands and con-
sciences liberated, her ex-slaves merely
hired their labor to less scrupulous em-
ployers, and yearly grew more worthless
to themselves and the community.

Yet, to be poor on that island did not,
of necessity, mean a sordid narrowing
of life. The voices of nature were lofty,
the beauties of land and sea were in-
spiring. You would have found the
main room of Dora's home furnished in
mahogany black with age and mounted
with brass. In a corner where the
breezes came in by a great window,
stood a jar big enough to have held one
of Ali Baba's thieves, into which trickled
with a cool gurgle a thread of water

from a huge dripping- stone set in a
frame, while above these a shelf held
native waterpots whose yellow and crim-
son surfaces were constantly pearled
with dew evaporating through the po-
rous cHy. On a low mahogany press
near by was piled the remnant of the
father's library ; and there were silver
snuffers, candlesticks, crystal shades,
and such like on the ancient sideboard.

But it was not old mahogany, brass,
silver, or family traditions that gave this
room its finest charm. As you entered
it from the street the glory of the sea
met you and fiUed the place. There
was no need, no whereabouts, for pict-
ures. The living portraits of nature
hung framed in wide high windows
through which came in the distant
boom of the surf on the rocks, and its
salt breath perfumed with the blossoms
of the cassia. A broad door led from it
by a flight of stone steps to the couch-
like roots of a gigantic turpentine tree
whose deep shade gave harbor to birds
of every hue. It was these things that
lent the room such beauty that even
strangers, entering it, exclaimed aloud
in admiration.

And outside, round about, there was
far more. To Dora, sitting often by that
equatorial sea, the island's old Carib
name of Aye -Aye seemed the eternal
consent of God to some seraphic spirit
asking for this ocean pearl. All that
poet or prophet had ever said of heaven
became comprehensible in its daily trans-
figurations of light and color scintillated
between wave, landscape, and cloud, its
sea like unto crystal, and the trees bear-
ing all manner of fruits. Fragrance,
light, form, color, everywhere ; fruits
crimson, gold, and purple ; fishes blue,
orange, pink ; shells of rose and pearl.
Distant hills, clouds of sunset and dawn,
sky and stream, leaf and flower, bird and
butterfly, repeated the splendor, while
round about all palpitated the wooing
rhythm of the sea's mysterious tides.

The beach ! Along its landward edge
the plumed palms stood sentinel, min-
gling their faint rustle with the lipping
of the waters and the curious note of the
Thibet-trees that shook their long dry
pods like castanets in the evening breeze.
By the water's margin what treasures of
the under world ! Here a sponge, with

A WEST INDIAN SLAl^E INSURRECTION,

711

stem bearing five cups ; there a sea-fan
large enough for a Titan's use, yet deli-
cate enough to be a mermaid's. There
were red-lipped shells ; mystical eye-
stones ; shell petals heaped in rocky
nooks like rose-leaves; and, walking
leisurely among aU these in grotesque
complacency, crabs, whose brilliancy and
variety might baffle the painter. What
was this the rector preached, about a
fallen and degraded world ? It seemed
but empty words when the sunset glory
was too much for human vision and the
young heart trembled before its ineffable
suggestions.

Dora often rode a pony. If she
turned his way inland his steps were on
a road lined on either side with majes-
tic cocoa-palms, or in some tangled dell
where a silvery cascade leaped through
the deep verdure. On one side the tall
mahogany cast its woody pears to the
ground ; on another the sandbox and
calabash trees rattled their huge fruit
like savages preparing for battle ; here
the banyan dropped its strange ropes,
and yonder the tamarind waved its
feathery streamers. Here was the india-
rubber tree and here the bread-fruit ;
now and then a clump of the manchineel
weighted the air with the luscious per-
fume of its poisonous apples, the banana
rustled, or the bamboo tossed its grace-
ful canes. By some stream winding
down to the hidden sea she might espy
the black washerwomen beetling clothes
with big thick paddles. Or urging the
pony, she would rise in exhilarating leaps
from ridge to ridge, and reaching the
top of Blue Mountain, look down, eleven
hundred feet, upon the vast Caribbean
dotted with islands, and, nearer by, the
breakers curling in the noble bays or
breaking under rocky cliffs. Northward,
the wilderness ; eastward, green fields
of sugar-cane paling and darkling under
the sweep of the breeze ; southward, the
wide harbor of Fredericksted, the town,
and the black-skinned, red-shirted boat-
men pushing their graceful boats about
the harbor ; westward, the setting sun ;
and presently everywhere the swift fall
of the tropical night, with lights begin-
ning to twinkle in the town, and the
boats in the roadstead to leave long
trails of phosphorescent foam.

We need not say that Nature had her

rudenesses as well as her graces. There
were sharks in the sea and venomous
things, tarantulas, serpents, scorpions,
ashore ; and there was the hurricane.
Every window and door was armed with
strong outer shutters provided with
stout bars, rings, and ropes, that came
swiftly into vigorous use whenever, be-
tween July and October, the dire word
ran through the town, " The barometer
is falling." Then candles and lamps had
to be lighted indoors, and it was a time
of delightful excitement to a courageous
child. Dora would beg hard to have a
single pair of shutters held slightly open
by two persons ready to slam them shut
in a second, and so snatched glimpses of
the tortured, flying clouds, and writhing
trees, while old Si' [Sis, sister] Myra,
one of the freed slaves who had not left
the family, crouched in a corner mutter-
ing, " Lo'd sabe us ! Lo'd sabe us ! "
Once Dora saw a handsome brig, whose
captain had failed to leave the harbor
as promptly as he should have done,
staggering in upon the rocks where
it seemed, almost, the masts might faU
into her grandmother's own grounds,
and the grandmother told her that thus
her, Dora's, father had come and met,
loved and won her mother.

One bright day, suddenly and without
warning, the wonder-struck Dora felt
the earth flinch, throb, sink, and heave.
The long pendent hooks on the shutters
of the house swung outward, trees fell,
the ground opened, the houses rocked
and reeled, and the people ran out of
them crying in terror, " Earthquake !
earthquake ! " But no great damage
was done, and in a day or two the streets
echoed the cheery morning cries of the
many vendors of fruits, candies, sugar-
cane, alligator-pears and " hot harapas
and cassava ! " Haraj^as were thin pan-
cakes made of bananas beaten to a bat-
ter.

These pedlers of dainties wei-e, of
course, blacks, male and female, and
generally slaves. On Saturdays the ne-
groes were allowed to hold a petty mar-
ket for their own account, on an open
square of the town thickly ^^lanted with
great trees. Each one chose his tree,
under which, in calabashes plain or
carved, he spread his produce over the
ground. If it rained — and rain in the

712

A WEST INDIAN SLAl^E INSURRECTION.

tropics is tremendous — you may imag-
ine the resulting mixture of fruits, fish,
flesh, flowers, and fancy articles. Hard
by in a special little grove was the
" maroon market," held exclusively by
old negresses who could do no harder
work than sell cakes and confections.
Si' Myra was often of their number.
She was a native of Congo, and, like all
such, had horrid superstitions. She be-
lieved the Obi priests could boil water
without lire, and cause in many ways the
most dreadful woes. She had added
Danish myths to her own, and believed
in the wehr-wolf.

" Yes, me chile ! Dem nights w'en de
moon shine bright and de dogs a-barkin',
you see twelb dogs a-talkin' togedder in
a ring and one in de middle. Dah dem
wait till dem yerry [hear] him ; den dem
take arter him, but dem nebber catch
him, me chile, and he git back afo day ! "

Strangest, wildest, of all the slave
practices, was the hideous misuse they
were allowed, by Christian masters, to
make of Christmas and Christmas week.
It was then they danced the bamboula,
by day and night. All through the
year this saturnalia was prepared for in
meetings held by night in the cabins of
the principal leaders. The songs to
w^hich they danced were made of white
society's most current or private scan-
dals reduced to satirical rhyme and
rhythm, and to the rashest girl or most
reckless man the warning w^as a serious
one, " You will get yourself sung about
at Christmas." A king, queen, and
royal retinue, chosen mainly for per-
sonal beauty or special ability to make
good songs, were elected yearly. The
dresses of these and of all was a strange
mixture of savage splendor and silliest
tawdriness, that exhausted the owners'
savings and pilferings of a twelvemonth.
Good-natured "missies" and their
daughters often helped make these out-
fits. They were of real velvet, silk, satin,
cotton lace, false flowers, the brilliant
seeds of the licorice and coquelicot, tin-
sel, beads, and pinchbeck. Sometimes
mistresses even lent — firmly sewed to
the clothing — their own jewelry. On
Christmas eve, here and there through-
out the town, eligible ground -floor
rooms were hired and decorated with
branches of the cocoa and other palms ;

or booths of these were built, adorned
with oranges and boughs of ciunamon-
berries, lighted with candles and lan-
terns, and furnished with seats for the
king, queen, and musicians, and with
buckets of rum punch. Then the "bul-
rush man " went his round. He was
covered with capes and flounces of bul-
rushes from neck to heels, and crowned
with a high waving fringe of them
about his brows, rattled pebbles in cal-
abashes, danced to their clatter, pro-
claimed the feast, and solicited of such
white children as his dress did not ter-
rify, for gifts from their store of holi-
day stivers.

Soon the dancers began to gather in
the booths ; women in gorgeous trailing
gowns, the men bearing showy batons
and clad in ornamented shirts or satin
jackets, with a mongrel infant rabble,
spawn of many races, at their heels.
When the goombay — a flour-barrel with
both heads out and a goatskin stretched
over one end — boomed out its hoarse
notes on the evening air, the town knew
the bamboula dance had begun. The
dancers formed in two confronting
lines, the men facing the women, a
leading couple improvising a song, all
taking up the refrain, the goombay
beating time, and the dancers wath
arms uplifted, rattling or tinkling in
harmonious rhythm the various instru-
ments : the woody seed- cases of the
sandbox-tree set on long sticks and the
lobes painted each a separate vivid
color ; basket-work rattles and cala-
bashes filled with pebbles and shells ;
or hoops hung with bells. All these
were adorned with floating ribbons. So
the lines approached each other by two
steps, receded, advanced again, and
again receded, always in wild cadence
according to the signals of voice and
instrument ; then bowing low till the
two opposing ranks touched each other
— twice — thrice; then straightening
again, pirouetting and resuming the
first movement, and now and then, with
two or three turns or bows clashing
their rattles together in perfect meas-
ure. As night darkened, the inide
lights flared yellow and red upon the
dusky forms bedizened with beads,
bangles, and more grotesque trumpery.
Faces, necks, arms reeked and shone

A WEST INDIAN SLA^E INSURRECTION,

713

in the heat, the air throbbed vohiptu-
ously with the savage music, ribbons
streamed, gross odors filled the place,
the boom of the goombay dominated
all, and children of the master race —
for even such as Dora were often per-
mitted to witness these orgies — without
comprehending stood aghast. Outside,
only a few steps away, the soft West
Indian night lay in matchless loveliness
on hills and sea ; the grateful nostrils
caught the ethereal fragrance of the
pink blossoms of the pont-du-pont ; the
eyes looked up to see the radiant maj-
esty of the stars ; every sense and im-
pulse was soothed by the exquisite re-
finement of the scene, into whose space
and silence the faint, deep voice of the
savage drum sobbed one grief and one
prayer alike for the slave and for his
master.

The revel always ended with New
Year's day. The next morning broke
silently, and with the rising of the sun
the clang of the plantation bell or the
blowing of the conch called the bond-
man and bondwoman once more into
the cane-fields. Then, alike in broad-
est noon and deepest night, the spec-
tre of an anxious fear hovered about
the master whenever he sat among his
loved ones or wherever his pathway
turned. Not often did the hand of op-
pression fall upon any slave with sud-
den illegal violence, or he or she turn to
slaughter or poison the oppressor ; but
the slaves were in thousands, the mas-
ters were but hundreds, the laws were
tyrannous, the public whipping-post
stood among the town's best houses of
commerce, justice, and worship, with
the thumb - screws close at hand ; the
Danish garrison was a mere squad, the
well-drilled and finely caparisoned vol-
unteer "troopers," main stay as to
armed force, were scarce a handful, the
governor was mild and aged, and the
two towns were the width of the island
apart.

In the year of which we write, 1848,
this anxiety was much increased. King
Christian, induced, the planters believed,
by EngUsh influence from Exeter Hall,
had lately proclaimed a gradual emanci-
pation of all slaves in his West Indian
colonies. A squad of soldiers from the
fort, as the custom was, had marched

through the streets, halting at the prin-
cipal corners, drawing a crowd by the
beat of a drum — " beating the Y)ro-
tocol," they termed it — and reading the
royal edict. After twelve years all slaves
were to go free ; their owners were to
be paid for them ; and meantime every
infant of a slave was to be free from its
birth. No one knows better than the
practical statesman that measures for
a gradual righting of an evil are apt to
be disastrous. They rarely satisfy any
class concerned. In this case the aged
slaves bemoaned a land of promise they
might not live to enter ; younger slave
parents dreaded the superior liberty of
their children ; and the planters doubted
that they would ever see the pay for
their losses, even if emancipation did
not bring fire, rapine, and death.

One day, Dora, along with all Freder-
icksted, or "West-En'," as the negroes
called it — Christiansted was "Bass-En' "
— saw two huge British East Indiamen
sail into the harbor. They came for no
cargo ; such ships never touched at
Fredericksted. What could they want ?

"Water," they said, "and rest." They
staid two weeks, their officers and men
roaming the island, asking many ques-
tions, answering few, and becoming
more and more each hour the object of
feverish and irrational suspicions.

Gilbert, the young son of a neighbor
who was an old friend of Dora's grand-
mother, used often to drop in at her
house.

" Mrs. H ," he said, one afternoon,

as they looked out the seaward windows
at the two big ships anchored so far
from shore, " these fellows are here for
no good. I meet them at all hours and
on every road, talking to the negroes.
Mark my word, they are putting them
up to some deviltry. There comes a
boat-load now."

But Dora's grandmother and Aunt
Marion bade him fear nothing. "All
the clergy," they said, " are acting to-
gether, soothing the restlessness of the
slaves, and showing them the duty and
advantage of waiting patiently for their
day of happiness."

Whereat Dora asked, for information
only, " How are the negroes ever going
to be happy if they stay l)laclv ? " The
conversation was too dee]3 for her, how-

714

A WEST INDIAN SLAVE INSURRECTION.

ever, and was remembered mainly as the
last one tliey had on that subject, in
which she took any part.

Yet she understood much, and once
said, when the talk ceased on her enter-
ing the room with a playmate, "We
know what you are talking about ; you're
afraid the negroes are going to rise.
But they'll never hurt us ; Rachel and
Tom, and Si' Myra and Lotta, and Jule
and Jack, and the others won't let
them."

Still the great ships did no visible
evil ; the month, June, wore by, and the
minds of all seemed to grow more quiet.
And then the event came.

n. — The Uprising.

Sunday, the second of July, was still
and fair. The Sabbath was always a
happy day to Dora. High-stepping
horses prancing up to the church-gates
brought friends from the plantations.
The organ pealed, the choir chanted, the
rector read, and read well ; the mural
tablets told the virtues of the church-
yard sleepers, and out through the win-
dows she could gaze on the clouds and
the hills. After church came the Sun-
day-school. Its house was on a breezy
height where the wind swept through
the room unceasingly, giving wings to
the children's voices as they sang "From
Greenland's icy mountains," or " Now be
the Gospel Banner." But this Sunday
promised unusual pleasure ; Dora was
to go with her Aunt Marion to dine soon
after midday with a Danish family, at a
real Danish West Indian dinner.

As she went to the house of feasting,
she carried with her but one fear — that
her hostess, Mrs. Valberg, would pro-
vide pigeon-pea-soup. For, look you,
among the guests were to be some offi-
cers from the East Indiamen, and it was
a negro saying, that whosoever ate of
pigeon - pea-soup would never want to
leave the island. But in due time the
hostess asked,

"Will you have pigeon-pea-soup, or
guava-berry soup ? " And Dora, hoping
to be imitated, chose the soup of the
guava berries.

Whichever the officers took they
liked, and after soup there was an ele-

gant king -fish, and by and by the fa-
mous callalou, and many other deli-
cious and curious viands. For the des-
sert appeared " red groat " that is, sago
jelly flavored with guavas, crimsoned
with the juice of prickly pears, and float-
ing in milk ; also other floating islands
of guava jelly beaten with eggs. Pale
green granadillas crowned the feast.
These were eaten with sugar and wine,
while before each draught of the wine
the men would lift their glasses high,
bow to right and left, and cry, " Skoal !
skoal ! " As the company finally rose,
Mr. and Mrs. Valberg shook hands with
every guest in turn, these again saluting
each other, and each two saying with
every salute, "Vel be komme," implying
" may this feast do you good." It made
the end a glad one.

Late in the afternoon, Dora and her
aunt started home. On the way two
friends, a Mrs. Dale and her daugh-
ter, Kate, persuaded them to turn and
take a walk on the north side road at
the town's western border. They went
southward toward the lagoon near to
where it formed a kind of moat behind
the fort, and was spanned by a sUght
wooden bridge. While they went the
sun slowly sank through a golden light
toward the purple sea, among temples,
towers, and altars of cloud.

As they neared this bridge two black
men crossing it from opposite ways
stopped and spoke to each other in
low tones, yet Dora and her companions
heard. Said one,

"Yes, me yerry it ; dem say sich
t'ing as nebber bin known befo' goin'
be done in West-En' town to-night."
And the other —

"Well, you look sharp, me frien' "

At this point they saw their auditors
and parted abruptly, one looking troub-
led, the other one pleased and brisk.
Mrs. Dale and her daughter drew back,
the latter asking,

"What does he mean, mother ? "

" Oh, I suppose he's speaking of some
meeting to make Christmas songs,"
said Mrs. Dale, indifferently.

"I think not," said Dora's aunt.
"Let us go back ; mother's alone."

Just then Gilbert came up. "I've
come to find you, Mrs. Dale," he said ;
" my mother sent me. You had better

A WEST INDIAN SLA^E INSURRECTION.

715

come home. The negroes have planned
to rise to-night. Some free negroes
have betrayed them. Their signal is to
sound at eight o'clock, to call them to-
gether for an attack upon the town."

Dora and her aunt and friends reached
her home first. Her grandmother heard
the news without open agitation.

" We're in God's hands. Gilbert, will

you stop at Mr. K 's and send Anna

and Marcia home ? "

When these two came Mr. K was

with them and begged that the whole
family return with him and pass the
night at his house ; but Dora's grand-
mother thought they had better stay
where the}^ were. He went away to pro-
pose to his neighbors to put all the
women and children into the fort, that
the men might be the freer to defend
them.

*' Marion," said the grandmother, " let
us have supper and prayers while there's
quiet."

The simple meal was scarcely touched.
Dora's Aunt Marcia put bible and pray-
er-book by the lamp and closed all the
heavy shutters on the front of the
house. The wind had risen, and through
the open windows on the seaward side
the roll of the surf sounded in with the
grandmother's voice in " God is our
refuge and strength." Then all knelt ;
but the prayer was scarcely finished
when Aunt Marion sprang to her feet
crying, " The signal ! Hear the signal ! "

Out in the still night a high mournful
note blown on a bamboo pipe was an-
swered by the deeper tone of a conch-
shell, and presently the alarm was ring-
ing from point to point on every side,
from shells, pipes, horns, and now and
then in the solemn clangor of great plan-
tation bells. It came first from the south,
then from the east, swept around to the
north, and echoed from the western
cliffs, springing from hilltop to hilltop,
long, fierce, exultant. Dora saw her
four kinswomen rise, stand listening,
and grow pale. But presently the
grandmother sat down in her easy-
chair.

' "I will spend the night here," she
said.

Aunt Anna brought a rocking-chair
and sat beside her ; Marcia reclined on
the sofa, Marion spread a pallet for

Dora, and lying down at her side, bade
her not fear, but sleep. And Dora
slept.

Suddenly she was broad aw^ake.
There was a sound of horses' feet, dis-
tant but approaching. It came from
the southw^estward, the direction of the
fort. Aunt Marcia was unbarring the
shutters and fastening the inner jalou-
sies so as to look out unseen.

" It's nearly one o'clock," said Aunt
Anna, and Dora got up wondering how
the world looked at that hour of the
night. All gathered at the windows,
hearkening to the nearing sound.

" Ah ! " spoke Aunt Marcia, gladly,
" it's the troopers ! "

There were only some fifty horsemen.
Slowly, in the light of a half-hidden
moon they came and passed, a dim
mass, their horses' hoofs ringing on
the narrow macadamized road, swords
clanking, and dark plumes nodding over
still faces, while the distant war-signal
from shell, reed, and horn called before,
around, and after them in wild mockery.

Still later in the night came a knock
at the door, and when it was warily
opened Mr. K entered. He explain-
ed the passing of the troopers and the
slowness of their march. They had
hurried about the country all the earlier
part of the night, he said, bringing
their families together at points where
a few men could defend them, and had
come to the fort for ammunition and
orders ; but the captain of the fort, re-
fusing even to admit them without or-
ders from the governor, had bade them
go to their homes.

"But," Mr. K. himself interposed,

for he was present, "a swift courier
can reach the governor in an hour and
a half."

" One will be sent as soon as it is
light," was the only answer.

The town militia, Mr. K went on

to tell Dora's grandmother and aunts,
were without ammunition also. He was
much excited, and believed the fort's
officers were conniving with the revolt.
Presently he went awa}", saying that he
had met one of the household's servants,
Jack, who would come soon to protect
them. Jack did appear shortly before
daybreak and mounted guard at the
front gate.

716

A WEST INDIAN SLAJ/E INSURRECTION.

" Go sleep, ole inis's. Miss Mary Ann
[Marion], 3^ou all <^o sleep. Chaw ! wha'
foo all you set \x\) all night ? Si' Myra,
you go draw watah foo bile coffee."

The dreadful signals had ceased at
last, and all lay down to rest ; but Dora
remained awake and saw through the
great seaward windows the wonderful
tropical dawn Hush over the sea from
a crystalline sky. But presently its
heavenly silence was broken by the
swift gallop of a single horse and a
Danish orderly, heavily armed, passed
the street-side windows. He was off at
last for Christiansted.

Soon the clamor of conchs and horns
began again. It was blent, now, with
the sound of many feet and the harsh
voices of swarming insurgents. Their
long silence was explained ; they had
been sharpening their rude improvised
weapons.

The first act of aggression was to
break open a sugar storehouse. They
took a barrel of sugar and another of
rum, mixed them, killed a hog, poured
in his blood, added gunpowder, and
drank the compound. That was to
make them brave. Then with barrels
of rum and sugar they changed a whole
cistern of water into punch, stirring it
with their sharpened hoes and dipping
it out with huge sugar boilers' ladles
and drinking themselves half blind.

Jack dashed in from the gate : " Oh,
Miss Marcia, go look ! dem a-comin' !
Gin'ral Buddoe at dem head on he w'ite
boss."

The women and Dora ran to the
jalousies. In the street, coming south-
ward toward the fort, were full two
thousand blacks. They walked and ran,
the women with their skirts tied up in
fighting trim, and all armed with
hatchets, hoes, sugar-cane bills and cut-
lasses. The bills were fitted on stout
pole handles, and all their weapons had
been ground and polished until they
glittered horridly in the black hands
and above the gaudy Madras turbans or
bare woolly heads and bloodshot eyes.

" Dem goin' to de fote to ax foo free-
dom," exclaimed Jack.

At their head rode one large and
powerful black man wearing a cocked
hat with a long white plume. A big
rusty sword clanked at his horse's

flank. This was ''Gin'ral Buddoe."
Just as he came opposite Dora's win-
dow she saw a white man, alone, step
out from the house across the way and
lift his arms in a silent command to the
multitude to halt. It was the Roman
Catholic priest. In black robe and cap
he mounted some steps, showed the
cross, and began to warn and exhort.
The crowd halted, gave attention for a
moment, then howled, brandished their
weapons, and pushed on. Aunt Marion
dropped to her knees and in tears
prayed aloud, "From battle, mui'der,
and sudden death "

But Dora, in a tone of expostulation,
cried, " O Aimtie ! get up quick !
Here comes Rachel ! Don't let her see
you praying ! Better have them kill us
than let them see us frightened ! " But
Rachel, and Tom as well, had already
entered from the street.

" La ! Miss Mary Ann, wha' fur you
cryin' ? Who's goin' tech you V asked
Rachel. She held by its four corners a
Madras kerchief full of sugar. "Da
what we done come fur, to tell Mis's
Paula not be frightened." Tom staid
but a moment and was off again.

" Rachel," said Dora's grandmother,
" you've been stealing."

" Well, Mis's Paula ! ain't I gwine hab
my sheah w'en dem knock de head out
dem hogsitt an' tramp de sugah under
dah feet an' mix a whole cisron o' punch ? "

At Dora's appeal Rachel told the
events of the night. But as she talked
a roar of voices without rose higher and
higher, and Dora, running with Jack to
the gate, beheld two smaller mobs com-
ing round a near corner. The foremost
crowd was dragging along the ground
by ropes a huge object, howling, strik-
ing, and hacking at it. The other was
behaving in the same way to something
smaller tied to a stick of wood, and the
air was full of their cries :

"To de sea ! Frow it in de sea !
You'll nebber hole obbe [us] no mo' foo
w'ip ! You'll no 'queeze obbe no mo' !
You'll be drownded in de sea-watah ! "
Their victims were the whipping-post
and the thumb-screws.

Tom returned to say, " Dem done to'e
up de cote-house and de j edge's house,
and now dem goin' Bay Street foo tear
uj) de sto'es"

A WEST INDIAN SLAl^E INSURRECTION.

717

Gilbert cnme up from the fort telling
what be bad seen. Tbe blacks bad tried
in vain to scale tbe ramparts by climb-
ing upon one anotber's sboulders, bowl-
ing for freedom and defying tbe garri-
son to fire on tbem. But tbe officer in
command bad not dared to do so witb-
out orders from tbe governor, and bis
courier bad not returned. Otbers were
not so cautious. A leading mercbant
called out as be stood on tbe fort wall :

" Take tbe responsibility ! Fire !
Every wbite man on tbe island will
sustain you, and you'll end tbe wbole
tbing bere ! "

Upon tbat word, off again up town
bad gone tbe wbole black swarm, bad
sacked tbe bold mercbant's store, and
seemed now, by tbe noises tbey still
made, to be sacking otbers. " I bave
come," said Gilbert, " witb an offer of
tbe sbip captains in port to take tbe
wbite people aboard tbeir sbips if mat-
ters grow no better."

As be turned away, groups of negroes
began to dasb by laden witb all sorts of
" prog " [booty] from tbe wrecked stores.
Dora's grandmotber bad lain down, ber
aunts were trying to make up some sort
of midday repast, and Dora was stand-
ing alone bebind tbe jalousies, wben a
ferocious-looking negro came and rat-
tled tbe jalousies witb bis bill.

"Lidde gal, gimme some watab."

" Wait a minute," said Dora, and left
tbe room. Sbe tbougbt of biding, but
feared be migbt in tbat case burst in
enraged and murder tbem all. So sbe
brougbt a bowl of water.

" Tankee, lidde missee," be said,
banded back tbe drained bowl, and went
away. Tom was tbereupon set to guard
tbe gate.

He did it poorly. Wbile be was di-
verted by sometbing anotber negro
slipped into tbe yard and sat down on
tbe stone steps. He looked around tbe
pretty, quiet enclosure, gave a tired
grunt, and said, " Please, missee, lemme
res' ; I done bruk up." He lield in bis
bands tbe works of a clock, fell to study-
ing tbem, and became wbolly absorbed.
Eacbel asked bim wbo bad broken it.
He replied :

" Obbe [our] Ca'lina no like de w^ay
it talkin'. Sbe say, ' Wat mek you say,
nigbt und day, nigbt und day ? ' Un'

sbe tuk ber bill un' bruk it up. Un'
Georgina cbop' up tbe pianneb 'case it
wouldn' talk foo ber like it talk foo
buckra. Da sbame ! "

But now came yells and cbeers in tbe
street, tbe rusb and trample of bur-
dreds of feet, and tbe cry, " De gub'-
nor ! de gub'nor a-comin' ! "

Dora and all ber kindred bastened to
tbe windows. In an open carriage witb
two official attendants, and surrounded
by a mounted guard, tbe aged governor
was coming down tbe street. He wore
tbe uniform of a Danisb general and
was, amid tbe dark multitude tbat
swarmed around bim, a very imposing
figure. Tbe insignia of tbe order of
Dannebrog were on bis breast. Tbe
cavalcade could scarcely pusb tbrougb
tbe dense crowd, and wben one of tbe
crowd bolder tban tbe rest seized tbe
borses' reins tbe equipage stopped.
Tbe bait cbanced to be before Dora's
bouse. Tbe governor sat still, very
pale.

Suddenly be rose, lifted bis cocked bat
from bis silvery bair, and witb graceful
dignity bowed. Tben be unfolded a
paper witb large seals attacbed, and in
a trembling but clear voice began to
read. In tbe name and by tbe autbority
of His Majesty Cbristian VIH., king of
Denmark, be proclaimed freedom to
every slave in tbe Danisb West Indies.

Tbe exclamations of amazed dismay
from Dora's aunts were drowned in tbe
buzzas of tbe black mob.

" Free ! free ! God bless de Gub'nor !
Obbe is free ! "

Tbe retinue, unbindered now, moved
again ; but tbe crowd, giving no beed
to tbe command to disperse to tbeir
bomes, bowled and surged after tbe
carriage in transports of rejoicing. At
tbe fort tbe proclamation, witb tbe or-
der to disperse, was read again. But
it would bave been absurd to supi^ose
tbat a brutisb mob tbreatening fire and
slaugbter, and suddenly granted all its
real demands, w^ould so suddenly re-
turn to quiet and laborious tasks made
odious by slavery. Half mad witb joy
and drink, tbe multitude broke into
small companies, some content to stay
in town carousing, otbers roaming out
among tbe island estates to pillage and
burn. At tbis point it was tbat tbe

718

A WEST INDIAN SLAl^E INSURRECTION.

governor, in not following emancipa-
tion with simple but prompt measures
of police, really for the first time proved
himself weak.

At evening Dora's kinswomen and
she, leaving the house in care of Jack
and Tom, went to spend the night at
the home of their good friend Mr.

K , where several neighbors were

gathered with arms and ammunition.
Their way led them by the ruined court-
house, where for several squares the
ground was completely covered with
torn records, books, and other docu-
ments, and every step rustled amid the
dead leaves of an irrevocable past.

The night wore by in fitful sleep or
anxious vigils. Near by, all was quiet ;
but the distant sky was in many places
red with the glare of incendiary fires
out among the plantations. At dawn,
Mr. K with Gilbert and others, ven-
tured out, and returned with sad tidings
brought by a courier from Christian-
sted. At sound of the signal on Sun-
day night, the negroes had swarmed into
that place by thousands. The next day
they attacked the fort there in the same
savage but impotent way in which their
fellows had attacked this one at Fred-
ericksted. The governor had just de-
parted for Fredericksted, leaving word
to do nothing in his absence. But the
officer in command at the Christian-
sted fort was of a sturdy temper, and
when the blacks swarmed upon him
he opened fire with grapeshot, killing
and wounding many. But this only de-
fended the town at the expense of the
country, into which the dark thousands
scattered to break, pillage, and burn.
Yet even so, no whites had been killed
except two or three men who had rashly
opposed them single-handed, although
the whole island, outside the two towns,
was, the courier said, completely at the
mercy of the insurgents.

However, he also bore better news.
A Danish man-of-war was somewhere
near by in these seas, and a schooner
had been sent to look her up. Another
had gone to ask aid in the island of
Porto Rico, which was but seventy
miles away and heavily garrisoned by
Spaniards. Still it was deemed wise to
accept, for the women and children of
Fredericksted and its neighborhood, the

offer from the ships in harbor and send
them at once on board, so that the mili-
tia and volunteer troopers might be free
to unite Avith the Danish regulars to
suppress the insurrection, or at least to
hold it in check until a stronger force
could extinguish it.

" I've told Tom," said Mr. K to

Dora's kinswomen, " to have a boat
ready at the beach to take us off to an
American schooner. Pack no trunks,
the vessel will not receive them ; gather
your lightest valuables in small bundles ;
and be quick, for if a crowd gets there
before you, you may be refused." They
hurried home over a thick carpet of
archives and title-deeds, swallowed a
sort of breakfast, and began the hard
task of choosing the little they could
take from the much they must leave be-
hind, in a dear home that might soon,
with all its contents, be only ashes.
Dora's big white cat had to be left.
Dora was laying charge after charge up-
on Si' Myr concerning the care of him,
as with a long good-by hug she laid
him on her bed, when Jack came to say
the boat was waiting.

" See," he said to Dora, " how easy I
kin liff you troo de surf," picked her up
abruptly, and set her on a low ward-
robe.

" Put me down ! " she cried, with
shrill resentment, and before a hand
could be lifted the cat flew upon Jack
and fastened on his throat with teeth and
claws. Aunt Marcia, who stood near,
tore the creature away and stanched the
wounds, while poor Jack droUy com-
mented on the superfluity of a watch-
dog for Dora's protection.

On the schooner Dora and her aunts
and grandmother found a kind welcome
from the Yankee skipper, amid a con-
fused crowd of friends and strangers,
and a chaos of boxes, bundles, and
trunks. Children were crying to go
home, or viewing with noisy delight the
wide roadstead dotted with boats still
bringing the fleeing people and swarm-
ing round every anchored vessel to dis-
charge their passengers ; women were
calling farewells and cautions to the
men in the returning boats, and friends
were meeting and telling in a babel of
tongues the pathetic or ludicrous ad-
ventures and distresses of the hour.

A WEST INDIAN SLAl/E INSURRECTION,

719

Dora and her aunts met a friend,
owner of the beautiful " North End "
estate, and his wife and httle daughter.
They told a thrilling story. Except
their housekeeper, a young English
girl, they three, they said, were the
only white persons on the place when
on that dreadful Sunday night their
slaves came to the house in force de-
manding " freedom papers."

"Not under compulsion," the master
replied ; " never ! "

" Den Obbe set ebryt'ing on fiah !
Wen yo' house bu'n' up we try t'ink
w'at foo do wid you and de missie ! "
They rushed away toward the sugar
works, yelling, "Git bagasse foo bu'n
him out ! "

The household hastily loaded all the
firearms in the house, filled every avail-
able vessel with water, and piled
blankets here and there for prompt use
against fire. Then they made all pos-
sible show of unconcern, the wife play-
ing her liveliest piano music until after
midnight. Whether moved by this
show, or some other cause, the blacks
did not return, and the next day the
family escaped to Fredericksted and to
the schooner.

Dora's grandmother and the wife of
the American consul were the oldest
ladies on the vessel. To them, therefore,
at nightfall, was given the only sofa on
board, and the rest of the weary throng
dropped asleep on their boxes and bun-
dles, in any sheltered nook or on the
open deck. The boatswain . let Dora
make his locker her couch, and lent her
a bag of something that felt like rope
ends for a pillow. For three successive
mornings she was wakened with —

" Sorry to disturb you, little miss, but
I must get to my locker."

Three days of heat, glare, hubbub, and
anxious suspense dragged themselves
away, and Thursday's gorgeous sunset
brought a change. The Danish frigate,
bright with flags and swarming with
men, sailed into harbor, dropped anchor,
and wrapped herself in the thunder and
white smoke of her salute. Soon a boat
was lowered at her side, an officer in
glittering uniform took its tiller-ropes,
its long oars flashed, and it bore away
toward the fort. But evening shades
closed around it, night fell, a starry

silence reigned, and when a late moon
rose out of the sea Dora and her kins-
women slept.

Early the next morning it was known
that Captain Erminger, the frigate's
commander, had assumed chief com-
mand over the whole island, declared
martial law, landed his marines, and
begun offensive operations against the
insurgents. Soon the harbor was pop-
ulous again with refugees returning
home in boats. Tom came with his
boat. Just as Dora and her kindred
started landward a schooner came round
the island bluffs, bringing the Spanish
soldiers. At early twilight these landed
and marched with much clatter through
the empty streets to the town's vari-
ous points of entrance, there to mount
guard, the Danes having gone to scatter
the insurgents.

The plan was for the pursuing forces,
in two bodies, to move toward each
other from opposite ends of the island,
spanning it from sea to sea and meet-
ing in the centre, thus entirely disinte-
grating the bands of aimless pillagers
into which the insurrection had already,
of its own motion, dispersed. This
simple task of military police was ac-
complished in a few days. Buddoe
proved so devoid even of ordinary man-
hood and good sense, that he was almost
at once ensnared by the baldest flatter-
ies of two Danish residents of high
social rank, and finding himself in the
enemy's hands without even the honor
of armed capture, betrayed his confed-
erates to save his own neck and disap-
peared. Only one small band of blacks
made any marked resistance. Under a
certain "Moses" they occupied a hill
and tried to defend it by hurling down
stones upon their assailants, but were
soon captured. Many leaders of the
movement were condemned and shot.
Their execution is said to have been
characterized, in most cases, by a total
absence of fortitude. The majority
were utterly unable to die with courage,
and were shot while imploring mercy
with agonized tears and cries.

In less than a week from the day of
the white women's and children's flight
to the vessels in the harbor, quiet and
order were restored, and a meeting of
planters was adopting rules and rates

720

LOIRE'S LINK.

for the employment of the freed slaves.
Some estates resumed work at once ; on
others the ravages of the torch had first
to be repaired ; some negroes refused
to work ; and it was months before all
the windmills on the hills were once
more whirling before the sea breezes.
The Spaniards lingered long, but were
finally relieved by a Danish regiment.
Captain Erminger, of the frigate, was
commended by the home government.
The governor, although his act of eman-
cipation was confirmed, was recalled,
superseded, tried, and censured.

The planters got no pay for their
slaves. Doubtless it was easy for gov-
ernment to argue that if the ex-master
ought .to be paid for his slave, then
much more should the ex-slave recover
back-pay for his labor; and that, after
all, a general emancipation was only a
moderate raising of wages that had been
unjustly low and inequitably uniform.
Both kings and congresses have that
slovenly trick, of doing the easiest thing
instead of the fair thing, and of letting
two wrongs offset each other. Make
haste, rising generations ! And as you
trul}^ honor your fathers, bring to their
graves the garlandry of juster laws, and
kinder, purer days.

To different minds, and even to simi-
lar minds under the lights and shades

of varying traditions, this true story —
of Dora's, not mine — will speak, no
doubt, a varying counsel. To some it
will seem plain that this lovely island
of the Holy Cross was saved from the
hideous carnage of a Haytian revolu-
tion only by the iron hand of military
suppression. To others it will appear
that the feeble-handed old governor's
rashly timorous proclamation was, after
all, the true source of deUverance. Cer-
tainl}', in any fair mind the story must
at least raise the question whether even
the most sudden and ill-timed conces-
sion of rights, if only backed by ener-
getic police action, is not a prompter,
surer cure for public disorder th?^n
whole batteries of artillery without the
concession of rights. The most blun-
dering and imbecile effort that can be
contrived for the prompt undoing of
a grievous wrong is safer than the
shrewdest or strongest effort for its
continuance. Meanwhile, with what
patience doth God, as seen in nature,
wait for man to learn his lessons.
Beautifiil Santa Cruz still glitters on
the bosom of her crystal sea as she
shone before the Carib danced on her
snowy sands, and as she will still shine
when some new and as yet unborn Co-
lumbus brings to her the Christianity of
a purer day than ours.

LOVE'S LINK.

By Agnes Lee,

A SAD procession sought the church at noon of day.
A weeping girl along the winding summer way
Followed the slow-borne bier where mute her lover lay.

Adown that flowered path there came a bridal band.

The radiant wife stepped proudly, strong of heart, and grand

With all the solemn joy of love's still wonderland.

White-garmented, like day dawned clear with cloudless skies !
Dark-robed, like night o'ercast that sees no star arise !
They met, they paused, they looked into each other's eyes.

And then, for swift and sweet is love's converging tide,
Behold, the fair young wife wept as she turned aside —
The hopeless girl who wept smiled on the new-made bride.

MAFTiN .

His
la))ie>it-

able

predic-

a-

tne?it.

He

tryeth

Eben Pynciiot was sad, Eben Pynchot was
gloomy,
While it might be a trifle too much to assume he
Was ready to vacate this vortex of strife,
There was no denying he didn't like life.
He had tried it both ways, tried it just as it came.
And gone out of his way to make of it a game
Of elaborate methods and definite plan,
With ends fit to serve as the chief ends of man.
Either w^ay it seemed now he'd been chasing a bub-
ble,
And the fun he had had hardly paid for the trouble.

First trying it poor, with his living to work for,
He had used as much strength as he had to exert for
That purpose and stopped there ; not that he was

lazy,
But going without to him always came easy,
And he greatly preferred to have less and economize,
With a mind free to meditate, read, or astronomize,
Than to hustle, with due acquisition of dross.
But with no mind for aught except profit or loss.
"In his work," said his boss, "he's a youth to be

counted on
Very much as you'd trust to a clever automaton,
But for all that he cares for commercial adventure he
Would go through the same daily round for a cen-
tury."

For a while once he did show some symptoms of go
That promised in time into " business " to grow ;
He worked overtime, and his questions betrayed
Such a wish to discover how money was made
That his increase of zeal by his owners was noted
And he stood on the sharp edge of being promoted.
When his eagerness all of a sudden dispersed
And he lapsed into just what he had been at first.
It M'as never explained l)ut it seemed to come pat
That Miss Blake married Rogers tlie June after that.

uncle

dieth

'Twas the following spring that bis great-uncle
Eben,
Whose toil in "the Swamp" long had lucrative

proven,
Caught a cold riding home insufficiently clad
And promptl}^ developed the prevalent fad.
" Pneumonia, age much against him," 'twas whis-
pered.
His life had been frugal and leather had prospered.
The will spattered off at the start with bequests
To cousins, and colleges, hospitals, rests
For the wayworn, old servants, familiars and clerks,
Till it showed a round sum gone for love and good

works.
"All of which," it ran on, " being paid with due care,
lenveth Being Still of sound nund, I appoint and declare
Eben Pynchot, my nephew and namesake, to be
Of the whole of the residue sole legatee."

" His nephew ! Don't know- him," Executor Will-
ing said.
" Never heard of him ! " echoed Executor Holling-

shed .
" Was here at the funeral," said Executor Prince,
" I saw him, but haven't laid eyes on him since.
Never mind, he'll turn up." But all three of tbem

guessed
That his share would be small after paying the rest.

Then came the post-mortem. The trio selected to
Operate found what they hadn't expected to.
pectediy ^\^q autopsy dazed them. A simple tin box,

op-

Excised from behind a Trust Company's locks,
Developed securities in lots and varieties
So ample and with sucli regard for proprieties
In the matter of dividends, that those worthy men
Sat speechless till, getting their wind back again,
An admission each gasped in such voice as he could
Of how^ old Eben's worth had been misunderstood.

c:L-:^

TV here-
upon
he
retireth

frotn
business.

He
refraiii-
eth
fro}ti
guz-
zling

He took it all calmly, incredulous first,
Then wonder-eyed, lastly resigned to the worst.
Being quit of the need to beg, labor, or rob.
He made sure of the facts and then threw up his job,
Bought a sharp, shining shears fit his coupons to

sever,
And regarding himself done with labor forever,
Set out with serene disposition to measure
What profit might lie in existence at leisure.

Five years passed, they left him well on in his
twenties.
But still to his new trade a willing apprentice ;
Deliberate still in his manner, and spare
In his frame, fitly dressed and with not too much

care.
Eating all things and drinking all freely, and yet with
The sort of instinctive discretion that's met with
In monkeys, and men who from testing it find
That less fun with the gullet means more with the

mind.
For he realized young that though houses may burn
And be built again finer, and jewels return
That were lost, and a fortune misused be replaced
By a windfall in spite of inordinate waste.
And a man's very ancestors sometimes may be
Swapped ofl", a job lot. for a fresh pedigree.
Though his babes he may shift too, and even his wife,
The stomach he starts with stays by him through life ;
And too much or too little care what he shall put in it
Is likely to leave him at last with his foot in it.

^J

the

Five years he had travelled, by gradual stages
gZlh Finding out what a million a year in this age is,
abroad And inuring himself to the startling effects

Wrought by gold on deposit responsive to cheeks.
Circumventing the globe on a track loosely planned,
and He had got some idea of the lay of the land,
doeth Supplementing the same with deliberate diligence
By study of people and human intelligence.
Wise men and wise virgins and fools of all statuses,
sran YvovcioX^x^^ scamps, anarchists, young Fortunatuses.
Russian princes, dukes, beggars, lords, common

Cook's tourists.
Doctors, diplomates, gamblers, mind -readers, faith-

curists.
Grooms, couriers, mandarins, pachas, bagmen, colo-
nels,
Professors, cads, spendthrifts, correspondents of

journals,
He had rubbed against all of them and hundreds
more too,
in Getting aspects of life from diverse points of view.
Pall Mall, Piccadilly, Bois, Boulevard, Corso
Had grown trite to his eye as Fourteenth Street, or

more so.
The famed bank of Neva, each Ringstrasse mart,
The paths Unter Linden, he knew all by heart.
Duly vouched for in letters of forceful variety.
He had dabbled two seasons in London society.
A house in Park Lane had disputed his stay
With a suite that he kept in the Rue de la Paix.
The Derby those years 'twas worth doing, to see
The swells on his drag : ditto more at Grand Prix.
On a stem-winder yacht in the Mediterranean
He had cruised in such guise as Jove visited Danae in,
Putting in at his whim where they chanced to appear a
Fete worthy to share in the bright Riviera ;
Waking up Monte Carlo by way of a prank.

fa')

tries.

'V

m

m

m

M

f^

m

fe

■^^'>S'^!^\

f\u

e X pen-

al td

terial.

V>Y testing new methods of breaking the bunk ;

Storing Venice, her stones and canals, in his memory,

Tlie Bosphorus cleaving, romantic and glamory ;

Then the Nile, thence Suez, by his craft percolated,

Let him in on the East with a mind not yet sated :

Bombay and Colombo, Calcutta and Delhi,

Simla, Bangkok antl Singapore, Canton and Shanghai,

Tientsin and Pekin, and flowery Japan

Had all fitted into his nebulous plan.

Seeing all that he might and inferring the rest,

He had drifted on, gaining, with modified y.est,

Much lore of carved ivoiy, lacquers and pottery,

Theosophy, Buddhism, jade, gems, and tottery

Shrines, flavored all b}' things mentioned or written

By the all-supervising, ubiquitous Briton.

Nor had he neglected that signally filling
Device known as " sport," euphemistic for killing.
Constrained by the vogue that that pastime secures,
He had bagged countless pheasants, stalked deer on

Scotch moors,
Chased foxes on horseback, tracked Muscovite bears,
Met tigers at home in their Bengalese lairs,
And capped African beasts with assorted quietuses.
From lions and elephants dow^n to mosquitoeses.
Discerning how great and how cheap is the credit
Accorded to blood, he continued to shed it,
Till his mentors admitted he couldn't do more.
And Phil Armour himself wasn't deeper in gore.

So, too, horse. Though his globe-trotting didn't per-
mit
Him to feel for that beast the concern he is fit
To awaken in man, he became with his looks
Well acquainted enough to know withei'S from hocks ;
And if all of his good points he couldn't detect,
He acquired at the least an unstinted respect
For a brute in whose structure one great end in view 'tis
To help idle men to exist without duties.

1

L-^^

g^^"

;?f>4'

|H

-"w

"^i^ifSii^

-*r'.

ho7ne

iiiaketh

him-

self a

nest.

^

r/

Exiiaustiug at last the incentives to roam,
Eben galliered liis trophies and turned toward home.
cotnetk Dispjitching his yacht her own jiassage to work,
He sailed on a " liner" himself for New York,
And arrived, duly sanctioned that town to possess
By that title unchallenged, a London success.
In due time joining clubs and his birthright renewing
He got some idea what his fellows were doing.
And ventured to make his desire understood
To share their proceedings as far as he could.
Obtaining a villa not too far away
He put himself up there, not meaning to stay
By himself, but desiring some haven to fly to
When he wanted to think, or had reason to try to.
On the Hudson it stood, on whose fresh-water tide
His boat lay prepared to vex waters untried
Any moment her owner whim-prompted might happen
To step on her deck with his wishing (sea) cap on.

In a couple more years by more long-distance gad-
ding,
Whenever one place or one crowd got too madding,
He'd conversant become with this land's superficies
And the palpable traits of American species.
Playing polo at Newport and coaching at Lenox,
Mount Desert's hazards daring unshattered, and then oc-
Cidentally threading the fresh water seas,
Thence off to the land of hot springs and big trees,
Adding big-horns and elk to the list of his slaughtered,
Back to bow to she-Patriarchs, bejew^elled, bedaughtered,
Watching Congress dispute through a Washington

winter.
Leading Germans the pace of a misapplied sprinter, —
It was fun, but for all it diverted and pleased
Eben Pynchot, it left in him, all unappeased,
A gnawing distrust of how long to beguile
Life by dodging its problems was really worth while.

and
prietk

into
her re-
sources.

mr^^M

£Mm

He

his

So back to that villa he had on the l)i'ink

Of the Hudson he drifted and paused there to think.

lie took time to it ; buildini^ a little and planting,
Assorting the fruits of his wide gallivanting,
Disposing his porcelains, pictures, and brie a-brac
arrangeth (Hitherto jumblcd out helter-skelter and pick-a-back).
So that other collectors, inspecting his plunder,
Might covet his bits with due envy and wonder ;
That his Japanese swords, when his rivals should

call on 'em.
Might stir in them desperate longings to fall on 'em ;
That his peachblows and sang-de-boeufs, and various

glazes
Might rouse into violent mania the crazes
Of persons wiiose cherished and costly insanity
Makes them suitable objects of man's inhumanity.

things^

^:^

](^

and

buyetk
more,

but

groioeth

iveary

and

gettetk the

malaria

out

of the

nentspapers.

Some orchids he got too, not many but curious,
And a notable lot of chrysanthemums glorious.
Also horses enough for his uses vehicular,
And to make spavins, ringbones, diseases navicular,
Splints, curbs, and most species of equine affection
Familiar enough to him soon for detection.
Yet with all of these manifold means of distraction
He still found time for thought, for the blues, for

inaction.
The newspapers came with the world's motley

annals,
And into his mind through unfortified channels
Ran the story of enterprise, effort, success,
Mishap, want, and failure that reels from the press,
And stuck there, corroding his lights, and his liver's
Performance so marring it gave him the shivers,
Because with no authorized permit to shirk.
He was living as quit of humanity's work
As a grasshopper is, in a June meadow playing.
Of the trite agricultural duty of haying.

_^±liUlSi||

He
hath

it
bad.

He
talketh

to

himself

like

e

n.

Christian

En-

deavor-

er.

It was then that his spirits began to succumb
To that duly hereinbefore hinted at gloom,
Week by week, month by month grew his dissatisfac-
tion
Till at last came the climax that foreshadowed action.

" What is it," lie mused, " that makes life worth the

living ?
Is it endless receiving and spending ; or giving ?
Is it lollipops, flapdoodle, horses and yachts ;
Having pennies to drop in all possible slots ?
Is it hustle and get-there, the genius for trade
And commercial combines, by which fortunes are

made ?
I never liked that. Was it luck or mishap
That a fortune without it fell into my lap ?
A bowlder of size has been rolled to the crown
Of a hill, I can start it and let it roll down.
If you set a great trap and within my reach bring it,
No doubt I can jump on the bait-plate and spring it.
But the question keeps pressing what fellow gets

caught —
Whose legs the trap shuts on — who is it that's bought ?
I'm not sure, but at odd times I own I opine
That the limbs that I see held so firmly are mine !

" Must I keep to the end of the chapter, I wonder,
This purposeless role of idealized rounder !
It is really a good gift that snatches away
The motives for labor and substitutes play !
The fellows that do things and are things attain
Their lead by hard discipline seasoned with pain.
Their characters grow by the sort of endeavor
That seizes on time as a slice of forever.
It begins just a little to get through m}^ head
Why the grave Seer of Galilee meant what he said
To that opulent youth wiio disliked his advice
And w^ent off disconcerted to pause and think twice.
If the spirit's the man, what in thunder's the use
Of indulging the senses with pains so profuse.

■^

and

repenteth.

He

bringeth

forth

meet

fruits.

His coMt-

/>a?iions

deride

him.

but

he put-

teth them

to

rout,

If the more you indulge them the harder it is
For the spirit to get what is lawfully his !

" Not the best behorsed drag can keep up very far
With a tuppenn}^ cart that is hitched to a star.
Having fun with one's money's a good thing to do,
But how about letting it have fun with 3'ou !
Mine shall serve, not possess ; and unless I can keep
My place soul end upward, on top of my heap,
I vow that by way my defeat to acknowledge
I'll dump the whole pile on a Methodist college."

than

he

Eben Pynchot's become a laborious man.
He went back to work with more purpose

plan.
And his purpose w^as no more than this, that

w^ould
With himself and his pile do the best that he could.
But he followed the rule, both in person and pelf.
That who does best for others does best for himself.
Merely dipping his surplus out wasn't enough :
"It's dipping one's self in," he said, "that's the stuff."
For a week once his ennui he strove to allay
By ferrying summer-sick babes down the Bay ;
Whereat his pals, making excessively merry,
Avowed he'd invaded the precincts of Gerry.
But he sniffed, and without elevation of dander
Declared the Bay subject to no Gerrymander.
"Every man to his sport," he said, '' non dispu-

tandum
Be gustibus ; none of your scoffing at random !
If it suits me to take my young friends out again,
You bet that I will ; 'tisn't half a bad plan.
For chasing the blues, when you down to it come.
You mistake if you think the sole factor is rum.
Nothing quickens the liver and fends off the gout
]\Iore surely or better than helping folks out."

\

'^

?^

diners

sorts.

He
feeleth
better

Whatever such freight Eben ships from the docks he
Contrives to attend to in these days by prox5\
He's so occupied now with an office and clerks,
Deep in politics, business concerns, and good works.
In business, regarding himself as to blame
For any misconduct that's done in his name.
He forces himself to take adequate care
That what business is done for him shall be done square.
Much he gives, but how much, or to whom, or to what,
Are things that this rhyming deponent learns not.
Of a dozen great charities yearly one sees
His name lettered out in the list of trustees.
He owns model tenements, too, and I know
Of his trying experiments not long ago
To see whether a system of loan-shops could thrive
Where borrowers needn't be quite skinned alive.
As for politics, knowing that folks can make shift
To do without help if so be they have thrift,
But good government's something they can't thrive

without,
He does his best efforts to bring that about.
And he sticks to it so, with such dogged persistence.
Such hustling here, and again such resistance.
That I own there are times when I almost prepare
To see some Hall or other run Eben for mayor.

His liver works better now, thanks to this whirl
Of industry, and — oh ! besides, there's a girl !
Such a dear ! such a heart ! and such wits ! such a

head !
Such a hang to her gown ! such a poise of her tread !
She has stock in that loan-office scheme I was speak-
ing of. Eben consults with her four times a week.
And so arch is her smile and so cheerful his scoff
That I own I think sometimes they will hit it off.
'T would be great luck for Eben if those two should

pair,
For who needs so much help as an arch- millionaire !

5^>K

^ %..

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2

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bc:w5^^

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..••••♦••'9'».».

MISS LATYMER.
^ George A, Hibbard.

"We were in my private car and
went as far as Mexico — then came
slowly up through southern California,
stopping at Santa Barbara and Monte-
rey. Quite a pleasant party — the
Perth - Donaldsons, Mr. and Mrs. Ar-
thur Hemmingsford, Miss Hermione
Martyn, Miss Gosling and Reginald
Mason."

"Yes," answered Miss Latymer,
" Hermione wrote to me about it, and
I received her letter just before I
sailed."

" I only wish, Miss Latymer, that you
had been here. When I proposed the
party to Mrs. Hemmingsford, yours was
the first name she mentioned. I know
that she regretted very much that you
could not go, and — ahem — I was greatly
disappointed."

The President of the N. E. & S. W.
Railroad settled himself more comfort-
ably in his chair and looked admiringly
at Miss Latymer, who listlessly con-
tinued to do nothing. She had seen
men look at her in that way many times
before, and she knew quite well what
was coming. She had heard the same
thing so often that even the manner of
the matter that she understood so well,
had almost ceased to interest her. Pro-
posals of marriage could be quite easily
divided and classed under certain well
recognized heads. Instinctively she pre-
l^ared herself to hear the inevitable, to •
assign it to its proi>er specific place and
fittingly dispose of it. There could onl}'
be one uncertainty — would it be the
" coldly practical," the " mildly fatherly,"

or the " intense elderly ? " That it must
be one of the three, she was convinced.
She rather decided that it would be the
" intense elderly " — the President of the
N. E. k S. W. having a fewness of years
and a sufficiency of hair, to make such
a proceeding at least tolerably becom-
ing.

" I assure you," he went on with a
smile so comprehensively bland that it
seemed to diffuse itself through the
place, and wrap even the fire-irons with
its genial warmth, "I assure you that
the expedition was not the same to me,
as — as — it might — I may say — other-
wise would have been."

There could be no doubt about it,
thought Miss Latymer ; it was to be
the " intense elderly."

"You are very kind," she answered,
indulgently, " I should have liked to go
very much."

" It could not, however, be expected
that you would so quickly abandon
your triumphs on the other side of the
Atlantic."

Decidedly, concluded Miss Latymer,
the President was very oppressive.
She longed to escaj^e. The carriage
stood at the door — Mrs. Biggleswade's
carriage, which Mrs. Biggleswade, who
was making so much " social capital "
out of the presence in her house of the
famous beauty, had sent back for her.
She wanted to get away to the Park
where she could be at least for a time
alone. That night she would have to
go to a dinner at the Smyjth's, lis-
ten to a part of an opera in the Auchen-

MISS LATYMER,

733

leek box, and then go on to the Paw-
lett's dance, and all with Mrs. Biggle-
swade, who certainly was working her
very hard. Was it worth while to have
accepted that enterprising lady's very
comfortable but very exhaustive hospi-
tality? It was a question ; but the al-
ternative was to have spent the month
with her grandmother in a snow-clogged
New England town.

"But then it is the same everywhere,"
continued the President, " 'the celebrat-
ed Miss Latymer.' "

" The celebrated Miss Latymer,"
said the girl, coldly, " is not so cele-
brated but that it makes her very un-
comfortable when anyone speaks to her
of her celebrity, so please don't."

" Certainly not," said the President,
"but still you must be so accus-
tomed "

"That's just it," Miss Latymer an-
swered, "I suppose that if I didn't have
civil things said to me, I should be dy-
ing to hear them, and now " — she made
a little movement with her hand — "they
tire me so."

"I can understand that such uni-
versal adulation might become weari-
some."

There are those who have seen the
President of a railroad unbend and be-
come as nearly as possible an ordinary
human being — who have been able to
realize that such a one may find his filet
too cold or his wine too warm, or may
conceivably lose his umbrella or his
temper like anyone else ; but the Presi-
dent of a railroad in love and sighing
out his soul to the object of his adora-
tion— to but few of the sons or daugh-
ters of men has it been granted to view
such a spectacle.

The head of the great N. E. & S. W.
" System " paused embarrassedly a mo-
ment, and then went on.

"I really — there is a matter about
which I wish to speak to you."

Miss Latymer glanced up in surprise.
There was something, either in the tone
or the form of the sentence, that, to
her practiced ear, conveyed an intima-
tion that, in this instance, there was to
be some variance in the order of pro-
cedure. The form of the proposition
was not to be quite what it usually
was, or she might have been mistaken
Vol. XII.— 79

as to the sentimental intentions of the
head of the N. E. & S. W.

"You must understand," he went on,
" that the deep interest I feel in you
and yours, the strong desire that I
have to be of some assistance, leads me
to speak as I do."

Miss Latymer became even attentive.

" I shall have something to say later
which concerns myself alone — some-
thing for which I shall beg your ear-
nest consideration, but first I wish to
speak to you of another matter."

And so, thought Miss Latymer, it was
only a postponement, and she would be
obliged to go through the whole scene
after all.

" I must weary you with a few facts,"
said the President, deliberately, " in
order to have you clearly know how
the affair stands."

"Yes," said Miss Latymer, indiffer-
ently.

" You are perhaps aware that, as the
President of the N. E. & S. W., I am in
a position of some responsibility, not
to say influence, and — ahem — power."

Miss Latymer indicated that she was
conscious that such were the facts.

" It often happens that I am obliged
to decide very weighty matters involv-
ing large sums of money — millions,
perhaps — but I am glad that no such
duty rests upon me now. There are
also pleasurable incidents connected
with my place and office, opportunities
for the exercise of authority in a man-
ner to benefit those in whom I take an
interest." The President paused im-
pressively. " The Honorable Amos
Rhodes died some three days ago."

Miss Latymer looked up question-
ingly, and as if the facts held little or
no significance for her.

" You do not understand," said the
President, patiently. "Mr. Rhodes has
been for a long time the attorney and
general counsellor for the N. E. & S. W."

" Yes," responded the girl, " I re-
member now that I have seen him — a
tall, thin man, who looked always as if
he was gotten up for a part in private
theatricals and was just going to come
on and tell the hero that his uncle had
died and left him all his money."

" I have no doubt that Mr. Rhodes
had the peculiarities you mention, al-

734

MISS LATYMER.

though I never happened to have no-
ticed them. He was a very intellectual
man "

"I remember," interrupted Miss
Latymer, " he has been pointed out to
me at some of the larger balls, as a
person whom I ought to see."

" But," said the President, " it is the
fact that Mr. Rhodes is dead, not that
Mr. Rhodes was alive, that is important.
His loss was quite unexpected, and, of
course, his place as counsel must be
filled. The duty of choosing his suc-
cessor devolves on me, and I am natu-
rally anxious to exercise such patron-
age as wisely and as advantageously as
possible."

" Is it difficult to find people to take
the place ? " asked Miss Latymer, inno-
cently.

" Difficult ! " almost gasped the hor-
rified President ; " you have no idea of
the numbers who are using every means
to obtain it. There is not so much
money in it — although the income is
not inconsiderable — but the position is
one that might lead to a great deal, and
for a young man would be a wonder-
fully fine thing. I have been ap-
proached from all directions — influence
of every sort has been brought to bear
upon me, but I have not yet said what
I would do."

Miss Latymer gazed through the
openings in the iron railing of the bal-
cony before the window, at the top of
the footman's hat. She was to '' pick
up " Mrs. Biggleswade on her return
from the Park, and feared that if she
were compelled to listen to the Presi-
dent much longer, she would be ob-
liged to drive directly from the house
to meet her hostess.

" There have been a great many per-
sons proposed," he said, " but there
have been reasons why they have not
been entirely acceptable. Finally, in
rather an unusual way, a new name
w^as brought to me, and I was asked to
give the position to quite a young man.
I do not know that you have ever heard
of him — ah — he is called Raymond
Thorold."

" Raymond Thorold ! " exclaimed
Miss Latymer, rising quickly and go-
ing to the bell which was in a dim and
distant corner of the room.

" You — ah — know him ? " said the
President, in some surprise.

"Yes," answered Miss Latymer, slow-
ly returning l)ut not again sitting down,
" I know Raymond Thorold."

" I understood that he was of good
family, but I did not know that he went
about a great deal. I thought that he
was ambitious — a worker "

It was very strange, thought Miss
Latymer ; it seemed, for the last week
or two, that all and everyone had, as it
were, conspired to remind her of this
man. People were constantly men-
tioning him in the most casual fashion,
and there had been hardly a dinner or
a dance at which she had not met him.
But that was not all. It seemed as if
in some mysterious way the most un-
likely subjects had the power of sug-
gesting him and bringing him before
her mind. It made no matter how re-
mote the matter might be in time or
place, she sooner or later found herself
thinking about Raymond Thorold. Old
Philip Toynbee's description of New
York " before the war" had only evoked
the reflection that she had heard that
Thorold's people had been of great
importance then, and young " Billy "
Wenham's account of a trip among the
South Sea Islands only served to re-
mind her of the not remarkable fact
that Raymond had once been on the
point of going to Japan, but hadn't.
All this seemed very singular to her, for
she did not know or did not choose to
recognize that a bruised heart has some-
thing in common with a bruised finger,
and receives, or seems to receive, in the
general perverseness of things, more
shocks and jars than would ever fall to
its share were it entirely sound.

"Yes, I know," interrupted Miss
Latymer, " but latterly he has been
quite gay and I have seen him every-
where. What an excellent choice ! I
am sure no one could be better. I
have heard him spoken of so highly, as
having such knowledge and ability."

Her face shone with pleasure, which
the President of the N. E. & S. W. did
not notice. Perhaps he was not on the
lookout for such manifestations of hu-
man emotion — perhaps he did not care
very much for human emotions, having
found out that human interests were

MISS LATYMER.

735

such very forcible and controlling
things, and that, in most affairs, he
could afford to disregard mere matters
of personal sentiment.

" Judge Duffield said only the other
night," she went on, "that if he ever
had the chance he — Mr. Thorold — would
show what was in him, and — this you
say is a chance ? "

"A chance," that' was what they all
said he wanted — was what in other lan-
guage he had said himself. Miss Laty-
mer remembered well the first evening
Thorold had talked to her of himself.
It was after a dinner at which she had
said very little, for those who had been
at it had not been, all of them, the peo-
ple of whom she saw the most ; and the
subjects about which there had been
more or less talk, had been quite strange
to her. The dinner was at the house
of a woman whom all society described
as one who had made a love-match, for
Caroline Lydekker had certainly sur-
prised all, and disappointed many ex-
pectations, when she married young
Merrick. But the w^orld had consoled
itself with the reflection that Caroline
had always been " queer " although she
was a Lydekker, and would probably
get on well enough. Miss Latymer
was, therefore, not surprised to meet
beneath Mrs. Merrick's roof the peo-
ple before mentioned, to whom she was
not quite accustomed, and to hear mat-
ters discussed about which she dared
to say but little. She had been mere-
ly curious at first, but gradually she
had become really interested. Thorold
had said a good deal, and from the
way those present listened to him —
those unaccustomed people who were
all more or less celebrated for some
thing or other — she felt that what he
said must be very meritorious. To be
sure there was a great deal of it that
she did not in the least understand, but
she felt, with sudden sense of humility,
that it must be her own fault and she
became proportionately reverential in
her attention. There was a great deal
even at which they laughed, out of which
she could make nothing — references,
glancing allusions, and sentences that
to her had no connection with what was
being said, but evidently were full of
meaning for the rest. It was with

great meekness of spirit that she had
spoken to Thorold when he came to
talk to her after the men had finally re-
turned to the drawing-room. She was
so afraid of making mistakes in this
curious conversational region in which
she found herself, and although she
strove painfully to say the right thing,
she saw that she made blunders, and
therefore was for the most part silent.
It was so different from anything to
which she had been accustomed. Once
or twice in replying to what had seemed
to her some perfectly simple remark of
his, she had seen Thorold look at her
curiously and she realized that she
must have failed to understand his full
meaning. The memory of those few in-
stants caused her very honest shame,
and she had never been able to think of
them without a strong sense of humili-
ation. But she had listened very eagerly,
and if her comprehension was not quite
complete her attention had been perfect.
She knew that he thought that she was
stupid, and, with complete self-abase-
ment, she confessed to herself that he
must be right. She was conscious that
she was looking unusually well that
night, and realized that it was under
the spell of her surpassing beauty that
this man who was generally so indiffer-
ent, so self-contained, was speaking so
freely. She felt strangely pleased. It
seemed that in all her short life of ad-
miration and adoration, she had never
received a compliment so graceful and
so great. Not that what he had said
was very much, but it was more per-
sonal than anything that he had ever
said before, and told her something of
a real self, which, she instinctively felt,
he successfully concealed from the
many, and which it seemed he was him-
self surprised to find that he revealed
to her. Half hearing his words, she lost
herself in the sense of their implied and
delicious flattery. Perhaps he did not
despise her after all as the mere conven-
tional type of the conventional world,
when he thought her worthy to be taken
into his confidence — perhaps, perhaps
— all sorts of things Miss Latymer
thought or half thought, surprised both
at their novelty and their strange de-
lightfulness. What better part in life
could there be than to strive and win

736

MISS LATYMEK.

what was worth attaining, and next to
that, what better lot could a woman
wish than to help and comfort one who
was so striving and attaining ? These
were strange ideas to find place in the
njind of the beautiful Miss Latymer,
but they were there, as she sat with her
breath quickly coming and going, and
her eyes shining with a singular bright-
ness, that night in Mrs. Merrick's little
drawing-room at Ever so Much and
Something West Some Street.

Miss Latymer again sat down oppo-
site the President as the servant en-
tered.

" You may tell Thomas to wait," she
said to the servant, who came in answer
to her ring, " I shall want the carriage
presently."

If she could only be the first to tell
him, thought Miss Latymer, how glad
she should be. It might almost seem as
if she had something to do with bring-
ing it about. That he was beginning to
think of her she could not doubt. He
had been to see her once, tvrice, thrice,
in the last fortnight, and one day he
had met her by accident and they had
walked until they came to a park, and
there had sat down on a bench, and it
had seemed that she had understood
him more easily than she ever had done,
and that he had been astonished at her
quickness. She did not remember hav-
ing been so proud of anything before.
Yes, that he was attracted by her was
certain. To be sure, he was, as she knew
very well, only fascinated, as so many
others had been, by her beauty. He did
not approve of her in the least, or think
of her other than impersonally — as he
might of any other rare and beautiful
object that was quite out of his reach.
But latterly it had not appeared so im-
possible that he should care for her ;
and in the joy of the present, she had
gone on in a blind trustfulness in a fut-
ure that did not seem quite hopeless.
Even her simple little efforts to interest
him seemed to win his attention, and
gradually she had forgotten probability,
reason, herself — and even Gertrude
Lorton.

" There can be no doubt," said the
President — for a young woman's mind
is nimble, and Miss Latymer's thoughts
had flown far before the distinguished

official had got together words to ex-
press his somewiiat dilatory ideas —
" there can be no doubt that Thorold
would be a good man for the place ;
but — " he paused a moment. "I have
thought of another plan of which I wish
your approval."

" My approval ! " Miss Latymer ex-
claimed.

" Strange," laughed the President,
" but that's what I want. It's a little
scheme of which I'm rather proud."

" I hardly see in what way I can have
anything to do with it," commented
Miss Latymer, not too cordially.

"I know you don't, but I shall try
and show you," continued the mag-
nate. "I never should have thought of
Thorold for the place, unless he had
been suggested to me — wouldn't have
thought of him then, only it seemed
there was no one else. As I said, it was
curious the way he was brought to my
attention. Quite a little romance."

The President of the N. E. & S. W.
laughed good-hum oredly, with the man-
ner of one who expresses a large-mind-
ed toleration for something which can-
not be quite overlooked, but which still
is not to be treated with serious consid-
eration.

"Yesterday," he continued, "I was
told that someone wanted to see me,
and going out I found a young girl, a
friend of ours, waiting to speak to me.
It seems that she is a small stock-
holder in the road, part of the property
left her by her uncle, and she had
learned in some way from her guardian
what was going on. But you can im-
agine my surprise at finding myself
approached on such a subject as the
attorneyship of the road by Miss Ger-
trude Lorton."

" Gertrude Lorton ! " exclaimed Miss
Latymer. "It was Gertrude Lorton
who came to see you ? "

" Yes," chuckled the President, " and
embarrassed enough she was. I don't
see exactly how she managed so clearly
to tell me what she wanted. But she
did pretty quick."

" How strange ! " said Miss Latymer,
with her chin resting on her hand and
her eyes looking at the floor.

"Wasn't it ? I didn't think she had
it in her to do anything so much out of

!

MISS LATYMER.

737

the ordinary. She is always so cohl
and quiet. But it's easy to see that
she's in love with the youn<^ man ; in-
deed, I've always heard they were ^reat
friends, and that she cared a good bit
about him. She made a good case for
him, saying that he was of undoubted
ability, that everyone acknowledged it,
and with this opportunity that he would
do great things. I had heard about
Thorold, and I confess, as she talked,
his appointment really seemed the best
way to settle all difficulties — a sort of
* dark horse,' you see. But then an
idea suddenly occurred to me, and I
didn't commit myself."

Miss Latymer did not move.

Gertrude Lorton ! Of course it was
she who had done it. Had she not
been Thor old's confidant for a long
time ? did she not know his impatience
of present conditions and his eager de-
sire to distinguish himself ? and wasn't
she herself interested in him and his ad-
vancement ? Instinctively Miss Laty-
mer had felt that Thorold had a vast
respect and reverence for Gertrude —
and was it not natural ? She was so
eminently the kind of girl that such a
man ought to admire. Miss Latymer
remembered her as she had appeared
at the Merrick dinner. Her pale, in-
tellectual face was strangely animated,
and she had said, with quick vigor and
enthusiasm, trenchant, sensible things
that had made response difficult. Miss
Latymer had always heard that Ger-
trude Lorton was " remarkable," but
she had never before taken the trouble
to discover of what nature such re-
markableness might be. She had al-
ways thought of her as a pretty enough
girl, of an unmistakably refined type,
whose " pose " made her singularly
simple frocks possible. They had en-
countered each other but rarely, and
this was the first time that their in-
terests had either crossed or clashed.
Miss Latymer's subjects had not been
among Miss Lorton's slaves, and hither-
to they had tolerated each other with
perfect indifference. But from the first
appearance of Thorold, Miss Latymer's
interest in the girl had increased. She
knew that Gertrude and he had " al-
ways known each othei-," and all found
it only too easy to surmise that the

ambitious and hard-working man who
so clearly had a '* career " before him,
must have more than an ordinary in-
terest in the " conscientious " and " su-
perior " young woman with " aims " in
life, who so evidently entertained seri-
ous ideas as to its " duties " and " re-
sponsibilities."

Miss Latymer had studied this new
being carefully, and even in a meek,
diffident way had tried to become her
friend. But their existences were too
dissimilar, their points of view too un-
like. Miss Latymer had retired, re-
pulsed and abashed by the sense of her
own shortcomings. Gertrude seemed
to have so many " interests," while she
had so few. She did her best, but it
was no use, she could not understand.
Everyone seemed unquestioningly to
like Miss Lorton. She was, indeed,
one of those persons, existing in all
communities, who, for some reason or
other, seem to be received as an article
of faith, and before whose " superior-
ity " each must bow or else stand self-
convicted as an outside barbarian, a
being incapable of high appreciation
or even ordinary comprehension. Miss
Latymer, who certainly was not vain of
her intellectual qualifications, and on-
ly rarely jealous, did admire Gertrude
immensely, in a distant, unquestioning
way. When she thought of what an
ignorant and useless person she her-
self was, she was overcome with sudden
dismay, and quickly arrived at the con-
clusion that she deserved nothing and
the other all. And in the hand of this
girl had been placed the power of giv-
ing to Raymond Thorold w^hat he
wished more than anything else — an op-
portunity to prove to others the posses-
sion of those abilities which he felt he
had — a chance to employ the accumu-
lated and special knowledge that was
the work of such a long time. Miss
Latymer knew Thorold well enough to
understand how he would feel about it
— understood him so fully that she
could realize perfectly that, with a nat-
ure in which ready and responsive
gratitude met so eagerly even the
slightest benefit, his thankfulness to-
ward Gertrude would be unbounded.
It was not as if he Avere like so many
others. He would feel that he ow^ed

738

MISS LATYMER.

her for this great good a debt that
must be paid, and which, as it was a
good that was to endure for life, might
require a life's acknowledgment.

Miss Latymer looked up,

" Yes," she said, " I believe that every-
one has always thought that there was
an understanding of some sort between
them. I don't wonder," she went on
bravely, " she is such a nice girl — and —
and they have so much in common."

"Now, do you know," said the Presi-
dent for whom the subtle qualities of
the intellect had but little charm,
" that, although everyone praises her
so much, she has always seemed to me
rather stiff, frigid, and formal ? But
then," he laughed, " I am always fright-
ened by her manner, and can't endure
that air she always has with her of —
ah — conscious rectitude."

Miss Latymer did not reply. It is
doubtful if she even heard what he said.
She was thinking of the dream in which
she had been living so long, the dream
that must now end ; for of course, as
soon as Thorold knew — and he certain-
ly would know — his gratitude, taken
with his previously existing liking for
Gertrude, could only bring about one
result.

"The girl didn't tell me not to say
anything about it — seemed rather de-
fiant, and acted as if she wasn't afraid
to have what she was pleased to do
knovni by anybody, a part of her pride,
I suppose. Well, I made up my mind
that if I gave him the place I should let
the fellow know what the young wom-
an had done for him."

Then the President went on, smiling
with self-caressing complacency at his
own acuteness :

"She might be embarrassed about
saying anything herself, and it would
be a pity to have it thrown away."

The President again paused.

" But," went on the ruler of the N.
E. & S. W., his large florid, handsome
face glowing with satisfaction, "as I
told you, I have another plan, and Mr.
Thorold may never know the interest
the young lady has taken in his case."

Miss Latymer, whose gaze had fallen,
glanced up at the stout, strong, heavy,
but distinguished - looking man, who
sat calmly before her.

" I told you that I'd be glad to do
something that you'd like, and I think
perhaps that this will please you. If
your brother. Miss Latymer, wants the
place, I would be very glad to give it to
him."

"Jack ! " she exclaimed.

"Yes ; I know that he might find it
for his interest to accept it, for "

"I understand," she exclaimed, ris-
ing without apparent reason and seat-
ing herself in a tall, stiff chair on the
other side of the fireplace. " We are
miserably poor, and "

"I beg, I beg — do not misunder-
stand me," implored the President ;
" I thought it might be a good oppor-
tunity for the emplo;)Tnent of your
brother's undoubted abilities."

"Jack's clever, but — he hasn't abili-
ties," she replied, almost harshly, cer-
tainly with a strange roughness in her
smooth voice ; " neither of us has abili-
ties, and I'm not even clever. But I
don't think he's the man for such a
position.

"Why?"

"He — he's not serious — you know
he never has been serious about his
profession, and — and he only cares to
amuse himself."

Miss Latymer again rose, and going
to the window, looked out.

" I speak to you of this, for the rea-
son that I must give an answer about
Thorold to-morrow. It seems that he
has an old family place up the river."

"I have heard him speak of it," said
Miss Latymer, softly ; " he cares more
for it than anything else."

"Well, it seems that he's had offers for
it from a syndicate that wants to cut it
up ; and that if he can't get this he'll
at once close with them. I understand
it'll come hard with him to sell, but
that he could not help it unless some-
thing like this happened."

Miss Latymer saw nothing of the
stream of carriages pouring up the
Avenue where the glittering afternoon
exodus had begun. She was thinking,
thinking. One word from her, and it
would not be in Gertrude Lorton's
power to accomplish her object — Tho-
rold would never be under such obliga-
tions as no man would have the right
to disregard. But ought she to speak

i^

MISS LATYMER.

739

that word ? On the desk beside which
she had been sitting, and from which
she had moved so hastily, lay a letter
in which her brother had announced to
her his engagement to Miss Gedney,
the heiress, and said exultantly that now
he was done forever with the "shop,"
and that in future he could live in the
idleness which alone seemed natural to
him. But the man there in the room,
waiting for her answer, did not know
it. What more natviral than that she
should accept such a chance for her only
brother. He would not take the place,
but that would not matter. He was
away. It would be several days before
an answer could be received from him,
and in the meantime the President
would have committed himself, and
what Gertrude had attempted would
have gone for nothing.

" At another time there might not be
such haste in reaching a decision, but
now, with all this threatened litigation
with the C. B. B. & Y. it is necessary to
end the matter at once. However, it
will give the man who holds the place of
counsel for the corporation the great-
er opportunity, for he will be instant-
ly brought into the largest relations,
and will be able immediately to show
the world whether there is anything in
him."

Mrs. Biggleswade's coachman start-
ed the horses and slowly walked them
down the avenue, leaving the footman
standing on the walk. But Miss
Latymer did not notice this or aught
else ; did not even hear the music of
the organ that was clattering out such
marvellous runs and trills near the
opposite curb. As she stood there, the
future of three lives dependent on her
action, she was almost unconscious of
time or place, so intent was she in eager
thought. Surely, day by day, he was
coming to care more for her — and she
loved him so. Why should the other
have him ? Gertrude Lorton might be
able to think what was for his good —
might have the skill to advance his in-
terests, but she herself only thought
of him. But wasn't that enough ? Miss
Latymer knew nothing about " careers,"
and would not have minded if Thorold
were always to be utterly unknown.
She cared for him, and whether he was

famous or powerful had nothing at all to
do with it. She knew that he was poor,
but she felt that she would be willing
to endure even poverty with him. And
yet, was it right that she should give
herself this chance of a happiness that
she had only so recently realized ? Could
she, even with the certainty that he
would come to love her, take away from
him that for which he had been so long
working and planning ? Could she force
him to endure the loss of his home,
the famous old Thorold homestead, of
which he was so proud, for which he
cared so much ? To be sure he would
never know — no one would ever know.
And to give him what he wished, and
to save him from what was threatened,
would be to give this other the chance
of serving him in the way he could feel
the most. Miss Latymer half turned
away from the window. But what
unending harm would be done him, if
she should prevent this thing. Miss
Latymer paused. What could she give
him in exchange for such loss ? She
was ignorant, frivolous, extravagant,
utterly unfitted, as she said to herself,
to be the wife of such a man — the last
one in the world to understand and
sympathize with him. But yet she
loved him, and would not that make up
for everything ? It was hard, very
hard, and she wished she had greater
ability, and could see more clearly.
Should she sacrifice herself for what
must be for his good — give up forever
that hope which was becoming more
and more precious to her, in order that
he might have what would be the best for
him ? These thoughts crowded them-
selves upon her, bearing her do^vn until
she almost felt as if she must cry out.
But she clasped her hands tightly and
tried fairly to face the situation. Now
it seemed as if she suddenly understood
it all more clearly. If she really loved
him, she must surely wish for his hap-
piness rather than her own, and that
such a chance to distinguish himself
would be the highest happiness for
him, she did not doubt. It was cruel,
cruel. If she had only to give him up,
to give him what he wanted — but, to
give him to another — and she returned
again to the same point — to give that
other the glory of what in reality she

740

MISS LATYMHK.

herself was doing, to let her reap the
advantages of her own act, that must
forever remain unrecognized.

The President of the N. E. & S. W.
stirred uneasily, and apparently seemed
to think that Miss Latymer was taking
an undue time to accept such an offer
as he had made.

She must answer him, and at once.
Only a few words — and again the sense
of the hardness of it all came over her,
and again she paused. She could not
do it. She could .not take from her-
self what she dimly felt was the best
and most unselfish feeling she had ever
known — could not put away from her-
self that hope of love, with the certainty
that what she was giving up would be
given to another woman. And yet she
loved him so that she could not bear that
he should not have all that he wished,
and — was it certain that he wished for
her ? No, no, no, she might be miserable,
but he would be proud, successful ; and
as for Gertrude Lorton, if her happiness
was to come from this relinquishment,
what did it matter ? Raymond should
have his desire, and should be great
and famous, and as for herself — she
could always know, although neither
he nor anyone else ever should, that it
was what she had done that had made
him what he was.

For one final moment of indecision
she stood looking out upon the avenue,
and though it seemed that she saw
nothing before her, its every aspect
came back to her afterward with hard
exactness — stood for one moment in
which desire and despair struggled
dimly, then she suddenly turned.

"Jack," she said, in a strange, even
voice, " is engaged to Miss Gedney."

" Oh," exclaimed the President, com-
prehendingly. " Miss Gedney, of Cin-
cinnati ? "

" He is in Cincinnati now," Miss Laty-
mer continued, "but I received a let-
ter from him this morning, and though
no one knows it, they are to be married
in a month, and then — and then — are
going to England for the hunting."

"If that is so," said the President,

" of course what I proposed won't do.
He'll hardly care to bother about any-
thing of this sort. Well, I'll give it to
Thorold, and I shouldn't be surprised if
he and Gertrude Lorton were married
immediately."

With deliberate finnness Miss Laty-
mer returned to the chair in which she
had been at first seated.

" I have no doubt of it," she an-
swered.

For a moment neither spoke.

"I am sorry that what I suggested,"
the President went on, " is of no use,
but at least it shows how anxious I am
to serve you ; " he paused, irresolutely.
If such a thing were possible with him,
it might almost seem that he was em-
barrassed. " Miss Latymer," he said,
at length, "I told you that there Avas
something about which I wished to
speak to you, that was — ahem — quite
personal to myself."

He did not continue. With a quick
movement Miss Latymer had twisted
herself around, and her head lay on her
outstretched arms while her whole bodj'
was shaken with quick sobs.

" Miss Latymer," cried the startled
President, jumping up in his amaze-
ment, " I beg you, what is it, what —
why "

"Don't mind me," cried the girl, "I
am very foolish — I-

"But I do mind, I can't see you un-
happy. I care too much for you. I love
you. I — it is what I wanted to say."
The President was speaking eagerly,
expressing a very real anxiety. "I
have wished to tell you for a long time.
I have thought that perhaps your life
might not be easy. I have wished to
make it different. All that I have, and
all that I am is yours "

" Leave me now ! " commanded Miss
Latymer, with her head still bent.
" Go ! "

"But " he began.

" Go, do not say anything — now."

" And I may come back ? " he asked,
raising the hand she held out to him
and kissing it.

" To-morrow, at — five."

THE NUDE IN ART.
By IVill H. Low and Kenyan Cox.

I.— By Will H. Low.

^^„^N the schools of paint-

Czi^T ^^^^' ^^^ firtist clubs, in
^^ the cafe's abroad, and
the restaurants at home,
where artists congregate, it
is of common occurrence that
a lull in the conversation is
broken, by some temerarious
spirit only, wdth the simple
query, What is art, anyway?
The obloquy lavished on any such pro-
pounder of the unanswerable may serve
as a warning to the writer, who has no
intention of asking or answering this
riddle of the sphinx. It may be per-
mitted, however, that he should en-
deavor to explain some of the reasons
Avhy it seems fitting that, at the end of
the nineteenth century, some painters
should be occupied in sedulously stem-
ming the current of popular direction
in art ; and this endeavor, in the brief
space possible in these pages, will be
made.

To be of one's time is of the first im-
portance if we entertain the legitimate
ambition of doing work that shall live.
There are men of talent who, judged by
their works, have appeared to be of a
time anterior to their own, and modern
art has known in the Baron Leys a
second Jan van Eyck ; while, among the
living, Burne Jones voluntarily remains
a contemporary of Mantegna. At first
this would seem to be an effect of their
choice of subject, but if we imagine the
modern discoveries in the direction of
light and atmosphere applied to the
works of these men, we should have in
them painters as distinctively modern
as Paul Baudry or Puvis de Chavannes.
Hence it would appear to be obvious
that subject has little or nothing to do
with the contemporaneous quality of
w^ork ; and in sentiment, as applied to
subject, the modern may throw aside
archaeological truth, and, as we have
seen lately in von Uhde and his follow-
ers, make, in costume and surrounding,
Vol. XII. —80

biblical characters in the dress of to-
day ; while on the other hand, every
fact of biblical research carefully noted
and in a manner reproduced, fails to
bring the work of Holman Hunt with-
in the pale of modern painting. There-
fore it is evident that the artist may
choose his subject or find it where he will.
The essential of his claim to modernity
being that he must in manner of paint-
ing and vision be technically abreast of
the latest discoveries of his time. Un-
fortunately, the leading sj)irits in the
search after truth in painting have in
a great measure left behind, along with
much luggage of tradition of a useless
nature, the power of conceiving a work
of art of a purely imaginative character.
It was perhaj^s natural that the revolu-
tion which consigned the heavy bro^vn
studio-born shadow-s, and the rhyth-
mic, conventional, hackneyed composi-
tion to merited oblivion, should have at
the same time confounded in its icon-
oclastic sweep the old, yet ever new,
stories of Greece and Judea which had
formed the subject-matter of all j^aint-
ers from the time of the birth of art.
" Go to," cried the modern, " we have
had enough of schools, enough of the
spirit of cookery applied to our art ;
let it be ours to promulgate the new
gospel that the painter is an observer ;
that he sees and, seeing, records." This
was natural enough, and possibly useful,
in the evolution of modern art, but the
traditions which had been born so long
ago had through all time been colored
and adopted by the people who had
inherited them, and were then and are
to-day as new as when Homer sang or
St. Paul preached in the market-j^lace.
The mythology of Greece, the stories of
Rudyard Kij^ling are filled with very
much the same men and Avomen, and
between and through their lines are in-
terwoven the threads of the history of
the men of Galilee or of Nazareth. The
story of Mary — it may be said in no ir-
reverential spirit — the simple, innocent
maiden who, half trembling and afraid,

FROM A PAINIINU BY WILL H. LOW.

Narcissus.

THE NUDE IN ART,

743

welcomes the coming of the divine mes-
senger, is not ^vithout analogy to the
romance of Cliloe and her awakening
love for Da23hnis. The motherhood of
Eve, or that of her whose child was
born yesterdjw, is the same, equally old,
or equally modern. These are the
themes which have nourished j^o^'try
and painting, and when the rude awak-
ening came to those painters who, like
the Byzantines before Giotto, had al-
lowed the form in which the}- clothed
their thought to become a formula, the
distinction between the vice of their
manner and the virtue of their inten-
tion was not enough observed.

The revolution, in turn, has had its
vice in calling into existence a race of
painters who are gifted with a curious
mechanical power of reproducing by
means of pigments the aspect of any
object which they can see ; and the
growth of these curious mechanicians
has been facilitated and their rank ex-
alted by the hue and cry of the most
convinced of the realists, when it
would seem the most natural thing in
the world to reserve the title of artist
for him who conceives a thought or sen-
timent, and who, skilled in the ara-
besque of painting, makes his thought
or sentiment visible to others — even
as we give the title of poet to him who
voices a thought or sentiment through
the medium of verse, and refuse it to
the author of a rhyming dictionary. The
existence of such painters gives a rea-
son for the existence of artists who
steadfastly refuse to paint the actual ;
to those who, as the farthest remove
from the actually visible, choose to make
the nude the means of their communi-
cation to others of the power which
they have received. The beauty which
undoubtedly exists in all things lan-
guishes and remains concealed to those
who- approach her uninspired, and the
realist, lacking the address to win the
coy goddess, takes refuge in ugliness
which he dignifies as character, until our
galleries are gorged with this disguised
malformation, and processions of unin-
terested people, seated or standing, be-
fore "backgrounds," doing nothing,
saying nothing, and meaning nothing,
but " so cleverly painted," like a cu-
mulative nightmare masquerade as art.

The remedy for this evil does not lie in
a resort to painting where the subject
is paramount, and where by means of
an anecdote portrayed, or historical
scene painfully reconstructed, emotion
is stimulated, but rather in a return to
the sinq^lest themes of art, those which
impose themselves as typical and have
thereby a fundamental natural charac-
ter. Painting, as regards subject, re-
mains as simple as in Giotto's time ; as
regards what our critics delight to call
technique, it has become delightfully
and fascinatingly complex. In subject
the message is more difficult to under-
stand, the directness of comju'ehension
is lost if we make our picture too in-
volved, too sjoecial, necessitating the
familiar quotations with which painters
of history delight to encumber exhibi-
tion catalogues. On the other hand, if
our subject exj^lains itself at the first
glance, all the power of painting which
the researches of the past have put at
the disj)osal of the well-trained j^ainter,
and those which in the near future may
fall into his hands, serve to adorn the
subject, to give it reality, to make it a
visible and vivid image that he who
runs may read. The best art should be
popular, not necessarily understood,
perhaps, by all, but it should convey at
least a partial message, it should tempt
to further consideration intellectually,
and should exalt sensuously. He who
has seen a little child pass her hands
over a beautiful Greek cast with inco-
herent expressions of delight, cannot
fail to be impressed with this great
truth. The studied portrayal of people
uglier than ourselves, the wax- work-
like reconstruction of common occur-
rences with a wealth of local details,
and the equally frigid result of archaeo-
logical research as applied to history,
may be one and all interesting manifes-
tations of the protean art of painting ;
but it is reserved for something simpler,
something higher, to carry the full and
quasi-divine message of art. We have
seen here, only lately, a most excellent
example of this in the manner in Avhich,
it is hardly an exaggeration to say,
UAngelua of Millet has moved the whole
western world. To the painter many
reservations in regard to this j^icture
may suggest themselves, and in the

FROM A PAINTING BY KENYON COX.

THE NUDE IN ART.

745

gallery in which it was exhibited in
New York there were other examples
of the same painter's work, which in
many ways were technically superior to
it. But considered from the critical
view of the painter even, one thing was
observable, and that was the simple so-
briety of the presentation of the sub-
feet in line and effect. The simplicity
was somewhat lost and the greatness of
the work lessened by an over-prettiness
of color and, though this was in no
sense the fault of the picture or the
painter, the whole triumphal procession
of this really great work of art from
France and through the United States,
was marred by the ill-advised methods
of the picture dealers, the publicans
who have yet to learn that "good wine
needs no bush." Aside from all this,
however, we have here a work of art
which has moved to genuine emotion
vast numbers of people, albeit one
which violates many of the new-found
canons of art.

All this seems a far call to the prom-
ised reasons for painting the ideal, and
using the nude as a medium for its ex-
pression ; but if this familiar picture is
recalled, the stern suppression of all
the details of drapery, the absolute de-
pendence on the construction of the
solid nude figure which marked it, as
it marks all of Millet's work, will serve
as a transition. The study of the nude
in our schools, which is an accepted
fact as necessary to a sufficient knowl-
edge of the human figure, has very of-
ten the same effect that a classical edu-
cation had on our grandfathers. It
is, I believe, rather the exception now,
in these material days, for a universitj^-
bred man to take his classical studies
with sufficient seriousness to exercise
his acquirement, once out of college, in

writing Greek or Latin verse. It was,
however, common enough among the
men of a past generation, and the first
picture of the young painter fresh from
school is very apt to be a " nude."
These pictures are generally little more
than a larger life study, somewhat
more thoughtfully posed, and given a
title answering somewhat to the work
which, in the old guilds of workmen, the
past apprentice made to prove his right
to the title of master ; but unless the
vocation of a painter of the nude is
strongly upon him, our young painter
seeks at once paths more congenial
and, important fact, more encouraged.
It may be said, parenthetically, if the
criticism be worth notice, that one of
the commonplace insults thrown at the
painter of the nude is that he is basely
influenced by the commercial value of
his product, that he purveys for those
of evil mind ; to which the possession
by their originators of nearly all their
works of this character is sufficient
answer. There yet remains, however, a
certain number, of whom the writer is
one, who believe that they have a right
to paint the nude and to be heard in its
behalf.

If this long preamble has convej^ed
the idea that painting is at its best
a simple language that sets forth ideas
of beauty and truth, using as its means
of expression a few carefully chosen
and cunningly expressed facts of nat-
ure, it is obvious that if we would go
to the source of all emotion, we must
either get back in point of time to
when (to quote an expression dear to
every painter of the nude) " men were
naked and not ashamed," or choose sim-
ple themes which were of the time of
Adam as they are of our own. To pre-
sent such subjects with knowledge of

Note.— Mr. Kenyon Cox's drawing illustrates these stanzas from Rossetti's poem " Eden Bower " :
It was Lilith the wife of Adam :

i losing Eden Bower !)

Not a drop of her blood was human,
But she was made like a soft sweet woman.

" Am I sweet, O sweet snake of Eden ?

[Alas the hour .')
Then ope thine ear to my warm mouth's cooing,
And learn what deed remains for our doing.

" Oh, my love, come nearer to Lilith !

{Sing Eden Bower !)
In thy sweet folds bind me and bend me.
And let me feel the shape thou shalt lend me.

Vol. XII. -81

" In thy shape I'll go back to Eden ;

{Alas the hour!)
In these coils that Tree will I grapple.
And stretch this crowTied head forth by the apple.

" Then Eve shall eat and give unto Adam ;

(Alas the hour .')
And then they both shall know they are naked
And their hearts ache as my heart hath ached.

" O proud Eve, cling close to thine Adam,

{Alas the hour !)
Driven forth as the beasts of his naming
By the sword that for ever is flaming."

746

THE NUDE IN ART.

the art that has p^one before, Avhich has
suppressed this detail and brought this
other, and more typical, into promi-
nence ; with consciousness that the
means of expression limited to pig-
ment and plane surface for the painter,
to marble and the chisel for the sculp-
tor, does not permit more than the eye
can carry to the brain, demands a
strong nature carefully trained. When,
however, as in the case of the man who
cares for painting per se, we must add
a desire to be equal to the task of pre-
senting your nymph with all the real-
ism possible, difficulties multiply. She
must be such a woman as never existed
in perfection of form ; at the same time
the sunshine must fleck her firm flesh,
perhaps, and preferably, studied out
of doors. The landscape surrounding
her must be painted with the knowl-
edge of a reality of representation
which keeps its due relation to the
figure ; the relations of light and dark
studied in the studios of the older mas-
ters of the craft gives way to the ever-
changing lights and reflections of a
fickle sky ; and the modern picture, in
a word, is, in each of its examples, a
new creation in effect of light and color
in place of the brown, warm shadows
and cooler lights, with marked divisions
between, which came from the brushes
of the old masters. Admirable as they
are, unattainable in many respects as
they remain, their makers were con-
fronted with but a small part of the
problems which assail the modern
painter. These latter-day qualities we
owe, as was said at the beginning, al-
most entirely to the revolt against the
feeble conservation of last century
methods, and their merits and defects
are more or less the common property
of the modern trained painter, given
him that he may choose or add to them.
A certain knowledge of them he must
have or be passed by ; the more that
he can have, the better ; the more that
he can progress, discover for himself,
wrest new secrets from nature and ap-
ply them to his work, the better ; but
if all this knowledge and effort tends
to diminish his imaginative faculty,
then he may be applauded to-da}^ but
the future is for him who paints with
full knowledge of chromatic vibration

(if that is the term for the quality
which is admirable in Cla,ude Monet
and some of his followers) —

" the light that never was on sea or land,"

With this reformation full under-
way, form, as understood by many
sculptors and by a few painters, has
been strangely neglected, and the next
step of progress is most certainly in
that direction. We have had, as re-
cently as in the last decade, men in
France who have almost rivalled Hol-
bein in exactness of form, accompanied
with greater truth of color and effect.
Baudry, who was a master of style and
form, was, during the greater part of
his life, encased in a scholastic envelope
which sent him more to the galleries
than to nature for his inspiration in
color qualities ; but in the last few
years of his life he realized what was
being done about him, and, taking the
knowledge for his own, produced some
few works which have all the beauty of
form of his earlier period with the
added charm of truthful effect and
color. Diana no longer emerges from
a bituminous pool, but chaste and
pearl-like in color ; and the sky draws
the contours of her figure, which on
the shadow side the greensward fills
with reflections hardly darker than the
light. This is the dawn of a new art —
realism used as a means, not as an end ;
and this has as much right to exist
among us as music or poetry. With the
grosser manifestations of the study of
the nude, which are as necessary to the
painter as the dissecting-table is to the
physician, the public has nothing to
do ; and the exhibition outside of a
school of an avowed study from the
nude is a mistake. The matter of the
relations to the public of a painter of
the nude is, however, a matter which
regulates itself. The exhibitions of
any large city here or elsewhere, are
arranged by juries of painters, and it is
safe to say that what they admit to
their walls is beyond cavil or dispraise
from any point of view of morality.
Exceptions which have not been in ac-
cordance with this view have occurred
in cities where the measure of art in-
telligence was unequally decided ; a

THE NUDE IN ART.

747

fault which as time goes on will tend to
correct itself. For the rest, like all
the higher 2:>roductions of the muse of
poetry or painting, the world has little
encouragement to give to the painter
of the nude, who, as a rule, rides his
Pegasus gently and uses the knowledge
which this stern school of form gives
him, in the production of other and
more popular forms of art, reserving a^
a reward to his own merit the right of
expressing his higher fancy in the most
untrammelled guise. The existence of
such men is as necessary to a school of
art as the preservation of the classics
and their frequent consultation is nec-
essary to the continued existence of lit-
erature.

II. — By Kenyon Cox.

Ever since art existed artists have
been in the habit of assigning a very
high rank, if not the highest rank, to
the sculptors and painters of the nude,
and almost ever since the sculpture and
painting of the nude existed the public
has failed to understand it. Even in
Greece Phidias got into trouble from
his emj)loyment of female models. It
is a common belief that clothing and
Christianity came in together, and that
the Greeks were great in the represen-
tation of the nude human figure be-
cause they saw it constantly about
them in real life ; but the belief has lit-
tle foundation. The Greeks, like every
other people of a sufficiently high civili-
zation to have a fully developed art,
were habitually a clothed people. It is
true that in certain solemn ceremonies,
and in athletic games, the male figure
was often seen naked, but in the latter
instance that is practically true to-day,
while a naked woman must have been
as rare a sight in ancient Athens as in
New York. Nudity was then, as it was
in the time of the Renaissance and as
it is now, an artistic convention adopt-
ed by artists for purely artistic reasons,
and only better understood by the peo-
ple then than it is to-day because the
people were more artistic than those of
to-day, and better understood all mat-
ters of art. What I am to try to do
here is to give as clear an account as I

am able of what these reasons are which
have induced some artists, in all ages,
to devote themselves to the study of the
nude, and have caused almost all artists
to praise and aj^plaud them for any suc-
cess in that study.

The first of these reasons is that the
study of the nude is the necessary
foundation for all good representation
of the human figure. It is not nearly
so well known as it should be that the
practice is almost universal among
sculptors, and among the more serious
painters of the figure, of first model-
ling or drawing the figure entirely
naked and putting the drapery upon it
afterward. In sculpture this is done
even when the figure is finally to be in
modern costume. In painting it is of-
ten dispensed with in modern genre
subjects, but is common in proportion
as the drapery is more simplified and
shows more of the natural lines of the
figure, and in proportion, also, as the
painter cares for form and structure
more than for color and effect. When
a master of form does not make this
preliminary drawing, as is often neces-
sarily the case in portraiture, for in-
stance, he dispenses with it only in vir-
tue of the knowledge gained from
long and profound study of the naked
figure, which enables him to see and
seize upon the slightest indication in
the outer clothing of the natural form
underneath. Good drawing and solid
construction have always decayed with
the decay of the study of the nude, and
it is as well to understand clearly that
if that study should ever be abolished,
from any sense of fancied impropriety,
all art but pure decoration and pure
landscape would be abolished with it.

This, however, may be considered as
a reason for the use of the nude model
in preliminary study, but not as a rea-
son for the depiction of the naked fig-
ure as a subject of completed art. To
this one may answer that, unless some
artists occupied themselves almost en-
tirely with the nude, the standard
of construction and draughtsmanship
would soon be lowered for all. The
serious students of the nude figure
have, in all ages, been those who have
set and preserved the standard of form
for the rest of the profession, and it is

748

THE NUDE IN ART,

only when the painting and modelling
of the nude figure have been recog-
nized and encouraged as one of the
highest forms of art, that tolerable
drawing of even the draj^ed figure has
been practised and understood.

There is, however, a much stronger
reason why artists have devoted them-
selves to the nude. Ideas, if they are
to be expressed in graphic or plastic
art, must be incarnated, and the hu-
man figure is the one great medium of
expression for abstract ideas in the
arts. That the figure should be nude
if it is to express great and simple
ideas, seems also natural. As Adam
and Eve " were naked and were not
ashamed," so the gods and heroes of all
peoples have been the glorified natural
man — clothes were an impertinence to
Juj)iter or Apollo. If one figures a
human incarnation of some great idea.
Force or Love or Glory or Beauty, it
seems natural that the artificial trap-
pings of civilization should be discard-
ed, and one does not see what costume
could have to do with Michael Angelo's
Night and Morning. Truth is always
*' naked," and the Golden Age had no
need of clothes. In this sort of work
drapery may indeed be used, but for
ornament, not for covering. In ideal
art the functions of drapery are to give
mass and dignity to what might other-
wise be divided, to contrast multiplici-
ty and intricacy of small folds with the
broader forms of the naked body, to
give variety of color to a composition
that would otherwise be monotonous.
Michael Angelo was, above all, a master
of the nude, but in his earlier work he
uses drapery magnificently for these
ends. It was only in his old age that
he attempted, in the Last Judgment, to
suppress it altogether, and the result
is not encouraging. But the use of
drapery in ideal art is as purel}^ for
artistic reasons as is its absence, and
has nothing to do with the propriety of
clothing.

The third great reason why artists
devote themselves to the nude is their
pure delight in the beauty of the hu-
man figure. "With the Greeks and the
Florentines, it was a delight in the
beauty of form, in which the human fig-
ure exceeds all other beautiful things.

The Venetians added a delight in the
exquisite color and texture of flesh.
They first perceived that not only was
the human body the noblest in form
and line of all existing objects, but that
in color and softness and exquisiteness
of light and shade, the flesh of a wom-
an was more lovely than pearls or flow-
ers. So a new art of the nude came
into existence, in which the figure no
longer stood for the expression of ab-
stract idea, but was painted for its own
beauty, as men paint flowers or land-
scapes. It is hard to say why color is
less noble than form, but it is this last
art that has been most misunderstood.
There are those who admire heartily a
Greek Venus in marble, but dislike a
Venetian Venus in paint, though the one
is as exquisite an exj)ression of the beau-
ty of color as the other is of the beauty
of form. Surely, if art be the expres-
sion of man's delight in the beauty of
nature, its highest and purest form is
the expression of his delight in what is
highest and most beautiful in nature,
the human figure.

These are, as I see them, the reasons
why artists paint the nude. How should
they paint it ? Should their treatment
of it be " realistic " or "idealistic ? " My
answer is — both. There has been much
critical juggling with these two words,
and little understanding of them. If by
" realism " is meant the literal and pho-
tographic cop3dng of a given bit of nat-
ure, without any alteration or arrange-
ment, it means the suj^pression of art,
and no artist worthy the name has ever
attempted it. Pure " idealism " with-
out some element of realism is incon-
ceivable, except in a Turkey rug. Every
artist takes from nature all he can get,
and adds to it all of art he can give, and
the greatest artists are those who pos-
sess at once the greatest imaginative or
"ideal" power, and the greatest power
of realization ; so that before the Ilissus
from the Parthenon one does not know
whether one is most impressed by the
powerful artistic idealization, which is
the glory of all artists, or the superb
realism, which is their despair. There
are not many such artists, and the
others must strike the best balance they
can. One will lean more to the ex-
pression of his idea, another more to

THE NUDE IN ART,

749

the rendering of fact. Nay, an artist
will vary in different pictures, putting
more of art in one and more of nature
in another, and may never be able to
strike a true balance at all. In any case
it is his business to represent as well
as he can what seems beautiful to him,
and to beware of that false "idealiza-
tion " which consists in preferring the
readj^-made formulas of others to the
natural beauty before him. If he would
produce any art that is to live, let him
see that it is not "refined away into
something that is falsely deemed more
pure because less vital than reality,*
Let him conceive a goddess if he is able,
but let him realize to the extent of his
power that which he has conceived, and
make her a goddess in real flesh and
bodily presence, or he fails. In all art,
whatever the subject, the rule is the
same, and it has been so admirably stated
by Jules Breton, in his "Autobiography,"
that I can do no better than quote him.
" For how, in truth, does the painter
succeed in expressing the beautiful ?
Is it by deliberately correcting the
faults of the model who is posing for
him ? No ; he could only make this
correction by virtue of a system, and

* M. G. Van Rensselaer.

experience demonstrates that every
system in art irrevocably leads to cold-
ness, to death.

" Nature, then, is not to be corrected
by making it conform to a conventional
tyi^e. The artist must have the inten-
tion of rendering what he sees and con-
ceives as he sees and conceives if.

"His exaltation of feeling will make
him discern the line of expression, of
beaut}^ which he will follow ; and un-
consciously he will diminish or elimi-
nate the insignificant or useless details
which interfere with it."

If he is an artist, that is. If he is
not, no following of rules derived from
the practice of the ancients will make
him one. We have been delivered
from " the rules " in poetry and in the
drama ; it is time that we were deliv-
ered from them in painting and in
sculpture. Let every artist express
himself freely and fully. Let him
strive to render " what he sees and
conceives as he sees and conceives it."
If he has the stuff of a great artist in
him his work will be great, and we shall
all be thankful for it. If he has not, he
may at least say, with Touchstone,
"An ill-favored thing, sir, but mine
own."

"ONE, TWO, THREE!"
By H. C, Btinner.

It was an old, old, old, old lady,

And a boy who was half-past three ;

And the way that they played together
Was beautiful to see.

She couldn't go running and jumping,
And the boy, no more could he.

For he was a thin little fellow,

With a thin, little, twisted knee.

They sat in the yellow sunlight,

Out under the maple-tree ;
And the game that they played 111 tell you.

Just as it was told to me.

It was Hide-and-Go-Seek ih^ej were pla^dng.
Though you'd never have known it to be-

W^ith an old, old, old, old lady.

And a boy with a twisted knee.

The boy would bend his face down

On his one little sound right knee,

And he'd guess where she was hiding.
In guesses One, Two, Three !

" You are in the china-closet ! "

He would cry, and laugh with glee —
It wasn't the china-closet ;

But he still had Two and Three.

"You are up in Papa's big bedroom,

In the chest with the queer old key ! "
And she said: "You are warm and tcarmer ;
But you're not quite right," said she.

"It can't be the little cupboard

Where Mamma's things used to be —
So it must be the clothes-press, Gran'ma ! "
And he found her, with his Three.

Then she covered her face with her fingers.
That were wrinkled and white and wee.

And she guessed where the boy was hiding,
With a One and a Two and a Three.

And they never had stirred from their places,

Right under the maple-tree —
This old, old, old, old lady.

And the boy with the lame little knee —
This dear, dear, dear old lady.

And the boy who was half -past three.

FOR THE CROSS.

By George I. Putnam.

SUPPOSE soldiers in

the ranks have no

business to think. It

does not come in the

line of our duty ; it is

not what we are paid

for doing. Armstrong,

of our compan}', who always

had a pat way of putting the

case, used to say we had but to

Fill up on soldier pie.
Fight when no foe is nigh,
March to parade, and die.

And a man with no head at all could
do that. But, indeed, when a man ap-
plies for enlistment, the recruiting offi-
cers do not go very deep into his mental
development. They find out if he can
walk, ride, fight, and run, but they never
say to him : " Can you think ? " If they
did, the commissioned side might have
a higher opinion of us.

But the ranks do think. Sometimes
the thoughts are pleasant enough ; that
is, when a good man is detailed as cook
— and you sit on the clear side of the
fire — and camp is snugly pitched, and
you are just tired enough with the day's
march to enjoy resting. And again,
we think pretty hard things of the
world and our superior officers ; that's
when cookee is under guard, and the
captain has detailed the first man on the
roster in his place ; or the wind blows
aU ways at once ; and the smoke gets in
your eyes ; and the whirling alkali dust
down your throat ; and the coffee is
thick with ashes ; or a mean piece of
work is cut out for us and we can't see
what for. That was the case when we
got orders to march to Howard's Spring
and there take camp. The distance was
about one hundred and fifty miles, and
for two-thirds of the way there was not
a canteen of water to be had. And
Christmas was drawing near, and the
Captain had given orders that the com-
pany would dine at his expense. We
old soldiers knew what that meant —
oysters, turkey, cranberry sauce, bakers'

pies, cigars. But nothing would do save
that we get right out of garrison and
pound the road to Howard's Spring —
the most inaccessible of places, the for-
lornest locality, the jumping-off place of
Christendom ; civilization stopped short
hundreds of miles east of there.

Armstrong looked out of window and
saw the Captain crossing the parade.
"Hi ! here comes old Twobars ! " said
he and shoved the layout under a bunk,
for we were playing Mexican monte,
which was against orders. The Captain
believed in both military and moral dis-
cipline, so he gave us books and papers
to read and forbid gaming. But there
were so many of us who didn't know
the alphabet and did know the spots on
the cards, that his order was virtually
a dead letter. However, we thought a
deal of him, both as soldier and man —
he tried to do the square thing by us,
and we didn't w^ant to hurt liis feelings
by letting him catch us in the act. So
somebody dropped a blanket over the
edge of the bunk, careless-like, and w^e
picked up books and lounged about
ready to spring to attention. But he
went past the barrack door to the first
sergeant's room ; and the first sergeant
was there.

"Sergeant," said he, short and snappy,
and looking in the humor to kill a doz-
en Greasers. " Sergeant, detail ten men
and a non-commissioned officer to take
camp at Howard's Spring. Ration 'em
for a month and start 'em out to-mor-
row. Forty rounds per man."

He turned to go, but came back and
added :

" If any of the men want to go, let
them. I hate to send them out wheth-
er or no, for it's a dirty piece of busi-
ness, and why that measly old water-
hole should be guarded this time of
year "

He slammed the door on his sentence,
cutting it short off, and stalked back
across the parade. The first sergeant
came in and told us.

Then we knew there had been a row

752

FOR THE CROSS.

between the Colonel and Twobars about
the matter. His black look and his
cranky gait were explained. Ours was
admittedly the crack company of the
garrison, and it was so in the teeth of
the Colonel ; for Captain Twobars had
ideas about soldiers and soldiery that
the Colonel scoffed at. One of these was,
that because a man wore a blouse and
carried a gun he was not, therefore, the
less a man and entitled to man's consid-
eration and resj^ect. Twobars carried
out his idea as far as the Colonel would
let him ; and there was generally an
open misunderstanding between them
as to how far that should be. The Col-
onel was an aggressive martinet, and
would not hesitate to pull his rank on a
subordinate when that would strength-
en his position. And the Captain was
one of those quiet men who fight never
from choice but always from a sense of
duty. He never yielded an inch, and in
time came out winner or even.

We were satisfied that this was the
Colonel's work. Our company was not
next on the roster for field service, and
this was an extra slice of work anyway.
We thought it an imposition, and grew
as black over it as Twobars himself.
Hakkerson, after swearing a while to
clear his throat, said it was done to
break up our Christmas dinner, and it
did look that way. The Colonel did not
approve of extras : the regular ration
was good enough for enlisted men.
But how should he know anything
about it ? That was what puzzled us all,
till Armstrong, who had been studying
Gutter's face, pitched a cartridge-box at
him and shouted :

" Own up, Dutchy. You did it ! "

Gutter was a recruit ; that is, he had
not completed his first year of service,
and he was one who had slipped into
the army because no examination of the
head was prescribed. He was a boyish,
smooth-cheeked German, and was in
love with the Colonel's kitchen-girl. So
when Armstrong shouted at him he
blushed guiltily, and said he had told
her of it because it was something that
seemed pleasant to him.

"There's the grapevine telegraph
again, boys," said Armstrong. " It runs
from the barracks to the kitchen, from
the kitchen to the parlor, and then to

the Colonel's private ear. He gets offic-
ial messages over it. Take warning,
Gutter," he continued, "and don't tell all
you know, not even to the girl you love.
You'll rue it if 3^ou do."

"Who's to go, Sergeant?" said Hak-
kerson.

" Anybody that wants to. I haven't
made the detail yet ; but it's volun-
teers or victims. Who'll go now ? "

Armstrong got up and yawned. " I'll
go, for one," said he. "I don't care
much for Christmas, anyway, and would
as soon have it in one place as another."
He looked meaningly at Gutter, and the
little German said he would go. This
was a severe penance, for Gutter did
love a good dinner. Armstrong warned
him not to speak of the volunteering,
for that would start the Colonel on the
warpath again. Hakkerson swore some
more in a preliminary way, and also
volunteered. He believed that a man
could not be a good soldier without
grumbling and cursing at duty ; but he
performed all the duty that came to
him, and some that he went out of his
way to find. And the rest of the squad
was regularly detailed.

I should not want to say at length
how we made that march — it might get
into print, and the popular, heroic idea
of the army might be partty shattered
thereby. It wall be enough to say that
we made it as comfortably as we could.
There was no commissioned officer to
enforce rigid discipline. We hunted
some along the road, for deer and ante-
lope were plenty, and wild tiirke^^s
roosted in the tall pecan trees by the
river, and quail and rabbits were all
about. We had a wagon with water-
kegs, so we got over the dry stage with-
out difficulty. We were in the wild
plains country, but we looked for no
Indians and saw none ; if we had w^e
would have been the intruders, not
they. Every dust}^ brown mile took
us farther from men's habitations, far-
ther from wagon roads, farther from
beaten trails — oh, it was a wild goose
chase we were on, so far as any material
benefit appeared. But I suppose it was
good discipline, and hope we expiated
many sins, vicarious and otherwise.

We suited the length of the marches
to our convenience, passing rapidly over

FOR THE CROSS.

753

the dry, bleak places, and lingering in
sheltered, grassy intervals — so that it
was Christmas -day when we came
through the last narrows of the canon
down which we were bound, and saw
the pool a mile ahead of us. It shone
in the sun so deceptively that Gutter
was confident it was the slated roof of a
house, and that the comfortable build-
ing itself w^ould be found behind a rise
of ground. In his tender inexj)erience
Gutter had made many absurd mistakes
during tlie march, but none that ap-
peared to us older soldiers so laughable
as this — a slated roof, a civilized house,
when we were the only men within a
large circle. Then we marched up to
the spring, and there stood a man hold-
ing a rifle across his arm, and watching
us, and by his side a little boy.

By " man " I mean a white man, an
American. If I had meant an Indian
or a Greaser I would have said so.
But here was a white man, and aj^j^ar-
ently not overjoyed to see us, which
was strange. Plains people are gener-
ally glad to see a human face, even a
soldier's. It is some one to talk to,
some one to listen to, some one to get
tobacco from. But this man was for-
bidding. He would have dried uj) the
spring if he could. And when our ser-
geant went forward to shake hands and
said :

" Well, what are you doing here ? " he
replied, gruffly :

"That's none of your business."

This w^as a double surprise — to find a
man at the spring and to find him so
surly. He had a small hut which was
nothing but a hole dug in the hillside,
with a little level place in front shaded
by growing cactus. This showed he
had been there some time, a settled in-
habitant of a country that is shunned.
And the wondering little boy was with
him.

As the sergeant stood talking with
this man we drove past with the wagon
to a good bit of camping-ground. And
as the men on foot strode past singly,
Armstrong looked at the boy, smiled,
and said :

" Hello, kid ! Merry Christmas ! " and
he drew from his pocket a couple of
defective cartridges and tossed them to
the boy as a sort of Christmas gift.

The man quickly came between the
pair, and taking the cartridges from
the boy, forced them back upon Arm-
strong.

" Don't give him them," said he.
"Do you want to kill him ?"

" They're no good," said Armstrong.
" The}' wouldn't hurt him." Then he
and the man stood looking at each othei*
for a little, till it seemed that they might
have cried out " I know you ! " For the
look on Armstrong's face passed from
anger at the interference into doubting
surprise, and then into a depth of ten-
derness, as it did sometimes when he
sat alone on the barrack 2:)orch looking
back beyond the horizon, and the even-
ing sun shone on him. And he said,
softly :

" Where is his mother? "

" That's none of your "

The man stopped by an effort, and vis-
ibly trembled. Then, hoarsely : "Don't,
for God's sake, talk to him about church
nonsense ! He don't know Christmas,
nor Sunday ; he only knows night and
day, and he's happ}' ! "

Then they talked together a little time,
the sergeant and all the rest having
gone on to establish the camp. Arm-
strong put questions and the man re-
plied, sometimes with a gesture like de-
nial. Finally the man said :

" Well, you see what I've come to."

" Yes, and look at me," said Arm-
strong. For some moments the two
faced each other in silence. Then Arm-
strong put out his hand, saying :

"It's been hard enough on both of
us ; and now we've come to this ! " He
seemed to choke in his utterance as he
recognized and admitted the fact that,
whatever it was fate had denied him for
the sake of this other, the gift had not
brought happiness with it. The other
grasped his hand, and for a moment
they stood thus ; then Armstrong came
over toward the camping-spot, as non-
chalant, as carelessly active as ever, whist-
ling a gay air as he came. It w^is but
an assumption of indifference, but it
was well done. It prevented our ques-
tioning him. Though a good comrade,
he had definite limits to his intima-
cies.

Armstrong was strangely different
from the run of enlisted men. He had

764

FOR THE CROSS.

education ; he thought. But he did not
make a parade of his learning before
the poor devils who could only put a
finger to the pen while some one else
made the mark. Ai-m strong wrote a
good hand and might have been head-
quarters clerk if he w^ould. We didn't
know anything about him ; he never
talked of his past, as men ordinarily do.
When he first came among us he picked
up the drill so fast that it was rumored
he was a deserter from some other regi-
ment ; but when the first sergeant hint-
ed as much to Twobars he was snubbed
for his pains.

Another thing : it was pretty well
understood that " Armstrong " was but
an assumed name — half the time he
seemed not to recognize the name when
spoken to. But that was nothing
against him in a community where the
majority of men had had so many names
that they answered to any at random.
And he chummed in with all, was pleas-
ant, self-reliant, never did a mean trick,
and we all liked him. He gambled and
drank — too much, probably ; but he
seemed to do so not for the money's
sake or for the liquor, but from restless-
ness of spirit. He wanted a constant
change.

" Oh, Armstrong ! " called one of the
men, pointing toward the pool. Arm-
strong looked around quickly, and saw
the boy following him. Laughing aloud,
he caught the boy up in his arms and
then put him down carefully. He sat
down on the ground and began to talk
to the youngster.

"How old are you? " said he.

The boy made no reply, but looked at
him with an untaught child's fearless
interest in a new face.

" How long have you been here ? "
said Armstrong.

" Six times," said the boy.

"Times what?"

"It's come hot weather six times,"
said the boy, explaining.

" And what have you done in all that
time ? "

"Nothing. Dad hunts. Sometimes
I go with him. I had a fawn, but it ran
away."

The boy had absolutely no fear of his
new acquaintance. We all noticed it,
and Hakkerson grunted out gently :

" Did you ever see anything like the
way children and dogs take to him ? "
When in garrison, Armstrong was usu-
ally followed by a troop of abandoned
curs who found in him their onl}-
friend.

But Armstrong's gentle eye fell upon
the boy with a pitying glance.

"You stay here alone ! You go
hunting ! Why, you are not much over
six years old at the best ! "

Then he sat silent, not seeing any-
thing, wdth his hand on the boy's head,
till the little fellow stirred uneasily.
Then he recovered and said, as though
hungry for a familiar word :

" Tell me, what is your name ? "

But the boy replied :

" AVhat did you caU me ? "

Armstrong gathered himself from his
dreamy state. " I called you — what ?
Why, 'kid,' wasn't it?"

"After that. The next you said ? "

" I don't remember — nothing, I guess.
Only, I said, 'Merry Christmas.'"

" That's it. It ain't my name, you
know. It sounded queer. What is
it?"

Then it was that Armstrong perceived
a duty, not of a militar}^ nature, devolv-
ing upon him. But he w^asnot the man
to shrink from any duty. We all knew
that, and we all knew our unworthiness
to hear what he would say. Perhaps
Hakkerson felt this the most keenly of
any, for he started first, and, with com-
mendable thoughtfulness, pulled Gut-
ter, who was staring round -eyed and
omitted to swear at all. Armstrong, left
alone with the boy, put his arm about
him and looked into his eyes.

" My boy," said he, "don't you know
what Merry Christmas means ? "

The boy shook his head.

" Did you never hear of Christ ? "

The boy nodded. " I hear dad say it
when he's mad."

Armstrong got up quickly and walked
a few paces back and forth. "I'm not
the worst of men, but I'm a bad sam-
ple. I never knew much of this, and
what I did know I've tried to forget.
And now that this should come to me
to be done — her child — but I'll do what
I can and God help me ! " He had
raised his hand as though taking an
oath.

FOR THE CROSS.

755

Then he sat down again, and we saw
that he took off his battered old hat.
And he spoke, but in a voice so low, so
tender, that none but the boy could hear.
And the sight softened all our hearts —
for it was Christmas-day, and Christ-
mas recollections were crowding upon
each of us — and we ceased to dwell
grumblingly upon the comforts we had
left behind at the post. We became
good comrades again and warmed tow-
ard each other, so that Gutter took a
needle and thread to Hakkerson's torn
blouse, and Hakkerson showed Gutter
how to heal a blistered foot overnight,
and the sergeant's commands were more
like requests, and the cook put extra
coffee in the pot, and the teamster did
not kick his mules to make them stand
around. And from time to time glances
were shot at the place where a common
soldier, as rough as any, sat, telling in a
feeble way a love-story as old as Chris-
tianity to a little child. It was upon
this scene that the sinking sun cast its
level rays. And the father of the child,
coming up from the west, threw his
long, black shadow across the camp. It
fell short of that absorbed pair.

Once he looked at them and made a
step as though to tear away the child.
But he would not have done that. Hak-
kerson noted his movement, divined his
thought, and carelessly interposed him-
self, a strong defender of the Church.
Then the recluse seemed to become sud-
denly aware of the hour, the day. The
Christian sentiment that pervaded the
camp enveloped him with its influence.
He hesitated, and a milder look came
upon his stern features.

The sergeant came out of the tent
and spoke to him cordially. " Stay and
have supper with us. Change your
bill of fare. We've got bacon, and po-
tatoes, and onions " — he named things
that people long on the plains are sure
to be out of and that are inducements
to any of them. But I can't think they
weighed much with this man. Again
he glanced earnestly over at the boy and
Armstrong. They had not moved, ex-
cept that the boy nodded his head in
answer to something Armstrong said.
But while he looked, Armstrong arose
and came toward the camp, leading the
l^oy by the hand. And his face lighted

up in the sun's last rays with a look
that made us think of the little prayer
the chaplain makes at the end — "The
peace that passeth all understanding " —
you know how it goes. Some made an
involuntary motion ta remove their hats.

The man turned then and put his ri-
fle on the stack we had made.

" I'll stay," said he.

Armstrong looked none the less
peacefully happy when he found that
the man's repellent humor had given
way. He smiled as gently as a woman
might, with both eyes and lips ; and
yet he was a man whom one would say
had nothing of the woman about him.
And as I looked at him, so tender tow-
ard the boy, so winningly pleasant to the
man, I wondered at the mingling of dis-
cordant elements in his nature ; for my
mind went back to the night he broke
the bank of Mexico Charley — a most
dangerous thing to do. . . . How
he played a winning game out of pure
luck at cards and recklessness of spir-
it, in a room full of envious, malignant
Greasers and desperate Southwestern
human drift, all of whom hated Arm-
strong primarily for the soldier's blouse
he wore so gayly defiant. . . . And
how afterward, unharmed, he bore his
clinking treasure out to the street,
though every man who looked at him
that night with evil eyes would have
committed murder for a less stake — had
done so, many of them. . . . And
how, once outside, he had flung the
whole, by handfuls, broadly into the
air, and as it rattled down among the
crowd had shouted : " Scramble for it !
I've had the fun ! You can have the
money ! " Then walked to the post,
alone, unscathed.

None of us saw that affair. The little
negro barber told of it the next day
when he came to the post to shave the
officers. He asserted that he tried to
slip a razor into Armstrong's hand as
he left the gaming-table, so that he
might not be entirely defenceless, but
that Armstrong would not have it. By
his fearlessness he daunted the mob.
And the contrast forced itself upon me
— his present, softened manner. . . .
And if there were not tears in his eyes
the firelight was very deceptive. Be-
yond question, he was, or had been, a

756

NORWEGIAN PAINTERS.

gentleman. Such do sometimes drop
into the ranks of the blue.

Long after we had turned in for the
night — it was warm and clear, and we
slept with the tent-wall raised — I awoke,
and looking out saw Armstrong walking
in the starlight. It was a night to re-
member. . . . Not a breath of wind
— the air like a clear crystal, and the
earth lighted by the rays refracted
through it from those infinite, briUiant
points set in a sky of unclouded blue.
I'he Eastern Shepherds might have
journeyed to the Manger under such a
canopy. Then another shape came out
from shadow — that of the man, the
strange recluse, and joined Armstrong.
Together they walked back and forth,
talking. And before they separated

Armstrong had walked with him to the
cave in the hillside, and gone within — I
knew it was to look upon the boy sleep-
ing. Then he came back and shpped
under his blanket, quietly, so as to dis-
turb no one ; and I breathed as heavily
as any sleeper.

We, marching out along alkali roads,
over wind-swept plains, had been un-
willing instruments ; but the work we
did was such as soldiers seldom have a
chance to do. It was Christmas work —
something for the Cross. For the man
and the boy came back with us from
the wilderness, and an old trouble was
healed on Christmas-day ; and life was
made more worth the living, and living
well, to two men.

NORWEGIAN PAINTERS.

By H. H. Boyesen.

BELIEVE it was Mr.

Henry James who was
seized with an aesthetic
shudder at the thought
of what art would have
become if its develop-
ment had been left ex-
clusively in Northern hands. " The early
German painters," he says in "Transat-
lantic Sketches," " do not seem to have
suspected that such a thing [as beauty]
existed ; the painter's mission, in their
eyes, is simply to appropriate, ready-
made, the infinite variations of gro-
tesqueness which they regard as the
necessary environment of the human
lot."

I regard this as a tribute to the hon-
esty of the German painters rather than
a reflection on their sense of beauty.
It would have been easy for Albrecht
Dtirer, for instance, who visited Italy
twice and was intoxicated with the
splendor of the Italian Renaissance, to
subordinate his own vision of life to
that of Mantegna and Bellini, and imi-
tate the classical grace and the bloom-
ing color of their canvases. If he or
Holbein had succumbed to such a

temptation (which a less sturdy genius
would have been sure to do), there
would, in all probability, have been no
such thing as a German national art,
but merely an imported Italian art ap-
plied to German conditions. To me
the pathetic Teutonic ugliness of Lucas
Cranach's " Eve " was a happier augury
for the future of German art than the
charming distinction of Tintoretto, the
joyous nobility and ease of Titian, or
the rich academic beauty of Raphael
would have been, as long as they were
not indigenous, but would have had to
be borrowed.

As Germany received its first artistic
impulse from Italy, so Norway received
it from Germany ; but, unhappily, with
the difference that Norway received
something more than an impulse. Nor-
wegian art is, generally speaking, Ger-
man art applied to, and modified by,
Norwegian environment. The subjects
are Norse, but the manner of treatment
is German. The first Norwegian paint-
ers of eminence, Adolf Tidemand and
Hans Gude, went to Diisseldorf, and
accepted the traditions of the Diissel-
dorf school, as I fancy, without much

NOKIVEGIAN PAINTERS,

1^1

questioning'. In fact, it is difficult to
comprehend liow they couhl liave done
anything else. The Norse national evo-
lution in art (if it ever existed) had been
broken and could not be resumed. Of
pictorial art, in any strict sense, there
never had been anytlmifi^ of consequence
in Norway ; but a distinctly national
temperament and imagination had found
expression in certain accepted forms of
decorative work, in wood-carving and
church architecture. The so-called
atave kirkcr, of which the Borgund
Church in Laerdal is a good specimen,
show a type capable of development,
and as distinct in their way as the Tar-
tar-Byzantine churches in Russia. In
silver filigree work, and wood-carving,
too (as cultivated by the peasantry),
forms and figures appear which date
back into the hoariest antiquity, and, as
far as can be ascertained, have sprung
from the national soil. I cite this
merely to prove that, under favoring
circumstances, there might have been a
Norwegian national school of art. But
when Tidemand and Gude appeared
upon the scene, toward the middle of
the present century, it was altogether
too late (and would, moreover, have
been a waste of energy) to begin to
grope for an opportunity which had
been irretrievably lost. It would be
foolish to return to rudiments, and
evolve art by the slow process of expe-
rience, when you have a near neighbor
who can teach you in ten years what it
would have taken you a century to
learn by clumsy emj^iricism.

Adolf Tidemand (1814-1876) shows
plainly enough in his early historical
canvases the influence of the Diissel-
dorf masters, Schadow and Hildebrand.
His "Gustavus Adolj^hus Addressing
the Dalecarlians " (1841) is empiric and
tentative, and lacks the charm of a plen-
ary inspiration. It is the sort of thing
that" young and gifted artists are apt
to do before they have discovered that
limitation of their powers within which
lies the promise of mastery. But Tide-
mand was not long in making this dis-
covery. It was not primarily because
Norwegian peasant life was a terra in-
cognita, unexplored as jei by art, that
he resolved to devote himself to its
study and pictorial presentation ; but

rather, I fancy, because he felt in him-
self the conditions for a deep compre-
hension and symj^athy. He certainly
achieved a triumph of noble and fe-
licitous expression in " The Pietists "
(1848), which gained him the golden
medal of the Berlin Academy, and made
him a European celebrity. In 1850 he
was engaged by King Oscar I. to paint
a series of ten pictures (for the royal
villa, Oscar's Hall), illustrating the tyj)-
ical scenes of the Norse peasant's life.
There we have " The Boy and the Girl at
the Saeter," he blowing his Al2:)ine horn,
and she sitting on the greensward, lis-
tening ; the "Mother's Instruction,"
the " Father's Instruction," the " Wed-
ding Procession," "Death of the Child,"
etc. ; in fact a series of canvases bear-
ing about the same relation to Norwe-
gian life as Kaulbach's illustrations to
Schiller's "Song of the Bell" bear to
that of Germany. Only, to my mind,
Tidemand is truer, stronger, less senti-
mental than Kaulbach. He represents
in j^ictorial art the same conception of
" the i3eople," the same idyllic optimism
that Bjornson represents in literature.
In fact, so completely did Bjornson find
himself in accord with Tidemand's tem-
pered and somewhat gilded realism, that
he wrote one of his novels, " The Bridal
March," as text to three of Tidemand's
canvases. One of these was the deserv-
edly popular " Grandmother's Bridal
Crown."

The bridal crown is among the Norse
peasantry an heirloom, which is handed
down from mother to daughter through
many generations. It is most carefully
guarded and held in high esteem. The
grandmother in Tidemand's picture, at
the touch of it, is reminded of the tri-
umphs of her youth, when the lads
thronged about her on the dancing-
floor, and often fought fiercely for the
j)rivilege of leading her through the
whirling mazes of the Spring Dance,
or the Hailing.* The whole romance
of her girlhood, which ended with the
bridal crown, the old woman is relat-
ing to her granddaughter in such
guarded language as one employs to
a child, as she displays her treasures,
all redolent of memories, to the little
girl's wondering eyes.

• A Norwegian national dance.

758

NORIVEGIAN PAINTERS.

This tender delicacy of sentiment
which detects in the common the sub-
tlest hints of beauty, then flourished in
the atmosphere of the Diisseldorf mas-
ters, who were all more or less ^iven
to the sweet conventionalities of the
domestic idyl. Tidemand was fortu-
nate, however, in having an entirely new
field in which to vary, if not to disguise,
the old themes. The costume was so
new that it had all the effect of a dis-
covery. There is an intensity of mean-
ing (though never unduly asserted) in
this beautiful series of Tidemand's peas-
ant idyls. He has much of the exquis-
ite modulation, much of the happy
appreciation of intangible values which
constitute half the excellence of that
greatest of German genre painters, Lud-
wig Knaus. I don't know whether I
shall be suspected of talking nonsense
if I say that Tidemand (like Knaus) un-
derstands how to give a certain poetic
afflatus to his realism which does not
make it less true, but doubly true. No
painter represents life with an absolute
completeness. All art consists largely
in selection and rejection, and Tidemand
sees and represents only that which to
him is pictorially valuable, and ignores
the rest ; and it was a peculiarity of his
mind that nothing appeared pictorial-
ly valuable unless it possessed some de-
gree of beauty. Take the picture called
" The Emigrant's Farewell," in the Na-
tional Gallery in Christiania, and note
with what gentle emphasis it tells its pa-
thetic story, how poetically significant
every detail is, how admirably the bal-
ance is maintained between sentiment
and sentimentality. There is nothing
mawkish, nothing hysterical in the pa-
thos of this parting for life. The young
man, with his wife and children, is about
to embark for the United States, leaving
his parents, who are too decrepit to fol-
low, on the old homestead. The bed-
ridden father, according to the good
patriarchal custom, is pronouncing his
blessing upon his son ; and the mother
is weeping on the pudgy hand of her
youngest grandchild, who crows and
laughs while the old woman's heart is
breaking. Very pretty, too, is the little
boy's eagerness to cut short the scene.
His brain is tingling with anticipation of
the steamboat and the wonders of the

New World ; and he tugs at his mother's
skirt in his impatience at the sorrow
which he cannot comprehend.

"The Last Sacrament" is another
scene (and the last one) in the homely
epic of the Norse peasant's life. It
breathes a mild resignation (not un-
tinged by a vague relief) at the thought
that now the hard battle of existence is
at an end, and the long final rest is at
hand. Tourgueneff has written much
about " how the Russian dies." An
equally interesting chapter might be
written on the theme " how the Norse-
man dies." For I believe it could be
demonstrated that there is nationality
even in death. The grim, almost sullen,
stoicism with which (according to Tour-
gueneff) the Russian embarks for the
Stygian shore — or it maybe the Elysian
— is probably accounted for by the fact
that life in that great Tartaric empire,
only under very exceptional circum-
stances, can be worth having. In Nor-
way, the desperate struggle for survival
seems to imply that survival must be a
great privilege. There is, at any rate,
much more joy in Norway than there is
in Russia — much more zest in living,
much more spontaneous activity, indus-
try, and intelligence. For all that, it
is the fashion, among the peasantry at
least, to greet death as a friend in dis-
guise, as a release from the heavy bonds
of mortality. The calm, beautiful res-
ignation of the dying man in Tide-
mand's picture, the gentle, tearless sor-
row of his wife, are admirably charac-
teristic. The clergyman, who sits at the
bedside in his robes of office, has ob-
viously (judging by his features) sprung
from the peasantry, and after becom-
ing a school-teacher or seminarist, has
trudged with infinite patience, by way
of the university, along the toilsome
path which, in the end, leads to a coun-
try parsonage. The fishing-net, which
depends in festoons from the rafters,
hints at the hardships which have un-
dermined the old man's strength and
exhausted his vitality.

A certain sombreness of tone and
narrowness of vision are the inevitable
conditions of life in a small and poor
country, where there is but little wealth
and no leisure class, and where the mere
struggle for existence absorbs so large

NORIVEGIAN PAINTERS.

759

a share of man's thoug-hts and interests.
The spectacle of life itself suffers from
a depressing scantiness, contractedness,
and poverty of form and color. Apart
from the scenery, which in northern
and northwestern Norway is indeed
sublime, there is nothing to feed the
pictorial fancy ; nothing to kindle the
soul with the glow and thrill of joyous
observation. There has, to be sure,
been no lack of pictorial genius, but it
has, as a rule, been cramped, and often
crippled, by lack of early opportuni-
ty. The state has, indeed, exhibited a
laudable interest in the arts, and has
encouraged artistic merit by public
stipends, which have afforded the recip-
ients the much-needed opportunity for
foreign study and travel. Nearly all
the distinguished painters of Norway
have benefited by this wise liberality,
the majority of them having received
their training at the academies of Diis-
seldorf and Munich, and a few in Ber-
lin and Paris. But the ability of the
state to give them orders, when they
have won distinction abroad, has been
extremely limited. The art unions of
Christiania, Bergen, and a few other
cities (which are private institutions),
have in part indemnified them for the
public parsimoniousness ; but even with
the aid derived from such sources art
would have languished, nay, perhaps
perished, from inanition, if foreign na-
tions had not recognized the power and
originality of Norwegian painters, and
extended to them their patronage. The
canvases of Tidemand and Gude are
to be seen in most of the great gal-
leries of Europe devoted to modern art,
and many of them have even made their
way to the United States. The pleas-
ing and popular Hans Dahl has found
a powerful patron in the Emperor of
Germany, who, as is well known, has a
great predilection for things Norwe-
gian ; and Fridthjof Smith-Hald, who
lived for many years in Paris, has his
clientele distributed on both sides of
the Atlantic.

Of the few Norse painters who have,
spiritually at least, no affiliations with
Ddsseldorf and its idyllic domesticities,
the most eminent is Nils Arbo. He is,
as far as I know, the only living history
painter in Norway, unless we include

Knud Bergslien, who cultivates what is
called the historical genre. Arbo, if he
had been a citizen of a greater state,
would probably have had a reputation
commensurate with his ability ; nay,
he would have had acres of wall at his
disposal in public museums and pal-
aces, and he would have swoim on the
crest of the wave of prosperity, like
Wilhelm von Kaulbach and Piloty.
But a man who paints, however admir-
ably, scenes from a history which no-
body knows except a few thousand cul-
tivated people, in his own country, is,
by that very fact, compelled to rely
upon this limited number for his pat-
ronage. For, interest in an historical
scene presupposes knowledge of it. I
should fancy that a dreary fatigue of
spirit would in the end take posses-
sion of an artist whose noblest efforts
have been crowned with so scant a re-
ward. And yet there is no hint of
lagging energy or blunted vision in any
of Arbo's canvases. In his long series
of drawings illustrating the history of
Norway, a certain trite fertility of in-
vention and the fatal facility of mere
craftsmanship are sometimes visible, in
the recurrence of stereotyped heroic
types, and the lack of that strenuous-
ness of commanding personality which
we had the right to expect in such
mighty figures as those of Sverre, Har-
old the Fair-haired, and the two Olafs.
But it should not be forgotten that Ar-
bo is largely the creator of the picto-
rial guise of this long gallery of Norse
heroes ; and a certain sameness was
perhaps scarcely to be avoided. How
purely he feels the Norse type of wom-
anhood, is shown in his beautiful " In-
geborg the Fair," in the National Gal-
lery. This is the heroine of " Frith j of 's
Saga," the type par excellence of the
faithful, loving, long-suffering woman
of the North, with trustful blue eyes,
blond hair, and a heart full of warm
and tender sentiment. There is some-
thing in this face so touchingly Norwe-
gian that it brought tears into the eyes
of a Norse-American exile to whom I
showed it.

*' Why are there not such women in
this country?" he cried, enthusiasti-
cally; "then there would be some joy
in living ; but America spoils our

760

NORIVEGIAN PAINTERS.

women in a very short time. It gives
them a hundred rights and pretensions
which they never dreamed of before,
which they don't know how to use, and
which they are far happier without."

There is something richly salubrious
in this " Ingeborg ; " a sweet acceptance
of life as it is, and submission to the
common lot ; and a noble patience and
inexhaustible fortitude of loyal devo-
tion. She is the ancestral tyj^e of that
adorable English girl whom George
Eliot describes as having " large ma-
ternal hands," and being possessed of
" a certain sweet matronliness even in
youth."

" The Wild Chase," the second canvas
by which Arbo is represented in the
National Gallery, is of very large di-
mensions, and difficult to reproduce
adequately in a small space. It is the
artist's chief work, and the one upon
which his fame will rest ; I spent an
hour and a half studying it, and the
longer I stayed the more interesting it
grew, and the more difficult it became
to tear myself away. The most im-
pressive thing about it is the tremen-
dous impulse with which it rushes upon
the sight of the beholder.

It was a superstition of the Middle
Ages, w^hich survived far into the pres-
ent century, that the old pagan gods
who had been conquered by the White
Christ broke loose from their hell once
a year, at Christmas-time, and swept
like a devastating tempest over the
earth. Woe to him who was then
abroad ! Suddenly he would feel him-
self grabbed by ghostly arms and
snatched up from the ground, to be
hurled miles and miles through the air,
or to be carried along with the Wild
Chase back to their dread dwelling-
place. The old thunder - god, Thor,
rides in the middle, with his hammer
uplifted, and the one - eyed Odin, pre-
ceded by his ravens, has mounted again
his steed Sleipner, and with drawn
sword leads the awful phantasmal host.
After him come all the other gods and
goddesses, valkyrs, and an innumerable
horde of phantom warriors who died in
the old and bloody faith. With a ter-
rifying, ear-splitting, soul-rending tu-
mult they tear away over the toj)S of
houses, mountains, forests, as if to pro-

test against the peaceful sway of Christ
the White, who dethroned them from
the dominion of the world. You see
them in Ai-bo's picture sweep along
with the roar and the terror of a black,
destroying storm — a dreadful, fiendish
rout, carrying in front of them on their
horses the victims whom they have
caught up in their furious progress.
Far below lies the earth, with its for-
ests bending, creaking, and writhing in
agony under the hellish blast.

The sombre and often grotesque lux-
uriance of the Germanic fanc}', which
revels in conceptions of gloom and ter-
ror, has found a powerful expression in
Arbo's "Wild Chase." It may be ques-
tioned, however, Avhether he had any
authority for painting the valkyrs
nude, when the elder Edda always rep-
resents them as clad in glittering ar-
mor :

" Helmeted maidens
Rode liigli tlirougli the heavens ;
With gore begrimed
Their coats of mail ;
But their flashing spears
Shot beams in the sun,"

That verse is to me unrivalled in its
bold and grandiose picturesqueness, and
I doubt if any painter could call up a
conception more largely and simply pic-
torial than is suggested in these rug-
ged lines.

I suppose a nation whose traditions
in the arts are too recent to have gath-
ered any embellishing embroidery of
mosses and lichens, can scarcely hope
to escape a certain bareness, hardness,
and meagreness which are inherent in
its social conditions. The situation of
Norway is in that respect not unlike
that of the United States. Each artist
yields what it is in him to yield, under
unpropitious circumstances. The sj^ir-
itual climate which he needs for blos-
soming into a rich and perfect bloom
is lacking ; and he contents himself
therefore (as he must) with a paler and
scantier bloom ; and tries, j)erhaps, to
persuade himself that this is his no-
blest, his best florescence. I have been
astonished, in the case of many Nor-
wegian artists, to observe how woful-
ly the performance of their manhood
mocked the promise of their youth.

Vol. XI [.-82

7G2

NORWEGIAN PAINTERS,

I remember, twenty -five years a<2:o, nals) scarcely any artistic intellioence,

sittino- b}' tlie hour in deliglited wonder the artists can hardly be blamed for de-

at the easel of a splendid young gen- generating. A radiant exception here

ius while he j^ainted, marvelling at the and there (such as AVerenskjold, and in

rich eloquence, the brilliancy, the de- a lesser degree Sinding and Eilif Peter-

Bjornstjerne Bjornson.
(From a portrait by Werenskjold.)

lightful illusion of his art. And now,
after the lapse of a quarter of a cen-
tury, this '* hyacinthine youth " has
lapsed into a mechanical little rut, has
become a contented dauber, in whose
facile and insignificant performances
no hint remains of the fine intuitions
which made his beginnings glorious.
And his is no exceptional lot. Where
there is (outside of a few rare individ-

sen) is faithful to his highest concep-
tion of excellence, and refuses to take
advantage of the inability of his public
to discriminate between his best and
his worst. Werenskj old's "Portrait of
Bjurnstjerne Bjornson " is in many re-
spects a most notable ])\ece of work,
though it emphasizes one dominant
phase of Bjornson's individuality to the
exclusion of all others. This is Bjorn-

o

^ --e

7G4

NORIVEGIAN PAINTERS.

son, the great masterful chieftain, the
leader of men, the mention of whose
name (to quote Brandes) is like running
up the national colors of Norway. You
feel the strength of the man, his mighty
presence, his distinct and vital person-
ality. But I can find no glimpse in
those hard eyes, those set, determined
lips, and that fierce concentration of en-
erg}', of the gentle, the lovable, Bjorn-
son, the tender and sensitive poet, the
generous, warm-hearted friend. It may
be objected perhaps that these two
phases of Bjornson's personality would
require two portraits ; that they are in-
capable of being simultaneously pre-
sented. But the impression of the
man as he appears in daily intercourse
unites both ; does not only suggest
them by turns, but they are the constit-
uent parts of his great and strenuous
self, the very elements of his great-
ness. But though to my mind inade-
quate, Werenskj old's portrait is a most
vivid presentment, and instinct wdth
vitality.

Among the Norwegian artists of
whom great things Avere expected, but
who have somehow failed to justify
those expectations, is Knud Bergslien.
Not that he has proved a failure, for
his achievement is never commonplace,
sometimes notable, and occasionally
distinguished. To me he is always in-
teresting, because he is simple, direct,
and forcible. He (as well as the sculp-
tor of the same name) is of peasant
birth, and without any other guidance
than the j)i'ompting of his own genius
began a primitive practice of his art.
Such men, "sons of the mountain," or
the valley, as the case may be, naturally
arouse great enthusiasm and extrava-
gant expectations. Having risen from
the people itself, they are supposed to
contain a mysterious fund of the na-
tional virtue and vigor, and it is confi-
dently predicted that they wdll smash
all musty traditions, and become the
founders of a new national art. They
are certainly not to be blamed for
failing to accomplish this impossibil-
ity. What happens is usually this :
Some benevolent government official
hears of the precocious genius of the
young peasant, volunteers to collect
among his friends the funds requisite

for his artistic education, sends him
abroad for a couple of years, to Munich,
or Paris, or Diisseldorf ; and sits down
in delightful anticij^jation of the glory
wdiicli he is to reap as the discoverer of
this prospective conqueror of a world-
wide fame. In the meanwhile the young
peasant, Avhose intellectual culture is
apt to be of the scantiest sort, comes
into contact with the brilliant young
foreigners who have gathered at the
Academy. He feels himself completely
overshadowed ; and his skill, which w^as
the admiration of his valley, seems poor
and clumsy, and scarcely w^orthy of the
name of art. His awkward manners
make him shy and ill at ease ; and so
far from dreaming of playing the icon-
oclast, he sits at the feet of his Ger-
man or French master, and is only anx-
ious to acquire all the latter is will-
ing to impart. He subordinates him-
self, as every learner must, and is con-
tent, in the course of time, to take his
place wdth the rest of the members of
the school, who

' ' practise with the strictest care
The art bequeathed to their possession/'

I fancy this must have been Berg-
slien's career, as it is approximately that
of every peasant genius w^ho has been
sent abroad by public or private benev-
olence wdth the hope that he would be
the founder of a distinctly Norwegian
school of art. We have a Norw^egian
school of music, forsooth, and a dis-
tinctly national one ; w^liy should we
not also have a national school of paint-
ing ? It is difficult to answer that
query. But the fact remains that, as
yet, we have none.

Bergslien's picture, "The Birchlegs
Carrying Hakon Hakonson Across the
Mountains," deals with a well-known epi-
sode of Norwegian history. The Birch-
legs were the partisans of King Sverre
(1182-1202), whose grandson, Hakon,
being the last direct scion of tlie
royal house, was rescued by tv\0 skee-
runners, w^hen his life was in jeopar-
dy. Mr. Bergslien is not addicted to
subtleties ; he tells his story with a
plain and rational directness which is
perfectly adequate to his purpose. He
says with a beautiful Norse simi)licity

766

NOR^VEGIAN PAINTERS.

all that lie has to say ; and sa^'s it even
impressively. Those of his canvases
which I have seen (and I have seen
about half a dozen) are all illustrative
of the life of the Norwegian people in
the present or in the past. Both in
spirit and in the manner of expression,
they are as national as anything that
Norse art has to show. They are blunt-
er in tone, more frankly virile, and less
idyllic than Tidemand's. They yield no
elusive hints or deeper spiritual mean-
ing to a long and sympathetic contem-
plation. But they emphasize, with en-
gaging candor and without exagger-
ation, certain notable facts which are
never lacking in interest.

A successor of Tidemand (though
scarcely his equal either in genius or

his great predecessor — the rural idyl —
and works it with more success than
any of his Norwegian contemporaries.
There is a frank and hearty optimism
(which in relation to modern life seems
almost an anachronism) in this painter's
temperament ; and an irresistible, sun-
ny geniality appears to distil through
his fingers into his paints, and invest
his figures, as his landscapes, with a
radiant good humor. A legitimate ob-
jection which has been urged against
this pervasive idyllic light-lieartedness
is that it is not at all characteristic
of Norway nor of the Norwegian peo-
ple, who are a grave, rather taciturn
race, and not in the least given to the
airy jollity and fun which they exhibit
in Hans Dahl's j)ictures. The time

The Birchlegs Carrying Hakon Hakonson Across the Mountains.
(From a painting by Knud Bergslien.)

popularity) is Hans Dahl (born 1849),
whose laughing peasant girls have be-
come familiar, of late years, to all fre-
quenters of German exhibitions. When
I call him Tidemand's successor I mean
thereby that he works the same vein as

appears to be past (in Scandinavia as
elsewhere) when " the people " were
credited with an innocence, simplicity,
and poetic susceptibility which put the
" cultured classes " to shame. If Hans
Dahl had come upon the scene thirty

NORWEGIAN PAINTERS.

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Sentenced to Death.
(From a painting by Carl Hansen.)

or forty years ago, when tlie peasant
idyl was in full bloom, botli in litera-
ture and art, lie would have been
praised to the skies for the very quali-
ties which the critics now condemn in
him. No one would then have found
anything anomalous in peasant girls
who flirt with paradisaical sweetness,
who carry themselves with the light-
footed grace of a lady to the manner
born, and whose fresh, dimpled faces

bear no record of the hardships, pen-
ury, and toil Avliich have been their
companions from the cradle. Meyer-
heim painted in this spirit in Germany,
at the same time as Auerbach, in his
"Black Forest Village Tales," demon-
strated that, amid the decay of virtue
in civilized conditions, the peasant re-
mained not only nature's nobleman,
but also her philosopher. But somehow
this is now regarded as an exploded

The Struggle for Existence.
(From a painting by Christian Krog.)

NORIVEGIAN PAINTERS.

7G9

theory ; and though many German
painters j-et persevere in the old ro-
mantic strain, unconscious of its ana-
chronism, and reap poj^ular applause,
the Norwegian critics resent it as im-
aginative mendacity and as a flagrant
violation of the verisimilitude, from
which no artist has a right to emanci-
pate himself.

To this formidable indictment Hans
Dahl would probably reply — or I may
as well admit that he did so reply
in propria persona — that life is sad
enough without our trying to make it
sadder. The mission of art was pri-
marily to please, not to preach or to
record life in all its naked, and often
repulsive, reality. If his temperament
impelled him to deal, by preference,
with the sunny phases of existence,
why should he be denied that privilege
and be forced, willy nilly, into the
gloomy charnel-house of the melancho-
ly and disillusioned realists ? Was a
cheerful painter, who found life beau-
tiful, to be denied the right to express
his delight in it, simply because it was
the fashion to emphasize and exagger-
ate the ugly, to prefer foul weather to
sunshine, and nettles and weeds to
roses and lilies ?

It is always a little risky to classify
contemporaries, and the critic must,
of course, be prepared to see his clas-
sification challenged and repudiated.
Every artist, in his own day, is so brist-
ling with individuality that it seems to
him an impertinence to bracket him
with anybody else, who necessarily ap-
pears inferior. It is only when he is
dead that he submits to such treatment
without a protest. And yet, with the
risk of offending both, I cannot dis-
guise the opinion that there is, super-
ficially speaking, a kinship and a fam-
ily likeness between Hans Dahl and
Axel Ender. They are both popular
favorites ; both sunny-tempered opti-
mists of idyllic proclivities ; both fa-
cile, various, bountiful, with a supreme,
truly pictorial delight in the outward pa-
geant of life, but (I say it without mal-
ice) untroubled about its deeper mean-
ings.

The altar-piece by Axel Ender, in
the Church of Molde, shows him at his
best. The women at the tomb are pic-
VOL. XII.— 83

turesquely, but not sordidly, oriental
(like those of Verestchagin), and j^iq-
uantly, but not unpleasantly, Jewish.
They make just enough of a concession
to historical criticism to preserve a
pleasing fiction of vraiaemhlance. The
tomb is cut into the rock as it ought to
be, but it is a large, spacious, monu-
mental tomb, from which the resurrec-
tion could have taken place without
the fearful suggestion of Verestchagin's
picture, where the Saviour crawls out
like some subterranean animal from its
hole. Mr. Ender's angel is to me one
of the noblest and most convincing an-
gels I have ever beheld. I venture to
say some fair Norse maiden furnished
the model ; for, in the first place, the
type is so charmingly Scandinavian ;
and secondly, this face has an exquisite
touch of earth (angelic though it be),
and it is the kind of face which no one
invents. The " Girl from Dalecarlia "
would be far easier to invent, though
she, too, has, no doubt, her counterpart
on earth. But she is less radiantly in-
dividual, and her nationality is more
easily distinguishable by her costume
than by her countenance.

The man de son temps who has im-
ported into Norway the hard and
uncompromising realism of modern
France — the realism of Bastien-Lepage
and Dagnan - Bouveret — is Christian
Krog. He undertook, some years ago,
to explode a pictorial bomb in the
peaceful Norwegian capital, in the shape
of a big canvas called "Albertine," ex-
hibiting a phase of liuman degradation
which the arts (in Norway", at least)
had hitherto shrunk from rej^resenting.
As a manifesto of the new school it was
pitched in as harsh and jarring a key
as possible ; and it had a literary echo
(which, however, in part preceded it)
that made a no less loud and ear-s^Dlit-
ting noise. Christian Krog is, in fact,
a novelist as well as a painter ; and
makes proselytes to his aesthetic creed
with his pen as well as with his brushes.
He utterly flouts and despises the tem-
pered realism of his more popular con-
frvres, and demands the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
I fancy, however, that his experience,
both as author and painter, must by
this time have convinced him that this

770

FANTASY.

demand involves a physical impossibil-
ity. How lie himself interprets it is
shown to perfection in his interesting-
picture, "The Stru<j^g'le for Existence."
The subject is the distribution of bread
and soup to the poor by some chari-
table association. These are, indeed,
the children of want and toil as we
know them and have seen them in the
haunts of poverty in our great city.
Huni^er and cold have stricken these
child-faces with a premature age, and
emaciated the most different types into
a dreary and squalid uniformity. The
awful democracy of misery has here
found a vivid and forceful presenta-
tion. It is but one step removed from
the still more perfect democracy of
death.

If Zola's definition of art, as being
" nature seen through the medium of a
temperament," be true, then it is obvi-
ous that the temperamental key-note in
Christian Krog's art is closely akin to
Zola's own. It is pictorial Zolaism.
It exhibits a consistent preference for
the ugly, under the strange delusion
that the ugly is a more essential part
of life than the beautiful. If the idyl-

lic school had been insincere in ignor-
ing the evil and repulsive, this latest
phase of realism is no less insincere in
ignoring the good, the noble, the at-
tractive. In either case there is a sup-
pression of facts which has the effect of
mendacity. It is easier to paint exag-
gerations and extremes than gently to
modulate a noble theme along the mid-
dle octaves of human sentiment or ex-
perience. " We may exaggerate," says
Hamerton, " because we feel strongly ;
but we far oftener exaggerate because
we do not feel delicately ; " which ad-
mirable a2:)horism applies to the school
in question.

I have confined myself in the pres-
ent paper to the j^ainters of the human
figure. Of landscape painters Norway
has, as might have been expected, a
very large number, some of whom are
justly eminent. Gude is easily the
foremost ; but Morten Miiller, Fred-
rick Ekersberg, Fritz Thaulow, E.
Skramstad, and Smith-Hald (who also
paints the figure) likewise rejoice in an
international reputation. Their im-
l^ortance, however, is such as to de-
mand a separate article.

FANTASY.

By Graham R. Tomson,

Gold roses, climbing, clasp a casement round,

Down on the gray stone sill their sweet heads lading ;

Below there stands a pale nymph ivy-crowned,
A strange air playing.

Her frail form trembles with the viol's strain.
Her shoulder leans against a fluted column.

Her eyes now shine, now plead, and now again
Watch, soft and solemn.

The fallen petals lie about her feet.

Their loose curled gold the marble terrace flecking,
Sunset and moonrise round about her meet,

Her bright hair decking.

FANTASY. 771

And one within looks vipward from his scroll,
Doubtful, reluctantly his clear eyes lifting,

Wherein there leaps a sudden, eager soul,
Their cold veil shiftin^f.

"Ah, listen," thus the quivering viol pleads,

" Still are the olive-sloj^es where gray moths hover ;

The ripples murmur to the misty reeds ;
Maid meeteth lover.

"Yon river wandering goes to seek the sea,
Warm with the memory of day's red glory ;

Come forth and hear in magic groves with me
My wondrous story."

Smiling he stands, young laurels on his hair,

Dim dreams of joys foregone his pale brow flushing ;

Half-tearful smiles, with pitying lips one fair
Dead rose-bud brushing.

Sighing he stoops and leans upon the sill :

"Sweet, but a little while this low light lingers,

Thou canst not hinder night nor day- dawn chill
With those lithe lingers.

" Fain would I wander in the sun-stained gloom
With thee, might this charmed hour forsake us never.

Might but my steps retraced this quiet room
Ke-enter ever ! "

Still sob the viol-strings their slow refrain,
Her eyes, uplifted, through a tear-film glisten-

" In years far hence I'll come to thee again,
And thou wilt listen.

"Ah, then my spells shall compass thee around,
With wild airs whispering and fair lost faces ;

And thou shall hearken or my viol's sound
In shady places."

UNDER POLICE PROTECTION.

AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF THE LATE CHIEF OF THE EUSSIAN

POLICE.

By Sophie Radford de Meissner,

In an upper room of a hotel facing
the Moscow station, in St. Petersburg,
a young man was striding, with knitted
brows, impatiently to and fro. In one
hand he held a crumpled bit of blue
paper, which was evidently the cause of
his discomfiture. Now pausing beside
a small table, he smoothed the disqui-
eting missive carefully out, and as he
did so one could see that it was a tele-
gram.

" Unavoidably delayed," he reads
aloud, " impossible to reach St. Peters-
burg before Saturday." Then, with a
deepening of the lines about the fore-
head he raises his head, and gazing
through the window out upon the
great snow-covered space before him,
mutters savagely : "It is most unpar-
donable ! It is but Wednesday now,
and he will not be here until Saturday,
while I dare not leave my room because
of this great sum they have entrusted
me with. It is no laughing matter to
be held responsible for one hundred
thousand roubles, and find both mem-
bers of the committee to whom I was
told to deliver it out of town ! " And
with another impatient glance at the
busy out-door scene — in which he
should so have liked to join — Serge
Georgeovitch Pallen resumed his rest-
less walk.

But ere he had taken a half dozen
Vol. Xn.— 85

steps in the large, comfortless room, a
sharp, commanding knock caused the
door to tremble upon its hinges, and
while he still stood staring toward it —
too amazed to answer the unlooked-for
summons — it was flung open, and a
tall, powerfully built man, with hair
and mustache of an iron-gray color, en-
tered the room, closing the door rapid-
ly behind him upon a galaxy of curious
faces.

Serge was still wondering where and
when he could have seen this new-
comer, whose face and general bear-
ing struck our young tchinovnik * as
being strangely familiar, when, in a
voice that harmonized perfectly with
the unwonted air of strength that per-
vaded the man, the latter said : " I am
General G ! You know me, I pre-
sume, though it is hardly probable you
can have seen me before."

Of course ! How could he ever have
entertained any doubt upon the matter ?

General G ! the great chief of the

Russian police 1 whose photographs he
had seen over and over again in the shop
windows of his native town of H .

Bowing courteously. Serge advanced
a chair, saying, with some surprise in
his tone :

" Will you not be seated ? To what
am I to attribute the honor "

* Employee.

UhlDER POLICE PROTECTION.

773

*' Oh ! " interrupted the officer, some-
what shortly, "there is little that passes
here without my knowledge ; and, be-
ing aware of the fact that you have
with you a sum of one hundred thou-
sand roubles — sent by your fellow-
townsmen to the ' Famine Relief Com-
mittee ' — and that, owing to the ab-
sence of these gentlemen from town,
you are unable to deliver it for the
moment ; and have, so far, neither de-
posited it in any bank, nor given it in
trust to the owner of the hotel, I have
come to speak to you about the mat-
ter. You are young, I see, and can
hardly understand the risk you run in
a great city like St. Petersburg in keep-
ing so large a sum about 3'ou " — this to
Serge, who felt that his hair must posi-
tively have whitened with the anxiety
of the past forty -eight hours — "and
the proprietor of the hotel could not,
of course, be held responsible should
any loss befall you, inasmuch as he has
not been intrusted with the keeping of
the money. There is just now a very
dangerous band of thieves in town, who
have given us an endless amount of
trouble ; so, as you have still some time
to wait before being able to hand this
money over to the persons to whom it
is sent, I would advise you to give it in
keeping to some bank ; or, if you pre-
fer requesting the police to take charge
of it for you, I will order them to do
so, otherwise we cannot answer for its
safety."

What relief this speech contained for
the young tchinovnik he alone could
have told ; for had he not passed two
mortal days and nights, scarcely daring
to close his eyes, and all because of one
innocent-looking package that lay snug-
ly tucked in one side of his capacious
travelling-bag. And yet this was such
an important matter, one on which,
it niight be, his whole future career
would depend ; for had he not been
honored greatly — at his age, scarce
twenty-one — by the trust reposed in
him. So it was very slowly and cau-
tiously he now spoke, saying :

" I had thought of taking it to some
place of safety, but you see I am a
stranger here, and having absolutely
no acquaintances did not like to go to
a bank where I was unknown with such

a sum. Perhaps you will give me some
advice upon the subject, or a letter of
introduction, which may sim2)lify mat-
ters for me."

The heavy gray brows were drawn
together as though the General were
deep in thought ; then, speaking in his
turn, in a slow and deliberate manner,
he said : " There is the Credit Lyon-
nais, or Younker's ; but there might be
some difficulty about depositing it for
so short a time ; or stay, it would be in
perfect security with our police, and,
after all, why should j^ou go through
all the worry and formality necessary
in order to j)lace it in a bank ? Take it
to one of our police-stations, and give
it, with my card ; or, stop a bit, there
might be some mistake, and I can per-
haps be of more service to j^ou by tak-
ing it with me. In that case you will
be assured of its safety, and when the
time comes to deliver it, will only have
to call for it at my house. How will
that do ? "

How would it do ! Why, never had
he felt so deeply grateful to anyone in
his life. And unlocking a closet door
he drew forth a travelling-bag, and
opening it, handed the parcel — that had
rested like so much molten lead upon
his mind for the past eight-and-forty
hours — to the General, saying :

" Your Excellency is conferring the
greatest favor upon me. But, I trust,
General, before leaving, you will accept
a glass of wine — or "

" Nothing, nothing whatever," in-
terrupted the other, hastily ; " I never
touch anything between my meals, and
my time is too precious to be wasted.
Kemember, then, you have but to come
to me as soon as the gentlemen of the
committee are in town. I wish you a
very good-morning."

And with quick military precision, as
he had come, the General moved tow-
ard the door, opened it, and closing it
sharply behind him. Serge heard the
spurred heels tramp noisily down the
long corridor, and a moment later,
standing at the window, beheld his
visitor seated in a handsome sleigh
drawn by two spirited dark gray horses,
turn to the left, and disappear up the
Nevsky Prospekt.

Giving a sigh of relief as he realized

774

UNDER POLICE PROTECTION.

that he was now free to come and go
as he pleased, and might visit this great
caj^ital, which, so far, he had never be-
held but in his dreams, Serge stepped
before the mirror that divided the two
windows, and glanced anxiously at his
reflection, as though dreading to note
something in his appearance that might
betray the provincial.

It was a thoroughly refined and hon-
est face he saw, but one denoting great
powers of endurance and self-concen-
tration rather than any very brilliant
intellectual capacity ; and as he still
stood gazing a subdued cough and dis-
creet knock at the door made him turn
sharply about.

" Who is there ? Come in ! " he called
out impatiently ; and then, to his sur-
prise, saw the proprietor of the hotel
— a wiry little Frenchman, whose keen
black eyes appeared to include each sep-
arate object in the room in that first
rapid glance he cast about him — before
him, and heard him say, with a hesitat-
ing bow :

" Monsieur has had a visit from Gen-
eral G ."

" Why, yes," assented the young man ;
adding, somewhat hastily, " you know
him, I suppose ? "

" Oh, of course ! Who does not know
our great Chief of Police ? But — "
here stammering slightly and growing
rather red, " I hope Monsieur is in
no trouble ; that is, in no difficult po-
sition, which would make him — make
him — liable to "

A sudden flash of light burst upon
Fallen's mind, and perceiving how that
episode might be interj^reted by those
unacquainted with the facts of the case,
he said, smilingly : " Do not be alarmed,

my friend. General G had heard,

though in what manner is a mys-
tery to me, of my having brought a
sum of one hundred thousand roubles
to St. Petersburg, for future distribu-
tion among the famine- stricken suf-
ferers. Now it happens that the gen-
tlemen to whom I was to deliver this
are both out of town, and considering
it unsafe for me to keep so large a sum
about me, the General came to advise
me to transfer it to some place of
safety, either to a bank or to the police,
for safe keeping."

The sharp black eyes were observing
Serge narrowly as their owner ejacu-
lated : "And you?"

"I ! Well, you see as he kindly of-
fered to take charge of it for me until
it should be needed, I begged him to do
so. Of course it could be safer no-
where than with General G-

» "

But there was an uneasy look in the
little Frenchman's eyes as he said,
half doubtingly : " You have a receipt
for the money, of course."

" A receipt ! " And Serge drew his
somewhat slight figure ujd indignantly,
" You do not imagine I insulted his
Excellency by asking for such a thing ;
or that I have any doubt of the money's
being perfectly safe in his keeping ? "

" Oh, no ! Certainly not ! " interposed
the other, hurriedly, though the look
upon his face denoted clearly enough
his disapproval of the course the youn-
ger man had followed. For a mo-
ment more he stood rubbing his nose
reflectively with one stumpy forefin-
ger, then, v/ith slow insistance, recom-
menced : "All the same, it would be
decidedly safer to have a receipt." And
seeing the startled look — half doubt,
half amazement — that flashed into the
other's eyes, he added, rapidly: "But
that, of course, can be very easily ob-
tained, for if you were to go to the Gen-
eral's house I am very sure he would
give you one immediately. You see, as
you are responsible for that money, it
is best for you to put yourself entirely
upon the safe side."

But Serge, now thoroughly aroused,
needed no further urging ; and though
he would still have scouted the idea
of there really being any danger, had
donned his fur pelisse, and scarcely
heeding the little Frenchman's last
words, was hurrying from the room.
Upon reaching the hall below he drew
out his watch. Eleven o'clock! An
hour, then, had already elapsed since his
visitor had taken his departure. Well,
he should probably find him at home,
as he had appeared so pressed for time.
And calling an izvoschik, whose horse
was in better condition than the gener-
ality, he said : "To General G 's !

Go quickly, and you shall have a good
natcha'L" '*

* Pourboire.

UNDER POLICE PROTECTION.

115

What a great city St. Petersburg was,
to be sure ; and how interminable the
Nevsky Prospt'kt seemed, despite the
excellent speed made by the sturdy lit-
tle Finland pony. At last the Admi-
ralty (or Navy Department) was reached,
and turning to the left they were soon
at the General's door.

Hearing from the Schvetzar that His
Excellency was at home, Serge hurried
up the broad stairway, and was ushered
by an orderly into a room whose j^rin-
cipal furniture was a vast writing-table,
covered with papers of every descrip-
tion. Over the mantel hung a fine pict-
ure of Karazin's. A troika, standing
in a blinding snow-storm before a lit-
tle country inn, the liorses waiting with
that patience of which Russian cattle
alone are capable, while the snow whips
in blinding fury about them ; and just
as Fallen had all but forgotten his er-
rand in his contemplation of this, a
deep voice close beside him said :

" You asked to see me, I believe ! "

Confused at having allowed himself
to become so unconscious of his sur-
roundings, Serge said, somewhat hur-
riedly— noting absently the while that
this same tall, gray -haired man had
made no change in his attire since his
return — "Yes, General, I did! You
may perhaps think it rather curious,
and I beg you will not be offended ;
but after you left the idea struck me
that, as that money is not mine, I
should not have given it up to anyone
without taking a receipt. A mere for-
mality, of course, but "

"Stop a moment," interrupted the
General, "I do not understand. Of
what money are you speaking ? "

A sudden faintness came over Serge,
and the walls appeared to be whirling
with lightning rapidity about him as he
answered, f alter in gly :

".Why, the one hundred thousand
roubles I gave you not two hours since !
Surely Your Excellency cannot have
forgotten it."

For the space of several seconds the
General stood looking fixedly at Serge,
then inquired :

" Wliere did you give me the money ? "

Almost desperately, Fallen answered :
" In my room at the Northern Hotel.
You came yourself to tell me it would

be safer with the police, and offered to
keep it for me until I could deliver it
to the 'Famine Relief Committee,' for
whom it is destined. Why " — and tears
were now actually standing in the young
fellow's eyes — "you knew all about it,
even to the exact time at which I had
arrived, bringing it with me."

A curious gleam in the General's eyes
belied the calm of his voice as he re-
marked :

"You say I was in your room at the
Northern Hotel this morning ? "

" Certainly ! And not two hours
since ! "

Rising deliberately from the chair in
which he had seated himself. His Excel-
lency touched an electric bell, and as a
servant stood in the doorway, he said,
quietly :

"Have I been out this morning,
Vasili?"

" No, Your Excellency ! You have
but this moment finished your toilet."

Without a word the General looked
toward Serge, who felt now as though
he were moving in some hideous dream,
and who could not possibly have articu-
lated a word, so persistently did his
tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth.

Then — always with the same deliber-
ateness — the General continued, still
addressing his servant :

"Tell Ivan to bring the sleigh at
once, and give me my pelisse."

Then turning, he bowed slightly to
Serge, saying : " May I beg you to ac-
company me? "

Still moving as in a dream. Fallen
preceded General G into the ante-
room, where stood another servant in
readiness to assist Vasili in giving the
coats.

Passing ahead, so that there could
have been no possibility of the men
holding converse together. His Excel-
lency again inquired : "Plave I been
out this morning, Nicolai ? "

Short and prompt came the answer :
"No, Your Excellency."

On down the stairs they w^ent, and
to the Schvetzar who opened the wide
door with a deeply respectful bow, the
General again repeated his question,
which was met by the identical answer
that had been given twice before.

Ivan, whose horses had been stand-

776

UNDER POLICE PROTECTION.

ing ready hamessefl, now drew up bo-
fore the door, and Serge soon found
himself seated beside this mysterious,
uniformed figure ; behind the self-same
dark-gray thoroughbreds he had ad-
mired from the hotel window so short
a time before ; and listening in blank
bewilderment to the coachman's very
positive affirmation, that "His Excel-
lency had not left the house that morn-
ing."

Fallen's mind was now in such a
state of confusion that he failed to
hear what order was given, but after a
swift and silent drive — that appeared
to him incalculably short after the time
it had taken to cover the same distance
with an izvoschik — he found himself
once again at the entrance of the hotel.

Ere he had completely realized his
whereabouts, the proprietor was bow-
ing obsequiously beside the carriage,
and inquiring " What he could do for
His Excellency's service ? "

But there had now come a change in
the formula, and in reply to the Gen-
eral's brief demand : " Have I already
been here this morning ? " the little
Frenchman protested with many engag-
ing grimaces that " it was scarce two
hours since His Excellency had gone
to Mr. Fallen's room ; and if he desired
to visit it again, why, Monsieur was
himself there to show the way."

Stepping rapidly from the Carriage,
the General passed into the house, and
motioning Serge — who was still speech-
less— to lead the way to his room, fol-
lowed him, making the same inquiry of
each person he met, and meeting in-
variably with the answer : " Your Ex-
cellency left here not two hours since."

Once in Fallen's room he looked
sharply about, examined the solitary
closet, asked where he had been seated,
what he had said, and upon taking his
place once more in his sleigh, called
a policeman, who was standing respect-
fully by, and upon learning that the
man had also seen him so short a time
before, demanded briefly :

" In which direction did I go ? "

"Up the Nevsky, toward the St.
Alexandre Monastery," was the reply.

" Ilaracho ! * And now, Mr. Fallen,
will you kindly be seated ? "
* It is well.

Again tlioy arc off, almost flying over
tlie frozen snow, drawing rein only as
they pass each policeman, and receiv-
ing invariably the reply : " Your Excel-
len(;y passed here two hours since, going
toward the Monastery." When the con-
vent gates are well-nigh reached the
direction is suddenly changed, and as
they follow this strange chase u]} one
street and down another, now to the
right and now to the left. Fallen asks
himself whether he is indeed in his right
mind, or whether this is not rather the
effect of some weird hallucination that
has possessed him. And at every turn
the question is repeated — so rapidly
indeed that the horses scarcely come
to a stand — until,*of a sudden, the Gen-
eral hears : " Your Excellency stopped
about two hours ago, at yonder large
gray stone house, the third on the
right." At these words His Excel-
lency's eyes lose their look of stony
calm, and — like a hunter who scents
his prey close at hand — the nostrils
dilate, while a tense exj^ression tells
that the interest is becoming very keen.

The policeman, who is w^atching his
chief's face closely, notes the difference ;
and though he feels that some exciting
scene is shortly to be enacted, is very
far from suspecting what its character
may be.

"I entered the third house on the
right," pursued the General, leaning
forward and gazing straight into his
subordinate's eyes ; " did I come out
again ? "

The man's face is a positive study as
he answers : " Not that I saw, my Gen-
eral. Yet it is very evident "

" No matter about what is evident ! "
interrupted His Excellency, shortly ; "
" answer only the questions you are
asked. What became of my equipage ? "

" It went on immediately, and turned
the corner, so your Excellency may
have left by another "

But the man turned an ashen hue
as the General interrupted, sternly :
" No suppositions, do you hear ! And

now " Here followed some swiftly

spoken, low-voiced instructions, that
were inaudible to Serge, and as the
policeman turned and hurried away,
the General stepped from the sleigh,
beckoning Fallen also to alight, while

UNDER POLICE PROTECTION.

Ill

the coaclinian drove rapidl}- into the
adjoining' cross-street where he was
soon lost to view.

As Serge followed the General into
the house that had been pointed out to
them hj the policeman, he noticed the
look of bewilderment upon the Sclivet-
zar's face, and in reply to the General's
query : " Do I live here ? " heard the
man stammer, " Yes, General ! Third
floor, to the left ! " But at the next
question : " And am I at home ? " the
man dropped lim2:)ly upon the stone
settle, and gazed at them as one dis-
traught.

Calmly ignoring his amazement, the
General, still followed by Serge, mount-
ed to the story indicated, and after a
hasty glance from the window over-
looking the street, turned as though
satisfied with what he had seen, and
pressed the electric bell at the door on
his left, long and firmly.

A maid servant, w4io was evidently
expecting a summons, oj)ened the door
almost immediately ; but, as she caught
sight of the General, her lower jaw
dropped, and she stood with eyes and
mouth agape, staring at him. When
asked : " Do I live here ? " she nodded
frantically, and when her interrogator
continued, " Which is my room ? " she
gave a terrified gasp, and started has-
tily backward down the corridor, never
turning her gaze from the General's
face, wherein lay apparently some pow-
erful fascination for her. Her out-
stretched right hand soon touched the
framework of a door, and stopping, she
remained pointing sj^eechlessly toward
this entrance.

With scant ceremony His Excellency
caught the handle, and the next mo-
ment stood in a good-sized room, light-
ed by two windows looking out upon
the street.

Fallen, whose nerves were now strung
to their intensest pitch, saw, with some-
thing like a shudder, seated at a large
round table, his back toward them, a
man with close-cut black hair, who Avas
busily sorting or counting a sufficiently
imposing pile of bank-notes. A gray
wig was thrown in a little heap on the
table beside him, and he was in his

shirt-sleeves, while the uniform which
he had just discarded lay at full length
— identically tlie same as that worn by
the General — upon the bed.

He had not moved as the door had
opened, but, on the contrary, had ex-
claimed, with some impatience : " How
is it you are so late, Paul Dmitrieff ? "
And as His Excellency's hand now fell
heavily upon his shoulder, he sprang
to his feet with a hoarse cry, stretch-
ing out one hand at the same time in
an endeavor to seize a pistol from the
table.

But the General was too quick for
him, and had the weapon already in his
grasp. Covering his prisoner with it,
he said, slowly :

" There is no escape for 3'ou. This
house is surrounded by my men. You
have but to look from the window and
you will see them. I have been upon
your traces for some time, my friend ;
but your audacity of to-day will ^yui an
end to your escapades, I can assure
you. And as for your accomplice, Paul
Dmitrieff "

As the General had been speaking,
the steady tramp of a squad of police
had been audible upon the stairway and
from the corridor outside, and just as
he j^ronounced this name, the two fore-
most of the party appeared at the door,
leading between them, heavily mana-
cled, a short, thick-set man with so vil-
lainous a cast of countenance, that
Serge, though no coward, fairly trem-
bled to think what might have been his
fate had he fallen unprotected into the
hands of such expert and hardened
criminals.

With what relief Serge Georgeovitch
Pallen handed the money over that
same afternoon to the persons appoint-
ed to receive it — for the telegram had
been a part of the plot, and the gentle-
men of the Committee had arrived that
morning in St. Petersburg — may be
better imagined than described, and
the proprietor of the Northern Hotel
was treated to a bottle of his own
finest champagne in return for the
kindly advice he had given the young
tchinovnik.

Vol. XII.— 84

Simon de Vos, painted by himself.
(In the Antwerp Gallery.)

779

IN A GALLERY.

Antwerp, 1891.

By Julia C. R. Dorr.

The Virgin floating on the silver moon ;

Madonna Mary, with her holy child ;

Pale Christs on shuddering crosses lifted high ;

Sweet angel faces, bending from the blue ;

Saints rapt from earth in ecstasy divine,

And martyrs all unmindful of their pain ;

Bold, mail-clad knights ; fair ladyes whom they loved ;

Brown tisher-boys and maidens ; harvest fields,

"Where patient women toiled ; with here and there

The glint of summer skies and summer seas.

And the red glow of humble, household fires !

Breathless I stood and silent, even as one
Who seeing all, sees nothing. Then a face
Down the long gallery drew me as a star ;
A winsome, beckoning face, with bearded lips
Just touched with dawning laughter, and clear eyes
That ke23t their own dear secret, smiling still
With a soft challenge. Dark robes lost in shade,
Laces at throat and wrist, an ancient chair,
And a long, slender hand whose fingers held
Loosely a parchment scroll — and that was all.
Yet from those high, imperial presences,
Those lofty ones uplifted from dear earth
With all its loves and longings, back I turned
Again and yet again, lured by the smile
That called me like a voice, " Come hither, friend ! "

" Simon de Vos," thus saith the catalogue,
And "Painted by himself."

Three hundred years
Thou hast been dust and ashes. I who write
And they who read, we know another world
From that thine eyes looked out on. Wouldst thou smile.
Even as here thou smilest, if to-day
Thou wert still of us? O, thou joyous one.
Whose light, half-mocking laughter hath outlived
So much earth held more precious, let tin' lips
Open and answer me ! Whence was it born,
The radiance of tliy tender, sparklin^i: face?
What manner of man wert thou ? For the books
Of the long generations do not tell !
Art thou a name, a smile, and nothing more ?
What dreams and visions hadst thou ? Other men
Would pose as heroes ; would go grandly down
To coming ages in the martyr's role ;
Or, if perchance they're poets, set their woes
To wailing music, that the world may count
Their heart-throbs in the chanting of a song.
Immortal thou, bv virtue of one smile !

THE VIRGIN enthroned: SONNET FOR A PICTURE.

No sorrow knowing, hath the heart of sorrow

Recondite in her eyes ; while Mary's grace

For pity of to-day, of all the morrow

Turns her new joy to dimness in her face.

So new announced to her — and Earth, removed,

Shimmers a mist of tears before her sight ;

Not seen, yet understood ; renounced, yet loved ;

All strength and pity shown in high brave light.

"For she hath looked upon the front of God,"

Her eyes are stilled ; her lips have touched the rod,

Foreknowing His will and of mercy sure :

They offer her Earth's flower as it dies ;

She sits with folded hands ; but in her eyes

The infinite compassion of the pure.

HISTORIC moments:

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO BERLIN.

[June 16, 1871.]

By Archibald Forbes.

LORIOUS and memorable
as was the spectacle which
Washington witnessed on
the 23d and 24th May,
1865, that closing scene of
the civil war was check-
ered by many a sad and bitter memory.
Grand "Historic Moment" as was the
event, dark shadows fell athwart the
splendor of the pageant which in stead-
fast tramp of stanch war veterans and in
sheen of glittering steel, rolled its majes-
tic stream down Pennsylvania Avenue.
The blood of the Great President was
scarcely dry on the narrow hallway
leading to the back room where his pa-
triot spirit left its shattered tenement
of cla}^ The character of the war had
been exceptionally sombre, and in viru-
VoL. XTL— 85

lence, obstinacy, and duration had l)een
all but unique in modern times. The
combatants had been no foes of distinct
and adverse nationalities, but sons of a
common country and a common race,
brothers in blood, and knit to each
other by countless ties. In the heart of
the bloody devilry of most wars there
lurks some seed of virtue, and probably
never in the world's history has there
been a war out of which sprang so
much good as that which has so auspi-
ciously emanated from the issue of the
secession struggle ; but in those days
when the grand divisions of the Union
hosts were striding along Pennsylvania
Avenue, few men as yet could discern
the far-off rainbow in the sky.

Undimmed either by memories or

782

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO BERLIN.

forebodings, was tlie radiant exhilaration
of the triumphal entry into Berlin on
June 16, 1871, by the German troops
who had returned from the short, sharp,
and decisive war with Germany's hered-
itary enemy. It was not to be expected
that from a strife so titanic the co-
horts of the Fatherland should return
with full numbers. No, the graves of
dead Teuton soldiers flecked the green
sward of France from the Spicherenberg
to the banks of the Loire, from Pont-
arlier on the foothills of the Alps to
Havre on the English Channel. The
Guard Corps constitutes the garrison of
the capital of the German Empire, and
was to have the chief prominence in the
military pageant of the day. Its ranks
were now full, but recruits repaired the
ghastly chasms made on the smooth
slopes of St. Privat, where six thousand
of the Prussian co7^ps d' elite went down in
little over a quarter of an hour, of whom
twenty -five hundred moulder where
they fell. But if the Prussian Guards-
men did not know the French proverb,
that an omelette cannot be made without
the breaking of eggs, they were familiar
enough with its German equivalent, and
they blithely realized that, though com-
rades Hans and Johann sleeping their
long sleep in the now German Lorraine,
were not to be forgotten, their memory
might be put aside on this day of tri-
umph and rejoicing. The widows and
orphans of the war hid their sad faces
and sombre attire in the seclusion of
their dwellings, and but for them, all
Berlin was throbbing with exuberant jo}^
and pride.

The Berliners are an early rising folk,
from king to kerl, and by eight o'clock
it seemed as if the whole population was
already in the Linden, from the roofs
and windows of which floated multi-
tudinous flags, and whose central allee,
from the Pariser Platz to the Spree, was
lined on either side by captured field-
guns garnished with flowers. War celeb-
rities were thus early abroad. Who is
this senior for whom the throng makes
way reverentially — he with lean wrin-
kled face, set mouth, jei with something
of a haK smile on it, ever with downcast
abstracted eye and stooping shoulder,
with hands clasped behind his back
and with listless gait — this fleshless,

tough-looking man with the bushy eye-
brows and the long, lean throat ? He
is worth looking at, for he is the great-
est strategist of the age, and has been
the ruling soul of the victorious cam-
paign. Moltke, for it is he, has been
with the Emperor, and is probably on
his way home to finish Miss Braddon's
last novel ; for w^hen he is not devis-
ing strategy he is reading sensation-
al novels; and his abstraction, as like
as not, is caused by speculation as to
which of the two aspirants to her hand
the heroine is ultimately to marry. A
tall burly man swings round the corner
of the Friedrich Strasse, his loud " Ha !
ha ! " ringing out above the noise of the
street as he strides down the Linden.
The crowd makes way for him when it
will for few others, and in truth he is
the stamp of man to drive a path for
himself even through an obstructive
crowd. His step is firm and massive,
his shoulders are broad and square ; the
undress cuirassier cap sets off w^ell the
strong face with the heavy snow-white
mustache and the terrible under -jaw,
massive yet not fleshy, full but not exu-
berant, which one never looks at with-
out thinking how symbolical it is of
the " blood and iron " dogma which the
stern but hearty man once so frankly
enunciated. When last I had seen Bis-
marck he was sitting on his big horse
under the statue of Strasbourg, in the
Place de la Concorde, on the day the
German troops marched into Paris,
glowering down scornfull}' from under
the peak of his metal helmet on a group
of Frenchmen who had identified him,
and were shrinking as they spat hiss-
ings up at him.

Now we are at the Brandenburg arch,
and the driver of our fiacre suddenly
wheels aside and halts. Why this roll-
ing thunder of cheering ? The road is
clear but for this somewhat ramshackle
park phaeton, in which sits an old
gentleman in undress uniform with a
younger man by his side. Why are hats
in the air, and people roaring them-
selves hoarse as they bow low to this
passing vehicle ? Because its elder
occupant is the central figure of this
hour of national triumph and success.
He does not look much like one who
will be known to all time as a great his-

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO BERLIN,

783

toric figure, does he ? — this full-faced,
genially bluff- looking old gentleman
with the bushy white eyebrows, mus-
tache, and whiskers. But he will be,
nevertheless ; nay, he is a great his-
toiic figure to-day, for he is the Ger-
man Kaiser and King of Prussia, who,
after his quiet, old-fashioned German
way, has come out for his morning
drive among his people. In ordinary
times they merely take off their hats to
him silently, since it is known that he
dishkes more demonstrative greetings ;
but this is an exceptional day, and his
Berliners think themselves entitled to
take a liberty. The Kaiser does not
bow, he merely nods ; it is his way, for
he is a homely man, and one could not
imagine him assuming a Napoleonic as-
pect of abstracted sphinxhood.

The thoroughfare which is later in the
day to become part of the via triumjjha-
lis leads by the street of La Belle Alh-
ance— so called in memory of the meet-
ing of Wellington and Bliicher on the
evening of Waterloo — over the Kreuz-
berg, to the wide green expanse of the
Tempelhofer Field, where is to be held
the Kaiser's parade of the army. We
ride under a succession of triumphal
arches along the broad roadway, kept
clear spontaneously by the dense throngs
on either side without need of police or
soldiery. Now that the parade ground
is reached, one can as yet but make little
out of the seemingly tangled and in-
choate formations. Yonder is a bright
clump of glittering steel — an infantry
regiment of the Guard. This snake-like
coil crossing on the lower level, a flow-
ing river of glitter, is another, march-
ing on to take up a position. And now
over the crest of the Kreuzberg is pour-
ing a flood of white and steel, tipped
with shining brass and dancing plumes.
It is the Cuirassiers of the Guard on
the march. The succession of splendid
squadrons seems interminable, as they
come on, scabbards clinking on spurs,
helmets and cuirasses flashing in the
bright sunshine. Noav at a spanking
trot approaches the Dragoon Brigade
of the Guard. No traces of hard cam-
paigning are visible now either on
troopers or horses — nothing save the
medals and iron crosses on gallant
breasts to recall that awful afternoon

when the brigade, to relieve their sorely
strained comrades of the infantry, gal-
loped up the slope north of Mars-la-
Tour straight into the jaws of death.
Leboeuf's chassepot bullets are not rain-
ing into the ranks now, no pale death
now confronts the troopers who es-
caped that tornado of tire. The Hus-
sars of the Guard, trim and dainty,
are coming on to the field at a walking
pace by another route. Their crimson
and gold shabracks are very bright in
their newness, untarnished they by the
dust and blood of Vionville and the
red mud of the Ardennes. The noble
horses arch their crests and jingle bits
and collar-chains ; they are as proud
to-day as are their riders. With a rat-
tle and a rumble, the sound of which is
a mixture of a cavalry charge and the
roll of laden wagons on a granite cause-
way, the Horse Artillery dashes up at a
straining gallop, whips in air, traces taut,
the limber-gunners hanging on by their
eyelids, the mounted detachments rid-
ing knee to knee. At a demurer pace
advances the Field Artillery, plain, but
smart and thoroughly serviceable ; the
men who handle the grim toys which
did so much to earn the German suc-
cess in the war, do not care about fancy
uniforms, but about straight shooting.
Through a hurricane of cheering, a
compact column of infantrymen, above
whose ranks rises a forest of colors,
standards, and eagles, marches up stead-
fastly. The column deploys into line
on the green sward of the Tempelhofer
Field, and the strange diversity of uni-
forms among the men who compose it
becomes apparent.

For this is the famous " Combined
Battalion," eight hundred strong, made
up of small detachments from every
regiment of United Germany which
fought in the recent war. In its ranks
march eighty-one non-commissioned offi-
cers, each man chosen because of some
signal deed of personal valor, to be the
bearer this day of one of the eighty-
one trophies 'reft from France, which
are now glittering and waving on the
parade ground of the German capital.
Yonder are the eagles of the French
Imperial Guard, which I had seen laid
down with tears and gnashing of teeth,
on that sullen October morning by the

784

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO BERLIN.

Moselle, when one hundred and seventy
thousand Frenchmen in arms surren-
dered in a mass. Yonder the Gallic
banners fought for and won at Grave-
lotte, Sedan, Orleans, Le Mans, St. Al-
bert, Villersexel, and many another
tierce and bitter combat. No wonder
that the chosen bearers — Prussians, Ba-
varians, Saxons, Wiirtembergers, Hes-
sians, Badeners — march proudly under
such a burden as this. The world has
rarely seen such a pregnant show as
these eighty-one emblems of victory
present.

While the battalion is standing at
ease, let us pass down the ranks and
note some of its features. Every type
of German stock is represented here,
nor are there wanting men of Slav
descent, who are now as German as the
Germans themselves. These eight hun-
dred men are the compendious living
story of the war, to one who can read
the significance of the regimental num-
bers on their shoulder-straps. This man
with the " 40 " on his shoulders was
one of those — and not one of the last,
else he would not be here — who car-
ried, now at the bayonet-point, now scal-
ing upward on their hands and knees,
the steep face of the Spicherenberg.
This stout fellow with the number " 35 "
on his shoulder-strap, stood fast in
Flavigny when forty French batteries
on the Roman road were pouring into
it a hail of live shells. There are mem-
ories here of the ravine leading up to
the shot-rent St. Hubert, of the storm
of St. Privat, of the furious close-locked
struggle in the street of Champigny, of
the grapple at the barricade of Le Bour-
get. This Bavarian in the light blue
looked into the heart of the shudder-
ing horror of Bazeilles ; yonder Saxon
sergeant commanded his company at
Villiers, when all the commissioned
officers had gone down. I can recog-
nize, in connection with days of danger
and nights of quiet gossip on the fore-
posts, many of the faces in this " Com-
bined Battalion ; " and when I hear a
" Wie geht's, Herr Forbes?" emanating
in drawling Saxon from the deepest re-
cesses of a man who looks as if he had
been hewn out of gnarled timber, and
discern the kindly glimmer in the stern
man's eyes as he woodenly clinks his

heels together and salutes an old friend,
the recollection recurs of the steep
night-climb on to the slaughter-pen of
Mont Avron, when under-officer Schultz
was in charge of the *' Sly Patrol."

The early tangle of regiments has re-
solved itself into precise and serried or-
der. In the place of honor on the right
of the first line stands the " Combined
Battalion " deployed ; on its left the
First Division of the Guard, in the front
of whose centre sits motionless its
brave chief Von Pape, on his brow still
the shadow of that awful slaughter of
his " children " on the slope of St. Pri-
vat, which clouded all his after-life.
The second line consists of the Second
Guard Division, whose commander, that
fiery old Pole, Budritski, gave a lead to
his Guardsmen over the big barricade
in the throat of the street of Le Bourget,
his sword in one hand, in the other the
king's color of the Queen Elizabeth reg-
iment. In the third line are the cavalry
and artiUery. In front of the now set
parade gradually gather many notable
warriors, 'massing to escort the Emperor
along the lines. Alvensleben, the hero
of Mars-la-Tour, is chatting with the
Crown Prince of Saxony, who is to live
to be almost the sole survivor of the
great men of the great war ; Von Werder
is shaking hands with Manteuifel, who
relieved him in his sore stress in front
of Belfort. Old Steinmetz," the Lion of
Skalitz," holds converse with the Bav-
arian commander Von der Tann, who
sits on his big horse moodily pulling
his long iron-gray mustache ; Blumen-
thal, the military mentor of the Crown
Prince, is here with his keen, not unkind-
ly face ; and the cultured Von Goeben is
scanning the " dressing " of the Guard
Corps through his spectacles. Stiehle,
beloved of Prince Frederick Charles, but
the bete noire of correspondents, grim-
ly lowers on the scene, and appears dis-
gusted by the geniality of Podbielski,
the quarter-master-in-chief.

Hark to that clamor of cheering,
coming on the wind from the throat of
La Belle Alliance Street ! Nearer and
nearer it rolls, like a great wave, till
it climbs the Kreuzberg and breaks in
thunder on the gentle slope of the Tem-
pelhofer Field. It heralds at once and
accompanies the approach of the Em-

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO BERLIN. 785

peror. Preceded b}' a couple of equerries, banners are everywhere displayed, of
but with no other escort than the love puddlers, of strikers, of hammermen, of
and reverence of his people, the old boiler-makers. Men say that between
Kaiser rides forward, wearing the plain the far end of La Belle Alliance Street
uniform of a Prussian general, and and the Brand enburger Thor there are,
mounted on a powerful dapple-brown arrayed in double fil^, not fewer than
charger. The " Koyal Salute" clashes twenty thousand craftsmen,
out from the massed bands ; the troops. To Berlin the Brandenburg Gate
with three sharp and simultaneous vol- bears almost the relation of the Arc de
leys of cheering, present arms ; and be- Triomphe to Paris. Erected at the be-
fore the conqueror the " Combined Bat- ginning of the century, it attracted the
talion " droops to the ground the eagles rapacious eye and the unscrupulous
and banners of the conquered. Behind hand of the First Napoleon. The fine
his Majesty ride his son the Crown allegorical sculpture representing Vic-
Prince and his nephew Prince Frederick tory was torn from its place above the
Charles, and then deploys a brilliant gate, and carried off to Paris. When in
staff in rear of which follows a long line 1815 the conqueror became the con-
of carriages. The first of these contains quered, the ill-gotten gains of the Em-
the Empress and the Crown Princess; pire were reclaimed and the "Victory"
the former pallid, stiff, and formal ; the came back to Berlin. Inside the gate
latter beaming with joy and pride, fine new houses were built around a
Her swelling heart is in her e^^es ; a great parallelogram, from the lower end
glance tells how she sympathizes in her of which springs the noble promenade
every fibre with the scene before her. of XJnter den Linden. To this area was
The cortege passes along the serried given the name of the Pariser Platz.
lines at a brisk walk, and then forms up Its houses form an admirable amphi-
at the saluting point for the march past, theatre in which to represent a splendid
But that is a mere military formality, and spectacle and celebrate a gloiious tri-
we shall do well to hurry to a position umph. This space was selected with
whence may be seen to advantage a sub- marked appropriateness as the arena in
sequent spectacle. The last view of the which the Emperor and his victorious
scene on the Tempelhofer Field is seen army should receive from the civic au-
in passing from the crest of the Kreuz- thorities of the capital of the Empire a
berg, and is worth glancing back upon, welcome home and grateful thanks for
The sombreness of the dark blue of the triumph of heroism and endurance,
the infantryman is relieved by the more On tiers of seats in front of the houses
brilliant dress of the cavalry, the dancing of the Pariser Platz were congregated a
plumes of the staffs, the waving of the great proportion of the rank, the wealth,
countless banners, and the bright, fresh and the patriotism of Germany, who
green of the sward. There is a constant were to be at once spectators and ac-
yet flickering shimmer as the sun plays tors in a ceremony which crowned events
lightly on bayonets, drawn swords, and that had changed the color and the cur-
burnished cuirasses — such a shimmer rent of modem history more than any
as diamonds radiate in a well-lit ball- occurrence since the Declaration of In-
room. Along the route from the Kreuz- dependence by the United States of
berg right to the low^er end of the Lin- America.

den,. along the whole line, indeed, of the On either side, in the great sloping

impending procession, the guilds of Ber- tribunes, rises a vast bank of humani-

lin guard and keep open its thorough- ty, bright with the colors of the ladies'

fare. At the first triumphal arch stands dresses. The tall masts with starred

a deputation of black-coated gentlemen, banners and weaving pennons, frame in

the master-machinists and workers in color with color, and above everything

iron of the Hauptstadt. Behind and be- there is a sky line of many hues, for

yond these are the journeymen of those all the mansions have crowded trib-

crafts, stalwart, brawny fellows, all unes even on their roofs ; and on the

dressed in their best, and with silver summit of the archway of the gate

badges in their hats. Emblematic trade- are perched adventurous lads clinging

786

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO BERLIN.

around the monumental horses of the
" Victory." In front of tlie tribune on
the left of the gate, an oblong enclosed
space is filled with pretty girls dressed
in white trimmed with blue, among
them Friiulein Blaesar (apt name for the
day of blazing sunshine), who, patently
to the naked eye, is conning over the
address of welcome which she has been
chosen to recite to the Kaiser. Under
the huge silver - trimmed awning pro-
jecting into the Platz from the head of
the Linden, stand the civic dignitaries
of Berlin headed by the Burgomaster
Hedeman, with a vista in the rear of al-
dermanic-looking committee-men, with
those inexplicable rolls of parchment in
their hands which never by any chance
come to anything. The chief magis-
trates are robed and uniformed, and
swelter visibly accordingly ; the minor
functionaries are in evening dress, with
portentous soup-plate-like medals and
cable-like chains of office. Soldiers are
gathered in every corner of the Platz,
but soldiers unarmed, many of them
just recovering from their war wounds,
of whom a sad proportion have left a
limb in France.

There is a shout that the procession
is approaching, but it is a false alarm,
created by the apparition of a solitary
Landwehrman who, armed to the teeth,
stalks stolidly under the archway, look-
ing neither to the right nor to the left,
and presses steadily on as if he was
marching up to a French barricade.
But now at length the time has come,
heralded by the cheering billowing along
the Konigsgraetzer Strasse. There is a
mighty roar from the tribunes as old
Marshal Wrangel rides through the
Thor — '*' Papa " Wrangel, the veteran of
the war of Liberation, the warrior-con-
temporary of Blticher, a nonagenarian
still straight and soldier - like, bearing
stoutly sword, cuirass, and plumed hel-
met. Then follows him the General Staff
in a glitter of diverse uniforms, and in
rear of the staff ride the chiefs who com-
manded army corps in the war, some of
whom, such as Werder, Von der Tann,
and Goeben were in its course the heads
of independent armies. Then come the
supreme commanders of larger separ-
ate armies, the Crown Prince of Saxo-
ny, who not five years ago was Prussia's

foe ; Manteuffel, grim, gray, and wiry ;
and fiery old Steinmetz, the inheritor
of Bliicher's byname of "Immer vor-
warts ! " There is an interval ; and
then, riding abreast, there pass the three
makers of history, the men, too, who
have made the German Empire — Bis-
marck, Moltke, and Boon. Alone, with
a twenty yards space before and behind
him, rides now Kaiser Wilhelm, brusque-
ly acknowledging the tempest of cheer-
ing which surges around him. Verily he
reneweth his youth as doth the eagle,
this stalwart, sempervirent monarch
of the Teutons. Gone in this hour of
triumph from this fresh - colored old
chieftain with the eye of a hawk, the
aches and ailments of the campaign ;
his crest is erect, his back straight, his
bridle-hand light yet firm on the dap-
ple-brown charger he bestrides so gal-
lantly. The deputation of young ladies
sally out upon him, and he halts in
courteous attention while Miss Blaesar
speaks her piece, which is commend-
ably short. When she has finished he
stoops over her and takes her hand ;
the ladies around me, in their gushing
way, will have it that he has kissed her.
Certainly there was temptation, for Miss
Blaesar is an exceedingly pretty girl.
Then the Kaiser bends to the right and
rides along the front of the tribune oc-
cupied by convalescent officers wounded
in the war, whom he greets with kind
solicitude and shakes hands with the
nearest. This Pater patriae also has a
few soldierly words of sympathy for the
convalescent private men massed in the
further corner ; and then he wheels the
dapple-brown under the civic awning,
where Burgomaster Hedeman is mas-
ter of the situation. Herr Hedeman is
not so pleasant - looking as Fraulein
Blaesar, and he is ever so much more
prolix. Bismarck, weary of the copia
verborum, takes his feet out of the
stirrups, and permits himself a stretch
and a yawn. The Bed Prince throws
his charger on its haunches with an im-
patient chuck of the bit, for Frederick
Charles is a man of action, not of words
— and in truth the worshipful Burgo-
master is very prosy. It has been a
weary halt, but at last Hedeman 's son-
orous volume of platitudes comes to an
end. The Emperor says not much in

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO BERLIN.

787

reply, but in a strong voice and with
considerable gesticulation. He does
not kiss Hedeman — Hedeman is old and
hairy, and smells of tobacco, which
Wilhelm does not like. In England the
Burgomaster would have been bidden
to kneel down, and when he got up
would have found himself a live baro-
net ; but there are no baronets in Prus-
sia, and he is content with a shake of
the imperial hand. And then the Em-
peror is out of sight down the Linden,
with his Princes and Poins ; but the
army has still to defile.

In the intervals between the congratu-
latory addresses, the military bands had
been performing snatches of distinctly
patriotic music, such as the favorite
"Heil dir im Sieges-Kranz," an air
familiar to Americans under the name
of " Hail to the Chief ; " the not less
favorite " Ich bin ein Preusse," and the
triumphant "Wacht am Rhein." But
now it was to the strains of "The
Pariser Einzug Marsch," composed for
the defile through Paris of Bliicher's
army in 1814, that the First Guard In-
fantry, the leading regiment of an army
which had twice since 1814 seen the in-
terior of the French capital, strode down
the central allee of the Linden in close
column of double fours. The Third
Guard Infantry, almost purely a Berlin
regiment, was very warmly greeted, the
shot-torn fragments of its ragged colors
fluttering over the stalwart and medalled
color-guard. A much married regiment :
many wives and sisters, not to speak of
babies in arms carried by most of the
former, had invaded the ranks, and
marched step by step with the fighting
men. Behind the "Combined Battal-
ion," which, as it strode under the
forest of conquered banners, dense al-
most as Birnam wood moving to Dun-
sinane, roused the masses to the wildest
enthusiasm, came the dingy but dash-
ing Rifle Regiment of the Guard, the
"Sweeps" of the Army Corps, scud-
ding under bare poles, to use a nautical
expression — for the last tatter of its regi-
mental color had been shot away and
there remained but the splintered staff.
At the head of his "Lady-birds," the
" Kaiser Alexander " regiment, rode
their chief, the gallant Count Kaunitz,
who cleared the Le Bourget barricade

abreast of brave old Budritski. The
sister regiment, the " Queen EHza-
beths," passed next. Neither it nor
the other " Queen " Regiment, the "Au-
gustas," marched home under the colo-
nel who had led it out to war — to
both Le Bourget was fatal. I stood by
the graves under the weeping- willows
on the lawn of the Chateau of Arnou-
viUe, wherein was laid to a soldier's
rest the heroic Zaluskovski, the colonel
of the Elizabeths, with eight of his
ofiicers around him, and Avherein sleeps
Count Waldersee, the commander of the
Augustas, who, barely recovered from
his severe wound received in the melee
of Sedan, was slain in storming one
of the entrances into Le Bourget. But
with the loss of their original chiefs,
neither regiment lacked good leader-
ship. The " Ehzabeths " now followed
down the Linden the ardent von Al-
trock, in whose paletot I counted four-
teen bullet-holes after the fight of Le
Bourget. At the head of the "Augus-
tas " rode von Seeckt, who was left for
dead in front of St. Privat, but who re-
covered to be wounded again at Le
Bourget, and now looked no whit the
worse for his rough handling from the
chassepot bullets. I need not weary
the reader by detailing how cavalry fol-
lowed infantry, and artillery followed
cavalry, then more infantry, more cav-
alry, and more artillery, till the whole
host of forty thousand men had passed,
and till, indeed, most people were tired,
and surely all were hoarse with applaud-
ing. There is much sameness in file
after file, be the files the finest troops
in the world ; and certainly the world
might be searched in vain to discover
finer than those which this afternoon
had passed through the Brandenburg
Gate, and having marched down Lin-
den, were now massing in the broad
Schloss-Platz to witness the final cere-
mony of the day.

The occasion had been appropriately
chosen for the unveiling by the Kaiser of
the statue, which had been set up in the
adjacent Lust-Garten, of his royal father,
that King Frederick William who had
been the victim of Jena, and who after
years of humiliation and privation, had
seen his Prussia restored to her place
among the nations by the statesman-

788

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO BERLIN.

ship of Stein, the provident wisdom of
Scharnhorst, and the soldierly prowess
of Bliicher. It was a scene of great in-
terest. On the steps of the pedestal of
the statue were grouped the ladies of
the Royal House. Below them was a
little company of venerable men in
quaint old-world uniforms, the surviv-
ing officers of the war of Liberation ;
and the handful, near the old officers, of
veteran private men and non-commis-
sioned officers of the same period, con-
stituted with them a singular and sug-
gestive link between the soldiery whom
the Great Frederick so often led to vic-
tory, and that triumphant modern array
whose serried lines to-day encircled the
arena of the ceremony. Already there
lay on the base of the monument the
banners conquered from France by
Prussian arms in the campaigns of 1813
and 1814, and hand in hand with Brit-
ons on the field of Waterloo and in the
subsequent pursuit. Now the color-
bearers of the " Combined Battalion "
stepped proudly forward, and deposited
with the earlier trophies the emblems
of victory won on French battle-fields
on which the graves of friend and foe
were yet recent. The Chaplain-General
of the Army, speaking from the highest
step of the monument, then delivered in
stentorian tones an address which was

partly a paean, partly a prayer, in which
was not a little of the sword of the
Lord and of Gideon, but more of abject
homage to the demi-god-like attributes
of the worthy old Kaiser, and of flatu-
lent encomia on the virtues of the Ger-
man soldiers. The Oberfeldgeistliche
was both turgid and tedious ; but there
is an end to everything, and at last
there came an end of him. The Em-
peror rode forward from his place at
the head of the great staff and pulled
the cord which let drop the conceal-
ing drapery. The statue of his father
stood revealed ; the Kaiser, helmet in
hand, led off the cheering ; at the sim-
ultaneous shout of command the troops
presented arms with one sharp auto-
matic-like crash ; the cannon thundered
forth the salute of a hundred and one
guns ; and when the smoke drifted away,
the final ceremonial of the memorable
day was over, and the triumphal " Ein-
zug " had been consummated. It had
been a complete and crov>^ning success ;
and if there were those who held that it
should have been postponed for two
days, when it would have occurred on the
anniversary of Waterloo, the reply was
in order, that it was the chronological ri-
poste for Ligny, which was fought on June
16, 1815, and which w^as the last defeat
which has befallen the Prussian arms.

THE POINT OF VIEW.

What Christendom wants at Christmas
time is simply to be happy. It wants the
same thing all the rest of the year, but
when Christmas comes its habit is to make
a special effort and gather, if it can, a spe-
cial harvest of happiness from the plantings
of the year. And where it is not used to
being happy and does not really know how,
it shows a pathetic willingness to learn, and
even to assume an appearance of gayety that
it does not really feel. Honest effort counts
for a good deal in any pursuit, and where
millions of people try to be happy and to
furnish merriment for one another, a very
considerable proportion meet with reason-
able success. But in everything where
there is a possibility of success there is also
a hazard of failure, and it is no disparage-
ment of a virtuous i^urpose to have a merry
Christmas, to remember that effort which is
misdirected, or attempts the impossible, or
fails for any other reason, increases the bit-
terness of the resulting disappointment.
Some good people will not have the heart
to attempt any Christmas fun, or will fail
in it in spite of all they can do. It is espe-
cially for their consideration that these re-
marks are intended.

There was a person once — I dare say it
would be nearer the truth to say there
were a million people at various times —
who, having sought after happiness with
earnest and protracted strivings, finally
gave up the quest and went about his other
business. His conclusion, slowly and auto-
matically derived from long periods of loug-
VoL. XII.— 86

ing and resulting depression, was that he
could not get in this world what seemed
indispensable to his satisfaction, and that
while it was within his powers to live de-
cently and maintain an honest walk and
conversation, happy he could never be, and
it would not pay him to try any more. So
he settled down with the feelings of one
who has been unjustly deprived of his own,
to go through the motions of living without
regard to whether he liked it or not. But
his mind, continuing to operate more or less
independently, presently evolved the re-
flection that, while it was incumbent on
every man to live his life and to live it as
handsomely as he knew how, he was under
no sort of obligation to enjoy it, since hap-
piness was a mere incident of mundane
existence, and not at all a necessary condi-
tion or an absolute right. Now, merely to
live decently whether you like it or not, is
like walking along the street with your
hands in your pockets ; whereas to feel
obliged to gather a complete outfit of hap-
piness that you cannot reach, is like running
your legs off after an elusive butterfly. So
great was this person's relief at the conclu-
sion that happiness was not necessary, and
that as a human being he was under no
ethical bonds to secure it, that a weight
left his mind and his spirits presently began
to rise ; and though now and then he would
lose his head and rush off after an impossi-
ble felicity, like a half-broken puppy who
flushes an unexpected bird, when circum-
stances had duly thrashed him back into

790

THE POINT OF VIEW,

good behavior, he was able to return, not
Jo his original gloom, but to the compara-
tive cheerfulness of the emancipated state.

It makes a great difference in one's feel-
ings about happiness whether he accustoms
himself to regard it as a luxury, like a mill-
ion dollars or a yacht, which some men
have and more don't ; or as a comparatively
indispensable endowment, such as a nose,
which it is a sort of reproach to a man to be
without. The instinctive appetite for it is,
like hunger and thirst, a wise provision of
nature, and designed to incite a salutary de-
gree of effort ; but it is quite as capable of
abuse as the other appetites, and needs the
same sort of control ; so that whoever feels
that he must have so much happiness every
day, whatever happens, has reached a point
where a period of total abstention is likely
to do him good.

There are some stars that we cannot see
at all when we look straight at them, but
which become visible when we look a little
to one side. So there are things that we
cannot get when we try directly for them,
but which presently fall into our laps if
only we try hard enough after something
else. Everybody knows it is that way with
happiness. Make it a primary object and
it leads you a doubtful chase ; but ignore
it in the rational pursuit of something else,
and presently you may find it has perched
unnoticed on your shoulder, like a bird
whose tail has felt the traditional influence
of salt. So, of course, the very first essen-
tial to the achievement of happiness of any
durable sort is to rise above the necessity
of being happy at all. It may be conducive
to this sort of achievement to remember
that great spirits in all times have found
in their own involuntary discontent a spur
to exalted endeavor. Neither Lincoln, nor
Balzac, nor Carlyle were happy men, but
they put saddle and bridle on their own de-
pression, and rode it under whip and spur
into immortality. Columbus himself had
low spirits, and Socrates and the judicious
Hooker both had Xantippes.

But let nothing herein set forth induce
any person to trifle with or undervalue any
present happiness of which he may already
hold the fee. It is very pleasant to have,
and often very wholesome, and as long as it
can be kept pure and sweet it is a lament-
able blunder not to cherish it. Nor should

anything herein dissuade anyone from mak-
ing a special effort after a particular lot of
Christmas happiness. Only, worthy people
who do make that effort are counselled to
aim a little to one side of the mark, that
their chance of a bull's-eye may be the
greater. And the practical application of
that advice, as everybody knows, is just to
aim to make the other people happy, and
trust to getting a share incidentally for
one's self.

We are apt in our criticism to impute to
imaginative writers a larger freedom in the
choice of their material than they actually
enjoy. They can choose what they will, in
the main ; and what one will, we are wont
to regard as a choice practically without
limits. Nevertheless such a choice has
limits, the natural limits of whatsoever will
exercises it ; and in the case of the writer
choosing his material these limits are an
important consideration.

There are writers who can set pen to al-
most any theme. "When the golden-rod
becomes for a day the national flower, they
can do you sonnets to it in any number,
without having been aware previously of
its existence. Or, when the public curios-
ity is all astir over mesmerism, they can
toss you up a mesmeric tale that would
have mesmerized Mesmer himself. Hon-
est handicraftsmen these are, for the most
part, whose work we receive often at less
than its real value, make an hour's use of,
and then toss aside, never to recall it again.
Such writers may be considered to have a
practically unlimited choice, and we com-
mit at least no absurdity in rating them for
not always choosing what we would have
chosen.

But the writers whose work reaches the
dignity of literature are not of this adajDt-
able type. They have ineradicable, un-
yielding preferences and repugnances ; and
cannot work to their best effect but at a
consciously gracious task. They may each
wish to do all that any writer has done or
can do ; but wishing is distinctly different
from willing. Against that one encounters
no obstruction either within or without ;
whereas against willing, since it is the be-
ginning of action, there is the obstruction
both of circumstance and of one's own nat-
ure— of those very preferences and repug-

THE POINT OF VIEW.

791

nances which in writers of the more sig-
nificant sort are ineradicable and unyield-
ing. With such writers the choice even of
what they will must therefore be much
restricted. A reviewer observed the other
day, with much discrimination, a propos of a
Life of the artist Keene, "And, surely, in
matters of art, a lack of desire is a lack of
power. To say that an artist did not care
to draw beautiful faces is exactly the same
thing as to say he could not. His nature
did not fit him for it." The observation
holds as well in letters as in art ; and, when
we chide an author for writing something
else than what we should like him to write,
we proceed little more wisely than if we
chide an imbecile for not being a wit.

All this, perhaps, is so perfectly plain
and simple when set forth by itself as to
seem scarcely worth the saying. Yet we
are continually losing sight of it when we
r'SffKie to pass judgment on authors and
books. Authors too often lose sight of it ;
and reconcile themselves to the larger pros-
perity of some brother of the craft with the
reflection that if they had a mind to prosti-
tute their talents to it, they could do work
as popular as his. Thus Ben Jonson, sen-
sitive to the public's liking for a sort of
pieces other than his own, was wont to bid
it remember that he

could 80 have wrote a play,
But that he knew this was the better way.

Jonson's very confidence in the excellence
of his own way, disabled him to follow any
other. Possibly he could have followed
another, had he willed ; but he could not
will. For the setting-forth he was abso-
lutely impotent ; how splendidly he might
have finished is therefore a perfectly use-
less conjecture. No less useless would have
been the exhortations of the play-goers and
critics of his day, had they chosen to make
exhortations, to him to write like those
rivals whose method he held in such burn-
ing contempt.

One or two rather serious consequences
attend the failure to remember that imagi-
native writers must do what they can. But
for a sense of wilfulness in those who are
not realists, or romanticists, or what not,
when we ourselves chance to be one or an-
other of these, there could scarcely be the
disposition that there is to deal roundly

with them for their slackness, and that
consequent conflict of schools which now
so often obscures right reason. And but
for a sense of malice prepense when a writer
fails to change his field at the first bid-
ding, there could scarcely be that brutality
which is sometimes practised on those who
have done the world the rare beneficence
of opening to it a perfectly new garden of
delight, but have been unable to open a
second when the novelty wore away from
the first.

During the late " silly season " of the
London newspapers — and the English jour-
nalist takes his silliness with conscientious
thoroughness, as he does his politics — one
of the chief papers devoted many columns
to letters from readers on the question why
young men do not marry. Most of the
writers agreed in thinking that it was be-
cause of the fear of the expense of married
life, which is plausible enough, and nearly
all of them agreed that it was a great evil,
in which opinion I do not find myself able
wholly to join. But whether it is an evil
or not, there is no question that there exists,
in England and here, a class, apparently of
increasing numbers, of women who either
do not marry at all or do not marry so
young as their mothers and grandmothers
did ; and it seems to me that fathers of
sense do not quite recognize the duty that
this fact imposes upon them — the duty of
making such provision for daughters that
they shall, as far as possible, be free to
marry or not, and shall not be impelled to
do so from the mere need of a home and
support. Of course this provision must
vary with the means of the father. It may
take the form of an adequate income, se-
cured by a proper investment, or it may be
a training in some occupation that will
yield an income, or it may be in part one
and in part the other. The main point, so
far as the daughters are concerned, is that
marriage shall be a matter of choice, that
a fairly comfortable and independent life
shall be made possible without it, and that
no woman shall feel forced, or tempted,
not to put too fine a point upon it, to be-
come a wife to secure such a life. I know
that the problem is not a simple one, and
that its solution is not easy, but ease and
simplicity are not the prevailing character-

792

THE POINT OF VIEW.

istics of a man's duties to his children of
either sex. This one is none the less im-
perative on that account.

I do not ignore the fact that for the
greater number of women marriage is the
happier and better condition, and I know
the objection to my suggestion that it would
discourage marriage. But it remains true
that a certain number of women do not
marry, and the duty to provide for the
greatest attainable happiness for them is
as clear as any other. Another considera-
tion, and one which is worth thinking of, is
that the chances of happiness and a good
life for those who do marry will plainly be
increased if their choice is as free as nature
and the perversity of fate permit. Nor
should I withdraw the provision for daugh-
ters in case of marriage. I would, in the
reasonable ratio of means — which a little
self-denial by fathers would increase — con-
tinue it. We men are not such miracles of
unselfishness that the possession by a wife
of independent resources, proportioned to
station, is a wholly vain title to respect.
The essence, I think, of the intelligent
American's idea of marriage is mutual af-
fection, and to that I believe that a certain
undeniable and lasting equality contributes.
All social legislation for forty years back,
in the United States, has tended toward
that end. It would be well if social habits
and methods took the same direction.

In his remarkably interesting "Souvenirs
d'age mur," M. Francisque Sarcey gives an
account of his persistent, but not success-
ful, efforts to make for himself a corner in
some Paris journal in which he could apply
to books the method that he has adopted
in the criticism of plays. The principle is
very simple. First, he had "in stock," so
to speak, a body of general ideas in regard
to the various departments covered by cur-
rent publication. This, it is assumed,
though the assumption is sometimes a little
violent, every critic starts out with. The
ideas may be modified or developed with
the passage of time, but they must be defi-
nite enough and broad enough to be useful

before even a beginning is to be made.
Second — and this is the point on which his
claim for originality rests — M. Sarcey
wished, if he took up a book at all, whether
for praise or condemnation, or each in part,
to give his readers a very clear impression
of the actual contents of the book, a suc-
cinct but careful and faithful description
of it, a catalogue raisonne, not only of its
virtues and defects, but of its essential feat-
ures, an analysis of its author's purpose and
methods. Finally was to come the com-
ment. Not that every notice was to be di-
vided in this way. Quite the contrary, the
great dramatic critic thinking that the com-
ment should be woven with the general
or specific statement, and that the funda-
mental ideas, on which he insists, should
be inferred rather than stated, but should
always be the basis of the criticism. Each
article would then be a lesson in these
ideas as applied to the particular work in
hand, and for this purpose, a poor or even
a slight or bad work would be as useful, and
would require as much pains, as a good or
even a great book.

I am convinced, not only that the plan
is a sound and practical one, but that the
journal of means and position that adopts
it would make for itself a class of perma-
nent readers of great value. At present I
recall but one journal that approaches it.
The " notices " of the daily press are, as a
rule, singularly inadequate, and often inept.
Even the better class of them make too
much of a disjDlay of the critic, and leave
the reader worse than ignorant of what
the writer criticised has really done. The
omission is the more remarkable because,
in this department, there is much room for
that element of *' news" for which Ameri-
can readers are supposed to be so eager,
and American journalists so happily gifted.
The scheme suggested by M. Sarcey does
not require genius ; it does -equire ability,
if not of a high order, certainly not com-
mon ; but especially it demands patient in-
dustry, great fidelity, and, from the pub-
lisher, a free hand. Given these, there is a
department to create.

End of Volume XII.

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