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THE GALAXY.
VOL. XXIII.--FEBRUARY, 1877.--No. 2.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by SHELDON &
CO., in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
ADMINISTRATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, from its commencement
to its close, tested the strength of the Government and the capability
of those who administered it. Disappointment, in consequence of no
decisive military success during the first few months of the war, had
caused a generally depressed feeling which begot discontent and distrust
that in various ways found expression in Congress. Democrats complained
more of the incapacity of the Executive than of the inefficiency of the
generals, and the entire Administration was censured and denounced by
them for acts which, if not strictly legal and constitutional in peace,
were necessary and unavoidable in war. Republicans, on the other hand,
were dissatisfied because so little was accomplished, and the factious
imputed military delay to mismanagement and want of energy in the
Administration. Indeed, but for some redeeming naval successes at
Hatteras and Port Royal preceding the meeting of Congress in December,
the whole belligerent operations would have been pronounced weak and
imbecile failures. Conflicting views in regard to the slavery question
in all its aspects prevailed; the Democrats insisting that fugitives
should be returned to their masters under the provisions of law, as in
time of peace. The Republicans were divided on this question, one
portion agreeing with the Democrats that all should be returned,
another claiming that only escaped slaves who belonged to loyal owners,
wherever they resided, should be returned; another portion insisted that
there should be no rendition of servants of rebel masters, even in loyal
or border States, who, by resisting the laws and setting the authorities
at defiance, had forfeited their rights and all Governmental protection.
Questions in regard to the treatment of captured rebels, and the
confiscation of all property of rebels, were agitated. What was the
actual condition of the seceding States, and what would be their status
when the rebellion should be suppressed, were also beginning to be
controverted points, especially among members of Congress. On these and
other questions which the insurrection raised, novel, perplexing, and
without law or precedent to guide or govern it, the Administration had
developed no well defined policy when Congress convened in December,
1861, but it was compelled to act, and that in such a manner as not to
alienate friends or give unnecessary offence, while maintaining the
Government in all its Federal authority and rights for the preservation
of the Union and the suppression of the rebellion.
The character and duration of the war, which many had supposed would be
brief, was still undetermined. While affairs were in this uncertain and
inchoate condition, and the Administration had no declared policy on
some of the most important questions, Congress came together fired with
indignation and revenge for a war so causeless and unprovoked. A large
portion of the members, exasperated toward the rebels by reason of the
war, and dissatisfied with delays and procrastination, which they
imputed chiefly to the Administration, were determined there should be
prompt and aggressive action against the persons, property,
institutions, and the States which had confederated to break up the
Union. There was, however, little unity among the complaining members as
to the mode and method of prosecuting the war. It was not difficult to
find fault with the Administration, but it was not easy for the
discontented to settle on any satisfactory plan of continuing it. The
Democrats complained that the President transcended his rightful
authority; the radical portion of the Republicans that he was not
sufficiently aggressive; that he was deficient in energy and too tender
of the rebels. It was at this period, after Congress had been in session
two months, and opinions were earnest but diverse and factious, with a
progeny of crude and mischievous schemes as to the conduct of affairs
and the treatment of the rebels, that Senator Sumner, in the absence of
a clearly defined policy on the part of the Administration, and while
things were not sufficiently matured to adopt one, submitted his project
for overthrowing the State governments and reducing them to a
territorial condition, and with the subversion of their governments the
abolition of slavery. It was the enunciation of a policy that was in
conflict with the Constitution, and would change the character of the
Government, but which he intended to force upon the Administration.
Though a scheme devised by himself, it had in its main features the
countenance of many and some able supporters.
President Lincoln had high respect for Mr. Sumner, but was excessively
annoyed with this presentation of the extreme, and, as he considered
them, unconstitutional and visionary theories of the Massachusetts
Senator, which were intended to commit the Government and shape its
course. It was precipitating upon the Administration issues on delicate
and deeply important subjects at a critical period--issues involving the
structure of the Government and the stability of our Federal system.
These questions might have to be ultimately met and disposed of, but it
was requisite that they should be met with caution and deliberate
consideration. The times and condition of the country were inauspicious
for considerate statesmanship. The matters in dispute, the consequences
and results of the war, were yet in embryo. There could be no union of
sentiment on Senator Sumner's plan, nor any other at that period, in the
free States, in Congress, or even in the Republican party. There were
half a dozen factions to be reconciled or persuaded to act together.
This plan was felt to be an element of discord, which, if it could not
be finally averted, might in that gloomy period, when the country was
threatened and divided, have been temporarily, at least, avoided. But
Senator Sumner, though scholarly and cultured, was not always judicious
or wisely discreet. The President, as he expressed himself, could not,
in the then condition of affairs, afford to have a controversy with
Sumner, but he so managed as to check violent and aggressive demands by
quietly interposing delay and non-action.
In the mean time, while the subjects of slavery, reconstruction, and
confiscation were being vehemently discussed, he felt the necessity of
adopting, or at least proposing, some measure to satisfy public
sentiment.
On the subject of confiscation there were differing opinions among the
Republicans themselves, in Congress, which called out earnest debate.
The Radicals, such as Thaddeus Stevens, who were in fact revolutionists
and intended that more should be accomplished by the Government than the
suppression of the rebellion and the preservation of the Union, were for
the immediate and unsparing confiscation of the property of the rebels
by act of Congress without awaiting judicial proceedings. In their view
and by their plan rebels, if not outlaws, were to be considered and
treated as foreigners, not as American citizens; the States in
insurrection were to be reduced to the condition of provinces; the
people were to be subjugated and their property taken to defray the
expenses of the war. Mr. Sumner, less crafty and calculating than
Stevens, but ardent and impulsive, was for proceeding to extreme
lengths; and, having the power, he urged that they should embrace "the
opportunity which God in his beneficence had offered" to extinguish by
arbitrary enactment slavery, and all claim to reserved sovereignty in
the States; but Judge Collamer, calm and considerate, and other milder
men were opposed to any illegal and unjustifiable enactment.
As is too often the case in high party and revolutionary times, the
violent and intriguing were likely to be successful, until it came to be
understood that the President would feel it obligatory to place upon the
extreme and unconstitutional measures his veto. A knowledge of this and
the attending fact, that his veto would be sustained, induced Congress
to pass a joint resolution, modifying the act, expounding and declaring
its meaning, instead of enacting a new and explicit law, which the
judiciary, whose province it is, would expound and construe.
The President, in order not to be misunderstood when informing the House
of Representatives that he had affixed his signature to the bill and
joint resolution, also transmitted a copy of the message he had prepared
to veto the act in its original shape, with his objections, in which he
said that by a fair construction of the act he considered persons "are
not punished without regular trials, in duly constituted courts, under
the forms and the substantial provisions of the law and the Constitution
applicable to their several cases." It was apprehended at that time, and
subsequent acts proved the apprehension well founded, that Congress or
its radical leaders were disposed to assume and exercise not only
legislative, but judicial and executive powers. Rebels were by Congress
to be condemned and their property confiscated and taken without trial
and conviction. Such was not the policy of the President, as was soon
well understood; and to reconcile him and those who agreed with him, a
provision was inserted that persons who should commit treason and be
"_adjudged guilty thereof_" should be punished. But to prevent
misconception from equivocal phraseology in a somewhat questionable act,
he explicitly made known that "regular trials in duly constituted
courts" were to be observed, and the rights of the executive and
judicial departments of the Government maintained. This precaution, and
the determination which he uniformly expressed to regard individual
rights, and not to impose penalty or inflict punishment for alleged
crimes, whether of treason or felony, until after trial and conviction,
was not satisfactory to the extremists, who were ready to treat rebels
as outlaws, and condemn them without judge or jury.
The Centralists in Congress, who were arrogating executive and judicial
as well as legislative power, authorized the President, by special
provision in this law, to extend pardon and amnesty on such occasions as
he might deem expedient. This was represented as special grace and a
great concession; but as the pardoning power is explicitly conferred on
the President by the Constitution, the permission or authorization given
by the act was entirely supererogatory. Congress could neither enlarge
nor diminish the authority of the Executive in that respect; but if the
President acquiesced, and admitted the right of the legislative body to
grant, it was evident the day was not distant that the same body, when
dissatisfied with his leniency, would claim the right to restrain or
prohibit. The ulterior design in this grant to the President of
authority which he already possessed, and of which they could not
legally deprive him, President Lincoln well understood, but felt it to
be his duty and it was his policy to have as little controversy with
Congress or any of the factions in that body as was possible, and he
therefore wisely forebore contention.
On the slavery question, the alleged cause of secession and war, there
were legal and perplexing difficulties which, in various ways,
embarrassed the Administration, and in the disturbed condition of the
country prevented, for a time, the establishment and enforcement of any
decisive policy. By the Constitution and laws, slavery and property in
slaves were recognized, and the surrender and rendition of fugitives
from service to their owners was commanded; but in a majority of the
seceding States the usurping governments and the rebel slave-owners were
in open insurrection, resisting the Federal authority, defying it and
making war upon it. Still there were many citizens in those States who
were opposed to secession, loyal to the Federal Government, and earnest
friends of the Union, who owned slaves. What policy could the
Administration adopt in regard to these two classes of citizens in the
same State? The fugitive slave law was not and could not be enforced in
States where there was organized rebellion. Should fugitive slaves be
returned to both, or either, or neither of the owners in insurrectionary
States? There were moreover five or six border States, where slavery
existed, which did not secede. The governments and a majority of the
people of those States were patriotic supporters of the Union, but there
was a large minority in each of them who were violent enemies of the
Government and of the Union. Many of them were serving in the rebel
armies. For a time there was no alternative but to return slaves to
their owners who resided in border States which had neither seceded nor
resisted the Government. The Administration was not authorized to
discriminate, for instance, between slave-owners on the eastern shore of
the Potomac in the lower counties of Maryland and those on the western
shore in Virginia. There were, however, no secessionists, through the
whole South, more malignantly hostile to the Federal Union than a large
portion of the slave-owners in the southern counties of Maryland; but
the State not having seceded, and there being no organized resistance to
the Government, masters who justified secession continued to reclaim
their slaves, while on the opposite side of the river, in Virginia,
slave-owners who claimed to be loyal or neutral, could not reclaim or
obtain a restoration of their escaped servants. The Executive was
compelled to act in each of these cases, and its policy, the dictate of
necessity in the peculiar war that existed, was denounced by each of the
disagreeing factions. Affairs were in this unsettled and broken
condition when Congress convened at its second session in December,
1861. The action of the President in these conflicting cases as they
arose, if not condemned, was not fully approved. Many, if not a
majority, in Congress were undetermined what course to take. Democrats
insisted that the laws must be obeyed in all cases, in war as in peace.
The radical portion of the Republicans began to take extreme opposite
grounds, and claim that the laws were inoperative in regard to
slavery--that slavery was at all times inconsistent with a republican
government, and should now be extinguished. Among the revolutionary
resolutions of Senator Sumner of the 11th of February were some on the
subject of slavery. Other but not dissimilar propositions, antagonistic
to slavery, found expression, increasing in intensity as the war was
prolonged. While it was evident to most persons that one of the results
of the insurrection would be, in some way or form, the emancipation of
the slaves, there was no person who seemed capable of devising a
constitutional, practical plan for its accomplishment, except by
subjugation and violence. To these the President was unwilling to
resort; yet the necessity of doing something that did not transcend the
law, was morally right, and would tend to the ultimate freedom of the
slaves was felt to be an essential and indispensable duty. Unavailing
but seductive appeals continued in the mean time to be made by the
secessionists to the people of the border slave States to unite with the
further South for the security and protection of slavery, in which they
had a common interest, and against which there was increasing hostility
through the North. It was under these circumstances, with a large and
growing portion of the North in favor of abolition--the slave States,
including the border States, opposed to the measure and for the
preservation of the institution--that the President was to prescribe a
policy on which the government in the disordered state of the country
was to be administered.
To surmount the difficulties, without setting aside the law, or giving
just offence to any, the President, with his accustomed prudence and
regard for existing legal rights, devised a course which, if acquiesced
in by those most in interest, would, he believed, in a legal way open
the road to ultimate, if not immediate, emancipation. Instead of
assenting to the demands of the radical extremists that he should, by
arbitrary proceedings, and in disregard of law and Constitution, decree
freedom to all slaves, he preferred milder and more conciliatory
measures. The authority or right of the national Government to abolish
or interfere with an institution that was reserved and belonged
exclusively to the States, he was not prepared to act upon or admit,
though entreated and urged thereto by sincere party friends, and also by
party supporters, whose sincerity was doubtful.
There could be no excuse or pretext for such interference but the
insurrection; and, even as a war measure, there were obstacles in the
condition of the border slave States, to say nothing of loyal, patriotic
citizens in the insurrectionary region, that could not be overlooked.
On the 6th of March, within less than three weeks after Senator Sumner
had submitted his revolutionary resolution, for reconstruction, and a
declaration that it is the duty of Congress "to see that everywhere in
this extensive (secession) territory slavery shall cease to exist
practically, as it has already ceased to exist constitutionally or
morally," that President Lincoln, not assenting to the assumption, sent
a message to Congress proposing a plan of voluntary and compensated
emancipation. In this message he suggested that "the United States ought
to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of
slavery, giving to each State pecuniary aid," etc., and he invited an
interview upon the 10th of March, with the representatives of the border
States, to consider the subject. They did not conclude at this interview
to adopt his suggestions, and some of them were much incensed that the
proposition had been made, believing it would alienate and drive many,
hitherto rightly disposed, into secession.
Nevertheless, the fact that slavery was doomed, and had received a death
blow from the war of secession, was so obvious, that the moderate and
reflecting began seriously to consider whether they ought not to give
the President's plan favorable consideration.
While the policy of voluntary emancipation, in which the States should
be aided by the national Government, was not immediately successful, it
made such advance as, by the aid of the Federal Government, led to the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The advocates of
immediate, general, and forcible emancipation, if not satisfied with the
conciliatory policy of the President, could not well oppose it.
Warm discussions in Congress, and altercations out of it, on most of the
important questions growing out of the war, and particularly on those of
confiscation, emancipation, and reconstruction, or the restoration of
the States to their rightful position, and the reestablishment of the
Union, were had during the whole of the second session of the
Thirty-seventh Congress. All of these were exciting and important
questions, the last involving grave principles affecting our federal
system, and was most momentous in its consequences. As time and events
passed on, the convictions and conclusions of the President became more
clear and distinct as to the line of policy which it was his duty and
that of the Administration to pursue.
Dissenting, wholly and absolutely, from the revolutionary views and
schemes of Senator Sumner and those who agreed with him, the President
became convinced, as the subject had been prematurely introduced and
agitated, with an evident intent to forestall and shape the action of
the Government, that the actual status of the rebel States and their
true relation to the Federal Government should be distinctly understood.
The resolution of Mr. Dixon, a gentleman of culture and intelligence,
who, as well as Mr. Sumner, was a New England Senator, and also of the
same party, was, it will be observed, diametrically opposed to the
principles and the project of the Massachusetts Senator on the great,
impending, and forthcoming subject of reconstruction. It was directly
known that the President coincided with the Connecticut Senator in the
opinion that all the acts and ordinances of secession were mere
nullities, and should be so treated; that while such acts might subject
_individuals_ to penalties and forfeitures, they did not in any degree
affect the _States_ as commonwealths, and their relations to the Federal
Government; that such acts were rebellious, insurrectionary, and hostile
on the part of the _persons_ engaged in them, but that the _States_,
notwithstanding the acts and conspiracies of individuals, were still
members of the Federal Union, and that the loyal citizens of these
States had forfeited none of their rights, but were entitled to all the
protection and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution.
The theory and principles set forth in Senator Dixon's resolutions were
the opinions and convictions of the President, deliberately formed and
consistently maintained while he lived, on the subject of reconstruction
and the condition of the States and people in the insurrectionary
region. In his view there was no actual secession, no dismembering of
the Union, no change in the Constitution and Government; the relative
position of the States and the Federal Government were unchanged; the
organic, fundamental laws of neither were altered by the sectional
conspiracy; the whole people, North and South, were American citizens;
each person was responsible for his own acts and amenable to law; and he
was also entitled to the protection of the law, and the rights and
privileges secured by the Constitution. The confiscation and
emancipation schemes concerning which there was so much excitement in
Congress were of secondary consideration to the all-absorbing one of
preserving the Union.
The second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress closed on the 17th of
July. Its proceedings had been confused and uneasy, with a good deal of
discontented and revolutionary feeling, which increased toward the
close. The decisive stand which the President had taken, and which he
calmly, firmly, and persistently maintained against the extreme measures
of some of the most prominent Republicans in Congress, was
unsatisfactory. It was insinuated that his sympathies on important
measures had more of a Democratic than Republican tendency; yet the
Democratic party maintained an organized and often unreasonable, if not
unpatriotic, opposition.
Military operations, aside from naval success at New Orleans and on the
upper Mississippi, had been a succession of military reverses.
Disagreement between the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief,
which the President could not reconcile, caused the latter to be
superseded after the disastrous result before Richmond. Dissensions in
the army and among the Republicans in Congress, the persistent
opposition of Democrats to the Administration, and the general
depression that prevailed were discouraging. "In my position," said the
President, "I am environed with difficulties." Friends on whom he felt
he ought to be able to rely were dissatisfied with his conscientious
scruples and lenity, and party opponents were unrelenting against the
Administration.
A few days before Congress adjourned, the President made another but
unsuccessful effort to dispose of the slavery question, by trying to
induce the border States to take the initiative in his plan of
compensated emancipation. The interview between him and the
representatives of the border States, which took place on the 12th of
July, convinced him that the project of voluntary emancipation by the
States would not succeed. Were it commenced by one or more of the
States, he had little doubt it would be followed by others, and
eventuate in general emancipation by the States themselves. Failing in
the voluntary plan, he was compelled, as a war necessity, to proclaim
freedom to all slaves in the rebel section, if the war continued to be
prosecuted after a certain date. This bold and almost revolutionary
measure, which would change the industrial character of many States,
could be justified on no other ground than as a war measure, the result
of military necessity. It was an unexpected and startling demonstration
when announced, that was welcomed by a vast majority of the people in
the free States. In Congress, however, neither this nor his project of
compensated emancipation was entirely acceptable to either the extreme
anti-slavery or pro-slavery men. The radicals disliked the way in which
emancipation was effected by the President. But, carried forward by the
force of public opinion, they could not do otherwise than acquiesce in
the decree, complaining, however, that it was an unauthorized assumption
by the Executive of power which belonged to Congress.
The opponents of the President seized the occasion of this bold measure
to create distrust and alarm, and the result of the policy of
emancipation in the election which followed in the autumn of 1862 was
adverse to the Administration. Confident, however, that the step was
justifiable and necessary, the President persevered and consummated it
by a final proclamation on the 1st of January, 1863.
The fact that the Administration lost ground in the elections in
consequence of the emancipation policy served for a time to promote
unity of feeling among the members when Congress convened in December.
The shock occasioned by the measure when first announced had done its
work. The timid, who had doubted the necessity and legality of the act,
and feared its consequences, recovered their equipoise, and a reaction
followed which strengthened the President in public confidence. But the
radical extremists, especially the advocates of Congressional supremacy,
began in the course of the winter to reassert their own peculiar ideas
and their intention of having a more extreme policy pursued by the
Government.
Thaddeus Stevens embraced an early opportunity to declare his extreme
views, which were radically and totally antagonistic to those of the
President. But Stevens, whose ability and acquirements as a politician,
and whose skill and experience as a party tactician were unsurpassed if
not unequalled in either branch of Congress, made no open, hostile
demonstration toward the President. He restricted himself to
contemptuous expressions in private conversation against the Executive
policy and general management of affairs. Without an attack on the
President, whom he personally liked, the Administration was sneered at
as weak and inefficient, of which little could be expected until a more
aggressive and scathing policy was adopted. His personal intercourse
with members and his talents and eloquence on the floor of the House
gave him influence with the representatives on ordinary occasions, but
his ultra radical and revolutionary ideas caused the calm and
considerate to distrust and disclaim his opinions and his leadership. It
was not until a later period, and under another Executive, less affable
but not less honest and sincere than Mr. Lincoln, that the suggestions
of Stevens were much regarded. When his disciples and adherents became
more partisan and numerous, they, in order to give him power and
consequence and reconcile their constituents, denominated him the "Great
Commoner."
If his political hopes and party schemes had been sometimes successful,
his reverses and disappointments had been much greater. Many and severe
trials during an active, embittered, and often unscrupulous partisan
experience, had tempered his enthusiasm if they had not brought him
wisdom. Defeats can hardly be said to have made him misanthropic; but
having little philosophy in his composition, he vented his spleen when
there was occasion on his opponents in ironical remarks that made him
dreaded, and which were often more effective than arguments; but his
sagacity and knowledge of men taught him that a hostile and open
conflict with a chief magistrate whose honesty even he respected, and
whose patriotism the people so generally regarded, would be not only
unavailing, but to himself positively injurious. He therefore conformed
to circumstances; and while opposed to the tolerant policy of the
Administration toward the rebels and the rebel States, he had the tact
and address, with his wit and humor, to preserve pleasant social
intercourse and friendly personal relations with the President, who well
understood his traits and purpose, but avoided any conflict with him.
For the first five or six weeks of the third session of the
Thirty-seventh Congress, Stevens improved his time in free and sarcastic
remarks on the reconstruction policy of the Government, which he
characterized as puerile and feeble, and at length, on the 8th of
January, he gave utterance to his feelings, maintaining that "with
regard to all the Southern States in rebellion, the Constitution has no
binding influence or application." He averred that "in his opinion they
were not members of the Union"; that "the ordinances of secession took
them out of the Union"; that he "would levy a tax wherever he could upon
these conquered provinces"; said he "would not only collect the tax, but
he would, as a necessary war measure, take every particle of property,
real and personal, life estate and reversion, of every disloyal man, and
sell it for the benefit of the nation in carrying on this war."
Several members of Congress hastened to deny that these sentiments and
purposes were those of the Republican party; this Mr. Stevens admitted.
He said "a very mild denial from the pleasant gentleman from New York
[Mr. Olin], and the somewhat softened and modified repudiation of the
gentleman from Indiana" (Mr. Colfax), would, he hoped, satisfy the
sensitive gentlemen in regard to him, and he "desired to say he did not
speak the sentiments of this side of the House _as a party_."; that
"for the last fifteen years he [Stevens] had always been ahead of the
party in these matters, but he had never been so far ahead but that the
members of the party had overtaken and gone ahead; and they would again
overtake him and go with him before the infamous and bloody rebellion
was ended." "They will find that they must treat those States, now
outside of the Union, as conquered provinces, and settle them with new
men, and drive the present rebels as exiles from this country." "Nothing
but extermination, or exile, or starvation, will ever induce them to
surrender to the Government."
Not very consistent or logical in his policy and views, this
subsequently Radical leader proposed to treat the Southern people
sometimes as foreigners and at other times as rebel citizens; in either
case he would tax, starve, and exile them--make provinces of their
States, and overturn their old established governments. Few,
comparatively, of the Republicans were at that time prepared to follow
Stevens or adopt his vindictive and arbitrary measures. Shocked at his
propositions, the "Great Commoner" had at that day few acknowledged
adherents. When in vindication of his scheme it was asked upon what
ground the collection of taxes could be enforced in the Southern States,
Judge Thomas, one of the ablest and clearest minds of the Massachusetts
delegation, said, "Upon this ground, that the authority of this
Government at this time is as valid over those States as it was before
the acts of secession were passed; upon the ground that every act of
secession passed by those States is utterly null and void; upon the
ground that every act legally null and void cannot acquire force because
armed rebellion is behind it, seeking to uphold it; upon the ground that
the Constitution makes us not a mere confederacy, but a _nation_; upon
the ground that the provisions of that Constitution strike through the
State government and reach directly, not intermediately, the subjects.
Subjects of whom? Of the nation--of the United States." "Who ever heard,
as a matter of public law, that the authority of a government over its
rebellious subjects was lost until that revolution was successful--was a
fact accomplished?"
Shortly after the capture of New Orleans and the establishment of
Federal authority over Louisiana, two of the Congressional districts of
that State elected representatives to Congress. The admission or
non-admission of these representatives involved the question of the
political condition of the Southern States and people in the Federal
Union, and the whole principle, in fact, of restoration and
reconstruction.
The subject was long and deliberately considered and fully discussed in
Congress. The committee on elections reported in favor of their
admission, and Mr. Dawes of Massachusetts, the chairman, stated that
"more than ordinary importance is attached to the consideration of this
subject. It is not simply whether two gentlemen shall be permitted to
occupy seats in this House. The question whether they shall be admitted
involves the principles touching the present state of the country to
which the attention of the House has more than once been called." He
said, "The question now comes up, whether any reason exists that
requires any departure from the rules and principles which have been
adopted." "An adherence to these principles is vitally important in
settling the question, how there is to be a restoration of this Union
when this war shall be drawn to a close."
The subject of admitting these representatives and the principles of a
restoration of the Union which their admission involved, was debated
with earnestness for several days, and finally decided, on the 17th of
February, in favor of admitting them, by a vote of ninety-two in the
affirmative to forty-four in the negative.
An analysis of this vote, in view of the proceedings, acts, and votes
of many of the same members a few years subsequently, after Mr.
Lincoln's death, presents some curious and interesting facts. It was not
a strictly party vote. Among those who then favored the Administration
policy of restoration were Colfax, Dawes, Delano, Fenton, Fisher of
Delaware, Wm, Kellogg, J. S. Morrill of Vermont, Governor A. H. Rice of
Massachusetts, Shellabarger, and others who opposed the restoration
policy of President Lincoln after his death and the accession of
President Johnson.
In the negative with Thaddeus Stevens were Ashley, Bingham, the two
Conklings, Kelley, McPherson, and a few others. But when reconstruction
or exclusion actually took place after the termination of the war, great
changes occurred among the members of Congress, and Stevens, the "Great
Commoner," who in 1863 had a following of less than one-third of the
representatives, rallied, four years later, more than two-thirds to his
standard against restoration and for subjugation and exclusion.
Mr. Stevens was no ordinary man. At the bar he was astute and eloquent
rather than profound, but in the Legislature of Pennsylvania and in the
management of the affairs of that State, where for a period he actively
participated and was a ruling mind, he was often rash and turbulent, and
had, not without cause, the reputation of being a not over scrupulous
politician. Personally my relations with him, though not intimate, were
pleasant and friendly. I was first introduced to him at Harrisburg in
1836, when he was a member of the convention that revised the
Constitution of Pennsylvania. We occasionally met in after years. He
expressed himself pleased with my appointment in Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet,
and, notwithstanding we disagreed on fundamental principles, he
complimented my administration of the Navy Department, and openly and
always sustained my positions, and particularly so on the subject of the
blockade, on which there were differences in the Administration. In the
Pennsylvania convention of 1836 he was probably the most eloquent
speaker, but his ideas were often visionary and radical. He ultimately
refused to sign the Constitution because the colored people were denied
the elective franchise. Severe as he exhibited himself toward the rebels
during and subsequent to the civil war, Mr. Stevens was not by nature,
as might be supposed, inhuman in his feelings and sympathies toward his
fellow men. To the colored race he seemed always more attached and
tender than to the whites, perhaps because they were enslaved and
oppressed. He was opposed to slavery, to imprisonment for debt, and to
capital punishment. There were strange contradictions in his character.
In his political career he had ardent supporters, though many who voted
with him had not a high regard for his principles. His course and
conduct in the Legislature and government of Pennsylvania did much to
debauch the political morals of that State, and in the celebrated
"buck-shot war" he displayed the bold and reckless disregard of justice
and popular rights that distinguished the latter years of his
Congressional life, when he became the acknowledged leader of the
radical reconstruction party in Congress.
In his political career and management, though strongly sustained by a
local constituency, he had experienced a series of disappointments. The
defeat of John Quincy Adams, whom he greatly admired, in 1828, and the
election of General Jackson, against whom his prejudices were
inveterate, were to him early and grievous vexations.
The attempt of Mr. Adams on his retirement to establish a national
anti-Masonic party was warmly seconded by Stevens, and with greater
success in Pennsylvania than attended his distinguished leader in
Massachusetts. The failure of the attempt was more severely felt by the
disciple than by the master. After the annihilation of the anti-Masonic
organization and the discomfiture of the buck-shot war, Stevens was
less conspicuous, though prominent for a few months in 1840, when he
came forward as an earnest advocate of the nomination of General
Harrison in that singular campaign which resulted in the General's
election. His efficiency and zeal in behalf of both the nomination and
election of the "hero of Tippecanoe" were acknowledged, and he and his
friends anticipated they would be recognized and he rewarded by a seat
in the Cabinet. But he had given offence to the great Whig leader of
that day by his preference of Harrison for President, and had moreover
an unsavory reputation, which, with the declared opposition of Clay and
Webster, caused his exclusion. It was a sore disappointment, from which
he never fully recovered. Eight years later, with the advent of General
Taylor and the defeated aspirations of the Whig leaders, who had caused
his exclusion from Harrison's Cabinet, he sought and obtained an
election to the thirty-first Congress from the Lancaster district. In
1856 he strove with all his power to secure the Presidential nomination
for John McLane of the Supreme Court, who had or professed to have had
anti-Masonic tendencies. His ill success was another disappointment; but
in 1859 he was again elected to Congress, and thereafter until his death
he represented the Lancaster district.
Disappointments had made him splenetic, but he was not, as represented
by his opponents on the two extremes, either a charlatan or a miscreant,
though possibly not wholly exempt from charges against him in either
respect. In many of his ultra radical and it may be truly said
revolutionary views--revolutionary because they changed the structure of
the Government--he coincided with Senator Sumner, who was perhaps the
leading spirit in the Senate on the subject of reconstruction, but he
did not, like the Massachusetts Senator, make any pretence that his
project to subjugate the Southern people and reduce their States to the
condition of provinces was constitutional, or by authority of the
Declaration of Independence. President Lincoln well understood the
characteristics of both these men, and, though differing from each on
the subject of restoration and reconstruction, he managed to preserve
friendly personal relations with both--retained their confidence, and
while he lived secured their general support of his Administration.
Herein President Lincoln exhibited those peculiar qualities and
attributes of mind which made him a leader and manager of men, and
enabled him in a quiet and unostentatious way to exercise his executive
ability in administering the Government during the most troublesome
period of our national history.
GIDEON WELLES.
ART'S LIMITATIONS.
This rich, rank Age--does it breed giants now--
Dantes or Michaels, Raphaels, Shakespeares? Nay!
Its culture is of other sort to-day.
From the stanch stem (too ready to allow
Growths that divide the strength that should endow
The one tall trunk) who firmly lops away,
With wise reserve, such shoots as lead astray
The wasted sap to some collateral bough?
Had Dante chiselled stone, had Angelo
Intrigued with courts, had Shakespeare dulled his pen
With critic gauge of Chaucer, Drummond, Ben--
What lack there were of that life-giving shade,
Which these high-tower'd, centurial oaks have made,
Where walk the happy nations to and fro!
MARGARET J. PRESTON.
APPLIED SCIENCE.
A LOVE STORY IN TWO CHAPTERS.
CHAPTER II.
CONCLUSION.
The events of the last chapter happened on the night of Friday, July 17,
1874. The following day, Saturday, broke calm, clear, and warm. Elmer
awoke early, carefully looked out of a crack in his window curtain, and
found that the chimney-builder's room was empty.
"The enemy has flown. I wonder if Alma is up?"
He uncovered a small telegraphic armature and sounder standing on the
window-seat, and touched it gently. In an instant there was a response,
and Alma replied that she was up and dressed and would soon be down.
She met him in the library, smiling, and apparently happy.
"Oh, Elmer, he has gone away. He left a note on the breakfast table,
saying that he had gone to New York, and that he should not return till
Monday or Tuesday."
"That's very good; but I think it means mischief."
Just here the breakfast bell rang. The table was set for four, but Alma
and Elmer were the only ones who could answer the call, and they sat
down to the table alone. They talked of various matters of little
consequence, and when the meal was over Elmer announced that as the day
was quiet, he should make a little photographing expedition about the
neighborhood.
"My visit here is now more than a quarter over, and I wish to take home
some photos of the place. Will you not go with me?"
"With all my heart, if I can leave father. But please not talk of going
home yet. I hope you will not go till things are settled. We want you,
Elmer. You are so wise and strong, and--you know what I mean."
"Perhaps I do. At any rate I'm not going till I have paid up that
Belford for his insults."
"Oh, let's not talk of him to-day."
This was eminently wise. They had better enjoy the day of peace that was
before them. The shadow of the coming events already darkened their
lives, though they knew it not. Mr. Denny was so much better that he
could spare Alma, and about ten o'clock she appeared, paper umbrella in
hand, at the porch, and Elmer soon joined her bearing a small camera,
and a light wooden tripod for its support.
The two spent the morning happily in each other's company, and at one
o'clock returned to dinner with quite a number of negatives of various
objects of interest about the place. After dinner the young man
retreated to his room to prepare for the battle that he felt sure would
rage on the following Monday.
He did not know all the circumstances of the trouble that had invaded
the family, but he felt sure that the confidential clerk intended some
terrible shame or exposure that in some way concerned his cousin Alma.
So it was he came to call himself her Lohengrin, come to fight her
battles, not with a sword, but with the telegraph, the camera, and the
micro-lantern.
The Sabbath passed quietly, and the Monday came. After breakfast the
student retreated to his room and tried to study, but could not.
About ten o'clock he heard a carriage of some kind stop before the
house. His room being at the rear, he could not see who had come, and
thinking that it might be merely some stray visitor, and that at least
it did not concern him, he turned to his books and made another attempt
to read.
After some slight delay he heard the carriage drive away, and the old
house became very still. Then he heard a door open down stairs, and a
moment after one of the maids knocked at his door.
"Would Mr. Franklin kindly come down stairs? Mr. Denny wished to see him
in the library."
He would come at once; and picking up a number of unmounted photographs
from the table, he prepared to go down stairs. He hardly knew why he
should take the pictures just then. There seemed no special reason why
he should show them to Mr. Denny; still, an indefinite feeling urged him
to take them with him.
The library was a small room, dark, with heavy book shelves against the
walls, and crowded with tables, desk, and easy chairs. There was a
student lamp on the centre table, and in a corner stood a large iron
safe. Mr. Denny was seated at the table with his back to the door, and
with his head supported by his hand and arm. He did not seem to notice
the arrival of his visitor, and Elmer advanced to the table and laid the
photographs upon it.
"I am glad you have come, Mr. Franklin. I wish to talk with you. I wish
to tell you something. A great affliction has fallen upon us, and I wish
you, as our guest, to be prepared for it. I think I can trust you, Elmer
Franklin. I remember your mother, my boy. You have her features--and I
will trust you for her sake. We are ruined."
"How, sir? How is that possible, with all your property?"
"Not one cent of my property--not a foot of ground, or a single brick,
or piece of shafting in the mills--belongs to me."
"This is terrible, sir. How did it happen?"
"It is a short and sad story. I was my father's only child, and there
were no other heirs. My father's last illness was very sudden, and he
left no will. He told me when he died that he had left everything to me.
We never found any will that would bear out this assertion. However,
the ordinary process of law gave me the property, and I thought myself
secure. Suddenly a will was found, in which all the property was left to
a distant relative in New York, and I was merely mentioned with some
trifling gift. I contested the will and lost the case. It was an
undoubted will, and in my father's own handwriting, and dated more than
a year before he died and when I was rusticating from college. I thought
I must needs sow my wild oats, and day after to-morrow I pay for them
all by total beggary. The devisee, by the will, acted very strangely
about the property. He did not disturb me for a very long time. He
probably feared to do so; and then he made a mortgage of one hundred
thousand dollars on the property, took the money, and went abroad."
"And he left you here in possession?"
"Yes. The interest on the mortgage became due. There was no one to pay
it, and they even had the effrontery to come to me. I refused again and
again, and every time the interest was added to the mortgage till it
rolled up to an enormous amount. Meanwhile the devisee died, penniless,
in Europe, and on Wednesday Abrams, the lawyer who holds the mortgage,
is to take possession of everything--and we--we are to go--I know not
whither."
For a few moments there was a profound silence in the room. The elder
man mourned his dreadful fate, and the son of science was ready to shout
for joy. Restraining himself with an effort, he said, not without a
tremor in his voice:
"And have you searched for any other will?"
"That is an idle question, my son. We have searched these years. Then,
too, just as I need a staff for my declining years, it breaks under me."
"You refer to Mr. Belford, sir?"
"Yes. Since I injured my foot in the mill, I have trusted all my
affairs to him, and now I sometimes think he is playing me false. Even
now, when all this trouble has come upon me, he is absent, and I have no
one to consult, nor do I find any to aid or comfort me."
"Perhaps I can aid you, sir."
"I do not know. I fear no one can avail us now."
"May I be very frank with you, sir?"
"Certainly. I am past all pride or fear. There can be nothing worse
now."
"I think, sir, you have placed too much confidence in that man. He is
not trustworthy."
"How do you know? Can you prove it?"
"Yes, sir. You remember the new chimney?"
"Yes; but he explained that, and collected all the money that had been
paid on the supposed extra height of the chimney."
"That was very easy, sir, for he had it in his own pocket. I met some of
the work people in the village, and casually asked them how high the
chimney was to be, and every man gave the real height. Mr. Belford lied
to you about it, and pocketed the difference between his measurements
and mine. Of course, when detected he promptly restored the money, and
thought himself lucky to have escaped so easily. More than that, he
claimed that the chimney was capped with stone. It is not. It is brick
to the top, and the upper courses were rubbed over with colored
plaster."
"I can hardly believe it. Besides, how can you prove it?"
"That will, sir. Look at it carefully."
So saying, Elmer selected a photograph from those on the table and
presented it to Mr. Denny.
The old gentleman looked at it carefully for a few moments, and then
said with an air of conviction--
"It is a perfect fraud. I had no idea that the man was such a thief."
"Yes, sir. Look at that bare place where the plaster has fallen off.
You can see the brick----"
"Oh, I can see. There is no need to explain the picture. Have you any
more?"
"Yes, sir; quite a number. I'm glad I brought them with me."
Mr. Denny turned them over slowly, and commented briefly upon them.
"That's the house. Very well done, my boy. That's the mill. Excellent. I
should know it at once. And--eh! what's that? The batting mill?"
"Yes, sir. That's the new building going up beyond the millpond."
"Great heavens! What an outrageous fraud! Mr. Belford told me it was
nearly done. He has drawn almost all the money for it already, and
according to this picture only one story is up. When was this picture
taken?"
"On Saturday, sir. Alma was with me. She will tell you."
Mr. Denny rang a small bell that stood at his elbow, and a maid came to
the door.
"Will you call Miss Denny, Anna?"
The maid retired, and in a moment or two Alma appeared. She seemed pale
and dejected, and she sat down at once as if weary.
"What is it, father? Any new troubles?"
"Were you with your cousin when he took this photograph?"
She looked at it a moment, and then said wearily:
"Yes. It's the batting mill."
Just here the door opened, and Mr. Belford, hat and travelling bag in
hand, as if just from the station, entered the room. The two men looked
up in undisguised amazement, but Alma cast her eyes upon the floor, and
her face seemed to put on a more ashen hue than ever.
"Ah! excuse me. I did not mean to intrude. I'm just from New York, and I
have been so successful that I hastened to lay the news before you."
"What have you to say, Mr. Belford," said Mr. Denny coldly. "There are
none but friends here, and you need not fear to speak."
Mr. Franklin hastily gathered up the pictures together, and rolling them
up, put them in his pocket, with the mental remark that he "knew of one
who was not a friend--no, not much."
"I have arranged everything," said Mr. Belford, with sublime audacity.
"The note has been taken up. I have even obtained a release of the
mortgage, and here is the cancelled note and the release. To-morrow I
will have it recorded."
"We are in no mood for pleasantry, Mr. Belford. The sheriff was here
to-day, and Abrams is to take possession on Wednesday."
"Oh, I knew that. He did not get my telegram in time, or he would have
saved you all this unnecessary annoyance. And now everything is all
serene, and there is Abrams's release in full."
He took out a carefully folded paper, and gave it to Mr. Denny. He read
it in silence, and then said:
"It seems to be quite correct. We----"
Alma suddenly dropped her head upon her breast, and slid to the floor in
a confused heap. She thought she read in that fatal receipt her death
warrant. Nature rebelled, and mercifully took away her senses.
Elmer sprang to her rescue, but Mr. Belford intruded himself.
"It is my place, Mr. Franklin. She is to be my wife."
* * * * *
The dreary day crept to its end. Alma recovered, and retired to her
room. Mr. Denny, overcome by the excitement of the interview, was quite
ill, and the visitor, oppressed with a sense of partial defeat, took a
long walk through the country. The enemy had made such an extraordinary
movement that for the time he was disconcerted, and he wished to be
alone, that he could think over the situation. About six o'clock in the
afternoon he returned looking bright and calm, as if he had thought out
his problem and had nerved himself up to do and dare all in behalf of
the woman he loved. He went quietly to his room and began his
preparations for a vigorous assault upon the enemy.
He rolled out his micro-lantern into the middle of the room, drew up the
curtains at the window that faced Mr. Belford's chamber, and prepared to
adjust the apparatus to a new and most singular style of lantern
projections. He had hardly finished the work to his satisfaction before
he heard Alma's knock at the door. He hastily drew down the curtains,
and then invited her to come in.
She opened the door and appeared upon the threshold, the picture of
resigned and heavy sorrow. She had evidently been weeping, and the dark
dress in which she had arrayed herself seemed to intensify the look of
anguish on her face. The son of science was disconcerted. He did not
know what to say, and, with great wisdom, he said nothing.
She entered the room without a word, and sat wearily down on a trunk.
Elmer quickly rolled out the great easy chair so that it would face the
open western window.
"Sit here, Miss Denny. This is far more comfortable."
"Oh, Elmer! Have you too turned against me?"
"Not knowingly. Sit here where there is more air, and before this view
and this beautiful sunset."
She rose, and with a forlorn smile took the great chair, and then gazed
absently out of the window upon the charming landscape, brilliant with
the glow of the setting sun. Elmer meanwhile went on with his work, and
for a little space neither spoke. Then she said, with a faint trace of
impatience in her voice--
"What are you doing, Elmer?"
"Preparing for war."
"It is useless. It is too late."
"Think so?"
"Yes. Everything has been settled, and in a very satisfactory
manner--at least father is satisfied, and I suppose I ought to be."
She smiled and held out her hand to him.
"How can I ever thank you, cousin Elmer? You will not forget me when I
am gone."
"Forget you, Alma! That was unkind."
He took her hand, glanced at the diamond ring upon her finger, and
looking down upon her as she lay half reclining in the great chair, he
said, with an effort, as if the words pained him:
"Alma, you have surrendered to him."
She looked up with a startled expression, and said:
"What do you mean?"
"You have renewed your engagement with Mr. Belford?"
"Yes--of course I have. He--he is to be my husband----"
"On Wednesday."
"Yes. How did you know it?"
Instead of replying he turned to a drawer and drew forth a long ribbon
of white paper. Holding it to the light, near the window, he began to
read the words printed in dots and lines upon it.
"Here is your own confession. Here are all the messages you sent me from
the parlor, when you broke your engagement with him----"
"Oh, Elmer! Did you save that? Destroy it--destroy it at once. If he
should find it, he would never forgive me."
"You need not fear. I shall not destroy it, and it shall never cause you
any trouble."
She had risen in her excitement, and stood upon her feet. Suddenly she
flushed a rosy red, and a strange light shone in her eyes. The sun had
sunk behind the hills, and it had grown dark. As the shadows gathered in
the room a strange, mystic light fell on the wall before her. A
picture--dim, ghostly, gigantic, and surpassingly beautiful--met her
astonished eyes. She gazed at it with a beating heart, awed into
silence by its mystery and its unearthly aspect. What was it? What did
it mean? By what magic art had he conjured up this vision? She stood
with parted lips gazing at it, while her bosom rose and fell with her
rapid, excited breathing. Suddenly she threw her arms above her head,
and with a cry fell back upon the chair.
"Oh, Elmer! My heart----"
He had been gazing absently out of the window at the fading twilight,
and hearing her cry of pain, he turned hastily and said:
"Alma, what is it? Are you----"
He caught sight of the picture on the wall. He understood it at once,
and went to the stereopticon that stood at the other end of the room and
opened it. The lamp was burning brightly, and he put it out and closed
the door. Then he drew out the glass slide, held it a moment to the
light to make sure that it was Alma's portrait, and then he kissed it
passionately, and shivered it into fragments upon the hearthstone.
She heard the breaking glass, and rose hastily and turned toward him.
"Elmer, that was cruel. Why did you destroy it?"
"Because it told too much."
"It was my picture?"
"Yes. I confess with shame that I stole it when you were asleep under
the influence of the gas I gave you. It happened to be in the lantern
when you came in."
"And so I saw it pictured on the wall?"
"Yes. In that way did it betray me. Forget it, Alma. Forget me. Forget
everything. Forget that I ever came here----"
"No--never. I cannot."
"You will be married soon and go away. I presume we may never meet
again."
"Oh, Elmer, forgive me. I am the one to be forgiven. I am alone to blame
for all this sorrow. I thought I alone should suffer. But--but, Elmer,
you will not forget me, and you see--you must see that what I do is for
the best. It is the only way. I cannot see my father beggared."
The clear-headed son of science seemed to be losing his self-control.
This was all so new, so exciting, so different from the calm and steady
flow of his student life, that he knew not what to say or do. He began
to turn over his books and papers in a nervous manner, as if trying to
win back control of his own tumultuous thoughts. Fortunately Alma came
to his rescue.
"Elmer, hear me."
"Yes," he said with an effort. "Tell me about it; then perhaps we can
understand each other better."
"I will. Come and sit by me. It grows dark, and I--well, it is no
matter. It will do me good to speak of it."
"Yes, do. Sorrow shared is divided by half."
"And joy shared is doubled," she added. "But we will not talk of 'the
might have been.'"
Then she paused and looked out on the gathering night for some minutes
in silence. Elmer sat at her feet upon a low stool, and waited till she
should speak.
"Elmer, say that you will forgive me whatever happens. No matter how
dark it looks for me, forgive me--and--do not forget me. I couldn't bear
that. On Wednesday I am to be married to Mr. Belford. It is the only way
by which I can save my father. There seems no help for it, and I
consented this afternoon. Mr. Belford took up the mortgage, and I am to
be his reward."
Elmer heard her through in silence, and then he stood up before her, and
his passion broke out in fury upon her.
"Alma Denny, you are a fool."
She cowered before him, and covered her face with her hands.
"Have you no sense? Can you not see the wide pit of deceit that is
spread before you? Do you believe what he says? Will you walk into
perdition to save your father?"
"Oh, Elmer! Elmer! Spare me, spare me, for my father's sake!"
Her sobs and tears choked her utterance, and she shrank away into the
depths of the chair, in shame and terror, thankful that the darkness hid
her from his view. Still his righteous indignation blazed upon her
hotly.
"Where have you lived? What have you done, that you should be so
deceived by this man? How can you save your father? If you cannot find
that missing will, of what avail is this withdrawal of the mortgage?"
"I do not know. Oh, Elmer! I am weak, and I have no mother, and father
is----I must save him if I can--at any price."
"You cannot save him. The devisee who held the will has heirs. They can
still claim the property. Besides, how could Mr. Belford pay off that
mortgage? Depend upon it, a gigantic fraud----"
"Elmer! Thank God, you have saved----"
She fainted quietly away, and slid down upon the floor at his feet. He
called two of the maids, and with their help he took her to her room and
placed her upon her own bed. Then, bidding them care for her properly,
he returned to his own room, and the heavy night fell down on the
sorrowful house.
Far away in the northwest climbed up a ragged mass of sombre clouds.
Afar off the deep voice of the thunder muttered fitfully. The son of
science drew up his curtains and looked out on the coming storm. There
was a solemn hush and calm in the air. Nature seemed resting, and
nerving herself for the warfare of the elements.
He too had need of calm. He drew a chair to the window, and sitting
astride of it, he rested his arms upon the back, and his chin upon his
folded hands, and for an hour watched the lightning flash from ragged
cloud to ragged cloud, and gave himself to deep and anxious thought. The
thunder grew nearer and nearer. The dark veil of clouds blotted out the
stars one by one. The roar of the water falling over the dam at the mill
seemed to fill all the air with its murmur. Every leaf and flower hung
motionless.
He heard the village clock strike nine, with loud, deep notes that
seemed almost at hand. Every nerve of his body seemed strung to electric
tension, and all nature tuned to a higher pitch as if dark and terrible
things were abroad in the night.
He heard a sound of closing blinds and windows. The servants were
shutting up the house, and preparing it for the storm.
One of them knocked at his door, and asked if she should come in and
close his windows.
He opened the door, thanked her, and said he would attend to it himself.
As he closed the door and stepped back into the room, he stood upon
something and there was a little crash. Thinking it might be glass, he
lit a candle and looked for the broken object, whatever it might be.
It was Alma's engagement ring, broken in twain. It had slipped from her
nerveless finger when they took her to her room. With a gesture of
impatience, he picked up the fragments, and threw them, diamond and all,
out of the window into the garden below.
Then for another hour he sat alone in the darkness of his room, watchful
and patient. He drew up the curtain toward Alma's room. There was a
light there, and he sat gazing at her white curtain till the light was
extinguished. The other lights were all put out one after the other, and
then it became very still.
The clock struck ten. The gathering storm climbed higher up the western
sky. The lightning flashed brighter and brighter. There was a sigh in
the tree tops as if the air stirred uneasily.
Suddenly there was another light. Mr. Belford's curtain was brightly
illuminated by his candle. Elmer moved his chair so that he could watch
the window, and waited patiently till the light was put out. Then he saw
the curtain raised and the window drawn down.
"All right, my boy! That's just what I wanted. Nemesis has a clear road,
and her shadowy sword shall reach you. Now for the closed circuit
alarm."
He silently pulled off his shoes, and then, with the tread of a cat, he
felt about his room till he found on the table two delicate coils of
fine insulated wire, and a couple of tacks. Carefully opening the door,
he crept down stairs and through the hall to the door of the library.
The door was closed, and kneeling down on the mat he pushed a tack into
the door near the jamb and stuck the other in the door post. From one to
another he stretched a bit of insulated wire. Then, aided by the glare
of the flashes of lightning, that had now grown bright and frequent, he
laid the wires under the mat and along the floor to the foot of the
stairs. Then in his stockinged feet he crept upward, dropping the wires
over into the well of the stairway as he went. In a moment or two the
wires were traced along the floor of the upper entry and under the door
into his room. Here they were secured to a small battery, and connected
with a tiny electric bell that stood on the mantle shelf. To stifle its
sound in case it rang, he threw his straw hat over the bell, and then he
felt sure that at least one part of his work was done.
Louder and louder rolled the thunder. The lightning flashed brightly and
lit up the bare, mean little room where the wretch cowered and shivered
in the bed, sleepless and fearful he knew not why. He feared the storm
and the night. He feared everything. His guilty heart made terrors out
of the night and nature's healthful workings. The very storm, blessed
harbinger of clearer days and sweeter airs, terrified him.
There was a sound of rushing wind in the air. A more vivid flash
blinded him. He sat up in bed and stopped his coward ears to drown the
splendid roll of the thunder. Another flash seemed to fill the room.
Ah! What was that? His eyes seemed to start from their sockets in
terror.
There, written in gigantic letters of fire upon the wall, glowed and
burned a single word:
FRAUD!
He stared at it and rubbed his eyes. It would not be winked out. There
was a loud crash of thunder and a furious dash of rain against the
window; then another blinding stroke of lightning. He drew the clothing
over his head in abject terror. Again the thunder rolled as if in savage
comment on the writing on the wall.
It was a mistake, a delusion. He would face the horrid accusation.
It was gone, and in its place was a picture. It seemed the top of----
Ah! It was that chimney. Already the false stucco had fallen off, and
there, pictured upon his wall in lines of fire, were the evidences of
his fraud and crime.
He sprang from the bed with an oath and looked out of the window.
Darkness everywhere. The beating rain on the window pane ran down in
blinding rivulets. A vivid flash of lightning illuminated the garden and
the house. Not a living thing was stirring. He turned toward the bed.
The terrible picture had gone. With a muttered curse upon his weak,
disordered nerves, he crept into bed and tried to sleep.
Suddenly the terrible writing glowed upon the wall again, and he fairly
screamed with fright and horror:
MURDER!
He writhed and turned upon the bed in mortal agony. He stared at the
letters of the awful word with ashen lips and chattering teeth. What
hideous dream was this? Had his reason reeled? Could it play him
phantom tricks like this? Or was it an avenging angel from heaven
writing his crimes upon the black night?
"Great God! What was that?"
The writing disappeared, and in its place stood a picture of his
wretched victim and himself. Her fair, innocent face looked down upon
him from the darkness, and he saw his own form beside her.
He raved with real madness now. Great drops of perspiration gathered on
his face. He dared not face those beautiful eyes so calmly gazing at
him. Where had high Heaven gained such knowledge of him? How could God
punish him with such awful cruelty?
"Hell and damnation have come," he screamed in frantic terror. The
thunder rolled in deep majesty, and none heard him. The wind and rain
beat upon the house, and his ravings disturbed no one.
"Take it away! Take it away!" he cried in sheer madness and agony.
It would not move. The lightning only made the picture more startling
and awful. The sweet and beautiful face of Alice Green lived before him
in frightful distinctness, and his very soul seemed to burn to cinder
before her serene, unearthly presence.
It was her ghost revisiting the earth. Was it to always thus torment
him?
"Thank God! It has gone."
The room became pitch dark, and he fell back upon the pillow in what
seemed to him a bloody sweat. He could not sleep, and for some time he
lay trembling on the bed and trying to collect his senses and decide
whether he was in possession of his reason or not.
Suddenly there was a flash of light, and a new vision sprang into
existence before him.
An angel in long white robes seemed to be flying through the air toward
him, and above her head she held a sword. Beneath her feet was the word
"NEMESIS!" in letters of glowing fire.
The poor wretch rose up in bed, kneeled down upon the mattress, and
facing the gigantic figure that seemed to float in the air above him,
cried aloud in broken gasps.
"Pardon! For--Christ----"
He threw up his arms and screamed in delirious terror.
The angel advanced through the air toward him and grew larger and
taller. She seemed ready to strike him to the ground--and she was gone.
He fell forward flat on his face, and tears gushed from his eyes in
torrents. For a while he lay thus moaning and crying, and then he rose,
staggered to the wash basin, bathed his face with cold water, and crept
shivering and trembling into bed.
* * * * *
The storm moved slowly away. The lightning grew less frequent, and the
thunder rolled in more subdued tones. The wind subsided, but the rain
fell steadily and drearily. One who watched heard the clock strike
twelve and then one.
Slowly the laggard hours slipped away in silence. The rain fell in
monotonous showers. The darkness hung like a pall over everything.
The wretch in his bed tossed in sleepless misery. He hardly dared look
at the blackness of the night, for fear some new vision might affright
him with ghostly warnings. What had he better do? Another night in this
haunted room would drive him insane. Had he not better fly--leave all
and escape out of sight in the hiding darkness? Better abandon the
greater prize, take everything in reach, and fly from scenes so
terrible.
He rose softly, dressed completely, took a few essentials from his
table, did them up in a bundle, and then like a cat he crept out of the
room, never to return. The house was pitch dark and as silent as a tomb.
He had no need of a light, and, feeling his way along with his hands on
the wall, he stole down stairs and through the hall till he reached the
library door. With cautious fingers he turned the handle in silence and
pushed the door open. It seemed to catch on the threshold, but it was
only for an instant, and then he boldly entered the room.
Placing his bundle upon the table, he took out a small bunch of keys,
and with his hands outstretched before him he felt for the safe. It was
easily found, and then he put in the key, unlocked the door, and swung
it open. With familiar fingers he pulled out what he knew were mere
bills and documents, and then he found the small tin box in which--
A blinding glare, an awful flash of overpowering light blazed before
him. His eyes seemed put out by its bewildering intensity, and a little
scream of terror escaped from his lips. A hand seized him by the collar
and dragged him over backward upon the floor. The blazing, burning light
filled all the room with a glare more terrible than the lightning. He
recovered his sight, and saw Nemesis standing above him, revolver in
hand, and with a torch of magnesium wire blazing in horrid flames above
his head.
"Stir hand or foot, and--you understand. There are six chambers, and I'm
a good shot."
"Let me up, you fool, or I'll kill you."
"Oh! You surprise me, Mr. Belford. I thought it was a common robber."
"No, it is not--so lower your pistol."
"No, sir. You may rise, but make the slightest resistance, and I'll blow
your brains into muddy fragments. Sit in that chair, and when I've
secured you properly, I'll hear any explanation you may make. Your
conduct is very singular, Mr. Belford, to say the least. That's it. Sit
down in the arm chair. Now I'm going to tie you into it, and on the
slightest sign of resistance I shall fire."
The poor, cowed creature sank into the chair, and the son of science
placed his strange lamp upon the table. With the revolver still in
hand, he procured a match and lit a candle on the table. Then he
extinguished his torch, and the overpowering light gave place to a more
agreeable gloom. Then he took from his pocket a tiny electric bell and a
little battery made of a small ink bottle. Then he drew forth a small
roll of wire, and securing one end to the battery, with the revolver
still in hand, he walked round the chair three times, and bound the
thief into it with the slender wire.
"Stop this fooling, boy! Lower your revolver, and let me explain
matters."
"No, sir. When I have you fast so that you can do no harm, I talk with
you--not before. Hold back your head. That's it. Rest it against the
chair while I draw this wire over your throat."
"For God's sake, stop! Do you intend to garrote me?"
"No. Only I mean to make you secure."
"This won't hold me long. I'll break your wires in a flash, you little
fool."
"No, you will not. The moment the wire is parted that bell will ring,
and I shall begin firing, and keep it up till you are disabled or dead."
The man swore savagely, but the cold thread of insulated wire over his
throat thrilled his every nerve. It seemed some magic bond, mysterious,
wonderful, and dreadful. This cool man of science was an angel of awful
and incomprehensible power. His lamp of such mystic brilliance and that
battery quite unnerved his coward heart. What awful torture, what
burning flash of lightning might not rend him to blackened fragments if
the wires were broken! To such depths of puerile ignorance and terror
did the wretch sink in his guilty fancy. He dared not move a muscle lest
the wire break. The very thought of it filled him with unspeakable
agony. The son of science placed himself before his prisoner. With the
revolver at easy rest, he said:
"Mr. Belford, I am going to call help. Do not move while I open the
door."
In mortal terror the wretch turned his head round to see what was going
on. He managed to get a glimpse of the room without breaking the wire
round his throat, and he saw the young man stoop to the floor at the
door and pick up something. Then he made some strange and rapid motions
with the fingers of his right hand, while the left still steadied the
revolver.
For several minutes nothing happened. The two men glared at each other
in silence, and then there was a sound of opening doors. One closed with
an echoing slam that resounded strangely through the old house, and then
there were light footsteps in the hall.
"Oh! Elmer! What is it? What has happened?"
"Nothing very serious--merely a common burglar. I called you because I
wished help."
"Yes, I heard the bell, and I read your message in my room by the sound.
I dressed as quickly as possible. Is there no danger?"
"No. Stand back. Do not come into the room. Call the men, and let them
wake the gardener and his son. You yourself call your father, and bid
him dress and come down at once. And, Alma, keep cool and do not be
alarmed. I need you, Alma, and you must help me."
Then the house was very still, and the watcher paced up and down before
his prisoner in silence. There came a hasty opening of doors, and
excited steps and flaring lamps in the hall.
"'Tis the young doctor. Oh! By mighty! Here's troubles!"
"Quiet, men! Keep quiet. Come in. He cannot hurt you."
The three men, shivering and anxious, peered into the room with blanched
faces and chattering teeth.
"Have you a rope?"
The calm voice of the speaker reassured them, and all three volunteered
to go for one.
"No. One is enough. And one of you had better go to Mr. Denny's room and
help him down stairs. You, John, may stop with me."
"Gods! Sir, he will spring at me!"
"Never you fear. He's fastened into the chair. Besides----"
"Ay, sir, you've the little pet! That's the kind o' argiment."
"It is a rather nice weapon--six-shooter--Colt's."
Presently, with much clatter, the gardener's son brought a rope, and
then, under Mr. Franklin's directions, they bound the man in the chair
hand and foot.
A moment after they heard Mr. Denny's crutch stalking down the stairs,
and Alma's voice assuring him that there was indeed no danger--no danger
at all.
"What does this mean, Mr. Franklin?" said the old gentleman as he came
to the door.
"Burglary, sir. That is all. You need fear nothing. We have secured the
man."
Mr. Denny entered the room leaning on Alma's arm. He saw the open safe
and the papers strewed upon the floor, and he lifted his hand and shook
his head in alarm and trouble.
"A robbery! Would they ruin me utterly? Where is the villain?"
"There, sir."
Alma turned toward the man in the chair, and clung to her father in
terror. The old man lifted his crutch as if to strike.
"My curse be upon you and yours."
"Oh, father, come away. Leave the poor wretch. Perhaps he has taken
nothing."
The men gathered round in a circle, and Elmer drew near to Alma. She
felt his presence near her, and involuntarily put out her hand to touch
him.
"My curse fall on you! Who are you? What have I done to
you--you--viper?"
The man secured in the chair, and with the wire drawn tightly over his
throat, replied not a word.
Elmer advanced toward him, and Alma, with a little cry, tried to hinder
him.
"Do not fear. He cannot move. I will release his head, and perhaps you
will recognize him."
The wire about his throat was loosened, and the wretch lifted his head
into a more comfortable position.
"Ah!"
"Great Heavens! It is Mr. Belford!"
"Yes, sir," said he. "I forgot to put away some papers, and I came down
to secure them, and while I was here that wretch surprised me,
threatened to murder me, and finally overpowered me and bound me here as
you see. If you will ask him to release me, I will get up and explain
everything."
"It's a lie," screamed Mr. Denny, lifting his crutch. "I don't believe
you--you thief--you robber! It's a lie!"
"Oh, father!" cried Alma. "Release him--let him go. He will go away
then, and leave us. He has done wrong; but let him go. It must be some
awful mistake--some----"
"No! Never! never! ne--v----"
The word died away on his lips, for on the instant there was a loud ring
at the hall door. They all listened in silence. Again the importunate
bell pealed through the echoing house.
"It is some one in distress," said Elmer. "John, do you take a light and
go to the door. Ask what is wanted before you loose the chain, and tell
them to go away unless it is a case of life or death."
They listened in breathless interest to the confused sounds in the hall.
There was a moving of locks, and then rough voices talking in suppressed
whispers. The candles flared in the cold draught of wind that swept into
the room, and the sound of the rain in the trees filled the air. Then
the door closed, and John returned, and in an excited whisper said:
"It's Mr. Jones, the sheriff."
At this word Mr. Belford struggled with his bonds, and in a broken
voice he cried:
"Oh, Mr. Denny, spare me! Let me not be arrested. I will restore
every----"
"Silence, sir!" said Elmer. "Not a word till you are spoken to. What
does he want, John?"
"He says he must see Mr. Denny. It's very important--and, oh, sir, he's
a'most beside himself, and I wouldn't let him in."
"Call him in at once," said Mr. Denny. "It is a most fortunate arrival.
The very man we want."
John returned to the hall, and in a moment an old man, gray-haired and
wrinkled, but still vigorous and strong, stood before them. He seemed a
giant in his huge great-coat, and when he removed his hat his massive
head and thick neck seemed almost leonine.
"Ah! Mr. Sheriff, you have arrived at a most opportune moment. We were
just awakened from our beds by this robber. We captured him, and we have
him here."
"Beg pardon, sir. Sorry to hear it, but 'twere another errant that
brought me here. The widow Green's daughter, Alice, she that was
missing, has been found in the mill-race--dead."
They all gave expression to undisguised astonishment, and the prisoner
in the chair groaned heavily.
"And I have come for the key of the boat house, sir, that we may go for
the--body, sir."
"How horrible! When did all this happen?"
"We dunno, sir. I'd like the key ter once."
"Certainly--certainly, Mr. Sheriff. But this man--cannot you secure him
for the night?"
"Oh, ay. But the child, sir. The boys wants your boat to go for her."
"Poor, poor Alice!" cried Alma, wringing her hands.
"John," said Elmer, "get the key for Mr. Jones. Jake, you and your
father can go with the men, and, Mr. Jones, perhaps you had better wait
with us, for we have a little matter of importance to settle, and we
need you."
"Now," said Mr. Franklin, "I have one or two questions I wish to ask the
man, and then, Mr. Jones, you will do us a favor if you will take him
away.
"Lawrence Belford, as you value your soul, where did you obtain that
will?"
If a bolt from the storm overhead had entered the room, it could not
have produced a more startling impression than did this simple question.
Mr. Denny dropped his crutch, and raised both hands in astonishment.
Alma gave a half suppressed scream, and even the sheriff and John were
amazed beyond expression.
The man in the chair made no reply, and presently the breathless silence
was broken by the calm voice of the young man repeating his question.
"I found it in the leaves of a book in the old bookcase in the mill
office."
"What?" cried Mr. Denny, leaning forward and steadying himself by the
table. "My father's will! Did you find it? Release him, John. How can we
ever thank you, Mr. Belford? It is the missing will----"
"Oh, Lawrence!" said Alma. "Why did you not tell us? why did you not
show it? How much trouble it would have saved."
"Have patience, Alma. Let Mr. Belford rise and bring the will."
"No," said Mr. Franklin. "Hear the rest of the story. Mr. Belford, you
destroyed or suppressed that will, did you not?"
"Yes, I did--damn you!"
"Good Lord!" cried the sheriff. "Did ye hear that?--destroyed it! That's
State's prison."
"Oh, Mr. Franklin, Mr. Denny! have mercy on me! Do not let them arrest
me."
The poor creature seemed to be utterly cowed and crushed in an instant.
"Marcy!" said the sheriff, taking out a pair of handcuffs. "It's little
marcy ye'll git."
"You ask for mercy!" cried Mr. Denny, his face livid with passion.
"You--you wretch! Have you not ruined me? Have you not made my child a
beggar, and carried my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave? You knew the
value of this will--and you destroyed it! Your other crimes are as
nothing to this. I could forgive your monstrous frauds in my mills----"
Mr. Belford winced and looked surprised.
"Ay! wince you may. I have found out everything, thanks to--but I'll not
couple his name with yours. And the release of the mortgage--have you
that?"
"No, sir. It is in that bag on the table."
The old gentleman eagerly took up the bundle that lay on the table, and
began with trembling fingers to open it.
"Wait a moment, Mr. Denny," said Mr. Franklin. "I should like to ask
this man a question or two."
Mr. Denny paused, and there was a profound silence in the room.
"Lawrence Belford, if you are wise, you will speak the truth. That
release is a forgery--or at least it has no legal value."
"It is not worth a straw," replied the prisoner with cool impudence;
"and on the whole, I'm glad of it. The mortgage will be foreclosed
to-morrow."
"Your share will be small, Mr. Belford. I am afraid your partner will
find some difficulty in making a settlement with you, unless he joins
you in prison."
Mr. Denny sat heavily down in an arm-chair and groaned aloud. In vain
Alma, with choking voice, tried to comfort him. The blow was too
terrible for words, and for a moment or two there was a painful silence
in the room.
Mr. Franklin seemed nervous and excited. He fumbled in his pockets as if
in search of something. Presently he advanced toward the old gentleman
and said quietly:
"Mr. Denny, can you bear one more piece of news--one more link in this
terrible chain of crime?"
"Yes," he replied slowly. "There can be nothing worse than this. Speak,
my son--let us hear everything."
"I think, sir," said the young man reverently, "that I ought to thank
God that He has enabled me to bring such knowledge as He has given me to
your service."
Then after a brief pause he added:
"There is the will, sir."
With these words he held out a small bit of sheet glass about two inches
square.
"Where?" cried Mr. Denny in amazement. "I see nothing."
"There it is--on that piece of glass. That dusky spot in the centre is a
micro-photographic copy of your father's will."
"My son, my son, do not trifle with us in this our hour of trial."
"Far be it from me to do such a thing. Alma, will you please go to my
room and bring down my lantern? And John, you may go and help Miss
Denny. Bring a sheet from the spare bed also."
"I do not know what you mean, my son. You tell me the will is destroyed,
and you say you have a copy. Is it a legal copy? and how do you know it
is really my father's will? Have you read it?"
"Yes, sir. You shall read it too presently. I have already shown it to a
lawyer, and he pronounced it correct and perfectly legal."
"But why did you not tell us of it before?"
"I have only had it a few days, sir, and I wished first to crush or
capture this robber."
"Hadn't ye better let me take him off, sir?" said the sheriff. "He's
done enough to take him afore the grand jury. Besides, we have another
bitter bill against him down in the village."
"No," said Mr. Franklin. "Let him stay and see the will. It may interest
him to know that all his villainous plans are utterly overthrown."
"Shut up, you whelp," said the man in the chair.
"Shut up--ye," replied the sheriff, administering a stout cuff to the
prisoner's ear. "Ye best hold your tongue, man."
Just here Alma and John returned with the lantern. Under Elmer's
directions they hung the sheet over one of the windows, and then the
young man prepared his apparatus for a small trial of lantern
projections. Mr. Denny sat in his chair silent and wondering. He knew
not what to say or do, and watched these preparations with the utmost
attention.
"Mr. Sheriff, if you please, you will stand near Mr. Belford, to prevent
him from attempting mischief when I darken the room. John, you may put
out all the candles save one."
Alma took her father's hand and kneeled upon the floor beside him as if
to aid and comfort him.
"Now, John, set that candle just outside the door in the entry."
A sense of awe and fear fell on them all as the room became dark, and
none save the young son of science dared breathe. Suddenly a round spot
of light fell on the sheet, and its glare illuminated the room dimly.
"Before I show the will, Mr. Sheriff, I wish you to see a photo that may
be of use to you in that little matter in the village of which you were
speaking."
Two dusky figures slid over the disk of light. They grew more and more
distinct.
"Great God! It's Alice Green!"
A passion of weeping filled the room, and Elmer opened the lantern, and
the room became light. Alma, with her head bent upon her father's knee,
was bathed in tears.
"Poor, poor lost Alice!"
"And the fellow with her? Who is he?" cried the sheriff.
"That is Mr. Belford--Mr. Lawrence Belford," said Elmer with cool
confidence. "That picture was taken through a telescope from my room on
the morning of the 13th."
"The 13th! Why, man, that was the day she was missed."
"Yes. Mr. Belford was with her that day, and perhaps he can explain her
disappearance."
The prisoner groaned in abject terror and misery. He saw it all now. His
dream pictures were explained. His defeat and detection were
accomplished through the young man's science. That he should have been
overthrown by such simple means filled him with mortification and anger.
"You shall have the picture, Mr. Sheriff. You may need it at the trial.
And now for the will."
The room became again dark, and the figures on the wall stood out sharp
and distinct on the sheet. Then the picture faded away, and in its place
appeared writing--letters in black upon white ground:
"SALMON FALLS, June 1, 1863.
"I, Edward Denny, do hereby leave and bequeath to my son, John
Denny, all of my property, both real and personal. All other
wills I have made are hereby annulled. My near death prevents a
more formal will.
"EDWARD DENNY.
"Witness:
"JOHN MAXWELL, M.D."
"My father's will. Thank----"
There was a heavy fall, and Elmer opened his lantern quickly. It was too
much for the old man. He had fallen upon the floor insensible.
"A light, John, quick."
They lifted him tenderly, and with Alma's help the old sheriff and the
serving man took him away to his room.
The moment the two men were alone, the prisoner in the chair broke out
in a torrent of curses and threats. The young man quietly took up his
revolver, and said sternly:
"Lawrence Belford, hold your peace. Your threats are idle. You insulted
me outrageously the day I came here. I bear you no malice, but when you
attempted your infamous plan to capture my cousin and to ruin her
father, I sprang to their rescue with such skill as I could command. We
shall not pursue you with undue rigor, but with perfect justice----"
"Oh, Mr. Franklin, have mercy upon me! Let me go! Let me escape before
they return. I will go away--far away! Save me, save me, sir! I never
harmed you. Have mercy upon me!"
"Had you shown mercy perhaps I might now. No, sir; justice before mercy.
Hark--the officer comes."
They unfastened the ropes about Belford, and released the wires, and in
silence he went away into the night, a broken-down, crushed, and ruined
man in the hands of his grisly Nemesis.
The young man flung himself upon the lounge in the library, and in a
moment was fast asleep.
* * * * *
The red gold of the coming day crept up the eastern sky. The storm
became beautiful in its fleecy rains in the far south. As the stars
paled, the sweet breath of the cool west wind sprang up, shaking the
raindrops in showers from the trees. The birds sang and the day came on
apace.
To one who watched it seemed the coming of a fairer day than had ever
shone upon her life. The vanished storm, the fresh aspect of nature
moved her to tears of happiness. Long had she watched the stars. They
were the first signs of light and comfort she had discovered, and now
they paled before the sun. Thus she sat by the open window in the
library and watched with a prayer in her heart.
She looked at the mantel clock. Half past four. In half an hour the
house would be stirring. All was now safe. She could return to her room.
She rose and approached the sleeper on the lounge. He slept peacefully,
as if the events of the night disturbed him not.
He smiled in his dreams, and murmured a name indistinctly. She drew back
hastily and put her hand over her mouth, while a bright blush mounted to
her face. Just here, through the sweet, still air of the morning, came
the sound of the village bell. Tears gathered in her eyes and fell
unheeded upon her hands, clasped before her.
"Poor--lost--Alice--nineteen--just my----"
"Alma."
She turned toward the sleeper with a startled cry. He was awake and
sitting up.
"What bell is that?"
"It is tolling. They have found her."
"Yes, it is a sad story. Alma?"
She advanced toward him. He noticed her tears and the morning robe in
which she was dressed.
"What is it, Elmer? Do you feel better?"
"Yes. It was a sorry night for us."
"Yes, the storm has cleared away."
He did not seem to heed what she said.
"How long have you been up?"
"Since it happened. After I saw father up stairs, I came down and found
you here asleep. And Elmer--forgive me--it was wrong, but I did not mean
to stay here so long----"
"Alma!"
"You will pardon me?"
"Oh! Pardon you--pardon you--why should I? I dreamed the angels watched
me."
"I was anxious, and we owe you so much. We can never reward you--never!"
"Reward, Alma! I want none--save----"
"Save what?"
He opened his arms wide. A new and beautiful light came into her eyes.
"Can there be greater reward than love?"
"No. Love is the best reward--and it is yours."
CHARLES BARNARD.
THE MURDER OF MARGARY.
Our own politics have so absorbed the attention of the press and the
public for the last six months, that events of decided international
prominence have attracted merely a brief notice, instead of the careful
discussion which their importance warranted. Even the "Eastern
question," that has so long kept the European world in a state of
excitement and anxiety almost as intense and even more painful than that
in which our own country is now plunged, excited but a fitful interest
here. It was only by an effort that we could extend our political
horizon as far east as Constantinople. All beyond was comparative
darkness. In this darkness, however, history has gone steadily on
accumulating new and important data, which must be taken note of if we
would keep up with the record of the times.
The term "Eastern question" has come to mean the political complications
arising from the presence of the Turkish empire in Europe. The
expression might much more appropriately be applied to the serious
difficulties that have for the last year and a half existed between the
governments of England and China, and which have, as it now appears,
been brought to a reasonably satisfactory conclusion. These difficulties
sprang out of the murder of an English subject, Augustus Raymond Margary
by name, who was travelling in an official capacity in a remote part of
the Chinese empire. They were still further complicated by an almost
simultaneous attack upon a British exploring expedition that had just
crossed the Chinese frontier from Burmah, with the intention of
surveying and opening up to trade an overland route between that country
and the Middle Kingdom. To understand the matter it will be necessary to
give a brief recapitulation of some events that went before.
The vast importance of establishing an overland trade route between
India and China will be seen by a glance at the map. It has been the
unrealized dream of generations of India and China merchants. "The trade
route of the future" it has been called; and when we consider the vast
marts of commerce that such a highway would bring in direct contact, it
is impossible to think the name thus enthusiastically given an
exaggeration. An overland passage between China and Burmah has long been
known and made use of by the native merchants of these countries. From
time immemorial it has served as a highway for invading armies or
peaceful caravans. How highly the two governments appreciated its
importance to the commercial prosperity of their respective subjects is
shown by the clause in a treaty concluded by them in 1769, which
stipulated that the "gold and silver road" between the two countries
should always be kept open. European travellers in Eastern lands, from
the ubiquitous Marco Polo down, have also done their best to call
attention to it. It may therefore seem somewhat strange that England,
the commercial interest of whose Indian empire would be most directly
promoted by the opening up of this new channel of trade, should have
gone so long without paying much official attention to the matter.
Recent events, however, have proved, what was probably foreseen by those
whose business it was to study up the subject, that there were grave
practical difficulties to be overcome before the plan could be
successfully carried out.
In the first place it was necessary to secure the consent of both the
Burmese and Chinese governments--a task of almost insurmountable
difficulty because of the natural dislike of these two powers to share
with another the trade monopoly they had heretofore exclusively
enjoyed. Then again there lies between the civilizations of India and
China a broad tract of wild and mountainous country, inhabited by a
mongrel race of savages, known as Shans and Kakhyens, who, while
nominally owing allegiance to one or the other of their more civilized
neighbors, practically find their chief support in levying blackmail on
all people passing through their territory.
To fit out an exploring expedition strong enough to defy the attacks of
the savages, and yet small enough not to convey the idea of an invasion,
was, therefore, a work requiring much patience and diplomacy. At length,
however, in 1867, the British Government in India succeeded in gaining
the consent of the King of Burmah to the passage through his dominions
of a mission combining the necessary strength and limits. Under the
command of Major Slade, this little army made its way safely through the
debatable land of the Kakhyens and Shans, and, entering the province of
Yunnan, penetrated as far into the Chinese empire as the city of Momien.
But here its further progress was checked.
Yunnan was at the moment in the very crisis of a rebellion against the
imperial government. The population of the province is largely
Mohammedan. How the religion of the Prophet first obtained so firm a
foothold there is still for antiquaries to discover. A semi-historical
legend says that the germs of the faith were planted by a colony of
Arabs who settled in the country more than a thousand years ago. However
this may be, it is certain that the first Mohammedans were not Chinese.
By intermarriage, propagation, and adoption, they slowly but steadily
communicated their belief to the original inhabitants, until, at the
time of which we are writing, more than a tenth of the ten million
inhabitants were fanatical Mussulmans. To the mixed race that embrace
this creed the general name of Panthays has been given, though for what
reason is not known.
In 1855 the Panthays, oppressed, it is said, by the Chinese officials,
rose up in rebellion against the imperial government. Led by an obscure
Chinese follower of Mohammed, called Tu-win-tsen, the insurrection grew
rapidly in extent and success. One imperial city after the other fell
into the hands of the rebels, until the entire western section of the
province was in their possession and organized as a separate and
independent nation, under the sovereignty of Tu-win-tsen, who had in the
mean while assumed the more euphonious title of Sultan Soleiman.
It was when Soleiman had attained the height of his glory that Major
Slade's party entered Yunnan, and it was with him as the governor _de
facto_ that the British commander entered into negotiations. Such a
proceeding, though it may have been necessary, was fatal to the further
progress of the expedition. The Chinese authorities naturally refused to
pass on a party that had, however innocently, entered into friendly
relations with its rebellious subjects. Major Slade had the good sense
to understand this. The mission retraced its steps into Burmah, and the
exploration of the "trade route of the future" was indefinitely
postponed.
The visit of the English party to Momien was the signal for a rapid
downfall of Soleiman's power. The imperial government, seriously alarmed
at the practical recognition of the rebels' independence by an outside
power, now put forth all its might to reestablish its authority. It was
successful.
Under the energetic command of one Li-sieh-tai, a famous general who had
once himself been a rebel, the Chinese armies wrested back the country,
foot by foot, to its former governors. In 1872 Tali-fu, the last and
most important stronghold of the rebellion, was closely invested. After
a desperate resistance, it was obliged to open its gates.
The end of Soleiman was dramatic in the extreme. He was told that his
followers should be spared if he himself would surrender. He agreed to
the terms, and, after administering a dose of poison to himself, his
three wives and five children, he mounted his chair, and was borne to
the camp of his enemies, where he arrived a corpse sitting erect, the
imperial turban on his head and the keys of his capital clasped tightly
in his hand. His head, preserved in honey, was sent to Peking. The
imperial troops poured into Tali-fu. A general massacre occurred. Those
Mohammedans that were not slaughtered fled to the mountains, where they
still continued to keep up a guerilla warfare. But the rebellion was
practically at an end, and by 1874 the authority of the central
government was firmly established throughout the province.
The trade between Burmah and China, which had ceased almost entirely
during the long years of the rebellion, again sprang into activity, and
once more the attention of the Indian government was attracted to it. In
1874 a new expedition of exploration was prepared and placed under the
command of Colonel Browne. The consent of the King of Burmah was
obtained, and the British minister in Peking, Mr. Thomas Wade, was
instructed to explain the object of the mission to the Chinese
government, so that it might receive no opposition upon crossing the
Chinese frontier. It was also arranged that a special messenger should
be despatched from Peking across China to the frontier to act as
interpreter to the expedition, and to prepare the mandarins along the
route for its approach. For this responsible and dangerous service,
Augustus Raymond Margary was selected--a young man attached to the
English consular department, a perfect master of the Chinese language
and customs, and a fine type of the best class of young Englishmen.
Provided with the necessary passports from the British minister,
countersigned by the Tsung-li-yamen, the Chinese foreign office, Mr.
Margary started on his journey. He went up the Yangtsze river as far as
Hankow in one of the huge American steamers of the Shanghai Steam
Navigation Company. At Hankow, on September 4, 1874, he bade good-by to
Western civilization, and, with a Chinese teacher and two or three
Chinese attendants, began his trip through a vast and populous country,
a _terra incognita_ to Europeans.
His diary of this journey has recently been published. It is interesting
in the extreme, though devoid of those startling episodes that generally
give charm to accounts of travels in unexplored lands.
He has no old theories to prove and no ambition to start new ones, but
simply jots down his impressions of people and things with no attempt at
elaboration. The result is, we have a plain, faithful, unvarnished
picture of Chinese life and manners, as seen by an intelligent,
unprejudiced man. Upon the whole, we think this picture most decidedly
favorable to the Chinese character.
Did space permit, we should like to follow Mr. Margary, stage by stage,
through his long journey of 900 miles. The first part, through the
provinces of Yunnan and Kwei-chow as far as the city of Ch'en-yuan-fu,
was made by boat--a long and monotonous trip of four weeks, through a
country so picturesque that the "sight was at last completely satiated
with the perpetual view of the most glorious scenery that ever made the
human heart leap with wonder and delight."
At Ch'en-yuan-fu he exchanged his boat for a chair, in which he
completed his journey; traversing Kwei-chow and Yunnan, and the
debatable hill land that lies between the latter province and Burmah;
arriving in Bhamo, on the Burmese side of the border, on January 17,
1875, where he joined the expedition of Colonel Browne that was
advancing to meet him.
Except in two or three instances, he was treated with courtesy by the
people and respect by the officials. In the exceptional cases a display
of his Chinese passports sufficed to quickly change the demeanor of the
mandarins; while a few calm words of rebuke upon their want of
politeness generally caused popular mobs to disperse abashed. An
instance of this is given by him in his account of his stay at Lo-shan,
a small naval station on the Yangtsze. In returning from a visit to the
mandarin of the place, he was surrounded by a dense crowd of street
rabble, leaping and screaming like maniacs, and shouting to one another:
"I say! Come along. Here's a foreigner. What a lark! Ha, ha, ha!"
Margary descended from his chair and delivered a short address:
"Why _do_ you crowd round me in this rude manner? Is this your courtesy
to strangers? I have often heard it said that China was of all things
distinguished for civility and courtesy. But am I to take this as a
specimen of it? Shall I go back and tell my countrymen that your boasted
civility only amounts to rudeness?" "I was astonished," he adds, "at the
effect this speech produced. They listened with silence, and when I had
done walked quietly back quite abashed. Only a few remained; and over
and again after this many an irrepressible youngster was severely
rebuked for any sign of disrespect by his elders."
Contrast this with the effect which such a speech as that of Margary's,
delivered by a Chinaman, would have had upon an English or American mob,
and we cannot repress a slight feeling of sympathy with the natives of
the Flowery Kingdom when they call us "outside barbarians."
His Chinese letters of recommendation, given him by the Tsung-li-yamen
to the viceroys of the three great provinces through which he passed,
proved of inestimable value. In the viceroy of Yunnan especially he
found an unexpected ally and friend, who issued instructions to the
officials all along the road to receive the foreigner with the utmost
respect. The extent to which these instructions were carried out
depended, of course, very largely on the temperament of the local
mandarins. "Some were obsequious, others reserved, but most of them met
me with high bred courtesy worthy of praise, and such as befits a
welcome from man to man."
"Taking all these experiences together," says Sir Rutherford Alcock,
formerly British minister to China, a gentleman by no means inclined to
judge Chinese officials favorably, "the impression left is decidedly to
the advantage of the central government so far as the _bona fides_ of
the safe-conduct given is concerned."
A great deal of Margary's success was also undoubtedly due to his
personal magnetism and thorough acquaintance with Chinese habits.
Indeed, no one can read this diary without deriving from it a high idea
of the genuine attractiveness and solidity of the author's character. In
sickness, in trouble, in delay, in vexation, there runs through it all a
refreshing, manly, Anglo-Saxon spirit. Knowing as we do what is coming,
we find ourselves involuntarily catching with hope at little incidents
that seem to delay onward march. Reading these pages, it is impossible
to realize that he who wrote them is dead. It is with a mournful feeling
of utter and fatalistic helplessness that we follow this young and
generous hero while he travels, all unconsciously, down to his death. To
the very last all seems to go well with him. At Manwyne, the last city
on his journey, the renowned and dreaded Li-sieh-tai, the suppressor of
the Mohammedan rebellion, actually prostrated himself before him and
paid him the highest honors, warning the assembled chiefs of the savage
hill people that they had best take good care of the stranger, as he
came protected by an imperial passport.
On the 16th of February, 1875, Colonel Browne's expedition, accompanied
by Margary, broke up their camp at Tsitkaw, in Burmah, and advanced
toward the Chinese frontier.
Arrangements had been made with the practically independent chieftains
of this wild region for the safe passage of the party through the hilly
country. As it advanced, however, ominous rumors of a projected attack
by the hill savages and Chinese frontiersmen reached the ears of its
members. Though these rumors were generally discredited, it was thought
best to send forward Margary as a pioneer, he being well known to the
people and officials of the Chinese border town of Manwyne. Margary
willingly undertook the mission. With his Chinese teacher and
attendants, he hastened on in advance, the rest of the expedition
following more slowly. The last communications that came from him were
dated "Seray," a town just inside the Chinese frontier. He reported that
thus far the road was unmolested and the people civil. On the strength
of these advices, Colonel Browne pressed on, crossed the Chinese
frontier, and advanced as far as Seray. It was here, on the morning of
February 21, that Margary and his attendants had all been murdered, near
Manwyne.
Hardly had the news been communicated when it was found that the
expedition was surrounded by a large body of armed men, who instantly
began an attack. The assailants, a motley crowd of Kakhyens and Chinese
border men, were soon repulsed; but as reports came streaming in that
large bodies of Chinese train bands were advancing to their aid, it was
thought best to beat a retreat. This was safely effected, and by the
26th of February the expedition found itself once more at Bhamo. Thus
mournfully ended the second attempt to explore "the trade route of the
future."
* * * * *
The mere fact that a British subject had been murdered, and a British
exploring expedition attacked on Chinese soil, would in itself have
created a grave subject for diplomatic discussion between the
governments of England and China. But the matter was rendered doubly
serious by the presence of many circumstances tending to show that the
outrage had been committed with the tacit connivance, if not at the
direct instigation, of the provincial authorities of Yunnan. The whole
affair, it was claimed, was not the result of an outbreak of
booty-seeking savages, but the culmination of a systematic plot on the
part of the Chinese officials.
In laying the matter before Prince Kung, Mr. Wade, the English minister,
plainly implied that such was his opinion, and demanded from the Chinese
government the promptest and most searching investigation.
An imperial decree was at once issued, commanding the governor of Yunnan
to proceed at once to the spot and enter upon a thorough examination of
the case. Mr. Wade, however, demanded some securer guarantee that strict
justice should be done. He submitted to the Tsung-li-yamen an ultimatum
containing three principal conditions: that such British officials as he
might see fit to appoint should go to Yunnan and assist at the
investigation; that passports should be immediately issued, to enable
another expedition to enter Yunnan by the same route; and that a sum of
$150,000 be placed in his hands as a guarantee of good faith. The
Chinese government demurred at first to these demands, but the threat of
Mr. Wade to leave Peking unless they were accepted before a certain day
finally caused it to give a reluctant consent. Some months were then
spent in diplomatic wrangling over the conditions under which the
British officials should proceed to Yunnan, and what their powers should
be on their arrival there. The Chinese government showed, in the opinion
of Mr. Wade, a strong desire to avoid fulfilling its part of the
contract. The negotiations on several occasions assumed an acute
character of danger. Both parties prepared for war. The English minister
concentrated the English fleet in the China seas; the Chinese government
bought up large supplies of arms and ammunition. But Prince Kung and his
advisers had the good sense to see that the chances in a struggle of
arms would be too unequal, and always submitted at the last moment. At
last the Chinese government, having agreed to all the preliminary
conditions, and having also despatched a high officer, Li-hang-chang, to
Yunnan to thoroughly investigate the affair, "without regard to
persons," the British minister agreed to let the English mission of
investigation proceed. Mr. Grosvenor, a secretary of legation, was
placed at its head. Li-hang-chang went on in advance.
This high official seems to have done his duty in a spirit of strict
impartiality. His reports to the government make no attempt to conceal
the guilt of the provincial officials, or to shield them from deserved
punishment. He immediately ordered the arrest of the general commanding
at Momien and a number of other local officers, pushing his inquiries
with vigor and with what appears a sincere desire to arrive at the
ground facts. In the course of his labors he came to the conclusion that
Li-sieh-tai, whom we have already mentioned, was one of the instigators,
probably the chief one, of the attack on the mission. He at once
memorialized the throne to have him arrested and brought up for trial.
In this memorial he gives what seems to us, upon an unprejudiced
comparison of testimony, the truest version of the affair. He believes
the murder of Margary and his attendants to have been the work of
"lawless offenders," greedy of gain, but that the attack upon Colonel
Browne's party was made at the secret instigation of Li-sieh-tai and
other provincial officials, although that general was not on the spot,
nor were there any soldiers concerned in the assault. He shows that
Li-sieh-tai had already written to the governor of Yunnan, telling him
that he (Li) was "taking vigorous measures to protect the region against
invasion," and that the governor had written back commanding him to stop
all further proceedings and quiet the apprehensions of the people. This
command, however, was not received until after the murder and attack had
taken place. "It appears from this, consequently" (the report adds),
"that although Li-sieh-tai had no intention of committing murder, he is
liable to a charge of having laid plans to obstruct the expedition; and
your servants have agreed, after taking counsel together, that he should
not be suffered to take advantage of his official rank as a cover for
lying evasions, gaining time with false statements, in dread of
incurring punishment."
Immediately upon receipt of this memorial a decree appeared in the
Peking "Gazette" ordering Li-sieh-tai to be degraded from his rank, and
commanding him to proceed at once to Yunnan for trial before the high
commission.
As we have said before, we think Li-hang-chang's account is
substantially correct. There are a great many circumstances tending to
exculpate Li-sieh-tai from any wish to have Margary murdered. Had such
been his wish, he might more easily have disposed of him when he passed
through _en route_ for Burmah. Moreover, at the very time of Margary's
murder, Mr. Elias, a member of the expedition, who had struck off from
the main body in order to explore another route to Momien, was
entertained by Li-sieh-tai at Muangnow, a town at some distance from the
seat of the murder. Though completely in his power, Mr. Elias received
all possible civility compatible with a determined and successful
opposition to his further advance. Now it seems absurd to believe that
Li-sieh-tai felt any stronger personal dislike for Margary than he felt
for Mr. Elias.
In regard to his complicity in the attack on the expedition, the
evidence is just as strong on the other side. He had a deep and by no
means unnatural prejudice against English exploring parties. The last
mission of the kind had entered into negotiations, as we have already
mentioned, with the enemies against whom this Chinese general was
prosecuting bitter war. The smouldering embers of the rebellion were not
even yet entirely extinguished; the presence of an armed body of
foreigners, no matter how small, who had previously shown a friendly
disposition toward the Mohammedan usurpation, might awaken new hopes in
the breasts of the still surviving rebels. This feeling, combined with
the jealous wish of the border merchants, both Chinese and Burmese, to
retain a monopoly of the overland trade, undoubtedly inspired a general
feeling of hostility among the local officials and the people, which
found a ready instrument in the greedy and savage character of the
frontier tribes. Where so much combustible matter was heaped up, it
needed but a hint to bring on the catastrophe that followed.
While Li-hang-chang and the Chinese commission were conducting the
preliminary investigations, Mr. Grosvenor and his colleagues were
approaching. Their journey across the empire was attended not only with
no opposition or difficulty, but they were received everywhere with
great and even obsequious respect. Upon arriving in Yunnan they found an
immense pile of evidence awaiting their inspection. Mr. Grosvenor's
report has not yet been published, we believe, but from general rumor,
and the fact that nothing has been heard to the contrary, we are
justified in believing that he found the state of the case to be
substantially as it was reported by the Chinese high commissioner. After
having reviewed the evidence presented, after having witnessed the
execution of a number of wretches convicted of direct complicity in the
murder of Margary, the Grosvenor commission pursued its way, escorted by
troops that had been despatched from Burmah for the purpose.
Diplomatic negotiations were once more transferred to Peking, and turned
upon the compensation to be offered by China for the violation of
international law that had occurred upon her soil. The demands of the
British minister, who had in the mean time been knighted as Sir Thomas
Wade by the Queen, as a just acknowledgment of his efficient services,
were considered too severe by the Chinese government, and at one time it
looked as if all further negotiations would be broken off.
Sir Thomas finally carried his threat to leave Peking into execution.
Prince Kung had evidently not expected so decided a step, and was
seriously alarmed by it, for the Chinese government have shown
throughout the affair a very wise disposition not to push matters to the
last extreme. Li-wang-chang (a brother, we believe, of the official who
was sent to Yunnan), the governor of the province of Chihli, the highest
and most powerful statesman in the country, was immediately granted
extraordinary powers, and sent after the English minister. After some
diplomatic fencing Sir Thomas agreed to meet the Chinese envoy at
Chefoo--a seaport about half way between Shanghai and Peking, a great
summer resort of the foreigners in China--the Newport of the eastern
world. Here, in the month of September, 1876, with much surrounding pomp
and ceremony, a convention was signed between the English and the
Chinese plenipotentiaries. The final settlement of the difficulty was
celebrated by a grand banquet, given by Li-wang-chang to Sir Thomas and
the other foreign ambassadors, who had been drawn to Chefoo by their
interest in the negotiations.
The following is a synopsis of the agreement:
1. An imperial edict to be published throughout the Chinese
empire, setting forth the facts of the affair, subject to the
directions and approval of the British minister.
2. Consular officials to visit the various towns and public
places to see that the said imperial edict is posted where all
can see it.
3. The family of Margary to be paid about $250,000 indemnity.
4. A further indemnity to be given, covering all expenses of
the unsuccessful expedition under Colonel Browne.
5. A special embassy of apology to be sent to England.
Then follow a number of concessions with regard to placing on a better
footing the relations of foreign ambassadors to the Chinese authorities,
the enlargement of the foreign settlement at Shanghai, etc.
But by far the most important clause is that opening up to foreign trade
four new ports on the Yangtsze river. This concession is virtually
equivalent to throwing open the whole interior of the country to foreign
merchants.
Altogether the British minister has certainly won a triumph that well
deserved a knighthood.
Undoubtedly he had a very strong indictment against the Chinese
authorities, although we cannot help regarding the matter of the murder
and the attack as more the misfortune than the fault of the central
government. Nevertheless, western nations are fully justified in rigidly
holding the Peking authorities responsible for any violation of
international duties committed anywhere within their jurisdiction; and
it is not only fair, but expedient, that when such cases do occur some
practical and important reparation should be made for them. The
concessions obtained by Sir Thomas Wade, though sweeping, are not, in
our opinion, excessive. On the other hand, the Chinese government by
granting them has fully satisfied the demands of justice. It could not
have gone further without losing the respect and incurring the dangerous
opposition of its people. Indeed, throughout the negotiations Prince
Kung and his advisers have had to contend against a powerful
anti-foreign party in the court and the nation. Strong fears were
entertained more than once that the reactionary element would get the
upper hand. Some idea of Prince Kung's difficulties may be conceived
when we read that one morning the walls of Peking were found covered
with placards bitterly denouncing the policy of the government, and
calling upon all good subjects to rise up against such unpatriotic
leaders.
When Li-wang-chang, who enjoys great popularity in his province, was en
route for Chefoo to negotiate with Sir Thomas Wade, the people of
Tien-tsin made the most determined efforts to prevent him from going
further. For a time he was literally besieged in his own _yamen_, and it
was only by the publication of a proclamation warning the people that
they were guilty of rebellion against the emperor when they hindered the
progress of his representatives, that the opposition was withdrawn.
Sir Thomas deserves the highest praise for going just far enough and no
further in his demands. Yet the last mail from China brings the news
that the foreign residents there are intensely dissatisfied with the
result of the settlement. This was to be expected. Any settlement short
of one effected by war would have met the disapproval of these gentry.
The interests of the Chinese and the foreign merchants are too
antagonistic to admit of impartial judgment on questions of this sort.
England, in their opinion, could gain greater concessions by war than by
negotiations--ergo, they would have all such troubles settled by "blood
and iron."
The London "Times" puts it very well when it says:
"Those Englishmen who reside in the treaty ports are not impartial
judges of the concessions. Too often they go to Canton or Shanghai in a
frame of mind that would exasperate a much less vain people than the
Chinese. They sometimes talk as if they thought it a mere impertinence
on the part of an inferior race to have a pride of its own, and they act
as if the chief end of the Chinese were to minister to the demands of
British trade."
WALTER A. BURLINGAME.
THE LETTERS OF HONORE DE BALZAC.
The first feeling of the reader of the two volumes which have lately
been published under the foregoing title is that he has almost done
wrong to read them. He reproaches himself with having taken a shabby
advantage of a person who is unable to defend himself. He feels as one
who has broken open a cabinet or rummaged an old desk. The contents of
Balzac's letters are so private, so personal, so exclusively his own
affairs and those of no one else, that the generous critic constantly
lays them down with a sort of dismay, and asks himself in virtue of what
peculiar privilege, or what newly discovered principle it is, that he is
thus burying his nose in them. Of course he presently reflects that he
has not broken open a cabinet nor violated a desk, but that these
repositories have been very freely and confidently emptied into his lap.
The two stout volumes of the "Correspondence de H. de Balzac,
1819-1850,"[1] lately put forth, are remarkable, like many other French
books of the same sort, for the almost complete absence of editorial
explanation or introduction. They have no visible sponsor; only a few
insignificant lines of preface and the scantiest possible supply of
notes. Such as the book is, in spite of its abruptness, we are thankful
for it; in spite, too, of our bad conscience. What we mean by our bad
conscience is the feeling with which we see the last remnant of charm,
of the graceful and the agreeable, removed from Balzac's literary
physiognomy. His works had not left much of this favoring shadow, but
the present publication has let in the garish light of full publicity.
The grossly, inveterately professional character of all his activity,
the absence of leisure, of contemplation, of disinterested experience,
the urgency of his consuming money-hunger--all this is rudely exposed.
It is always a question whether we have a right to investigate a man's
life for the sake of anything but his official utterances--his results.
The picture of Balzac's career which is given in these letters is a
record of little else but painful processes, unrelieved by reflections
or speculations, by any moral or intellectual emanation. To prevent
misconception, however, we hasten to add that they tell no disagreeable
secrets; they contain nothing for the lovers of scandal. Balzac was a
very honest man, but he was a man almost tragically uncomfortable, and
the unsightly underside of his discomfort stares us full in the face.
Still, if his personal portrait is without ideal beauty, it is by no
means without a certain brightness, or at least a certain richness of
coloring. Huge literary ogre as he was, he was morally nothing of a
monster. His heart was capacious, and his affections vigorous; he was
powerful, coarse, and kind.
The first letter in the series is addressed to his elder sister, Laure,
who afterward became Mme. de Surville, and who, after her illustrious
brother's death, published in a small volume some agreeable
reminiscences of him. For this lady he had, especially in his early
years, a passionate affection. He had in 1819 come up to Paris from
Touraine, in which province his family lived, to seek his fortune as a
man of letters. The episode is a strange and gloomy one. His vocation
for literature had not been favorably viewed at home, where money was
scanty; but the parental consent, or rather the parental tolerance, was
at last obtained for his experiment. The future author of the "Pere
Goriot" was at this time but twenty years of age, and in the way of
symptoms of genius had nothing but a very robust self-confidence to
show. His family, who had to contribute to his support while his
masterpieces were a-making, appear to have regretted, the absence of
further guarantees. He came to Paris, however, and lodged in a garret,
where the allowance made him by his father kept him neither from
shivering nor from nearly starving. The situation had been arranged in a
way very characteristic of French manners. The fact that Honore had gone
to Paris was kept a secret from the friends of the family, who were told
that he was on a visit to a cousin in the South. He was on probation,
and if he failed to acquire literary renown, his excursion should be
hushed up. This pious fraud did not contribute to the comfort of the
young scribbler, who was afraid to venture abroad by day lest he should
be seen by an acquaintance of the family. Balzac must have been at this
time miserably poor. If he goes to the theatre, he has to pay for the
pleasure by fasting. He wishes to see Talma (having to go to the play,
to keep up the fiction of his being in the South, in a latticed box). "I
shall end by giving in.... My stomach already trembles." Meanwhile he
was planning a tragedy of "Cromwell," which came to nothing, and writing
the "Heritiere de Birague," his first novel, which he sold for one
hundred and sixty dollars. Through these early letters, in spite of his
chilly circumstances, there flows a current of youthful ardor, gayety,
and assurance. Some passages in his letters to his sister are a sort of
explosion of animal spirits:
Ah, my sister, what torments it gives us--the love of glory!
Long live grocers! they sell all day, count their gains in the
evening, take their pleasure from time to time at some
frightful melodrama--and behold them happy! Yes, but they pass
their time between cheese and soap. Long live rather men of
letters! Yes, but these are all beggars in pocket, and rich
only in conceit. Well, let us leave them all alone, and long
live every one!
Elsewhere he scribbles: "Farewell, _soror_! I hope to have a letter
_sororis_ to answer _sorori_, then to see _sororem_," etc. Later, after
his sister is married, he addresses her as "_the box that contains
everything pleasing; the elixir of virtue, grace, and beauty; the jewel,
the phenomenon of Normandy; the pearl of Bayeux, the fairy of St.
Lawrence, the virgin of the Rue Teinture, the guardian angel of Caen,
the goddess of enchantments, the treasure of friendship_."
We shall continue to quote, without the fear of our examples exceeding,
in the long run, our commentary. "Find me some widow, a rich heiress,"
he writes to his sister at Bayeux, whither her husband had taken her to
live. "You know what I mean. Only brag about me. Twenty-two years old, a
good fellow, good manners, a bright eye, fire, the best dough for a
husband that heaven has ever kneaded. I will give you five per cent. on
the dowry." "Since yesterday," he writes in another letter, "I have
given up dowagers and have come down to widows of thirty. Send all you
find to Lord Rhoone [this remarkable improvisation was one of his early
_noms de plume_]; that's enough--he is known at the city limits. Take
notice. They are to be sent prepaid, without crack or repair, and they
are to be rich and amiable. Beauty isn't required. The varnish goes, and
the bottom of the pot remains!"
Like many other young men of ability, Balzac felt the little rubs--or
the great ones--of family life. His mother figures largely in these
volumes (she survived her glorious son), and from the scattered
reflection of her idiosyncrasies the attentive reader constructs a
sufficiently vivid portrait. She was the old middle-class Frenchwoman
whom he has so often seen--devoted, active, meddlesome, parsimonious,
exacting veneration, and expending zeal. Honore tells his sister:
The other day, coming back from Paris much bothered, it never
occurred to me to thank _maman_ for a black coat which she had
had made for me; at my age one isn't particularly sensitive to
such a present. Nevertheless, it would not have cost me much to
seem touched by the attention, especially as it was a
sacrifice. But I forgot it. _Maman_ began to pout, and you know
what her aspect and her face amount to at those moments. I fell
from the clouds, and racked my brain to know what I had done.
Happily Laurence [his younger sister] came and notified me,
and two or three words as fine as amber mended _maman's_
countenance. The thing is nothing--a mere drop of water; but
it's to give you an example of our manners. Ah, we are a jolly
set of originals in our holy family. What a pity I can't put us
into novels!
His father wished to find him an opening in some profession, and the
thought of being made a notary was a bugbear to the young man: "Think of
me as dead, if they cap me with that extinguisher." And yet, in the next
sentence, he breaks out into a cry of desolate disgust at the aridity of
his actual circumstances: "They call this mechanical rotation
living--this perpetual return of the same things. If there were only
something to throw some charm or other over my cold existence. I have
none of the flowers of life, and yet I am in the season in which they
bloom. What will be the use of fortune and pleasures when my youth has
departed? What need of the garments of an actor if one no longer plays a
part? An old man is a man who has dined, and who watches others eat; and
I, young as I am--my plate is empty, and I am hungry. Laure, Laure, my
two only and immense desires, _to be famous and to be loved_--will they
ever be satisfied?"
These occasional bursts of confidence in his early letters to his sister
are (with the exception of certain excellent pages, addressed in the
last years of his life to the lady he eventually married) Balzac's most
delicate, most emotional utterances. There is a touch of the ideal in
them. Later, one wonders where he keeps his ideal. He has one of course,
artistically, but it never peeps out. He gives up talking sentiment, and
he never discusses "subjects"; he only talks business. Meanwhile,
however, at this period, business was increasing with him. He agrees to
write three novels for eight hundred and twenty dollars. Here begins the
inextricable mystery of Balzac's literary promises, pledges, projects,
and contracts. His letters form a swarming register of schemes and
bargains through which he passes like a hero of the circus, riding half
a dozen piebald coursers at once. We confess that in this matter we have
been able to keep no sort of account; the wonder is that Balzac should
have accomplished the feat himself. After the first year or two of his
career, we never see him working upon a single tale; his productions
dovetail and overlap, and dance attendance upon each other in the most
bewildering fashion. As soon as one novel is fairly on the stocks he
plunges into another, and while he is rummaging in this with one hand,
he stretches out a heroic arm and breaks ground in a third. His plans
are always vastly in advance of his performance; his pages swarm with
titles of books that were never to be written. The title circulates with
such an assurance that we are amazed to find, fifty pages later, that
there is no more of it than of the cherubic heads. With this, Balzac was
constantly paid in advance by his publishers--paid for works not begun,
or barely begun; and the money was as constantly spent before the
equivalent had been delivered. Meanwhile more money was needed, and new
novels were laid out to obtain it; but prior promises had first to be
kept. Keeping them, under these circumstances, was not an exhilarating
process; and readers familiar with Balzac will reflect with wonder that
these were yet the circumstances in which some of his best tales were
written. They were written, as it were, in the fading light, by a man
who saw night coming on, and yet couldn't afford to buy candles. He
could only hurry. But Balzac's way of hurrying was all his own; it was a
sternly methodical haste, and might have been mistaken, in a more
lightly-weighted genius, for elaborate trifling. The close tissue of his
work never relaxed; he went on doggedly and insistently, pressing it
down and packing it together, multiplying erasures, alterations,
repetitions, transforming proof-sheets, quarrelling with editors,
enclosing subject within subject, accumulating notes upon notes.
The letters make a jump from 1822 to 1827, during which interval he had
established, with borrowed capital, a printing house, and seen his
enterprise completely fail. This failure saddled him with a mountain of
debt which pressed upon him crushingly for years, and of which he rid
himself only toward the close of his life. Balzac's debts are another
labyrinth in which we do not profess to hold a clue. There is scarcely a
page of these volumes in which they are not alluded to, but the reader
never quite understands why they should bloom so perennially. The
liabilities incurred by the collapse of the printing scheme can hardly
have been so vast as not to have been for the most part cancelled by ten
years of heroic work. Balzac appears not to have been extravagant; he
had neither wife nor children (unlike many of his comrades, he had no
illegitimate offspring), and when he admits us to a glimpse of his
domestic economy, we usually find it to be of a very meagre pattern. He
writes to his sister in 1827 that he has not the means either to pay the
postage of letters or to use omnibuses, and that he goes out as little
as possible, so as not to wear out his clothes. In 1829, however, we
find him in correspondence with a duchess, Mme. d'Abrantes, the widow of
Junot, Napoleon's rough marshal, and author of those voluminous memoirs
upon the imperial court which it was the fashion to read in the early
part of the century. The Duchess d'Abrantes wrote bad novels, like
Balzac himself at this period, and the two became good friends.
The year 1830 was the turning point in Balzac's career. Renown, to which
he had begun to lay siege in Paris in 1820, now at last began to show
symptoms of self-surrender. Yet one of the strongest expressions of
discontent and despair in the pages before us belongs to this brighter
moment. It is also one of the finest passages:
Sacredieu, my good friend, I believe that literature, in the
day we live in, is no better than the trade of a woman of the
town, who prostitutes herself for a dollar. It leads to
nothing. I have an itch to go off and wander and explore, make
of my life a drama, risk my life; for, as for a few miserable
years more or less!... Oh, when one looks at these great skies
of a beautiful night, one is ready to unbutton----
But the modesty of the English tongue forbids us to translate the rest
of the phrase. Dean Swift might have related how Balzac wished to
express his contempt for all the royalties of the earth. Now that he is
in the country, he goes on:
I have been seeing real splendors, such as fine, sound fruit
and gilded insects; I have been quite turning philosopher, and
if I happen to tread upon an anthill, I say, like that immortal
Bonaparte, "These creatures are men: what is it to Saturn, or
Venus, or the North Star?" And then my philosopher comes down
to scribble "items" for a newspaper. _Proh pudor!_ And so it
seems to me that the ocean, a brig, and an English vessel to
sink, if you must sink yourself to do it, are rather better
than a writing-desk, a pen, and the Rue St. Denis.
But Balzac was fastened to the writing desk. In 1831 he tells one of his
correspondents that he is working fifteen or sixteen hours a day. Later,
in 1837, he describes himself repeatedly as working eighteen hours out
of the twenty-four. In the midst of all this (it seems singular), he
found time for visions of public life, of political distinction. In a
letter written in 1830 he gives a succinct statement of his political
views, from which we learn that he approved of the French monarchy
having a constitution, and of instruction being diffused among the lower
orders. But he desired that the people should be kept "under the most
powerful yoke possible," so that in spite of their instruction they
should not become disorderly. It is fortunate, probably, both for Balzac
and for France, that his political role was limited to the production of
a certain number of forgotten editorials in newspapers; but we may be
sure that his dreams of statesmanship were brilliant and audacious.
Balzac indulged in no dreams that were not.
Some of his best letters are addressed to Mme. Zulma Carraud, a lady
whose acquaintance he had made through his sister Laure, of whom she
was an intimate friend, and whose friendship (exerted almost wholly
through letters, as she always lived in the country) appears to have
been one of the brightest and most salutary influences of his life. He
writes to her in 1832:
There are vocations which we must obey, and something
irresistible draws me on to glory and power. It is not a happy
life. There is within me the worship of woman (_le culte de la
femme_), and a need of love which has never been fully
satisfied. Despairing of ever being loved and understood by
such a woman as I have dreamed of, having met her only under
one form, that of the heart, I throw myself into the
tempestuous sphere of political passions and into the stormy
and desiccating atmosphere of literary glory. I shall fail
perhaps on both sides; but, believe me, if I have wished to
live the life of the age itself, instead of running my course
in happy obscurity, it is just because the pure happiness of
mediocrity has failed me. When one has a fortune to make, it is
better to make it great and illustrious; because, pain for
pain, it is better to suffer in a high sphere than in a low
one, and I prefer dagger blows to pin pricks.
All this, though written at thirty years of age, is rather juvenile;
there was to be much less of the "tempest" in Balzac's life than is here
foreshadowed. He was tossed and shaken a great deal, as we all are, by
the waves of the time, but he was too stoutly anchored at his work to
feel the winds.
In 1832 "Louis Lambert" followed the "Peau de Chagrin," the first in the
long list of his masterpieces. He describes "Louis Lambert" as "a work
in which I have striven to rival Goethe and Byron, Faust and Manfred. I
don't know whether I shall succeed, but the fourth volume of the
'Philosophical Tales' must be a last reply to my enemies and give the
presentiment of an incontestable superiority. You must therefore forgive
the poor artist his fatigue [he is writing to his sister], his
discouragements, and especially his momentary detachment from any sort
of interest that does not belong to his subject. 'Louis Lambert' has
cost me so much work! To write this book I have had to read so many
books! Some day or other, perhaps, it will throw science into new paths.
If I had made it a purely learned work, it would have attracted the
attention of thinkers, who now will not drop their eyes upon it. But if
chance puts it into their hands, perhaps they will speak of it!" In this
passage there is an immense deal of Balzac--of the great artist who was
so capable at times of self-deceptive charlatanism. "Louis Lambert," as
a whole, is now quite unreadable; it contains some admirable
descriptions, but the "scientific" portion is mere fantastic verbiage.
There is something extremely characteristic in the way Balzac speaks of
its having been optional with him to make it a "purely learned" work.
His pretentiousness was simply colossal, and there is nothing surprising
in his wearing the mask even _en famille_ (the letter we have just
quoted from is, as we have said, to his sister); he wore it during his
solitary fifteen-hours sessions in his study. But the same letter
contains another passage, of a very different sort, which is in its way
as characteristic:
Yes, you are right. My progress is real, and my infernal
courage will be rewarded. Persuade my mother of this too, dear
sister; tell her to give me her patience in charity; her
devotion will be laid up in her favor. One day, I hope, a
little glory will pay her for everything. Poor mother, that
imagination of hers which she has given me throws her for ever
from north to south and from south to north. Such journeys tire
us; I know it myself! Tell my mother that I love her as when I
was a child. As I write you these lines my tears start--tears
of tenderness and despair; for I feel the future, and I need
this devoted mother on the day of triumph! When shall I reach
it? Take good care of our mother, Laure, for the present and
the future.... Some day, when my works are unfolded, you will
see that it must have taken many hours to think and write so
many things; and then you will absolve me of everything that
has displeased you, and you will excuse, not the selfishness of
the man (the man has none), but the selfishness of the worker.
Nothing can be more touching than that; Balzac's natural affections were
as robust as his genius and his physical nature. The impression of the
reader of his letters quite confirms his assurance that the man proper
had no selfishness. Only we are constantly reminded that the man had
almost wholly resolved himself into the worker, and we remember a
statement of Sainte-Beuve's, in one of his malignant foot-notes, to the
effect that Balzac was "the grossest, greediest example of literary
vanity that he had ever known"--_l'amour-propre litteraire le plus avide
et le plus grossier que j'aie connu_. When we think of what Sainte-Beuve
must have known in this line, these few words acquire a portentous
weight.
By this time (1832) Balzac was, in French phrase, thoroughly _lance_. He
was doing, among other things, some of his most brilliant work, certain
of the "Contes Drolatiques." These were written, as he tells his mother,
for relaxation, as a rest from harder labor. One would have said that no
work would have been much harder than compounding the marvellously
successful imitation of mediaeval French in which these tales are
written. He had, however, other diversions as well. In the autumn of
1832 he was at Aix-les-Bains with the Duchess of Castries, a great lady,
and one of his kindest friends. He has been accused of drawing portraits
of great ladies without knowledge of originals; but Mme. de Castries was
an inexhaustible fund of instruction upon this subject. Three or four
years later, speaking of the story of the "Duchesse de Laugeais" to one
of his correspondents, another _femme du monde_, he tells her that as a
_femme du monde_ she is not to pretend to find flaws in the picture, a
high authority having read the proofs for the express purpose of
removing them. The authority is evidently the Duchess of Castries.
Balzac writes to Mme. Carraud from Aix: "At Lyons I corrected 'Lambert'
again. I licked my cub, like a she bear.... On the whole, I am
satisfied; it is a work of profound melancholy and of science. Truly, I
deserve to have a mistress, and my sorrow at not having one increases
daily; for love is my life and my essence.... I have a simple little
room," he goes on, "from which I see the whole valley. I rise pitilessly
at five o'clock in the morning, and work before my window until
half-past five in the evening. My breakfast comes from the club--an egg.
Mme. de Castries has good coffee made for me. At six o'clock we dine
together, and I pass the evening with her. She is the finest type (_le
type le plus fin_) of woman; Mme. de Beauseant [from "Le Pere Goriot"]
improved; only, are not all these pretty manners acquired at the expense
of the soul?"
During his stay at Aix he met an excellent opportunity to go to Italy;
the Duke de Fitz-James, who was travelling southward, invited him to
become a member of his party. He discourses the economical problem (in
writing to his mother) with his usual intensity, and throws what will
seem to the modern traveller the light of enchantment upon that golden
age of cheapness. Occupying the fourth place in the carriage of the
Duchess of Castries, his quarter of the total travelling expenses from
Geneva to Rome (carriage, beds, food, etc.) was to be fifty dollars! But
he was ultimately prevented from joining the party. He went to Italy
some years later.
He mentions, in 1833, that the chapter entitled "Juana," in the superb
tale of "The Maranas," as also the story of "La Grenadiere," was written
in a single night. He gives at the same period this account of his
habits of work: "I must tell you that I am up to my neck in excessive
work. My life is mechanically arranged. I go to bed at six or seven in
the evening, with the chickens; I wake up at one in the morning and work
till eight; then I take something light, a cup of pure coffee, and get
into the shafts of my cab until four; I receive, I take a bath, or I go
out, and after dinner I go to bed. I must lead this life for some months
longer, in order not to be overwhelmed by my obligations. The profit
comes slowly; my debts are inexorable and fixed. Now, it is certain that
I will make a great fortune; but I must wait for it, and work for three
years. I must go over things, correct them again, put everything _en
etat monumental_; thankless work, not counted, without immediate
profit." He speaks of working at this amazing rate for three years
longer; in reality he worked for fifteen. But two years after the
declaration we have just quoted, it seemed to him that he should break
down: "My poor sister, I am draining the cup to the dregs. It is in vain
that I work my fourteen hours a day; I can't do enough. While I write
this to you I find myself so weary that I have just sent Auguste to take
back my word from certain engagements that I had formed. I am so weak
that I have advanced my dinner hour in order to go to bed earlier; and I
go nowhere." The next year he writes to his mother, who had apparently
complained of his silence: "My good mother, do me the charity to let me
carry my burden without suspecting my heart. A letter for me, you see,
is not only money, but an hour of sleep and a drop of blood."
We spoke just now of Balzac's sentimental consolations; but it appears
that at times he was more acutely conscious of what he missed than of
what he enjoyed. "As for the soul," he writes to Mme. Carraud in 1833,
"I am profoundly sad. My work alone sustains me in life. Is there then
to be no woman for me in this world? My physical melancholy and _ennui_
last longer and grow more frequent. To fall from this crushing labor to
nothing--not to have near me that soft, caressing mind of woman, for
whom I have done so much!" He had, however, a devoted feminine friend,
to whom none of the letters in these volumes are addressed, but who is
several times alluded to. This lady, Mme. de Berny, died in 1836, and
Balzac speaks of her ever afterward with extraordinary tenderness and
veneration. But if there had been a passion between them, it was only a
passionate friendship. "Ah, my dear mother," he writes on New Year's
day, 1836, "I am harrowed with grief. Mme. de Berny is dying; it is
impossible to doubt it. No one but God and myself knows what my despair
is. And I must work--work while I weep!" He writes of Mme. de Berny at
the time of her death as follows. The letter is addressed to a lady with
whom he was in correspondence more or less sentimental, but whom he
never saw: "The person whom I have lost was more than a mother, more
than a friend, more than any creature can be for another. The term
_divinity_ only can explain her. She had sustained me by word, by act,
by devotion, during my worst weather. If I live, it is by her; she was
everything for me. Although for two years illness and time had separated
us, we were visible at a distance for each other. She reacted upon me;
she was a moral sun. Mme. de Mortsauf, in the 'Lys dans la Vallee,' is a
pale expression of this person's slightest qualities." Three years
afterward he writes to his sister: "I am alone against all my troubles,
and formerly, to help me to resist them, I had with me the sweetest and
bravest person in the world; a woman who every day is born again in my
heart, and whose divine qualities make the friendships that are compared
with hers seem pale. I have now no adviser in my literary difficulties;
I have no guide but the fatal thought, 'What would she say if she were
living?'" And he goes on to enumerate some of his actual and potential
friends. He tells his sister that she herself might have been for him a
close intellectual comrade if her duties of wife and mother had not
given her too many other things to think about. The same is true of Mme.
Carraud: "Never has a more extraordinary mind been more smothered; she
will die in her corner unknown! George Sand," he continues, "would
speedily be my friend; she has no pettiness whatever in her soul--none
of the low jealousies which obscure so many contemporary talents. Dumas
resembles her in this; but she has not the critical sense. Mme. Hanska
is all this; but I cannot weigh upon her destiny." Mme. Hanska was the
Polish lady whom he ultimately married, and of whom we shall speak.
Meanwhile, for a couple of years (1836 and 1837), he carried on an
exchange of opinions, of the order that the French call _intimes_, with
the unseen correspondent to whom we have alluded, and who figures in
these volumes as "Louise." The letters, however, are not love letters;
Balzac, indeed, seems chiefly occupied in calming the ardor of the lady,
who was evidently a woman of social distinction. "Don't have any
friendship for me," he writes; "I need too much. Like all people who
struggle, suffer, and work, I am exacting, mistrustful, wilful,
capricious.... If I had been a woman, I should have loved nothing so
much as some soul buried like a well in the desert--discovered only when
you place yourself directly under the star which indicates it to the
thirsty Arab."
His first letter to Mme. Hanska here given bears the date of 1835; but
we are informed in a note that he had at that moment been for some time
in correspondence with her. The correspondence had begun, if we are not
mistaken, on Mme. Hanska's side, before they met; she had written to him
as a literary admirer. She was a Polish lady of great fortune, with an
invalid husband. After her husband's death, projects of marriage defined
themselves more vividly, but practical considerations kept them for a
long time in the background. Balzac had first to pay off his debts, and
Mme. Hanska, as a Polish subject of the Czar Nicholas, was not in a
position to marry from one day to another. The growth of their intimacy
is, however, amply reflected in these volumes, and the denouement
presents itself with a certain dramatic force. Balzac's letters to his
future wife, as to every one else, deal almost exclusively with his
financial situation. He discusses the details of this matter with all
his correspondents, who apparently have--or are expected to have--his
monetary entanglements at their fingers' ends. It is a constant
enumeration of novels and tales begun or delivered, revised or bargained
for. The tone is always profoundly sombre and bitter. The reader's
general impression is that of lugubrious egotism. It is the rarest thing
in the world that there is an allusion to anything but Balzac's own
affairs, and to the most sordid details of his own affairs. Hardly an
echo of the life of his time, of the world he lived in, finds its way
into his letters; there are no anecdotes, no impressions, no opinions,
no descriptions, no allusions to things heard, people seen, emotions
felt--other emotions, at least, than those of the exhausted or the
exultant worker. The reason of all this is of course very obvious. A man
could not be such a worker as Balzac and be much else besides. The note
of animal spirits which we observed in his early letters is sounded much
less frequently as time goes on; although the extraordinary robustness
and exuberance of his temperament plays richly into his books. The
"Contes Drolatiques" are full of it, and his conversation was also full
of it. But the letters constantly show us a man with the edge of his
spontaneity gone--a man groaning and sighing, as from Promethean lungs,
complaining of his tasks, denouncing his enemies, and in complete ill
humor generally with life. Of any expression of enjoyment of the world,
of the beauties of nature, art, literature, history, human character,
these pages are singularly destitute. And yet we know that such
enjoyment--instinctive, unreasoning, essential--is half the inspiration
of the poet. The truth is that Balzac was as little as possible of a
poet; he often speaks of himself as one, but he deserved the name as
little as his own Canalis or his own Rubempre. He was neither a poet nor
a moralist, though the latter title in France is often bestowed upon
him--a fact which strikingly helps to illustrate the Gallic lightness of
soil in the moral region. Balzac was the hardest and deepest of
_prosateurs_; the earth-scented facts of life, which the poet puts under
his feet, he had put above his head. Obviously there went on within him
a vast and constant intellectual unfolding. His mind must have had a
history of its own--a history of which it would be most interesting to
have an occasional glimpse. But the history is not related here, even in
glimpses. His books are full of ideas; his letters have almost none. It
is probably not unfair to argue from this fact that there were few ideas
that he greatly cared for. Making all allowance for the pressure and
tyranny of circumstances, we may believe that if he had greatly cared to
_se recueillir_, as the French say--greatly cared, in the Miltonic
phrase, "to interpose a little ease"--he would sometimes have found an
opportunity for it. Perpetual work, when it is joyous and salubrious, is
a very fine thing; but perpetual work, when it is executed with the
temper which more than half the time appears to have been Balzac's, has
in it something almost debasing. We constantly feel that his work would
have been vastly better if the Muse of "business" had been elbowed away
by her larger-browed sister. Balzac himself, doubtless, often felt in
the same way; but, on the whole, "business" was what he most cared for.
The "Comedie Humaine" represents an immense amount of joy, of
spontaneity, of irrepressible artistic life. Here and there in the
letters this occasionally breaks out in accents of mingled exultation
and despair. "Never," he writes in 1836, "has the torrent which bears me
along been more rapid; never has a work more majestically terrible
imposed itself upon the human brain. I go to my work as the gamester to
the gaming-table; I am sleeping now only five hours and working
eighteen; I shall arrive dead.... Write to me; be generous; take nothing
in bad part, for you don't know how, at moments, I deplore this life of
fire. But how can I jump out of the chariot?" We had occasion in
writing of Balzac in these pages more than a year ago[2] to say that his
great characteristic, far from being a passion for ideas, was a passion
for _things_. We said just now that his books are full of ideas; but we
must add that his letters make us feel that these ideas are themselves
in a certain sense "things." They are pigments, properties, frippery;
they are always concrete and available. Balzac cared for them only if
they would fit into his inkstand.
He never "jumped out of his car"; but as the years went on he was able
at times to let the reins hang more loosely. There is no evidence that
he made the great fortune he had looked forward to; but he must have
made a great deal of money. In the beginning his work was very poorly
paid, but after his reputation was solidly established he received large
sums. It is true that they were swallowed up in great part by his
"debts"--that dusky, vaguely outlined, insatiable maw which we see
grimacing for ever behind him, like the face on a fountain which should
find itself receiving a stream instead of giving it out. But he
travelled (working all the while en route). He went to Italy, to
Germany, to Russia; he built houses, he bought pictures and pottery. One
of his journeys illustrates his singular mixture of economic and
romantic impulses. He made a breathless pilgrimage to the island of
Sardinia to examine the scoriae of certain silver mines, anciently worked
by the Romans, in which he had heard that the metal was still to be
found. The enterprise was fantastic and impracticable; but he pushed his
excursion through night and day, as he had written the "Pere Goriot." In
his relative prosperity, when once it was established, there are strange
lapses and stumbling-places. After he had built and was living in his
somewhat fantastical villa of Les Jardies at Sevres, close to Paris, he
invites a friend to stay with him on these terms: "I can take you to
board at forty sous a day, and for thirty-five francs you will have
fire-wood enough for a month." In his joke he is apt to betray the same
preoccupation. Inviting Charles de Bernard and his wife to come to Les
Jardies to help him arrange his books, he adds that they will have fifty
sous a day and their wine. He is constantly talking of his expenses, of
what he spends in cab hire and postage. His letters to the Countess
Hanska are filled with these details. "Yesterday I was running about all
day: twenty-five francs for carriages!" The man of business is never
absent. For the first representations of his plays he arranges his
audiences with an eye to effect, like an _impresario_ or an agent. In
the boxes, for "Vautrin," "I insist upon there being handsome women."
Presenting a copy of the "Comedie Humaine" to the Austrian ambassador,
he accompanies it with a letter calling attention, in the most elaborate
manner, to the typographical beauty and the cheapness of the work; the
letter reads like a prospectus or an advertisement.
In 1840 (he was forty years old) he thought seriously of marriage--with
this remark as the preface to the announcement: "_Je ne veux plus avoir
de coeur!..._ If you meet a young girl of twenty-two," he goes on,
"with a fortune of 200,000 francs, or even of 100,000, provided it can
be used in business, you will think of me. I want a woman who shall be
able to be what the events of my life may demand of her--the wife of an
ambassador, or a housewife at Les Jardies. But don't speak of this; it's
a secret. She must be an ambitious, clever girl." This project, however,
was not carried out; Balzac had no time to marry. But his friendship
with Mme. Hanska became more and more absorbing, and though their
project of marriage, which was executed in 1850, was kept a profound
secret until after the ceremony, it is apparent that they had had it a
long time in their thoughts.
For this lady Balzac's esteem and admiration seem to have been
unbounded; and his letters to her, which in the second volume are very
numerous, contain many noble and delicate passages. "You know too well,"
he says to her somewhere, with a happy choice of words belonging to the
writer, whose diction was here and there as felicitous as it was
generally intolerable--"_Vous savez trop bien que tout ce qui n'est pas
vous n'est que surface, sottise et vains palliatifs de l'absence._" "You
must be proud of your children," he writes to his sister from Poland;
"such daughters are the recompense of your life. You must not be unjust
to destiny; you may now accept many misfortunes. It is like myself with
Mme. Hanska. The gift of her affection explains all my troubles, my
weariness, and my toil; I was paying to evil, in advance, the price of
such a treasure. As Napoleon said, we pay for everything here below;
nothing is stolen. It seems to me that I have paid very little.
Twenty-five years of toil and struggle are nothing as the purchase money
of an attachment so splendid, so radiant, so complete."
Mme. Hanska appears to have come rarely to Paris, and when she came to
have shrouded her visits in mystery; but Balzac arranged several
meetings with her abroad, and visited her at St. Petersburg and on her
Polish estates. He was devotedly fond of her children, and the tranquil,
opulent family life to which she introduced him appears to have been one
of the greatest pleasures he had known. In several passages which, for
Balzac, may be called graceful and playful, he expresses his
homesickness for her chairs and tables, her books, the sight of her
dresses. Here is something, in one of his letters to her, which is worth
quoting: "In short, this is the game that I play; four men will have
had, in this century, an immense influence--Napoleon, Cuvier, O'Connell.
I should like to be the fourth. The first lived on the blood of Europe;
_il s'est inocule des armees_; the second espoused the globe; the third
became the incarnation of a people; I--I shall have carried a whole
society in my head. But there will have been in me a much greater and
much happier being than the writer--and that is your slave. My feeling
is finer, grander, more complete, than all the satisfactions of vanity
or of glory. Without this plenitude of the heart I should never have
accomplished the tenth part of my work; I should not have had this
ferocious courage." During a few days spent at Berlin, on his way back
from St. Petersburg, he gives his impressions of the "capital of
Brandenburg" in a tone which almost seems to denote a prevision of the
style of allusion to this locality and its inhabitants which was to
become fashionable among his countrymen thirty years later. Balzac
detested Prussia and the Prussians.
It is owing to this charlatanism [the spacious distribution of
the streets, etc.] that Berlin has a more populous look than
Petersburg; I would have said "more animated" look if I had
been speaking of another people; but the Prussian, with his
brutal heaviness, will never be able to do anything but crush.
To produce the movement of a great European capital you must
have less beer and bad tobacco, and more of the French or
Italian spirit; or else you must have the great industrial and
commercial ideas which have produced the gigantic development
of London; but Berlin and its inhabitants will never be
anything but an ugly little city, inhabited by an ugly big
people.
"I have seen Tieck _en famille_," he says in another letter. "He seemed
pleased with my homage. He had an old countess, his contemporary in
spectacles, almost an octogenarian--a mummy with a green eye-shade, whom
I supposed to be a domestic divinity.... I am at home again; it is
half-past six in the evening, and I have eaten nothing since this
morning. Berlin is the city of _ennui_; I should die here in a week.
Poor Humboldt is dying of it; he drags with him everywhere his nostalgia
for Paris."
Balzac passed the winter of 1848-'49 and several months more at
Vierzschovnia, the Polish estate of Mme. Hanska and her children. His
health had been gravely impaired, and the doctors had absolutely
forbidden him to work. His inexhaustible and indefatigable brain had at
last succumbed to fatigue. But the prize was gained; his debts were
paid; he was looking forward to owning at last the money that he should
make. He could afford--relatively speaking at least--to rest. His fame
had been solidly built up; the public recognized his greatness. Already,
in 1846, he had written: "You will learn with pleasure, I am sure, that
there is an immense reaction in my favor. At last I have conquered! Once
more my protecting star has watched over me.... At this moment the
public and the papers turn toward me favorably; more than that, there is
a sort of acclamation, a general consecration.... It is a great year for
me, dear Countess."
To be ill and kept from work was, for Balzac, to be a chained
Prometheus; but there was much during these last months to alleviate his
impatience. His letters at this period are easier, less painfully
preoccupied than at any other; and he found in Poland better medical
advice than he deemed obtainable in Paris. He was preparing a house in
Paris to receive him as a married man--preparing it apparently with
great splendor. At Les Jardies the pictures and divans and tapestries
had mostly been nominal--had been present only in grand names, chalked
grotesquely upon the empty walls. But during the last years of his life
Balzac appears to have been a great collector. He bought many pictures
and other objects of value; in particular, there figures in these
letters a certain set of Florentine furniture which he was willing to
sell again, but to sell only to a royal purchaser. The King of Holland
appears to have been in treaty for it. Readers of the "Comedie Humaine"
have no need to be reminded of the author's passion for furniture;
nowhere else are there such loving or such invidious descriptions of it.
"Decidedly," he writes once to Mme. Hanska, "I will send to Tours for
the Louis XVI. secretary and bureau; the room will then be complete.
It's a matter of a thousand francs; but for a thousand francs what can
one get in modern furniture? _Des platitudes bourgeoises, des miseres
sans valeur et sans gout._"
Old Mme. de Balzac was her son's factotum and universal agent. His
letters from Vierzschovnia are filled with prescriptions of activity for
his mother, accompanied always with the urgent reminder that she is to
use cabs _ad libitum_. He goes into the minutest details (she was
overlooking the preparation of his house in the Rue Fortunee, which must
have been converted into a very picturesque residence): "The carpet in
the dining-room must certainly be readjusted. Try and make M. Henry send
his carpet-layer. I owe that man a good _pour-boire_; he laid all the
carpets, and I once was rough with him. You must tell him that in
September he can come and get his present. I want particularly to give
it to him myself."
His mother occasionally annoyed him by unreasonable exactions and
untimely interferences. There is an episode of a letter which she writes
to him at Vierzschovnia, and which, coming to Mme. Hanska's knowledge,
endangers his prospect of marriage. He complains bitterly to his sister
that his mother _cannot_ get it out of her head that he is still fifteen
years old. But there is something very touching in his constant
tenderness toward her--as well as something very characteristically
French--very characteristic of the French sentiment of family
consistency and solidarity--in the way in which, by constantly counting
upon her practical aptitude and zeal, he makes her a fellow worker
toward the great total of his fame and fortune. At fifty years of age,
at the climax of his distinction, announcing to her his brilliant
marriage, he signs himself _Ton fils soumis_. To his old friend Mme.
Carraud he speaks thus of this same event: "The denouement of that
great and beautiful drama of the heart which has lasted these sixteen
years.... Three days ago I married the only woman I have loved, whom I
loved more than ever, and whom I shall love until death. I believe that
this union is the recompense that God has held in reserve for me through
so many adversities, years of work, difficulties suffered and
surmounted. I had neither a happy youth nor a flowering spring; I shall
have the most brilliant summer, the sweetest of all autumns." It had
been, as Balzac says, a drama of the heart, and the denouement was of
the heart alone. Mme. Hanska, on her marriage, made over her large
fortune to her daughter.
Balzac had at last found rest and happiness, but his enjoyment of these
blessings was brief. The energy that he had expended to gain them left
nothing behind it. His terrible industry had blasted the soil it passed
over; he had sacrificed to his work the very things he worked for. One
cannot do what Balzac did and live. He was enfeebled, exhausted, broken.
He died in Paris three months after his marriage. The reader feels that
premature death is the logical, the harmonious completion of such a
career. The strongest man has but a certain fixed quantity of life to
expend, and we may expect that if he works habitually fifteen hours a
day, he will spend it while, arithmetically speaking, he is yet young.
We have been struck in reading these letters with the strong analogy
between Balzac's career and that of the great English writer whose
history was some time since so expansively written by Mr. Forster.
Dickens and Balzac take much in common; as individuals they strongly
resemble each other; their differences are chiefly differences of race.
Each was a man of affairs, an active, practical man, with a temperament
of almost phenomenal vigor and a prodigious quantity of life to expend.
Each had a character and a will--what is nowadays called a
personality--which imposed themselves irresistibly; each had a
boundless self-confidence and a magnificent egotism. Each had always a
hundred irons on the fire; each was resolutely determined to make money,
and made it in large quantities. In intensity of imaginative power, the
power of evoking visible objects and figures, seeing them themselves
with the force of hallucination, and making others see them all but just
as vividly, they were almost equal. Here there is little to choose
between them; they have had no rivals but each other and Shakespeare.
But they most of all resemble each other in the fact that they treated
their extraordinary imaginative force as a matter of business; that they
worked it as a gold mine, violently and brutally; overworked and ravaged
it. They succumbed to the task that they had laid upon themselves, and
they are as similar in their deaths as in their lives. Of course, if
Dickens is an English Balzac, he is a very English Balzac. His fortune
was the easier of the two, and his prizes were greater than the other's.
His brilliant opulent English prosperity, centred in a home and diffused
through a progeny, is in strong contrast with the almost scholastic
penury and obscurity of much of Balzac's career. But the analogy is
still very striking.
In speaking formerly of Balzac in these pages we insisted upon the fact
that he lacked charm; but we said that our last word upon him should be
that he had incomparable power. His letters only confirm these
impressions, and above all they deepen our sense of his strength. They
contain little that is delicate, and not a great deal that is positively
agreeable; but they express an energy before which we stand lost in
wonder, in an admiration that almost amounts to awe. The fact that his
devouring observation of the great human spectacle has no echo in his
letters only makes us feel how concentrated and how intense was the
labor that went on in his closet. Certainly no solider intellectual work
has ever been achieved by man. And in spite of the massive egotism, the
personal absoluteness, to which these pages testify, they leave us with
a downright kindness for the author. He was coarse, but he was tender;
he was corrupt in a way, but he was hugely natural. If he was
ungracefully eager and voracious, awkwardly blind to all things that did
not contribute to his personal plan, at least his egotism was exerted in
a great cause. The "Comedie Humaine" has a thousand faults, but it is a
monumental excuse.
HENRY JAMES, JR.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Paris: Calmann Levy. 1876.
[2] December, 1875.
LOVE'S REQUIEM.
I.
Bring withered autumn leaves!
Call everything that grieves,
And build a funeral pyre above his head!
Heap there all golden promise that deceives,
Beauty that wins the heart and then bereaves--
For love is dead.
II.
Not slowly did he die!
A meteor from the sky
Falls not so swiftly as his spirit fled;
When with regretful, half-averted eye
He gave one little smile, one little sigh--
And so was sped.
III.
But, oh, not yet, not yet
Can my lost soul forget
How beautiful he was while he did live;
Or, when his eyes were dewy and lips wet,
What kisses, tenderer than all regret,
My love would give!
IV.
Strew roses on his breast!
He loved the roses best;
He never cared for lilies or for snow.
Let be this bitter end of his sweet quest!
Let be the pallid silence that is rest--
And let all go!
WILLIAM WINTER.
STORY OF A LION.
When Smith's Circus and Menagerie Combination Company went to Utica
James Rounders was a lusty fellow of twenty, of some natural sagacity,
and no school education. An interest in wild beasts had been developing
in him for several years, and the odor of sawdust had become grateful to
his nostrils. It was, however, only one kind of wild beast with which he
was especially occupied. The quadruped of the noble aspect, stately
gait, and tremendous roar--the lion--was the animal of Rounders's
predilection and the object of his study.
He had gotten together some leading facts--so far as the stories of
lion-killers may be regarded as such--concerning his favorite animal. He
had heard how a lion had galloped off from the suburbs of the Cape of
Good Hope with a two years' old heifer in his mouth, and jumped over a
hedge twelve feet high, taking his burden over with him. In the same
region of southern Africa another lion was seen bearing off a horse at a
canter, the neck in his mouth and the body slung behind across his back.
According to one who hunted the animal in the interior of Africa, a lion
one day sprang on an ox, his hind feet on the quarters, his fore feet
about the horns, and drew the head backward with such force as to break
the back of the animal. On another occasion the same hunter saw a lion
who took a heifer in his mouth, and though its legs trailed on the
ground, he carried it off as a cat would a rat, and jumped across a wide
ditch without difficulty. These accounts of the lion's strength were
articles of faith with James Rounders. He had been told that the royal
Bengal tiger of Asia was the equal in strength, if not the superior, of
the African lion, he having been known to smash the head of a bullock by
a single blow of his paw; but this Rounders did not believe.
He read with some difficulty, moving his lips as he did so, in order to
get the matter clearly before his mind. He regarded it as a laborious
task, and would sooner have chopped a cord of wood than read for half an
hour. Notwithstanding the irksomeness of reading, there were two books
which led him conscientiously through their pages to the end--those of
Gordon Cumming and Jules Gerard on the hunting and killing of lions. The
two volumes comprised his library, and furnished his mind with all the
literary nutriment which it required.
Rounders went to the opening performance of Smith's Circus and Menagerie
Combination Company. The ground leading up to the front of the canvas
was garnished in the usual way. There were two small parasitic tents
near the great one, on which primitive pictures hung of the woman of
enormous girth and the calf with six legs. A man stood at the flap
entrance of each, inviting people to enter and see these wonders of
nature for a moderate sum. Near by was the lemonade wagon, whose
proprietor was handing out glasses of his fluid with a briskness that
showed that many were athirst.
When he entered the great tent the brass band was blowing blatantly,
four cavaliers in rusty spangles and four dowdy women were riding round
the ring, going through the old-time preliminary called the grand entry;
for whatever else may change, the circus remains faithful to its
traditions. The Yorick of the sawdust soon followed, and said the things
which convulsed us with laughter in our tender years, and which cause us
to smile in our maturity in the recollections they bring back. It was
the same bold joke and the same grimace. The quips and quirks force on
us the fact that there is but little originality in the human mind, and
this was substantially the reflection of Rounders as he turned an
indifferent ear to the wearisome wit. He prided himself on his acumen,
and was not to be taken in with such worn buffoonery. Yet I trow that
even Rounders envied the children who gave themselves over body and soul
to the accredited man of humor.
He looked at the woman going through the hoops, the trick pony seeking
for the hidden handkerchief, and the bareback rider turning a summerset,
with a mild interest, for he had seen them or something like them
before. The strong man who threw up the cannon balls into the air, and
allowed them to fall on his nape, to roll down the hollow of his back to
the ground, hardly aroused this indifferent spectator. What he looked
forward to with curiosity was the performance of the lion-tamer, and
when it did come it exceeded his expectations.
The master of the ring, attired in what resembled the uniform of an
officer of the navy, stepped into the middle of the arena, and with the
affectation of good breeding characteristic of the class, said, "Ladies
and gentlemen: I have the honor to announce that John Brinton, the most
extraordinary and celebrated tamer of lions in the world, will appear
before you in his remarkable performance, during which every one is
requested to keep his seat. Your attention is especially directed to the
third part of it, as one of the marvels of the nineteenth century.
"To-morrow there will be a matinee at one o'clock, and in the evening
the performance at the usual hour."
The speaker bowed and retired. The band struck up "See, the Conquering
Hero Comes," as the Brinton in question came forward with that dash
which belongs to lion-tamers everywhere. He was an athletic man between
forty and fifty, of a stern countenance, and of a self-possession that
was evident as soon as he appeared. He was arrayed in flesh-colored
tights, with embroidered sky-blue velvet around the loins. He bore in
one hand a black rod, five or six feet long, and in the other a whip.
His hair was short, and he was cleanly shaved. Men who put their heads
between lions' jaws generally are, for the titillation of a straggling
hair might produce a cough that would prove tragical. He was quick and
decided in all his movements, as the lion-tamer should be, in order to
leave the beast no time to work itself up to a decision.
The cage which he entered contained two lions. One was large, grumbling,
and fierce, who had passed a part of his life in the wilds of Africa;
the other, and smaller of the two, was an emasculated beast, born behind
the bars, and was as tractable as the animal usually is that has never
known freedom. The performance consisted of three parts. The first was
of the kind common to menageries. The tamer entered by the little door
in a corner, with the celerity which all tamers employ, and stood for a
moment in the statuesque immobility to which they are also given, in
coming before the public. Having done this, he started forward with the
black rod in his left hand, approached the animals, driving them to the
end of the cage, the end of the rod nearly touching their faces. Here
they stood under protest, growling. Then he raised his whip, struck the
smaller beast, making it run from one end of the cage to the other, and
leap over his shoulder in a way familiar to people who have visited a
menagerie. He threw it down, put his foot on its prostrate body, and
folded his arms in the character of victor. He lay down on it, pulled
open its jaws, and inserted his head therein. Then he jumped up and
dismissed it, with a cut of the whip, to one corner. During this time
the larger lion had been an indifferent and surly spectator. The tamer
approached, touching him with the rod, when he jumped forward with a
growl, half crouching. Quickly the tamer caught hold of his upper jaw
and tore it open, as great, rebellious cog-wheel growls issued from the
mighty throat. Then he spurned him with his foot, bowed to the audience,
went to the door, let himself out like a flash, the two animals making a
bound against it as he disappeared.
"A, B, C," said Rounders. "Nothing new about that."
During the interim venders went about holding up photographic portraits
of the tamer, lustily shouting his professional and private virtues.
Their voices were, however, soon drowned in the clash of the brass band,
which played a prelude to what was coming. At the conclusion of this a
lone and last voice cried out, "Ice-cold lemonade," but it was promptly
suppressed by those near the crier, as Brinton again appeared.
The second part was a short drama enacted with the larger animal, whose
name was Brutus, the smaller one being driven into an adjoining cage. In
the drama Brutus was the faithful friend of his master, the tamer, who
is attacked by his enemies--a dozen supernumeraries in rusty spangles,
who simultaneously thrust their spears through the bars from the outside
of one end of the cage; when the spears are thus thrust through the
bars, the master calls on his faithful servant Brutus to save his
master's life, and rid him of his enemies, giving the command in the
words:
"To the rescue, Brutus! Down with the miscreants!"
This was the "situation." Brutus advances at the word of command, and
with a few blows from his great paws breaks the brittle spears which the
somewhat _flasque_ enemies hold from without. At this the tamer strikes
an attitude, and shouts in a melodramatic voice:
"Saved! And by this noble animal!"
These words are accompanied with the action of putting an arm
affectionately around the neck of Brutus. This is the denouement.
He bows and retires as before, this time amid increased applause.
"Not bad," said the critical Rounders, "but nothing extra."
As Brinton disappeared the voices of the venders arose again, to be
drowned as before by the blare of the wind instruments. Silence was
restored for his next appearance. It was the third part which Rounders
desired especially to see, and a surprise was reserved for him. In it
the tamer entered the cage with a great piece of raw meat in each hand,
Brutus being still alone, standing in the middle of the cage, eagerly
looking out for his master. Brinton threw one of the pieces down in the
middle of the floor, and the beast pounced on it as only a wild beast
can, holding it between his paws as he gluttonously devoured it--not
with a lateral movement of the jaws, but cat-like--amid half stifled,
threatening growls, with menacing eyes turned from time to time toward
the tamer. What the tamer then did was the most extraordinary
performance which Rounders had ever seen, and sent thrills of admiration
down his spinal column.
Brinton calmly approached the ferocious animal feeding, and took away
from it the half finished piece of meat, and as he did so the beast
growled, but submitted! After which he waved the half consumed beef in
the air and bowed, amid great applause, in which Rounders heartily
joined. Then the tamer said:
"Brutus, you have behaved so well I shall reward you with another
piece."
Which he did, the beast seizing it and gorging himself as before. At
this point the master of the ring stepped forth again as the tamer
disappeared, and said:
"Ladies and gentlemen, when you recollect how difficult it is to take a
bone away from even a pet dog, it will give you some idea of the
marvellous performance you have just witnessed. It will be repeated
to-morrow during the day and evening."
"This is a real show," said Rounders, wound up to enthusiasm. "But how
does he do it?" This was the question which at once presented itself,
and thereafter gave him no peace. With this perplexing inquiry was
mingled a deep and abiding admiration. He was brought to a determination
to which he had been moving for two or three years. In a word, he
decided then and there to enter the vocation. He sought the man who had
sent the tingling, shivering sensation down his vertebrae, and explained
that he wanted to go with him on any terms and in any capacity.
Brinton had taken off his professional gear, and was undistinguishable
from the sombre mass of his fellow citizens. He was out on the open
space near the great tent, looking abstractedly at a man blowing with
distended cheeks into a lung-testing machine. Rounders stood before him
with the respect due to a man who snatches meat away from a ferocious
lion.
After going through his work with the beasts, Brinton was usually tired
and somewhat indifferent to the ordinary affairs of life. Other things
seemed pale after the emotions of the cage. When Rounders explained to
him what he wanted, the tamer said:
"You've got it."
"Got what?"
"The lion fever. You are lion struck. I've seen a good many like you.
Its an uphill business. Not one keeper in fifty gets the handling of the
brutes, and still the only way of going about it is to be a keeper.
Besides handling them, you must have a _specialty_--a trick, you know.
You've got to get up one yourself or worm it out of somebody else. As
for the lion man telling anybody--that is something I haven't yet met
with. You may take his life, but he won't give up his trick; it's his
pride, his pleasure, and his bread and butter."
"I want to be a keeper all the same," returned Rounders.
"Come on then," said Brinton; "for we want a keeper, as we left one at
the last town. He was a young man who had been reading in natural
history about the noble nature of the lion, and he put his hand in
between the bars to pat Brutus on the head. The surgeon examined him,
and said his arm was fractured in several places--it was a regular chaw.
We left him in the hospital. I tell you this as a warning not to go
fooling round the beasts--that is, if you're coming."
The fate of the young man of a too trusting faith in the noble nature of
the lion did not turn Rounders from his determination, and the next
morning he was a part of the establishment.
At first the tongue of the tamer was pretty closely tied touching
matters of his profession, but in due time he expanded into talk when he
saw the genuine enthusiasm of the keeper for all that related to the
subject, yet naturally practised strict reserve in everything concerning
his particular work. In a word, professional secrets remained entombed.
He thought men were born to his vocation, and there was no resisting it.
He had followed shows and hung around lion cages when he was a boy.
Toward manhood the business had exercised such a fascination that he at
last obtained employment with a tamer, whom he followed until he was
killed by his beasts. This sanguinary spectacle deterred him for the
time from the idea of entering a cage, but he continued his work.
There were two kinds of lions in the menageries--those born and raised
in the cages and those caught as whelps wild in Asia and Africa. A few
full grown were caught in pits. The first time he entered a cage was in
a small show in a provincial town. The two lions whom he then
encountered were old and sick, and bore the scars of twenty years'
whipping on their bald hides; besides, they were born and brought up
behind the bars. They growled from force of habit, but there was not
much danger in them. The posters of course announced the two brutes as
two of the most ferocious kings of the forest.
From these he passed to cage-bred lions in their prime, thence to the
wild animals, of which Brutus was one. Until the tamer was able to work
with these last, he was not considered as belonging to the rank of real
tamers. The sensation he experienced the first time he entered the cage
of wild animals was difficult to describe; it was an appreciation of
imminent danger coupled with courage. When he issued from the cage his
tights and spangled cloth felt as if they had just come out of the wash
tub. He was steeled up to the point of bravery before the brutes, but
ten minutes afterward a child could have knocked him over.
The principal secret of managing the brutes was not to be afraid of
them. When the man showed fear he was lost. The mastery was not acquired
so much through violence of treatment as an absolute sense of security
in their presence. Audacity and self-possession were necessary every
minute, every second; a moment's loss of equilibrium might prove fatal.
The buttery mode of treatment about which bookmen wrote had no existence
in fact among showmen. No man managed his beasts with kindness. When his
Brutus licked his face in his performance it looked affectionate, but it
was not; he did it because he was afraid; and when the animal went
through this osculatory business he was obliged to keep his eye on him
with all the concentration of his will, for there was something in the
beast's eyes which showed that he would sooner use his teeth than his
tongue.
There was an impression that a lion once tamed is tamed for good, as a
horse is broken to harness. This was an error; the lion had to be tamed
every day anew in order to keep him in subjection.
Rounders asked him if he meant to say that all lions were vicious. To
which he answered negatively. There were good lions and bad lions, just
as there were good and bad men. The bad beasts, however, were more
numerous than the others, for it was their nature to kill to provide for
their hunger. The book talk about their generosity was not trustworthy;
the instinct of the beast was to kill when it was hungry, but when its
stomach was full it was less dangerous. He had seen the beast in its
wild state, having hunted him in Africa. He had captured Brutus there
when the animal was two years old; he was then ten, but always retained
something of his wild nature. He was secured in a pit with his mother,
the mother being shot.
In another menagerie with which he had been connected his principal
performance was "the happy family," in which he brought together in the
same cage two lions, several wolves, a couple of bears, a sheep, a small
elephant with a monkey on his back. The crowning feature of this was the
introduction of the sheep's head into the lion's mouth, which he held
open by the upper lip with a strong grip. The sovereignty of the lions
was acknowledged by the other animals, who looked at them with fear,
getting as far away from them as the cage would permit. He had to pull
each one into the cage by force. He compelled a bear to stand with his
nose in close proximity to that of a lion; he called this the kiss of
friendship; the bear had to be kicked and pushed into position, looking
at the lion with terror; the lion did not deign to look at the bear, but
kept his eye fixed on his master, whom of course he obeyed under
protest. When the sheep was brought forward, and its head was put
between the lion's jaws, it was almost in a swooning condition, and
excited general pity. He had to get a new sheep every month, the daily
fear causing them soon to decline unto death.
The foregoing, in substance, was a portion of the talk with which
Brinton gratified himself as well as his listener, the appreciative
Rounders.
The trick of pulling away the meat from under the jaws of Brutus was
technically known under the canvas as the "meat-jerk." It continued to
remain uppermost in the mind of the new keeper.
The nomadic life had pleasures for Rounders, aside from the fascination
of the "meat-jerk." He drove a gayly colored wagon in the caravan, as it
moved through the country. At night, like the Arabs, they folded their
tents and stole away, and at dawn they were on the march. Perched on his
seat, Rounders's eyes dwelt on the landscape with its purple tints of
the morning, and his nostrils sniffed the sweet odors of Nature while
she was still in deshabille. Silently, like a variegated serpent, the
caravan crept around the hills and through the valleys. The musicians,
clad in gold and scarlet, rode through the country in their magnificent
chariot, and gave out no sound, their breath being reserved for the
towns and villages. The vestal silence remained unbroken by the
stridulous clarinet and the blatant trombones.
Every man has a weakness, and Brinton had his. He was in tender
thraldom. He loved the woman that jumped through the hoops and balloons
on a padded horse. Whenever her eyes turned on him they sent a thrill
through him more exciting than that produced by Brutus. He generally
stood near the ring-board when she appeared in public, and envied the
ringmaster the agreeable duty of assisting her to mount. Admiringly he
watched her shapely legs going through the hoops and over the garters,
as her eyes sparkled and her face flushed with the excitement, but there
was no indication of his love being returned.
When Rounders discovered this tenderness in the heart of the tamer, he
thought of Samson and Delilah, and wondered if something of the kind
could not be done with natural comeliness instead of a pair of scissors.
Guided by instinct, Rounders, who was a shrewd fellow, as has already
been said, made his court to Mlle. La Sauteuse, known in private life as
Sally Stubbs. There were conventional barriers between a keeper and a
rider, but Rounders by tact and good looks got over them, and whispered
sweet nonsense in the porches of Miss Stubbs's willing ear.
One evening, after the performance, as the moon shone athwart the great
tent, and the brass band was hushed, Sally Stubbs stood against a
background of canvas, bathed in the sheen from on high. Quiet reigned in
the tents of the elephantine woman and the calf with six legs. The
lung-tester had folded up his machine and departed. The sound of
"ice-cold lemonade" had died in the general stillness. Mlle. La Sauteuse
leaned over lovingly to the new keeper, and asked in a low, sympathetic
voice,
"What can I do for you, Jim Rounders?"
"Find out the 'meat-jerk,'" was the swift response.
"Alas," said the fair Stubbs, "when you've been as long in the tent as
I've been, you'll know that that is impossible. You might as well ask me
for a slice of the moon that is now lookin' down on this here peaceful
scene atween you and me."
"You've heard the Sunday school story about Samson and Delilah?" pursued
Rounders.
"What's that got to do with John Brinton's secret?"
"What's been done can be done again. Delilah wormed it out of Samson:
why can't Sally Stubbs worm it out of Brinton?"
"Cut off his hair, as the Bible woman did?"
"That's too thin," said Rounders rashly, without fear of theological
dogma. "That's allygory. They call it hair-cuttin', and when they call
it that, its hairsplittin'. Take my word for it, Sally Stubbs, that when
she got the secret out of that hefty, long-haired man, she did it with
her pretty ways and good looks."
Still, Miss Stubbs affirmed that such a project as Rounders entertained
was impossible; and it was true. In his weakest, or most sentimental
hours, Brinton knew how to withstand even the blandishments of the
charming Stubbs when she approached professional topics. Under her smile
he opened up like a morning-glory kissed by Aurora; but when she tried
to penetrate into the mystery of his great lion act, he closed up like
the same flower when it encounters the sun. He had a well-ordered mind
divided into compartments--business was one thing and love was another.
Meanwhile the keeper kept his eye on every movement of Brinton. He was
his shadow. When he was not occupied with the master, he was looking
after the animals. Reciprocity of kindness is a principle of nature
which Rounders had observed, and in which he had some faith,
notwithstanding the pessimist views of Brinton. He began by
familiarizing Brutus with the sight of his face, person, and voice. He
spoke to the animal in the most sympathetic accent of which he was
capable. He hung round his cage as long and as often as his duties would
permit. He reached the point of cajolery, and assumed friendship, as:
"Well, Brutus, how are you, old boy? How did you like the last feed? I'm
afraid this travellin' round in confinement, on wheels, is injurin' your
complexion. Of course you would like to be footin' it like the rest of
us. I reckon it _would_ be better for you, but it might be bad for some
of us two-legged fellows. Eh, bully boy?"
This jocularity was in strange contrast to the sombre indifference with
which the king of the forest looked down on the speaker. Rounders
infringed on the rules laid down by Brinton in giving bits of meat to
the beast whenever an opportunity presented itself; but notwithstanding
these offerings, the two sombre eyes continued to regard him with an
unchanged expression. One day, to arouse him from his condition of
indifference or latent kindness, Rounders introduced a stick under the
bars to poke him up in a friendly way, touching him on his extended
paws. The beast struck quickly, and almost caught his hand. As it was,
one of his fingers was bruised by the blow. Brinton, unperceived by
Rounders, had been standing behind him noting the incident.
"Rounders," said Brinton, "you're lucky. About two months ago a fellow
did the same thing as you've been doing, but he did not come out as well
as you."
"What befell him?" asked Rounders.
"Brutus caught his hand under the bars, pulled in his arm, reached out
his other paw in an affectionate embrace around the man's neck, pressed
him against the bars, and mashed him. When I came up it was too late. He
dropped on the sawdust and never got up again."
In noting their habits, Rounders observed that they were more afraid of
the short pole which Brinton carried into the cage than they were of the
whip. Brinton called this bit of dark wood his magic wand, which in a
measure justified its name, for as soon as he touched them with it, they
gave way and drew back to the end of the cage. He usually carried it
with him into a little tent-chamber, which was rigged up near the lion's
cage. One night, after issuing from the cage, he forgot to take the
magic wand with him, leaving it lying on the sawdust, alongside of one
of the wheels which carried the beasts. Jim Rounders picked it up with
curiosity, and found it very heavy. In a word, it was iron. He drew his
hand caressingly from one end of it to the other, as he thought of the
effects which it produced when it came in contact with the lions' noses.
As his hand softly reached down to the other end, he drew it back as if
bitten by a viper, with an exclamation that would not have met with
favor in the Young Men's Christian Association. The end was hot. He
carried the rod into the little tent-chamber, and left it there. It was
now made clear to him why the animals showed such an aversion to the end
of the magic wand.
The wife of Brutus was a lioness called Cleopatra, generally kept in
another cage. In the order of nature she was at times more affectionate
to her husband than at others, and during such periods Brutus became
irritable, and difficult to manage. It was hard to keep him down, even
with the hot iron. As they wended their way from village to village, and
town to town, over the old-fashioned turnpikes, Brutus entered one of
the irritable phases of his life, during which, it is hardly necessary
to say, the vigilant eye of Rounders was nearly always on the tamer in
his management of the brute. One night, through a chink of the little
tent-chamber, he saw Brinton standing irresolute, although behind his
time for entering the cage; the beads of sweat stood on his forehead,
and he held his heated iron in his hand; then he roused himself to
decision, spat on the heated end of the magic wand, which hissed, and
strode quickly to the cage.
This was a revelation to Rounders. It was apparent that even Brinton,
plucky as he was, had his moments of apprehension and demoralization,
from which he concluded that the danger must be real. Rounders, as usual
taking a deep interest, followed him to the cage and took his station
near the front of it. Brinton's first action as soon as he got into the
cage was to run at the nose of Brutus with his hot iron and drive him
back to one end. Rounders fancied he could almost hear the frizzle of
the flesh. He went through the first part of the performance with the
cage-bred lion, whipping him and making him jump over his shoulders in
the usual way, but he omitted that part where he tore open the jaws of
Brutus, and made him lick his face.
The dramatic event took place in the second part. Brinton in his
preoccupation of that night left the magic wand reposing against the
wheel near the door of the cage as he entered it, to play the drama.
Brutus, rebellious and gloomy, went through his part until the scene
where the spears are thrust through the bars arrived. His master gave
the word of command:
"To the rescue, Brutus! Down with the miscreants!" at the same time
pointing as usual to the spears with the enemies behind them. Brutus,
who was at the opposite end of the cage--the tamer in the centre--did
not move. Brinton gave the command a second time, stamping with his foot
to enforce it. The eyes of the lion did not turn in the direction of the
spears, as they heretofore did when the animal was ordered to the
rescue, but settled in a sombre manner on Brinton, whom the beast began
gradually to approach. At this moment Rounders, who was narrowly
watching the proceeding, observed a momentary quailing of the eye in the
tamer; still he called up his fierce expression again, and gave the
order for the third time to the gradually advancing brute, whose eyes
were steadily fixed on him. The heart of Rounders beat quick; he held
his breath. The theory then flashed through his mind about the steady
human eye being able to hold the lion in subjection or deter him from
attacking, and he scanned the eyes of Brinton. They were both fixed on
the beast, but there was no sign of the beast's quailing. Brinton cursed
and shouted at the brute, the motive of which Rounders quickly
understood, another theory being that the lion is sometimes prevented
from attacking in this way. This noise seemed rather to contribute to
the ire of the beast; besides it was presently drowned in his mighty
roar. The culminating point of anger was reached, the mane stood out on
end, and the lashing tail stiffened into a straight line, as the animal
made a bound toward Brinton, who still bore himself as if he were
complete master. Brinton fell. Quick as a flash, Rounders seized the
magic wand, burst open the little door, and made a lunge at the brute on
top of the fallen man. The men with the spears attacked him from behind,
and as the animal turned for a moment to face them, Rounders took
advantage of it to clutch Brinton, drag him to the door, and out of the
cage.
At this the applause was deafening. It was the first night in this
community, and the spectators thought it was in the play. The heart of
Rounders turned sick as he heard the admiring shouts. He pulled Brinton
into the little tent-chamber; thence he smuggled him into a room in an
adjoining hotel.
The beast had ripped the flesh from the bone nearly the length of his
leg, as the surgeon ascertained, who was secretly called in. Fortunately
no bones were broken. Five minutes after the event of the cage, the
manager of the concern came before the audience and stated that the
celebrated lion-tamer, John Brinton, who had been engaged at a fabulous
sum, and had performed before all the crowned heads of Europe, was taken
with a sudden indisposition to which he was sometimes subject, and would
be obliged to deny himself the pleasure of appearing again that evening.
Then he added some remark about the noble beast of the forest, who
probably regretted the non-appearance of its master--whom he positively
loved, as much as the people before him.
After the show was over that night, the manager asked the doctor how
long the wounded tamer would keep his bed, to which answer was made that
it would be several weeks. The manager did not know what was to be done.
Then, turning to Rounders, he said,
"There's good stuff in you. Brinton owes you his life. Don't you think
you might go into Pompey until Brinton gets on his legs?" (Pompey being
the old emasculated lion who appeared to the public in the same cage
with Brutus). To which question Rounders, picking up heart of grace,
said he thought he might.
"I mean," added the manager, "of course, in keeping Brutus out of the
cage, and confining your handling to Pompey, who is not a bad-natured
animal. Have you got the courage to go into him?"
Rounders said he had.
"I don't want any foolhardiness," continued the manager. "If you can
manage to make Pompey run around the cage a little, that will do until
Brinton recovers."
A few minutes afterward Rounders was in the room of the wounded tamer,
to whom he said:
"I'm going in to do the business with Pompey, until you get well."
The expression of languid suffering left the face of Brinton, as he
asked, "What are you going to do with him?"
"Do what you did with him--or try to."
"Perhaps you may do it, Rounders."
"If I knew the 'meat jerk,' I don't know but I might try that on him."
"Look here, Rounders," said the reclining man, "I have a word to say to
you. You tried to get Sally Stubbs away from me; for that I didn't like
you. But what you have done to-night wipes that out, and puts something
to the credit side of your account. This being the case, let me give you
this advice: Don't try the 'meat-jerk,' and when you go into Pompey, go
at him before he has time to think."
Brinton was left in the town where he met with his mishap, under charge
of the doctor, and the train moved on to the next village, where
Rounders was to make his first appearance as a performer. He had faith
in hot iron, and as soon as he got inside of the cage door he went to
Pompey with the magic wand. The animal stood a moment and lashed his
tail, when Rounders quickly frizzled his nose before he had time for
reflection; then he gave way, retreating to one end. Here Rounders
strode toward him with his whip and gave him a cut, returned to the
middle of the cage, and stamped his foot as he had seen Brinton do. The
animal hesitated. Rounders stamped his foot again and raised his whip;
then Pompey jumped over his shoulder and up and down the ends of the car
in the traditional fashion. The new tamer pulled open his jaws, lay down
between his paws, and stood over him with a foot on his neck in sign of
victory. After which he bowed and retired. This was the whole
performance as far as the lions were concerned, the others--Cleopatra
and Brutus--being simply exhibited.
"Not bad for a beginner," said the manager when he came out of the cage.
Miss Stubbs, who was standing by in short cloud-like skirts and
flesh-colored tights, said something more handsome, being in closer
sympathy with Rounders than the manager.
For two or three weeks Rounders continued to go through a performance
like the initiatory one, but at the end of that time his ambition moved
him to do something more. Pompey was tractable, and he determined to
attempt the "meat-jerk." He had not forgotten the advice of Brinton, but
he thought it was given through jealousy. He communicated his
determination to the manager, who told him if he thought he could do it,
to go ahead, for the managerial mind was absorbed with the idea of
additional attraction. He also informed Miss Stubbs of his project, who
exhibited more solicitude, and her first impulse was to dissuade the
ambitious Rounders from the undertaking. Under such circumstances men
are not inclined to heed the words of women, and in this instance
Rounders did not. His principal aim in making the communication was to
elicit information. She knew Brinton perhaps better than any one else in
the company. Couldn't she give him some "points"? Alas! she had no
"points" to give, for, however expansive Brinton may have been under
Cupid's influence, he was as close as an oyster in what related to his
profession, as has already been said. There was but one course left for
Rounders to pursue, which was to play a close imitation of Brinton.
The night of the representation came. The first part of the lion
performance passed off, and the second was at hand. The sweat stood on
the forehead of Rounders in drops as it had on that of Brinton when
Rounders saw him on the night of his irresolution. He issued from the
little tent-chamber, with a piece of meat in each hand, as he had seen
Brinton do. Miss Stubbs stood at the door of the cage in her
professional costume, with the magic wand in her hand.
"Jim Rounders," said she solemnly, "keep cool. If you lose your presence
of mind, you're gone."
"All right, Sally Stubbs," said he reassuringly as he opened the door
and went in with the two pieces of meat. The hungry animal jumped to his
feet and switched his tail. He smelt the meat. Rounders threw him a
piece, which he seized with the voracity common to lions, and began to
eat, growling between each bite. Rounders eyed the menacing beast for a
few moments, as it fed, then approached and put out his hand, at which
there was a louder and more threatening growl. It was the growl of
warning. A low feminine voice reached Rounders's ear from the cage door,
which said,
"Jim Rounders, don't do it." But Rounders was not a man to renounce a
project when it was once lodged in his head; and he boldly reached down
to take hold of the meat on which Pompey was feeding. A gurgling growl,
rising to a high key, was the response, and a spring. Rounders was down
and the beast on top of him. At that moment the cage door flew open.
Sally Stubbs ran with the magic wand against the beast and stuck it into
his mouth, and as it went in, the act sounded like putting a steak on
the fire. She caught the prostrate man by the arm, and drew him behind
her with her free hand, and thus holding him, she dragged him backing
toward the door, holding out her rod in front to prevent a renewal of
the attack. The two got out safe together. On examination it was found
that Rounders had sustained no other injury than some severe bruises.
"No more of that, Rounders," said the manager. "I don't want the
prospects of my show ruined by a tragedy. You have had a narrow escape.
Let it be a lesson to you not to undertake a thing you don't
understand."
Rounders's first act after the rescue was to kiss Miss Stubbs on both
cheeks, saying as he did so,
"Sally Stubbs, you are the only one of the kind."
"_Mister_ Rounders," said she, pertly pushing him back, "none of them
liberties with me. I may be foolish enough to go into a cage after you,
but I'm not foolish enough to suffer them things."
After that there was no performance with the lions for over a week,
during which Rounders was despondent. He was still occupied with the
extraordinary feat of removing meat from under the jaws of a feeding
lion. It pursued him night and day, and he told Miss Stubbs that he
would never be happy until he found out the secret.
At length Brinton overtook the company, having come by railway. He was
completely restored, and as anxious to begin again as the manager to
have him do so. He was informed of the accident which had befallen him
who had attempted to walk in his traces. He turned to Rounders saying,
"Now I suppose you'll own that I wanted to do you a good turn."
"I acknowledge it--I was presumptuous and wanted tapping," answered
Rounders with proper humility.
"As I told you before," continued Brinton, "I owe you something. Sit
down here and let me talk to you."
Brinton picked up a piece of shingle, took out his knife, and whittled
as the two sat down together.
"You want to learn the business, but you begin at the wrong end. You
don't know much about lion nature, and you want to do the high art in
the profession on sight. A man must creep before he can walk. Now, you
tried to begin by walking, and you know what came of it."
This was a specimen of a bit of the talk given for the benefit and
guidance of the lion-tamer _en herbe_, and by the time Brinton got
through with his advice, his words had a salutary effect, at least for
the time being.
There was a smouldering gleam of vengeance in the eye of Brinton when he
entered the cage for the first time after his accident, which brightened
almost into a flame as he bore down on Brutus with the hot rod. He
persistently thrust it at him; the great cog-wheel growls issued from
his throat, and he tried to break down the rod with his paw; then he
ingloriously fled around the cage as Brinton chased him with his whip.
This was accompanied with curses low but intense, which would have
shocked the Christian spectators of the assembly had they heard them.
In playing the drama, Brinton took the precaution to have put in the
centre of the cage, as part of the decorations, a stump of a tree, which
was hollow, and contained a navy revolver and a bowie-knife. When he
gave the command to Brutus to leap forward against the spears, Brinton
stood alongside of the stump with one hand inside of it, his forefinger
playing with the trigger of the revolver. The apprehension of a
recurrence of the critical scene which has been narrated was however
groundless. Brutus dutifully leaped forward and smashed the brittle
spears, without hesitation, and calmly suffered himself to be embraced
as a "noble beast" afterward.
The "meat-jerk" was given with the success which usually characterized
it in the hands of Brinton, the applause being enthusiastic.
"And yet," said Rounders to Miss Stubbs, as they both stood looking at
the performance, "he does it just as I tried to do it. How easy and
natural! As he says, it's high art."
"I don't think it's anything to be compared to standin' on my
cream-colored horse and jumping through the balloons."
"Ah, Sally Stubbs, we can't see these things with the same eyes," said
Rounders, with a sigh.
Miss Stubbs noted that sigh as she had the other sighs to which Rounders
gave himself over ever since his failure. She was persuaded that the man
was incorrigible, unless that particular mystery was unfolded to him.
One day, as the caravan wound the shoulder of a steep hill, the horses
drawing the wagon containing Brutus shied at some object in the woods,
which precipitated horses and wagon down an embankment of twelve or
fifteen feet. The outside woodwork broke in several places, and the
shock knocked the door of the cage open. The driver jumped up unhurt,
but consternation was depicted on his face when his eyes turned toward
the cage. Brutus was standing on the ground lashing his sides with anger
at the bruises which he had received from the fall. Word went along the
caravan that the lion was out; all the vehicles stopped, and several of
the company's people ran to the brow of the embankment and looked down
on the scene of the catastrophe and the infuriated lion. Brinton, who
was riding in a buggy a short distance ahead of the wagon of Brutus,
jumped out and ran back to the spot where the disaster had just taken
place. He held in his hand an ordinary whip used in driving a buggy.
With this he approached the angry animal, the people falling back. When
he got near him he raised his whip menacingly. The brute made the quick
bound for which he is known, and struck him down, his claws sinking deep
into vital parts. He called out the name of Brutus with a groan. At this
juncture the animal discovered that it was his master, as he quickly
snuffed his prostrate person. That day Brinton had put on a new suit of
clothes, and when he ran toward the animal it was evident he had not
recognized him. Brinton lay unconscious on the ground, the animal not
making any further attack after his discovery of the identity. The brute
did not betray any sorrow at what he had done, nor did he give any proof
of affection. He simply became indifferent, and while he was in this
state, Rounders enticed him into another cage by the display of a piece
of meat, and as soon as he got him in, he jumped out and locked the
door.
The wounded man was picked up and conveyed to a neighboring farmhouse,
Rounders being one of those who carried him. In proceeding to the house
he revived, and when they reached it, they carefully placed him on a
couch. The nearest physician was sent for, he living two or three miles
away. Making an effort to control the manifestation of suffering,
Brinton requested all to leave the room except Rounders. His request was
complied with. He asked Rounders to sit down alongside of him, as he
could not speak loud, and he wanted to reserve his strength.
"Jim Rounders," said he with a softened expression of the eyes, "I have
something to say to you, and I want to say it before it is too late.
There was no use sending for the doctor--I won't be here long."
At this Rounders offered a consolatory word to inspire hope, but Brinton
understood with what intent it was uttered and took no notice of it.
"Jim Rounders," pursued he, "I owe you something, and I want to pay you
before I die. It's about the 'meat-jerk.'"
Naturally the curiosity of Rounders was eager.
"Like all great inventions," continued the tamer, "it's as simple as A,
B, C when you know how it's done."
The secret, as explained by the sinking man, was in substance as
follows: It is a work of several months. You begin by giving the lion a
large piece of meat, and when he has polished it to the bone, you give
another piece, and when he fastens on that you pick up the bone. After
awhile you will be able to take the bone from under his mouth as you
slip the other piece of meat in its place. In time he gets to know that
when you take the first piece away from him, though it should be only
half finished, it is to be replaced by a larger piece. Gradually you let
a little time pass between the taking away and the giving, which he will
get accustomed to. This is the time you bow to the audience as if the
feat were finished, and when you give the second piece in an indifferent
manner, as if it were of no importance, the public will not see through
it.
"Just as you did not see through it," to resume the words of Brinton,
"though you watched me like a hawk."
"How simple!" said the enthusiastic listener.
"So simple," continued the wounded man with effort, "I'm sure you wonder
to yourself you never thought of it before."
Here he gasped for breath. After a pause he gathered himself together
for another effort, and went on.
"You tried it on Pompey. He was never trained, and of course you failed.
If you are afraid of handling Brutus, you can train Pompey--as I did
Brutus."
The tamer stopped again to get breath, and the pause was longer than
those which preceded it. He was weak unto death. The faint reflection of
a smile flitted over his features as he said in a hoarse whisper,
"My last performance now--no postponement--on account of the weather."
After another long pause, in the same hoarse whisper, he said,
"This secret--will be a fortune--to you, Jim Rounders. Now shake
hands--and let--me die."
And two hands clasped. One was warm, and pulsating with vigorous life,
but the other was dead. As Rounders held the lifeless one in his, he
resolved to renounce the ungrateful profession; but after the burial of
the dead tamer, the ruling passion took possession of him again, and he
did not rest until he had performed the "meat-jerk" with Brutus. Indeed,
he was not satisfied to walk in the footsteps of Brinton, but became in
his turn a creator of a Biblical drama, which he called "Daniel in the
Lion's Den."
ALBERT RHODES.
A WOMAN'S GIFTS.
First I would give thee--nay, I may and will,
Thoughts, memory, prayers, a sacred wealth unguessed,
My soul's own glad and beautiful bequest,
Conveyed in voiceless reverence, deep and still,
As angels give their thoughts and prayers to God!
Next I would yield, in service freely made,
All of my days and years, thy needs to fill;
To bear or heavy cross, or thorny rod,
Glad of my bondage, deeming it most meet:
Oh, mystery of love, as strange as sweet,
That love from its own wealth should be repaid!
Last, I would give thee, if it pleased thee so,
And for thy pleasure, wishing it increased,
My woman's beauty, heart and lips aglow;
But this, dear, last--so soon its charm must fade,
It is, indeed, of all my gifts, the least!
MARY AINGE DEVERE.
THE MODERN PYTHIA.
The arraignment of Dr. Slade, the spiritual medium, before a London
magistrate, on a charge of vagrancy, suggests the rather trite remark
that "history repeats itself."
Spiritualism is literally "as old as the hills." Lying in a manner
dormant through long years, it has had its periodical outcroppings; as,
when absolutely prohibited by an edict of Israel's first king, B. C.
1060; when it was abjured by the Council of Ancyra of Galatia, in A. D.
314; and again when ranking highest among the popular delusions of a
people boasting of their civilization and culture, in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy-six.
Having its foundations in truth, there have not been found wanting, in
the remote past as in the present, unscrupulous persons ready to erect
on those foundations the most stupendous frauds.
The mental phenomena which have given rise to what is called
spiritualism are daily exhibited in some form or other in the life and
experience of almost every one. But the simplest and perhaps the most
interesting method of exhibition is by means of the little toy called
Planchette; a brief account of some experiments with which will best
serve to illustrate the nature of the phenomena in question.
The writer and a lady friend placing the tips of their fingers lightly
on the board, the following words were traced on the paper upon which it
was placed:
"Have you courage for the future?"
"Will you not faint by the roadside?"
"You will be beset by foes within and without."
"Lions in your pathway."
"Hope and trust--trust--trust."
On being asked to whom this applied, it answered:
"The heart that needs it will understand."
A question was then put by a bystander; but instead of answering, it
went on as though continuing the former train of thought:
"Hope and trust. You will have trials you know not of." And again, "Hope
and trust."
Here another question was put by a bystander, but instead of answer came
the words:
"You will find important letters awaiting you from home. Hope and
trust."
I then asked: "To whom are these words addressed?"
_Ans._--Soon enough you will know. Hope and trust.
To a question given mentally by a bystander it answered:
"Letters awaiting you. Hope and trust."
_Ques._--Letters from whom?
_Ans._--Your home and family.
_Ques._--From what place?
_Ans._--Soon enough you will know.
_Ques._--Are they all well at home?
_Ans._--With God all things are well.
Not being able to decipher this clearly, it repeated:
"With God all things are well. Trust Him."
I confess to having been impressed with these words, so solemn were
they, so oracular, and, as it then appeared, so fitly spoken. At the
time of making these experiments I was on board one of the Pacific Mail
steamships, on my way to San Francisco; and I had reason to be
particularly solicitous in regard to my future. But my companion, in
these my first experiments, just entering a new and untried field, had
far more cause of anxiety than myself in regard to the future. To her
these warnings seemed singularly applicable. Satisfied that my
cooperator exercised no voluntary control over the board, absolutely
certain the words were not emanations of my own mind, and impelled by
curiosity, I determined to try the effect of a few test questions, and,
ridiculous as it may appear, ascertain from the instrument itself
something of its nature.
Is there any power in Planchette, or is it merely a vehicle? I asked.
_Ans._--Inactive bodies have no active agency.
_Ques._--Whence come the words of Planchette--whence her intelligence?
_Ans._--From the seat of intelligence in the one who commands me.
_Ques._--Can you foretell coming events?
_Ans._--The future is not made known to man.
_Ques._--Can you give information not in the minds of the operators?
_Ans._--No, or in the mind of some one who works me.
_Ques._--What distinction do you make between the operator and the
worker?
_Ans._--The worker may be removed from the board.
_Ques._--Are you influenced by animal magnetism?
_Ans._--Entirely.
_Ques._--Are you influenced by electricity?
_Ans._--One and the same.
_Ques._--Do the minds of the present operators influence the answers?
_Ans._--Undoubtedly.
_Ques._--Is it the result of magnetism?
_Ans._--The power of giving out.
_Ques._--Giving out what?
_Ans._--Yielding magnetism.
_Ques._--Which of the operators influences you most?
_Ans._--Neither is worth without the other.
_Ques._--Have you communications with the spirit world?
_Ans._--Disembodied spirits--no.
_Ques._--Can you be put to any practical use?
_Ans._--Man will be introduced to the world of science.
_Ques._--Is your information concerning the ordinary affairs of life of
any practical value?
_Ans._--Not much, unless the worker is reliable as an informant.
_Ques._--What is magnetism?
_Ans._--Magnetism is the force of the universe.
_Ques._--What is electricity?
_Ans._--Electricity is the outward expression of the hidden force.
_Ques._--Has magnetism or electricity anything to do with the polarity
of the needle?
_Ans._--The interchange of magnetism throughout the entire universe.
_Ques._--Give a more definite answer.
_Ans._--Currents are exchanged from earth to air and from planet to
planet.
_Ques._--Do these affect the mariner's compass?
_Ans._--Yes.
_Ques._--Can we control the local attraction of the compass?
_Ans._--Yes.
_Ques._--How? I exclaimed excitedly, as the thought flashed through my
mind that I was on the eve of a great discovery.
_Ans._--By the substitution of some other attractive force?
_Ques._--Name one.
_Ans._--Magnetized iron.[3]
_Ques._--Can the compass be so constructed as to be uninfluenced by
local attraction?
_Ans._--No, inasmuch as all surroundings are themselves magnets or the
mediums of conveyance.
_Ques._--Can the approach of storms be foretold by the amount of
electricity in the air?
_Ans._--Storms are the disturbance of the equilibrium, and therefore can
be foretold when the atmospherical balance is understood.
_Ques._--Can you give information not in the minds of the operators?
_Ans._--Planchette is a tool, and does nothing of herself.
_Ques._--A tool in the hands of whom?
_Ans._--Of those who work her.[4]
Now if these various answers came from the minds of the "workers," we
were asking questions which we ourselves were answering, we will say,
unawares, out of the depths of our consciousness. As a seeker after
truth, therefore, I became as much involved as the dreamer spoken of by
Jeremy Taylor in one of his sermons. A man who implicitly believed in
dreams, he relates--in effect--dreamed one night that all dreams were
false. "If," reasoned he on awakening, "dreams are indeed false, then is
this one false; therefore they are true. But if, as I have always
supposed, they are true, then is this dream true; therefore they must be
false."
Planchette's oracular sayings became famous among the passengers who
thronged the room to hear its predictions and to ask questions. The trip
to which I refer was made in the early part of November, 1868, while the
Presidential election was in progress, and there was naturally great
curiosity on the part of the passengers to know how their several States
had voted.
Of the six States asked about, Planchette gave the majority in figures
for one candidate or the other. On comparing these figures subsequently
with the published returns, it was found that not one answer was
correct--_not a single answer was even approximately true_.
There was a certain shipmaster on board who had left his vessel in Rio
Janeiro, with directions to the mate to bring her to San Francisco, by
way of Cape Horn. The oracle was consulted as to the position of the
ship at that particular time. Without a moment's hesitation, the
latitude and longitude of the vessel were given, placing her somewhere
off Valparaiso (Chili). "That's just where _I_ put her!" cried the
master with an ejaculation of unfeigned surprise. On reaching San
Francisco shortly after, the vessel was discovered quietly tied up at
one of the wharves. I found too, on landing, that the prophecy, "You
will find important letters awaiting you from home," was not fulfilled,
neither in my case nor in that of the other "worker."
Now in the case of putting down the position of the merchant vessel, the
"worker" who was operating with me at the time did not know how to plot
the position of a ship at sea, after the manner of seamen; and although
the method of stating a ship's position was perfectly familiar to me,
yet I _anticipated_ that the answer in regard to her would have been
given in general and indefinite terms. What was my astonishment, then,
to find distinctly written out, "Latitude 35 deg. 30 min. S.; longitude
98 deg. 40 min. W." True this position was about four thousand miles out
of the way, but where did the answer, such as it was, come from?
Continued experiments proved that in every instance where Planchette
attempted to foretell an event, it failed ignominiously; and while it
replied to questions with the utmost effrontery, it was rarely correct,
unless indeed, as it shrewdly said itself, "the worker was reliable as
an informant."
Many months after these experiments, I found myself on the shores of
southern France. Here my associations were entirely different from those
I had known in the far-off Pacific, and, desirous of ascertaining how
Planchette would comport itself under the change of conditions, I
essayed further trials.
It will be sufficient to give one example of the answers given:
"What should one do," it was asked, "when life becomes unbearable?" The
answer was contained in one word, but written in such a scrawl as to be
illegible. The question was repeated, when the same word apparently was
written in reply, but still illegible. The question was put a third
time, when Planchette, with great energy, wrote in bold characters, and
distinct, the word PRAY. On comparing this with the former answers, they
were found to be the same.
The question, however, is not as to the degree of faith to be placed in
the words of Planchette, but why should it write at all?
In attempting to answer this question, I shall confine myself mainly to
the field of daily experience, and draw illustrations from such works
only as are familiar to the great majority of readers.
Our twofold nature has often been noticed and commented upon. It has
been said that we are possessed of two separate and distinct characters:
the outward, which we present to the world, and with which we are in
some degree familiar ourselves, and that inner, deeper part of which we
know so little.
St. Paul reveals the existence of our dual nature when he exclaims with
passionate fervor, "The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I
would not, that do I. I delight in the law of God after the _inner man_,
but I see _another law in my members_ warring against the law of my
mind." Xenophon gives, in the Cyropedia, a remarkable speech, expressing
almost precisely the same idea. Araspes, a young nobleman of Media, is
overwhelmed with mortification on being detected by Cyrus in an
indiscretion in regard to a captive princess. Chided by Cyrus, "Alas,"
said he, "now I am come to a knowledge of myself, and find most plainly
that I have two souls: one that inclines me to good, another that
incites me to evil ..."--the animal versus the spiritual nature,
referred to by St. Paul.
In another place St. Paul, speaking of the "Word of God," says it is
"quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even
to the _dividing asunder of soul and spirit_, and of the joints and
marrow...." Heb. iv. 12. Hence we may term the two elements of our
duality _soul_ and _spirit_, they being two separate and distinct
entities.
The learned Doctor Whedon, in commenting on the forty-fourth verse of
the fifteenth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, where the
great apostle speaks of the resurrection, says the expression natural
body, as distinct from spiritual body, fails utterly to convey to the
mind of the English reader the apostle's true idea. "If," he says, "we
assume a difference between soul and spirit, and coin the word
_soulical_ as the antithesis of _spiritual_, we present his exact idea.
The Greek word _psyche_, soul or life, when used as antithetical to
_pneuma_, spirit, signifies that animating, formative, and thinking soul
or _anima_ which belongs to the animal, and which man, as animal, shares
as his lower nature with other animals. Its range is within the limits
of the five senses, within which limits it is able to think and to
reason. Such is the power of the highest animals. Overlying this is the
spirit which man shares with higher natures, by which thought transcends
the range of the senses, and man thinks of immensity, eternity,
infinity, immortality, the beautiful, the holy, and God--it is certain
that man's mind possesses both these classes or sets of thought." Now in
regard to the higher of these elements, there are very many well
authenticated cases where the extreme susceptibility of the mind (the
seat of these elements) to outward impressions, and the reaction of the
mental sensation on the nervous system, has led to the most singular
and, in some instances, even fatal results. So marvellously delicate is
this portion of our organization, that we are not always conscious of
this reaction, and as the reaction is conveyed from the nerve centres to
the muscular tissue, we actually find ourselves uttering words or making
motions unconsciously. So sensitive is the brain through the influence
of this higher nature, so subtle its functions, that it is often
impressed by means indiscernible to the bodily eye or to the ordinary
senses--by means just as mysterious as the action of magnetic attraction
or the course of the electric wave.
Byron alludes to this exquisite susceptibility with no less of truth
than beauty:
And slight withal may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside for ever; it may be a sound,
A tone of music, summer's eve or spring,
A flower, the wind, the ocean, which shall wound,
_Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound_.
And how or why we know not, _nor can trace_
_Home to its cloud this lightning of the wind_ ...
Having referred to the reaction of a mental sensation on the nervous
system, let us now examine the course by which the reaction proceeds.
We are told by physiologists that stimuli applied to the nerves in
certain cases induce contraction or motion in the muscles by direct
conduction of a stimulus along a nerve, or by the conduction of a
stimulus to a nervous centre, whence it is reflected along another nerve
to the muscles. Not only mechanical and electrical, but _psychical_
stimuli "excite the nerves, whether these are ideational, emotional, or
volitional. They proceed from the brain, being themselves sometimes
induced by external causes, and sometimes originating primarily in the
great nervous centres from the _operations of the instinct, the memory,
the reason, or the will_."
When a stimulus of any kind, whether mechanical, chemical, electrical,
or vital, acts upon the living nervous substance, it produces an
impression on that nerve substance and excites within it some particular
change, and the property by which this takes place in the nerve
substance has been called its excitability or neurility. But the nerve
substance not only receives such an impression from a stimulus and is
excited to such a change, but it possesses the property of conducting
that impression in certain definite directions, and this property might
be spoken of as conductility.
When such an impression is thus conducted simply along a nerve fibre,
and thence to a muscle, it induces or excites, as we have seen, the
contraction of that muscle, and so exercises what is called a _motor_
function.
The nerve cells appear to possess, beyond the simple excitability to
general stimuli, conductility, and the peculiar receptivity which is
essential to sensation, a special or more exalted kind of excitability
which is called into play under mental or psychical stimuli by the
changes produced in the gray matter[5] in the formation of ideas,
emotions, and the will.[6]
Now if two sympathetic nerve systems operated upon by psychical stimuli
be directed to one and the same point, it is by no means difficult to
understand how the brains belonging to those systems may be brought into
telegraphic communication by means of the nerve fibres, the product of
the two minds evolved, and the resultant idea, by means of a simple
mechanical contrivance operated upon by the motor function already
explained, be transmitted to paper by the process of writing so familiar
to both. The action of the psychical stimuli on the nerve fibre, and its
transmission thence to the muscles resulting in the movement of the
board, is so subtle that we ourselves are not aware of its operation
except through the results produced.
It has just been said that two minds may be brought into telegraphic
communication by means of nerve fibres. Let us see how far the
expression is justified by facts. There are few of us who have not
experienced the truth of Solomon's saying that "if two persons lie
together, they have _heat_; but how can one be warm alone?" Even the
close proximity of two persons affects their respective temperatures,
and heat and motion we know to be correlative. It has been shown by the
physicist that mechanical force producing motion is correlative with and
convertible into heat, heat into chemical force, chemical force into
electrical force, and electrical force into magnetic force. Moreover,
that each of these is correlative and convertible into the other, all
being thus interchangeable.
"Now it is not to be supposed that the force acting in a nerve is
identical with electrical force, nor yet a peculiar kind of electricity,
nor even physically induced by it, as magnetism may be, but that in the
special action of the living nerve a force is generated peculiar to that
tissue, which is so correlated with electricity that an equivalent of
the one may in some yet unknown manner excite, give rise to, or even be
converted into the other. In this concatenation of the several forces of
nature, physical and vital, the force acting in a nerve may also be
correlated with chemical force, with the heat developed in the muscle,
and even with the peculiar molecular motions which produce muscular
contraction and all its accompanying physical and mechanical
consequences." If, then, two brains, one in London and one in New York,
may be brought into communication with each other through their
respective nerve systems and the common medium of the electric wire, and
both brought to bear on one idea--say the rate of exchange, consols, or
the price of gold--is it to be wondered at that two other brains, in
close proximity, may be brought into communication through the media of
the nerve fibres which are operated upon by a force so similar to that
which courses along the electric wire? Or is it strange that the two
sympathetic minds--two minds having a strong affinity for each
other--should combine and generate ideas? and having produced them, is
it strange they should give them expression in writing? Before the days
of Franklin, this might indeed appear strange, but it surely cannot be
so considered now.
Such, then, is the rationale of what may be termed the automatic
writing, by means of Planchette, and such writing is simply a
manifestation of what has been named psychic force. Whether operated by
one or two persons, the rationale is the same.
There is reason to believe that the phenomenon just explained was known
to the ancients, and that it was the origin of the oracles which formed
so important a feature, at one period, in the history of Greece; such,
for example, as the "Whispering Groves of Dodona," and the yet more
famous oracle of Delphi.[7] It is worthy of remark that these oracles
were not established at the first by the Greeks themselves. They were of
_foreign_ origin, having been first introduced from Egypt, then the seat
of learning.
The secret of psychic force having been once discovered, it may easily
be conceived how it would be seized upon as a means of communicating, as
the pagans supposed, with beings of another world, and how readily the
more enlightened and designing would avail themselves of it as a means
to practise upon the credulity of a superstitious people. Such were the
cunning priesthood in the temples of pagan worship. They were quick to
take advantage of a discovery that offered so powerful a leverage, and
having once secured its services, they did not scruple to shape the
utterances to suit their own selfish ends. Frequently their answers were
so framed as to admit of a double interpretation.
Croesus consulted the oracle of Delphi on the success that would
attend his invasion of the Medes. He was told that by passing the river
Halys a great empire would be ruined. He crossed, and the fall of his
own empire fulfilled the prophecy. Sometimes they were couched in vague
and mysterious terms, leaving those who solicited advice to put whatever
construction upon them their hopes or fears suggested. Compare, for
example, the first specimen of writing given in this article with the
descriptions we read in ancient history of the utterances of the Delphic
oracle. How vague and indefinite are its warnings! and then the
continual recurrence of the solemn admonition, "Hope and trust"--does it
not seem prophetic of some evil hour, when all one's hope and faith were
to be tried to the utmost?
Suppose these words had been addressed to a superstitious person by the
priestess of a temple situated in the deep recesses of a dense forest,
among the toppling crags of some lofty mountain range, or near the
gloomy habitations of the dead: it could not have failed of making a
serious impression upon the mind. It was thus that the pagan priesthood
threw about their oracles everything that could inspire the mind of the
visitor with a sense of awe. We are told that the "sacred tripod" was
placed over the mouth of a cave whence proceeded a peculiar exhalation.
On this tripod sat the Pythia--the priestess of Apollo--who, having
caught the inspiration, pronounced her oracles in extempore prose or
verse. The cave and the exhalations were mere accessories, stage
properties as it were, the more readily to impose upon those who came
to consult the oracle. So of the "sacred tripod," which was the symbol
merely of the real instrument which had given birth to this system of
fraud.
Planchette, the "sacred tripod" of the ancients, uses language of
various styles. Sometimes it will not deign to speak at all; sometimes
its answers are vague and unmeaning; sometimes singularly concise and
pertinent.
A very striking point of similarity is the occasional irrelevancy of the
answers. Tisamenus, soothsayer to the Greek army, consulted the oracle
at Delphi concerning his lack of offspring, when he was told by the
Pythia that he would win five glorious combats; and when Battus asked
about his voice he was told "to establish a city in Libya abounding in
fleeces." Such freaks are common with the modern Pythia. The resemblance
is complete.
It is to the development of psychical force, as shown by Planchette,
that the phenomena known as mesmerism and the so-called spiritualism are
undoubtedly due. In some persons this force is found to exist
abnormally, when its manifestations are certainly extraordinary. The
trouble is that we are not always satisfied with its feeble and
uncertain utterances, and are too often impelled by cupidity or other
equally unworthy motive to practise the charlatanism of the crafty
priests of old.
In the time of Nebuchadnezzar the Chaldean priesthood, the magicians and
astrologers, and those who had understanding in all visions and dreams,
possessed all the learning of the known world. Much of their learning
was transmitted to Egypt and thence to Greece, but much of it we know
was lost to the world. From all that we can gather now, however, we may
feel assured that they were not ignorant of the existence of what has
been termed psychic force, or a sixth sense, or unconscious cerebration
(for our terminology in all speculations bordering: on the
"_unknowable_" must necessarily be uncertain), and as a neighboring
people, the Israelites, communicated with their God through that medium,
they supposed, as was natural, that they could communicate with their
gods in the same way. And they were perfectly sincere in that belief.
But in the process of time and migration the theology of the Greeks came
to bear little resemblance to that of the Chaldeans. The dignity of the
priestly office and the influence of the priesthood became greatly
diminished. That the religion of these several nations had one common
origin, and that the priests and prophets of God's chosen people had
many imitators among other nations, there is abundant proof.
The story of the origin of the Pythia, for example, contains points not
without resemblance to certain passages in our own early sacred history.
The Son of God is at enmity with the serpent; the serpent pursues a
woman, and is trodden under foot by the Son. Zeus is the god of the
Greeks; Apollo is his son; Leto--or Latona--is pursued by Python, the
serpent, and is slain by Apollo. To commemorate this deed a temple was
erected at Delhi to Apollo, and the priestess was called the Pythia.
Regarded as the symbol of wisdom by the Egyptians, the serpent came to
be considered by the Greeks as representing the principle of evil.[8]
Ages before this, however, the history of our first parents, the
temptation, and the fall, and the prophecy that the Son should bruise
the serpent's head, had been recorded. The wonderful Chaldeans too had
mapped out the same story among the eternal stars, their great designs
being still traceable on the celestial globes of our common schools.
But the intellectual Greek was not long to be imposed upon. Men who
could discourse on the immortality of the soul had not much faith in the
nonsense often put forth by a priestess of Apollo. Themistocles made a
tool of the oracle in order to serve his own purposes, and Demosthenes
publicly denounced it. Convinced that the oracle was subsidized by
Philip of Macedon, and instructed to speak in his favor, he boldly
declared that the Pythia _philippized_, and bade the Athenians and
Thebans remember that "Pericles and Epaminondas, instead of listening to
the frivolous answers of the oracle, the resort of the ignorant and
cowardly, consulted only reason in the choice of their measures."
Had there been a London magistrate at hand in the days of the great
Athenian orator, it would certainly have gone hard with the poor Pythia.
No observer of human nature can doubt that we are bound by an "electric
chain," and that we are liable to impressions, the sources of which are
often unknown to us. Nor can we doubt that there have been abnormally
sensitive persons, like Swedenborg, whose receptivity was such that the
brain could be impressed by means which would entirely fail with the
normal brain. But in respect to the professional mediums,
notwithstanding the antiquity of the class and their many advocates, it
remains to be shown where they have been of the slightest practical
utility, or served any good or useful end. Nay more. It remains to be
shown wherein the modern medium is entitled to a particle more of
respect than the medium of Endor.
S. B. LUCE.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] This answer is the more remarkable from the fact that my mind was
intent upon the revelation of some new theory, while the other operator
was not at all familiar with the subject. The simplicity of the answer,
and its statement of what had been the common practice for years past,
made me feel for the moment that I had been very cleverly hoaxed.
[4] In every instance the writing of Planchette has been copied
_verbatim_.
[5] The gray matter of the nervous centres, the precise nature of which
is unknown.
[6] "Outlines of Physiology."
[7] There is no doubt that spirit-writing is very ancient, China alone
furnishing sufficient evidence of the fact.
"Spirit-writing," says Taylor, "is of two kinds, according as it is done
with or without a material instrument. The first kind is in full
practice in China, where, like other rites of divination, it is probably
ancient. It is called 'descending of the pencil,' and is especially used
by the literary classes. When a Chinese wishes to consult a god in this
way, he sends for a professional medium. Before the image of the god are
set candles and incense, and an offering of tea or mock money. In front
of this on another table is placed an oblong tray of dry sand. The
writing instrument is a V-shaped wooden handle, two or three feet long,
with a wooden tooth fixed at its point. Two persons hold this
instrument, each grasping one leg of it, and the point resting on the
sand. Proper prayers and charms induce the god to manifest his presence
by a movement of the point in the sand, and thus the response is
written, and there only remains the somewhat difficult and doubtful task
of deciphering it...."--_"Primitive Culture." By Ed. B. Taylor. Vol. I.,
p. 133._
[8] The serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field; "Be ye wise
as serpents."--_Bible._
ALNASCHAR.
1876.
Here's yer toy balloons! All sizes.
Twenty cents for that. It rises
Jest as quick as that 'ere, Miss,
Twice as big. Ye see it is
Some more fancy. Make it square
Fifty for 'em both. That's fair.
That's the sixth I've sold since noon.
Trade's reviving. Just as soon
As this lot's worked off I'll take
Wholesale figgers. Make or break,
That's my motto! Then I'll buy
In some first-class lottery:
One half ticket, numbered right--
As I dreamed about last night.
That'll fetch it. Don't tell me!
When a man's in luck, you see,
All things help him. Every chance
Hits him like an avalanche.
Here's your toy balloons, Miss. Eh?
You won't turn your face this way?
Mebbe you'll be glad some day!
With that clear ten-thousand prize
This yer trade I'll drop, and rise
Into wholesale. No! I'll take
Stocks in Wall street. Make or break,
That's my motto! With my luck,
Where's the chance of being stuck?
Call it Sixty Thousand, clear,
Made in Wall street in one year.
Sixty thousand! Umph! Let's see.
Bond and mortgage'll do for me.
Good. That gal that passed me by
Scornful like--why, mebbe I
Some day'll hold in pawn--why not?--
All her father's prop. She'll spot
What's my little game, and see
What I'm after's her. He! he!
He! he! When she comes to sue--
Let's see. What's the thing to do?
Kick her? No! There's the perliss!
Sorter throw her off like this!
Hello! Stop! Help! Murder! Hey!
There's my whole stock got away!
Kiting on the house tops! Lost!
All a poor man's fortin! Cost?
Twenty dollars! Eh! What's this?
Fifty cents! God bless ye, Miss!
BRET HARTE.
AUT DIABOLUS AUT NIHIL.
THE TRUE STORY OF A HALLUCINATION.
The career of the Abbe Gerard had been an eminently successful
one--successful in every way; and even he himself was forced to
acknowledge it to be so as he reviewed his past life, sitting by a
blazing fire in his comfortable apartment in the Rue Miromeuil previous
to dressing for the Duc de Frontignan's dinner-party. Born of poor
parents in the south of France, entering the priesthood at an early age,
having received but a meagre education, and that chiefly confined to a
superficial knowledge of the most elementary treatises on theology, he
had, in twenty-five years, and solely by his own exertions, unaided by
patronage, obtained a most desirable berth in one of the leading Paris
churches, thereby becoming the recipient of a handsome salary and being
enabled to indulge his tastes as a dilettante and _homme du monde_. The
few hours snatched from those absorbed by his parochial duties he had
ever devoted to study, and his application and determination had borne
him golden fruit. Moreover, he had so cultivated his mind, and made such
good use of the rare opportunities afforded him in early life of
associating with gentlemen, that when now at length he found his
presence in demand at every house in the "Faubourg" where wit and
graceful learning were appreciated, no one would ever have suspected he
had not been bred according to the strictest canons of social
refinement.
But in his upward progress such had been his experience of life that
when, during the brief intervals of breathing time he allowed himself,
he would look below and above, he was forced to confess that at every
step a belief, an illusion had been destroyed and trodden under foot,
and he would wonder, while bracing himself for a new effort, how it
would all end, and whether the mitre he lusted for would not after all,
perhaps, be placed upon a head that doubted even the existence of a God.
He was not a bad man, but merely one of that class who have embraced the
priesthood merely as a means of raising themselves from obscurity to
eminence, and have in their intercourse with the world discovered many
flaws and blemishes in what they may at one time have considered
perfect. When his reason rejected many of the fables hitherto cherished
and believed in, the Abbe Gerard was at the beginning inclined to
abandon in despair the attempt to discern the true from the false, and
this all the more that he saw the time thus spent was, in a worldly
sense, but wasted, and that the good things of this world come to such
reapers as gather wheat and tares alike, well knowing there is a market
for them both.
During a certain period, therefore, of his struggle upward, while his
worldly ambition was aiding by sly insinuations and comparisons the
deadly work already begun by the destruction of his dreams, Henri Gerard
was nigh being an atheist. But the nature of the man was too finely
sensual for this phase to be lasting, and when at length he found
himself so far successful in his worldly aspirations as to be tolerably
sure of their complete fulfilment; when at length he found time to
examine spiritual matters apart from their direct bearing upon his
social altitude, his aesthetic sense--which by this time had necessarily
developed--he was struck by the exquisite _beauty_ of Christianity, and
thus, as a shallow philosophy had nearly induced him to become an
atheist, a deep and sensual spirit of sentimentality nearly made him a
Christian. His Madonna was the Madonna of Raphael, not that of Albert
Duerer: the woman whose placid grace of countenance creates an emotion
more subtly voluptuous than desire; not she in whose face can be
discerned the human mother of the Man of Sorrows and of Him divinely
acquainted with all grief. The Holy Spirit he adored was not the Friend
of the broken-hearted or the Healer of the blind Bartimoeus, but He
"who feedeth among the lilies"--the Alpha and Omega of all aesthetic
conception. Christianity he looked upon as the highest moral expression
of artistic perfection, and he regarded it with the same admiration he
accorded to the Antinous and the Venus of Milo. He was not, however, by
nature a pagan as some men are--men who, in the words of De Musset,
"Sont venu trop tard dans un monde trop vieux"; but the atmosphere in
which his early years had been spent had been so antagonistic to the
impulses of his nature, his inner life had been so cramped in and
starved, that when at length the key of gold opening the prison door let
in the outer air, his spirit revelled in all the wild extravagance so
often accompanying sudden and long wished-for emancipation. His nature
was perhaps not one that could have been attuned to a perfect harmony
with that of a Greek or Roman of the golden days, but one better
calculated to enjoy the hybrid atmosphere of the Italian Renaissance;
and he would have been in his element in the Rucellai Gardens,
conversing with feeble little Cosimino, or laughing with Buondelmonte
and Luigi Alamanni. He did not believe in the narrative of the Bible,
but its precepts and tendencies he appreciated and admired, although, it
must be confessed, he did not always put himself out to follow them. In
his heart he utterly rejected all idea of a future life, since it was
incompatible with his conception of the artistic unity of this; but he
would blandly acknowledge to himself that there are perhaps things we
cannot comprehend, and that beauty may have no term. He assimilated, so
far as in him lay, his duties as a priest with his ideas as a man of
culture; and his sermons were ever of love; sermons which, winged as
they were with impassioned eloquence, were deservedly popular with all:
from the scholar, who delighted in them as intellectual feasts, to the
fashionable Paris woman of the second empire, who was enchanted at
finding in the quasi-fatalistic and broadly charitable views enunciated
therein means whereby her vulgar amours might be considered in a light
more pleasing to herself and more consoling to her husband.
On the Sunday afternoon preceding the evening on which we introduce him
to the reader the Abbe had departed from his usual custom, and, by
especial request of his cure, had preached a most remarkable sermon upon
the Personality of Satan. It is a vulgar error to suppose that men
succeed best when their efforts are enlivened by a real belief in the
matter in hand. Not only some men have such a superabundance of fervid
imagination that they can, for the time being, provoke themselves into a
pseudo belief in what they know in their saner moments to be false, but
moreover a large class of men are endowed with minds so restless and so
finely strung that they can play with a sophism with marvellous
dexterity and skill, while lacking that vigorous and comprehensive grasp
of mind which the lucid exposition of a hidden truth necessitates. The
Abbe Gerard belonged a little to both these classes of beings; and
moreover, his vanity as an intellectual man provoked him to
extraordinary exertions in cases wherein he fancied he might win for
himself the glory of strengthening and verifying matters which in
themselves perhaps lacked almost the elements of existence. "Spiritual
truths," he once cynically remarked to Sainte-Beuve, whom, by the way,
he detested, "will take care of themselves; it is the nursing of
spiritual falsehood which needs all the care of the clergy." On the
Sunday in question he had surpassed himself. With biting irony he had
annihilated the disbelievers in Divine punishment, and then, with
persuasive and overwhelming eloquence, he had urged the necessity of
believing not only in hell, but in the personality of the Prince of
Evil. Women had fainted in their terror; men had been frightened into
seeking the convenient solace of the confessional, and the Archbishop
had written him a letter of the warmest thanks.
It was a triumph which a man of the nature of the Abbe Gerard
particularly enjoyed. The idea of finding himself the successful reviver
of an inanimate doctrine, while secretly conscious that he was, in
reality, a skeptic in matters of dogmatically vital importance, was to a
mind so prone to delight in paradoxes eminently agreeable. It pleased
him to see the letter of the Archbishop lying upon a volume of Strauss,
and to read the glowing and extravagant praise lavished on him in the
pages of the "Univers" after having enjoyed a sparkling draught of
Voltaire.
Such was the Abbe Gerard--the type of a class. The Duc de Frontignan,
with whom he was dining on the evening this story opens, was or rather
_is_ in many ways a no less remarkable personage in Paris society.
Possessing rank, birth, and a splendid income, he had inherited more
than a fair share of the good gifts of Providence, being endowed not
only with considerable mental power, but with the tact to use that power
to the best advantage. Although beyond doubt _clever_, he was
universally esteemed a much more intellectual man than he really was,
and this through no voluntary deceitfulness on his part, but owing to a
method he had unconsciously adopted of exhibiting his wares with their
most favorable aspect to the front. He was well read, but not deeply
read, and yet all Paris considered him a profound scholar; he was quick
and epigrammatic in his appreciation and expression of ideas, as men of
cultivation and varied experience are apt to be, but he enjoyed the
reputation of being a wit, and finally having merely lounged through the
world, impelled by a spirit of restlessness, begotten of great wealth
and idleness, society looked upon him as a bold and adventurous
traveller. One gift he most certainly possessed: he was vastly amusing
and entertaining, and resembled in one respect the Abbe Galiani, as
described by Diderot; for he was indeed "a treasure on rainy days, and
if the cabinet-makers made such things, everybody would have one in the
country." He not only knew everybody in Paris, but he possessed an
extraordinary faculty of drawing people out, and forcing them to make
themselves amusing. No man was in his society long before he discovered
himself openly discussing his most cherished hobby, or airily
scattering as seed for trivial conversation the fruit of long years of
experience and reflection. His hotel in the Rue de Varenne was the
resort of all that was most remarkable and extraordinary in the
fashionable, the artistic, the diplomatic, and the scientific world. His
intimacy with the Abbe Gerard was one of long standing: they mutually
amused each other; the keen intellect of the priest found much that was
interesting in the shallow but attractive and brilliant nature of the
layman; while the Duke entertained feelings of the warmest admiration
for a man who, having risen from nothing, enlivened the most exclusive
coteries with his graceful learning and charming wit.
It was one of the peculiar whims of Octave de Frontignan never to have
an even number of guests at his dinner table. His soirees indeed were
attended by hundreds, but his dinner parties rarely exceeded seven
(including himself), and in many cases he only invited two. On this
especial occasion the only guest asked to meet the Abbe Gerard was the
celebrated diplomatist and millionaire the Prince Paul Pomerantseff.
This most extraordinary personage had for the past six years kept Europe
in a constant state of excitement by reason of his munificence and
power. Brought up under the direct personal supervision of the Emperor
of Russia, he had done a little of everything and succeeded in all he
had undertaken. He had distinguished himself as a diplomatist and as a
soldier, and had left traces of his indomitable will in many State
papers as on many an enemy's face during the period of the Crimean war.
In London, but perhaps more especially in "the shires," his face was
well known and liked. Duchesses' daughters had sighed for him, but in
vain; and the continuance of his celibacy appeared to be as certain as
the splendor of his fortune. The Abbe Gerard had known him for many
years, and proved no exception to the general rule, for although their
friendship had never ripened into great intimacy, there was perhaps no
man in the wide circle of his acquaintance in whose society the priest
took a more lively pleasure.
"Late as usual!" cried the Duke, as Gerard hurried into the room ten
minutes after the appointed hour. "Prince, if you were so unpunctual in
your diplomatic duties as the Abbe is in his social (and I _fear_ in his
spiritual!), where would the world be?"
The Abbe stopped short, pulled out his watch, and looked at it with a
comically contrite air.
"Only ten minutes late, and I am sure when you think of the amount of
business I have to transact you can afford to forgive me," he said as he
advanced and shook hands warmly with his friends.
"You have no idea," he continued, throwing himself lazily down upon a
lounge--"you have no idea of the amount of folly I am forced to listen
to in a day! Every woman whose bad temper has got her into trouble with
her husband, and every man whose stupidity has led him into quarrelling
with his wife--one and all they come to me, pour out their misfortunes
in my ears, and expect me to arrange their affairs."
The servant announcing dinner interrupted the poor Abbe's complaints.
"I tell you what I should do," said Pomerantseff when they were seated
at table. "I should say to every man and woman who came to me on such
errands, 'My dear friend, my business is with your spiritual welfare,
and with that alone. The doctor and solicitor must take care of your
worldly concerns. It is my duty to insure your eternal felicity when the
tedium of delirium tremens and the divorce court is all over, and that
is really all one man can do.'"
"By the way, talking of spiritual matters," interrupted the Duke,
"Pomerantseff has been telling me his experience with a man you detest,
Abbe."
"I detest no man."
"I can only judge from your own words," rejoined Frontignan. "Did you
not tell me years ago that you thought Home a more serious evil than the
typhoid fever?"
"Ah, Home the medium!" cried Gerard in great disgust. "I admit you are
right. It is not possible, Prince, that you encourage Frontignan in his
absurd spiritualism."
The Prince smiled gravely.
"I do not pretend to encourage any man in anything, _mon cher Abbe_."
"But you cannot believe in it!"
"I do most certainly believe in it."
"_Dieu de Dieu!_" exclaimed Gerard. "What folly! What are we all coming
to?"
"It has always struck me as remarkable," said the Duke, "that with all
your taste for the curious and unknown, you have never been tempted into
investigating the matter, Abbe."
"I am, as you say, a lover of the curious," replied the priest, "but not
of such empty trash as spiritualism. I have enough cares with the
realities of this world without bringing upon myself the misery of
investigating the possibilities of the next."
"That is a sentiment worthy of Abbe Dubois," said Pomerantseff laughing,
and then the Duke, suddenly making some inquiry relative to the train
which was to take him and the Prince to Brunoy on a shooting expedition
the following morning, the subject for the nonce was dropped. It was
destined, however, to be revived later in the evening, for when after
dinner they were comfortably ensconced in the _tabagie_, Frontignan, who
had been greatly excited by some extraordinary manifestations related to
him by the Prince before the arrival of the Abbe, said abruptly:
"Now, Gerard, you must really let us convert you to spiritualism."
"Never!" cried the Abbe.
"It is absurd for you to disbelieve, for you know nothing about it,
since you have never been willing to attend a _seance_."
"I _feel_ it is absurd, and that is enough."
"I myself do not exactly believe in _spirits_," said Frontignan
thoughtfully.
"_A la bonne heure!_ Of course not!" cried the Abbe. "You see, Prince,
he is not quite mad after all!"
The Prince said nothing.
"I cannot doubt the existence of some extraordinary phenomena,"
continued the young Duke thoughtfully; "for I cannot bring myself to
such an exquisite pitch of philosophical imbecility as to doubt my own
senses; but, to my thinking, the exact nature of the phenomena, remains
as yet an open question. I have a theory of my own about it, and
although it may be absurd and fantastical, it is certainly no more so
than that which would have us believe the spirits of the dear old lazy
dead come back to the scenes of their lives and miseries to pull our
noses and play tambourines."
"And may I ask you," inquired the Prince, with a touch of sarcasm in his
voice, "what this theory of yours may be?"
"I will give you," said the Duke, ignoring the sneer, and stretching
himself back in his chair as he sent a ring of smoke curling daintily
toward the ceiling--"I will give you with great pleasure the result of
my reflection about this matter. It is my belief that the things--the
tangible things we create, or rather cause to appear, come from within
ourselves, and are portions of ourselves. We produce them, in the first
instance, generally with hands linked, but afterward when our nervous
organizations are more harmonized to them, they come to us of
themselves, and even against our wills. It is my belief that these are
what we term our passions and our emotions, to whose existence the
electric fluid and nervous ecstasy we cause to circulate and induce by
sitting with hands linked, merely gives a tangible and corporeal
expression. We all know that grief, joy, remorse, and many other
sensations and emotions can kill as surely and in many cases as quickly
as an assassin's dagger, and it is a well known scientific fact that
there are certain nerves in the hand between certain fingers which have
a distinct _rapport_ with the mind, and by which the mind can be
controlled. Since this is so, why is it that under certain given
conditions, such as sitting with hands linked--that thus sitting, and
while the electric fluid, drawn out by the contact of our hands, forms a
powerful medium between the inner and the outward being--why is it, I
say, that these strong emotions I have mentioned should not take
advantage of this strange river flowing to and fro between the
conceptional and the visual to float before us for a time, and give us
an opportunity of seeing and touching them, who influence our every
action in life? It is my belief that I can shake hands with my emotions;
that my conscience can become tangible and pinch my ear just as surely
as it can and does keep people awake at night by agitating their nervous
system, or in other words, by mentally pinching their ears."
"That is certainly a very fantastical idea," said the Abbe smiling. "But
if you have ever seen any of your emotions, what do they look like? I
should like to see my hasty temper sitting beside me for a minute; I
should take advantage of his being corporealized to pay him back in his
own coin, and give him a good thrashing."
"It is difficult," said the Duke gravely, "to recognize one's emotions
when brought actually face to face with them, although they have been
living in us all our lives--turning our hair gray or pulling it out;
making us stout or lean, upright or bent over. Moreover, our minor
emotions, except in cases where the medium is remarkably powerful,
outwardly express themselves to us as perfumes, or sometimes in lights.
I have reason, however, to believe I have recognized my conscience."
"I should have thought he'd have been too sleepy to move out!" laughed
the Prince.
"That just shows how wrongly one man judges another," said Octave
lazily, without earnestness, but with a certain something in his tone
that betokened he was dealing with realities. "You probably think that I
am not much troubled with a conscience; whereas the fact is that my
conscience, with a strong dash of remorse in it, is a very keen one.
Many years ago a certain episode changed the whole color and current of
my life inwardly to myself, although of course outwardly I was much the
same. Now, this episode aroused my conscience to a most extraordinary
degree, and I never 'sit' now without seeing a female figure; with a
face like that of the heroine of my episode, dressed in a queer robe,
woven of every possible color except white, who shudders and trembles as
she passes before me, holding in her arms large sheets of glass, through
which dim Bohemian glass colors pass flickering every moment."
"What a very disagreeable thing to see this weather," said the
Abbe--"everything shuddering and shaking!"
"Have you ever discovered why she goes about like the wife of a
glazier?" asked the Prince.
"For a long time I could not make out what they could be, these large
panes of glass with variegated colors passing through them; but now I
think I know."
"Well?"
"They are dreams waiting to be fitted in."
"Bravo!" cried the Abbe. "That is really a good idea! If I had only the
pen of Charles Nodier, what a charming _feuilleton_ I could write about
all this!"
Pomerantseff laid his hand affectionately on the Duke's shoulder. "_Mon
cher ami_," he said with a grave smile, "believe me, you are wholly at
fault in your speculations. Gerard here of course, naturally enough,
since he has never been willing to 'sit,' thinks we are both madmen, and
that the whole thing is folly; but you and I, who have sat and seen many
marvellous manifestations, know that it is not folly. Take the word of
a man who has had greater experience in the matter than yourself, and
who is himself a most powerful medium: the theory you have just
enunciated is utterly false."
"Prove that it is false."
"I cannot prove it, but wait and see."
"Nay; I have given it all up now. I will not meddle with spiritualism
again. It unhinged my nerves and destroyed my peace of mind while I was
investigating it."
The Prince shrugged his shoulders.
"Prince, leave him alone," said the Abbe smiling. "His theory is a great
deal more sensible than yours; and if I could bring myself to believe
that at your _seances_ any real phenomenon _does_ take place (which of
course no sane person can), I should be much more apt to accept
Frontignan's interpretation of the matter. Let us follow it out a little
further, for the mere sake of talking nonsense. Doubtless the dominant
passion of a man would be the most likely to appear--that is to say,
would be the most tangible."
"That would depend," replied the Duke, "upon circumstances. If the
phenomenon should take place while the man is alone, doubtless it would
be so; but if while at a _seance_ attended by many people, the
apparition would be the product of the master passions of all, and thus
it is that many of the visions which appear at _seances_ where the
sitters are not harmonized are most remarkable and unrecognizable
anomalies."
"I thought I understood from Mme. de Girardin that certain spirits
always appeared."
"Pooh, pooh! Mme. de Girardin never went deep enough into the matter.
The most ravishing vision I ever saw was when I fancied I saw love."
"What? Love! An emanation from yourself?"
The Duke sighed.
"Ah, that is what proved to me that what I saw could not be love. That
sentiment has been too long extinguished in me to awaken to a corporeal
expression."
"What made you think it was love?" asked Pomerantseff.
"It was a white dove with something I cannot express that was human
about it. I felt ineffably happy while it was with me."
"Your theory is false, I tell you," said the Russian. "What you saw
probably was love."
"Then it would have been God!" cried the Abbe.
"Why?"
"I believe with Novalis that 'love is the highest reality,'" replied
Gerard; then he added with a laugh, "No, Duke, what you saw was an
emanation from yourself--a master passion. It was the corporeal
embodiment of your love of pigeon-shooting!"
"Perhaps," laughed the Duke.
"I tell you what, _mon ami_," said Pomerantseff rising, as he saw the
Abbe making preparations to depart. "I am glad that my appetite,
corporealized and separated from my discretion, is not in your wine
cellar. Your Johannisberg would suffer!"
"Prince, you must drive me home," said the Abbe. "I cannot get into a
draughty cab at this hour of the night."
"_Tres volontiers!_ Good night, Duke. Remember to-morrow morning, at
half-past nine, at the Gare de Lyon," said the Prince.
"Remember to-morrow night at half-past ten, at Mme. de Langeac's,"
bawled the Abbe; and so they left. The young nobleman hurried down the
cold staircase and into the Prince's brougham.
"What a pity," exclaimed the Abbe when they were once fairly started,
"that a man with all the mind of De Frontignan should give himself up to
such wild ideas and dreams!"
"You are not very complimentary," rejoined the other smiling gravely;
"for you know that so far as believing in spirits I am as bad if not
worse than he is."
"Ah, but _you_ are jesting."
"On my honor as a gentleman, I am not jesting. See here." As he spoke
Pomerantseff seized the Abbe's hand. "You heard me tell the Duke just
now that I believed he had seen the spirit of love. Well, the sermon you
preached the day before yesterday, which all Paris is talking about, and
in which you endeavored to prove the personality of the devil to be a
fact, was truer than perhaps you believed when you preached it. Why
should not Frontignan have seen the spirit of love _when I know and have
seen the devil_?"
"_Mon ami_, you are insane!" cried Gerard. "Why, the devil does not
exist!"
"I tell you I have seen him--the God of all Evil, the Prince of
Desolation!" cried the other in an excited voice. "And what is more, _I
will show him to you_!"
"Show the devil to _me_!" exclaimed the Abbe, half terrified, half
amused. "Why, you are out of your mind!"
The Prince laid his other hand upon the arm of the Abbe, who could feel
he was trembling with excitement.
"You know my address," he said in a quick, passionate voice. "When you
feel--as I tell you you surely will--desirous of investigating this
further, send for me, and I promise, on my honor as a gentleman, to show
you the devil, so that you cannot doubt. I will do this on one
condition."
The Abbe felt almost faint; for apart from the wildness of the words
thus abruptly and unexpectedly addressed to him, the hand of the Prince
which lay upon his own, as if to keep him still, seemed to be pouring
fire and madness into him. He tried to withdraw it, but the other
grasped the fingers tight.
"On one condition," repeated Pomerantseff in a lower tone.
"What condition?" murmured the poor Abbe.
"That you trust yourself entirely to me until we reach the place of
meeting."
"Prince, let go my hand! You are hurting me! I will promise to do as you
say when I want to go to your infernal meeting."
He wrenched his hand away, pulled down the carriage window and let the
cold night air in.
"Pomerantseff, you are a madman; you are dangerous. Why the devil did
you grasp my hand in that way? My arm is numb."
The Prince laughed.
"It is only electricity. I was determined, since you doubted the
existence of the devil, to make you promise to come and see him."
"I never promised!" exclaimed the Abbe. "I only promised to trust myself
to you if the horrible desire should ever seize me to investigate your
mad words further. But you need not be afraid of that. God forbid I
should indulge in such folly!"
The Prince smiled.
"God has nothing to do with this," he remarked simply. "You will come."
The carriage had now turned up the street in which the Abbe lived, and
they were but a few doors from his house.
"My dear Prince," said Gerard earnestly, "let me say a few words to you
at parting. You know I am not a bigot, so that your words--which many
might think blasphemous--I care nothing about; but remember we are in
the Paris of the nineteenth century, not in the Paris of Cazotte, and
that we are eminently practical nowadays. Had you asked me to go with
you to see some curious atrocity, no matter how horrible, I might, were
it interesting, have accepted; but when you invite me to go with you to
see the devil you really must excuse me; it is too absurd."
"Very well," replied Prince Pomerantseff. "Of course I know you will
come; but think the matter over well. Remember, I promise to show the
devil to you so that you can never doubt of his personality again. This
is not one of the wonders of electro-biology, but simply a fact: _the
devil exists, and you shall see him_. Good night."
Gerard, as he turned into his _porte cochere_, and made his way up
stairs, was more struck than perhaps he confessed even to himself by the
quiet tone of certainty and assurance in which the Prince uttered these
words; and on reaching his apartment he sat down by the blazing fire,
lighted a cigarette, and began considering in all its bearings what he
felt convinced was a most remarkable case of mania and mental
derangement. In the first place, was the Prince deceived himself, or
merely endeavoring to deceive another? The latter theory he at once
rejected; not only the character and breeding of the man, but his
nervous earnestness about this matter, rendered such a supposition
impossible. Then he himself was deceived--and yet how improbable! Gerard
could remember nothing in what he knew or had heard of the Prince that
could lead him to suppose his brain was of the kind charlatans and
pseudo-magicians can successfully bewitch. On the contrary, although of
a country in which the grossest superstitions are rife, he himself had
led such an active, healthy life, partly in Russia and partly in
England, that his brain could hardly be suspected of derangement. An
intimate and practical acquaintance with most of the fences in "the
shires," and all the leading statesmen of Europe, can hardly be
considered compatible with a morbid disposition and superstitious
nature.
No; the Abbe confessed to himself that the man who deceived Pomerantseff
must have been of no ordinary ability. That he had been deceived was
beyond all question, but it was certainly marvellous. In practical
matters, the Abbe was even forced to confess to himself, he would
unhesitatingly take the Prince's advice, sooner than trust to his own
private judgment; and yet here was this model of keen, healthy, worldly
wisdom gravely inviting him to meet the devil face to face, and not only
this, but promising that it should be no unintelligible freak of
electro-biology, but as a simple fact. Gerard smoked thirty cigarettes
without coming to any satisfactory solution of the enigma. What if after
all he, the Abbe Gerard, for once should abandon the line of conduct he
had laid down for himself, and, to satisfy his curiosity, and perhaps
with the chance of restoring to its proper equilibrium a most valuable
and comprehensive mind, overlook his determination never to endanger his
peace of mind by meddling with the affairs of spiritualists? He could
picture to himself the whole thing: they would doubtless be in a
darkened room; an apparition clothed in red, and adorned with the
traditional horns, would make its appearance, and there would very
likely be no apparent evidence of fraud. Even supposing some portion of
the absurd theory enunciated by the Duke de Frontignan were true, and
some strange thing begotten of electric fluid and overwrought
imagination were to make its appearance, that could hardly be considered
by a sane man as being equivalent to an interview with the devil. The
Abbe told himself that it would be most likely impossible to _detect_
any fraud, but he felt convinced that should the Prince find this
phenomenon pooh-poohed, after a full investigation, by a man of sense
and culture, his faith in it would be shaken, and ere long he would come
to despise it.
All the remarkable stories he had heard about spiritualism from Mme. de
Gerardin and others, and which he hitherto paid no heed to, came back
to-night to the Abbe as he sat ruminating over the extraordinary offer
just made him. He had heard of dead people appearing, and _that_ was
sufficiently absurd, for he did not believe in a future life; but the
devil----The idea was preposterous! Poor Luther, indeed, might throw his
ink-pot at him, but no enlightened Roman Catholic priest could be
expected to believe in his existence, no matter how much he might be
forced--for obvious reasons--to preach about it, and represent it as a
fact in sermons. Yes; he would unhesitatingly consent to investigate the
matter, and discover the fraud he felt certain was lurking somewhere,
but that the Prince seemed to feel so certain of his consent; and he
feared by thus fulfilling an idly expressed prophecy to plunge the
unhappy man still deeper in his slough of superstition. One thing was
certain, the Abbe told himself with a smile--nothing on earth or from
heaven or hell--if the two latter absurdities existed--could make _him_
believe in the devil. No, not even if the devil should come and take him
by the hand, and all the hosts of heaven flock to testify to his
identity. By this time, having smoked and thought himself into a state
of blasphemous idiocy, our worthy divine threw away his cigarette, went
to bed, and read himself into a nightmare with a volume of Von Helmont.
The following morning still found him perplexed as to what course to
adopt in this matter. As luck (or shall we say--the devil?) would have
it, while he was trifling in a listless way with his breakfast, there
called to see him the only priest in whose judgment, purity, and
religious fervor he had any confidence. It is probable, to such an
extent was his mind engrossed by the subject, that no matter who might
have called, he would have discussed the extraordinary conduct of Prince
Pomerantseff with him; but insomuch as the visitor chanced to be the
very man best calculated to direct his judgment in the matter, he,
without unnecessary delay, laid the whole affair before him.
"You see, _mon cher_," said Gerard in conclusion, "my position is just
this: It appears to me that this person, whom I will not name, has been
trifled with by Home and other so-called spiritualists to such an extent
that his mind is really in danger. Now, although of course we are
forbidden to have any dealings with such people, or to participate in
any way in their infamous, foolish, and unholy practices, surely it
would be the act of a Christian if a clear, healthy-minded man were to
expose the fraud, and thus save to society a man of such transcendent
ability as my friend. Moreover, should I determine to accept his mad
invitation, I hardly think I could be said to participate in any of the
scandalous and perhaps blasphemous rites he may have to perform to bring
about the supposed result. What do you think of it, and what do you
advise?"
His friend walked up and down the room for a few minutes, turning the
matter over carefully in his mind, and then, coming up to where the Abbe
lay lazily stretched upon a lounge, he said earnestly,
"_Mon cher_ Henri, I am very glad you have asked me about this. It
appears to me that your duty is quite clear. You perhaps have it in your
power, as you yourself have seen, to save, not only, as you say, a
_mind_, but what I wish I could feel you prized more highly--a soul. You
must accept the invitation."
The Abbe rose in delight at having found another man who, taking the
responsibility off his shoulders, commanded him as a duty to indulge his
ardent curiosity.
"But," continued the other in a solemn voice, "before accepting, you
must do one thing."
The Abbe threw himself back on the lounge in disgust.
"Oh, pray, of course," he exclaimed petulantly. "I am quite aware of
that."
"Not only pray, but _fast_, and that for seven days at least, my dear
brother."
This was a very disagreeable view of the matter, but the Abbe was equal
to the occasion. After a pause, during which he appeared absorbed in
religious reflection, he rose, and taking his friend by the hand--
"You are right," said he, "as you always are. Although of course I know
the evil spirit cannot harm an officer of God's Holy Catholic church,
even supposing, for the sake of argument, my poor friend can invoke
Satan, yet if I am to do any good, if I am to save my friend from
destruction, I must be armed with extraordinary grace, and this, as you
truly divine, can only come by fasting."
The other wrung his hand warmly. "I knew you would see it in its proper
light, my dear Henri," he said, "and now I will leave you to recover
your peace of mind by religious meditation."
The Abbe smiled gravely, and let his friend depart. The following letter
was the result of this edifying interview between the two divines:
"MON CHER PRINCE: No doubt you will feel very triumphant when
you learn that my object in writing this letter is to accept
your offer of presentation to _Sa Majeste_; but I do not care
whether you choose to consider this yielding to what is only in
part whimsical curiosity a triumph or no. I will not write to
you any cut-and-dried platitudes about good and evil, but I
frankly assure you that one of the strongest reasons which
induces me to go with you on this fool's errand is a belief
that I can discover the absurdity and imposture, and cure you
of a hallucination which is unworthy of you.
"_Tout a vous_,
"HENRI GERARD."
For two days he received no reply to this letter, nor did he happen, in
the interval, to meet the Prince in society, although he heard of him
from De Frontignan and others; but on the third day the following note
was brought to him:
"MON CHER AMI: There is no question of triumph, any more than
there is of deception. I will call for you this evening at
half-past nine. You must remember your promise to trust
yourself entirely to me.
"_Cordialement a vous_,
"POMERANTSEFF."
So the matter was now arranged, and he, the Abbe Gerard, the renowned
preacher of the celebrated ---- church, was to meet that very night, by
special appointment, at half-past nine, the Prince of Darkness; and this
in January, in Paris--at the height of the season in the capital of
civilization. As may be well imagined, during the remainder of that
eventful day, until the hour of the Prince's arrival, the Abbe did not
enjoy his customary placidity. A secretary of the Turkish embassy who
called at four found him engaged in a violent discussion with one of the
Rothschilds about the early Christians' belief in demons, as shown by
Tertullian and others, while Lord Middlesex, who called at half-past
five, found he had captured Faure, installed him at the piano, and was
inducing him to hum snatches from "Don Juan." When his dinner hour
arrived, having given orders to his valet to admit no one lest he should
be discovered _not_ fasting, he hastily swallowed a few mouthfuls,
fortified himself with a couple of glasses of Chartreuse verte, and
lighting an enormous "imperial," awaited the coming of the messenger of
Satan. At half-past nine o'clock precisely the Prince arrived. He was in
full evening dress (but contrary to his usual custom, wearing no
decoration or ribbon in his buttonhole), and his face was of a deadly
pallor.
"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed the Abbe, "What is the matter with you, _mon
cher_? You are looking very ill. We had better postpone our visit."
"No; it is nothing," replied the Prince gravely. "Let us be off without
delay. In matters of this sort waiting is unbearable."
The Abbe rose, and rang the bell for his hat and cloak. The appearance
of the Prince, his evident agitation, and his unfeigned impatience,
which seemed to betoken terror, were far from reassuring, but the Abbe
promptly quelled any misgivings he might have felt. Suddenly a thought
struck him; a thought which certainly his brain would never have
engendered had it been in its normal condition.
"Perhaps I had better change my dress, and go _en pekin_?" he inquired
anxiously.
The ghost of a sarcastic smile flitted across the Prince's face, as he
replied,
"No, certainly not. Your _soutane_ will be in every way acceptable.
Come, let us be off."
The Abbe made a grimace, put on his hat, flung his cloak around his
shoulders, and followed the Prince down stairs. He remarked with some
surprise that the carriage awaiting them was not the Prince's.
"I have hired a carriage for the occasion," remarked Pomerantseff
quietly, noticing Gerard's glance of surprise. "I am unwilling that my
servants should suspect anything of this."
They entered the carriage, and the coachman, evidently instructed
beforehand where to go, drove off without delay. The Prince immediately
pulled down the blinds, and taking a silk pocket handkerchief from his
pocket, began quietly to fold it lengthwise.
"I must blindfold you, _mon cher_," he remarked simply, as if announcing
the most ordinary fact.
"_Diable!_" cried the Abbe, now becoming a little nervous. "This is very
unpleasant! I believe you are the devil yourself."
"Remember your promise," said Pomerantseff, as he carefully covered his
friend's eyes with the pocket handkerchief, and effectually precluded
the possibility of his seeing anything until he should remove the
bandage. After this nothing was said. The Abbe heard the Prince pull up
the blind, open the window, and tell the coachman to drive faster. He
endeavored to discover when they turned to the right, and when to the
left, but in a few minutes got bewildered and gave it up in despair. At
one time he felt certain they were crossing the river.
"I wish I had not come," he murmured to himself. "Of course the whole
thing is folly, but it is a great trial to the nerves, and I shall
probably be upset for many days."
On they drove; the time seemed interminable to the Abbe.
"Are we near our destination yet?" he inquired at last.
"Not very far off," replied the other, in what seemed to Gerard a most
sepulchral tone of voice. At length, after a drive of perhaps half an
hour, but which seemed to the Abbe double that time, Pomerantseff
murmured in a low tone, and with a profound sigh which sounded almost
like a sob, "Here we are," and at that moment the Abbe felt the carriage
was turning, and heard the horses' hoofs clatter on what he imagined to
be the stones of a courtyard. The carriage stopped. Pomerantseff opened
the door himself, and assisted the blindfolded priest to alight.
"There are five steps," he said as he held the Abbe by the arm. "Take
care."
The Abbe stumbled up the five steps. They had now entered a house, and
Gerard imagined to himself it was probably some old hotel, like the
Hotel Pimodan, where Gautier, Beaudelaire, and others at one time were
wont to assemble to disperse the cares of life in the fumes of opium.
When they had proceeded a few yards, Pomerantseff warned him that they
were about to ascend a staircase, and up many shallow steps they went,
the Abbe regretting every instant more and more that he had allowed his
vulgar curiosity to lead him into an adventure which could be productive
of nothing but ridicule and shattered nerves. When at length they had
reached the top of the stairs, the Prince guided him by the arm through
what the Abbe imagined to be a hall, opened a door, closed and locked it
after them, walked on again, opened another door, which he closed and
locked likewise, and over which the Abbe heard him pull a heavy curtain.
The Prince then took him again by the arm, advanced him a few steps, and
said in a low whisper, "Remain quietly standing where you are, and do
not attempt to remove the pocket handkerchief until you hear voices."
The Abbe folded his arms and stood motionless while he heard the Prince
walk away a few yards. It was evident to the unfortunate priest that the
room in which he stood was not dark, for although he could see nothing,
owing to the pocket handkerchief, which had been bound most skilfully
over his eyes, there was a sensation of being in strong light, and his
cheeks and hands felt, as it were, illuminated. Suddenly a horrible
sound sent a chill of terror through him--a gentle noise as of naked
flesh touching the waxed floor--and before he could recover from the
shock occasioned by the sound, the voices of many men, voices of men
groaning or wailing in some hideous ecstasy, broke the stillness,
crying--"Father of all sin and crime, Prince of all despair and anguish,
come to us, we implore thee!"
The Abbe, wild with terror, tore off the pocket handkerchief. He found
himself in a large, old-fashioned room, panelled up to the lofty ceiling
with oak, and filled with great light, shed from innumerable tapers
fitted into sconces on the wall--light which, though naturally _soft_,
was almost fierce by reason of its greatness, for it proceeded from at
least two hundred tapers. He had then been after all right in his
conjectures: he was evidently in a chamber of some one of the many
old-fashioned hotels which are to be seen in the Ile St. Louis, and
indeed in all the antiquated quarters of Paris. It was reassuring, at
all events, to know one was not in Hades, and to feel tolerably certain
that a sergeant de ville could not be many yards distant. All this
passed into his comprehension like a flash of lightning, for hardly had
the bandage left his eyes ere his whole attention was riveted upon a
group before him.
Twelve men--Pomerantseff among the number--of all ages, from twenty-five
to fifty-five, all dressed in evening dress, and all, so far as one
could judge at such a moment, men of culture and refinement, knelt or
rather lay nearly prone upon the floor, with hands linked. They were
bowing forward and kissing the floor--which might account for the
strange sound heard by Gerard--and their faces were illuminated with a
light of hellish ecstasy--half distorted as if in pain, half smiling as
if in triumph. The Abbe's eyes instinctively sought out the Prince. He
was the last on the left hand side, and while his left hand grasped that
of his neighbor, his right was sweeping nervously over the floor as if
seeking to animate the boards. His face was more calm than those of the
others, but of a deadly pallor, and the violet tints about the mouth and
temples showed he was suffering from intense emotion. They were all,
each one after his own fashion, praying aloud, or rather moaning, as
they writhed in ecstatic adoration.
"Oh, Father of Evil, come to us!"
"Oh, Prince of Endless Desolation, who sitteth by the bed of suicides,
we adore thee!"
"Oh, creator of eternal anguish! oh, king of cruel pleasures and
famishing desires, we worship thee!"
"Come to us, with thy foot upon the hearts of widows, thy hair lucid
with the slaughter of innocence, and thy brow wreathed with the chaplet
of despair!"
The heart of the Abbe turned cold and sick as these beings, hardly human
by reason of their great mental exaltation, swayed before him.
Suddenly--or rather the full conception of the fact was sudden, for the
influence had been gradually stealing over him--he felt a terrible
coldness, a coldness more piercing than any he had before experienced
even in Russia; and with the coldness there came to him the certain
knowledge of the presence of some new being in the room. Withdrawing his
eyes from the semi-circle of men, who did not seem to be aware of his,
the Abbe's, presence, and who ceased not in their blasphemies, he
turned them slowly around, and as he did so they fell upon a newcomer, a
thirteenth, who seemed to spring into existence from the air before his
very eyes.
He was a young man of apparently twenty, very tall, with bright golden
hair falling from his forehead like a girl's. He was dressed in evening
dress, and his cheeks were flushed as if with wine or pleasure, but from
his eyes there gleamed a look of inexpressible sadness, of intense
despair. The group of men had evidently become aware of his presence at
the same moment, for they all fell prone upon the floor adoring, and
their words were now no longer words of invocation, but words of praise
and worship. The Abbe was frozen with horror; there was no room in his
breast for the lesser emotion of fear; indeed, the horror was so great
and all-absorbing as to charm and hold him spellbound. He could not
remove his eyes from the thirteenth, who stood before him calmly, with a
faint smile playing over his intellectual and aristocratic face--a smile
which only added to the intensity of the despair gleaming in his clear
blue eyes. Gerard was struck first with the sadness, then with the
beauty, and then with the intellectual vigor of that marvellous
countenance. The expression was not unkind: haughtiness and pride could
be read only in the high-bred features, short upper lip, and nobly
moulded limbs; for the face betokened, save for the flush upon the
cheeks, only great sadness. The eyes were fixed upon those of Gerard,
and he felt their soft, subtle, intense light penetrate into every nook
and cranny of his soul and being. This being simply stood and gazed upon
the priest as the worshippers grew more wild, more blasphemous, more
cruel. The Abbe could think of nothing but the face before him, and the
great desolation that lay folded over it as a veil. He could think of no
prayer, although he could remember there were prayers. Was this
despair--the despair of a man drowning in sight of land--being shed
into him from the sad blue eyes? Was it despair, or was it death? Ah,
no; not death. Death was peaceful, and this was violent and lively. Was
there no refuge, no mercy, no salvation anywhere? Perhaps, but he could
not remember while those sad blue eyes still gazed upon him. He could
not remember, and still he could not entirely forget. He felt that help
would come to him if he sought it, and yet he could hardly tell how to
seek it. Moreover, by degrees the blue eyes--it seemed as if their
color, their great blueness, had some fearful power--began pouring into
him a more hideous pleasure. It was the ecstasy of great pain, becoming
a delight, the ecstasy of being beyond all hope and of being thus
enabled to look with scorn upon the author of hope. The blue eyes still
gazed sadly with a soft smile of despair upon him. Gerard knew that in
another moment he would not sink, faint, or fall, but that he would--oh,
much worse!--he would smile. At this very instant a name--a familiar
name, and one which the infernal worshippers had made frequent use of,
but which he had never remarked before--struck his ear; the name of
Christ. Where had he heard it? He could not tell. It was the name of a
young man; he could remember that, and nothing more. Again the name
sounded--"Christ." There was another word like Christ which seemed at
some time to have brought an idea first of great suffering and then of
great peace. Aye, peace, but no pleasure. No delight like this shed from
these marvellous blue eyes. Again the name sounded--"Christ."
Ah! the other word was cross (_croix_). He remembered now; along thing
with a short thing across it.
Was it that as he thought of these things the charm of the blue eyes and
their great sadness lessened in intensity? We dare not say, but as some
faint conception of what a cross was flitted through the Abbe's brain,
although he could think of no prayer, of no distinct use of this cross,
he drew his right hand slowly up, and feebly made the sign across his
breast.
The vision vanished.
The men adoring ceased their clamor, and lay crouched up against each
other as if some strong electric power had been taken from them, and
great weakness had succeeded. But for a moment; and then they rose
trembling and with loosened hands, and stood for an instant feebly
gazing at the Abbe, who felt faint and exhausted, and heeded them not.
With extraordinary presence of mind, the Prince walked quickly up to
him, pushed him out of the door by which they had entered, followed him,
and locked the door behind them, thus precluding the possibility of
being immediately pursued by the others. Once in the next room, the Abbe
and Pomerantseff paused for an instant to recover breath, for the
swiftness of their flight had exhausted them, worn out as they both were
mentally and physically; but during this brief interval the Prince, who
appeared to be retaining his presence of mind by a merely mechanical
effort, carefully replaced over his friend's eyes the bandage which the
Abbe held tightly grasped in his hand. Then he led him on, and it was
not until the cold air struck them that they noticed they had left their
hats behind.
"_N'importe!_" muttered Pomerantseff. "It would be dangerous to return";
and hurrying the Abbe into the carriage which awaited them, he bade the
coachman speed them away "_au grand galop_!"
Not a word was spoken; the Abbe lay back as one in a swoon, and heeded
nothing until he felt the carriage stop, and the Prince uncovered his
eyes and told him he had reached home. He alighted in silence, and
passed into his house without a word. How he reached his apartment he
never knew, but the following morning found him raging with fever and
delirious. When he had sufficiently recovered, after the lapse of a few
days, to admit of his reading the numerous letters awaiting his
attention, one was put into his hand which had been brought on the
second night after the one of the memorable _seance_. It ran as follows:
"JOCKEY CLUB, January 26, 186-.
"MON CHER ABBE: I am afraid our little adventure was too much
for you; in fact, I myself was very unwell all yesterday, and
nothing but a Russian bath has pulled me together. I can hardly
wonder at this, however, for I have never in my life been
present at so powerful a _seance_, and you may comfort yourself
with the reflection that _Son Altesse_ has never honored any
one with his presence for so long a space of time before. Never
fear about your illness; it is merely nervous exhaustion, and
you will be well soon; but such evenings must not often be
indulged in if you are not desirous of shortening your life. I
shall hope to meet you at Mme. de Metternich's on Monday.
"_Tout a vous_,
"POMERANTSEFF."
Whether or no Gerard was sufficiently recovered to meet his friend at
the Austrian embassy on the evening named, we do not know, nor does it
concern us; but he is certainly enjoying excellent health now, and is no
less charming than before his extraordinary adventure.
Such is the true story of a meeting with the devil in Paris not many
years ago; a story true in every particular, as can be easily proved by
a direct application to any of the persons concerned in it, for they are
all living still. The key to the enigma we cannot find, for we certainly
do not put faith in any of the theories of spiritualists; but that an
apparition such as we have described did appear in the way and under the
circumstances we have described, is a fact, and we must leave the
satisfactory solution of the difficulty to more profound psychologists
than ourselves.
ON READING SHAKESPEARE.
CONCLUSION.
Probably no play of Shakespeare's, probably no other play or poem of a
high degree of merit, is so much neglected as "Troilus and Cressida" is.
I have met intelligent readers of Shakespeare, who thought themselves
unusually well acquainted with his writings, and who were so, who
understood him and delighted in him, but who yet had never read "Troilus
and Cressida." They had, in one way and another, got the notion that it
is a very inferior play, and not worth reading, or at least not to be
read until after they were tired of all the others--a time which had not
yet come. There seems to be a slur cast upon this play; the reason of
which is its very undramatic character, and the consequent
non-appearance of its name in theatrical records. No one has heard of
any actor's or actress's appearance, even in the last century, as one of
the personages in "Troilus and Cressida." Its name has not been upon the
playbills for generations, although even "Love's Labor's Lost" has once
in a while been performed. Hence it is almost unknown, except to the
thorough Shakespearian readers, who are very few; fewer now, in
proportion to the largely increased leisurely and instructed classes,
than they were two hundred years ago, much to the shame of our vaunted
popular education and diffusion of knowledge. And yet this neglected
drama is one of its author's great works; in one respect his greatest.
"Troilus and Cressida" is Shakespeare's wisest play in the way of
worldly wisdom. It is filled choke-full of sententious, and in most
cases slightly satirical revelations of human nature, uttered with a
felicity of phrase and an impressiveness of metaphor that make each one
seem like a beam of light shot into the recesses of man's heart. Such
are these:
In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men.
The wound of peace is surety;
Surety secure; but modest doubt is called
The beacon of the wise.
What is aught, but as 'tis valued?
'Tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god.
A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
Before a sleeping giant.
'Tis certain greatness once fall'n out with fortune
Must fall out with men too; what the declin'd is
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;
And not a man, for being simply man,
Hath any honor.
Besides passages like these, there are others of which the wisdom is
inextricably interwoven with the occasion. One would think that the
wealth of such a mine would be daily passing from mouth to mouth as the
current coin of speech; and yet of all Shakespeare's acknowledged plays,
there are only two, "The Comedy of Errors" and "The Winter's Tale,"
which do not furnish more to our store of familiar quotations than this
play does, rich though it is with Shakespeare's ripest thought and most
splendid utterance. And yet by a strange compensating chance, it
furnishes the most often quoted line; a line which not one in a million
of those that use it ever saw where Shakespeare wrote it, or if they had
any brains behind their eyes, they would not use it as they do. For by
another strange chance it happens that this line is entirely perverted
from the meaning which Shakespeare gave it. As it is constantly quoted,
it is not Shakespeare's. The line is:
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
This has come to be always quoted with the meaning implied in the
following indication of emphasis: "One touch of _nature_ makes the
_whole world_ kin." Shakespeare wrote no such sentimental twaddle. Least
of all did he write it in this play, in which his pen "pierces to the
dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is
a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." The line which
has been thus perverted into an exposition of sentimental brotherhood
among all mankind, is on the contrary one of the most cynical utterances
of an undisputable moral truth, disparaging to the nature of all
mankind, that ever came from Shakespeare's pen. Achilles keeps himself
aloof from his fellow Greeks, and takes no part in the war, sure that
his fame for valor will be untarnished. Ulysses contrives to provoke him
into a discussion, and tells him that his great deeds will be forgotten
and his fame fade into mere shadow, and that some new man will take his
place, unless he does something from time to time to keep his glory
bright. For men forget the great thing that was done, in favor of the
less that is done now.
For time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretched as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer. Welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.
And then he immediately adds that there is one point on which all men
are alike, one touch of human nature which shows the kindred of all
mankind--that they slight familiar merit and prefer trivial novelty. The
next lines to those quoted above are:
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all with one consent praise new-born gauds.
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More sand than gilt oe'rdusted.
The meaning is too manifest to need or indeed to admit a word of
comment, and it is brought out by this emphasis: "_One_ touch of nature
makes the _whole world kin_"--that one touch of their common failing
being an uneasy love of novelty. Was ever poet's or sage's meaning so
perverted, so reversed! And yet it is hopeless to think of bringing
about a change in the general use of this line and a cessation of its
perversion to sentimental purposes, not to say an application of it as
the scourge for which it was wrought; just as it is hopeless to think of
changing by any demonstration of unfitness and unmeaningness a phrase in
general use--the reason being that the mass of the users are utterly
thoughtless and careless of the right or the wrong, the fitness or the
unfitness, of the words that come from their mouths, except that they
serve their purpose for the moment. That done, what care they? And what
can we expect, when even the "Globe" edition of Shakespeare's works has
upon its very title-page and its cover a globe with a band around it, on
which is written this line in its perverted sense, that sense being
illustrated, enforced, and deepened into the general mind by the union
of the band-ends by clasped hands. I absolve, of course, the Cambridge
editors of the guilt of this twaddling misuse of Shakespeare's line; it
was a mere publisher's contrivance; but I am somewhat surprised that
they should have even allowed it such sanction as it has from its
appearance on the same title-page with their names.
The undramatic character of "Troilus and Cressida," which has been
already mentioned, appears in its structure, its personages, and its
purpose. We are little interested in the fate of its personages, not
merely because we know what is to become of them, for that we know in
almost any play which has an historical subject; but the play is
constructed upon such a slight plot that it really has neither dramatic
motive nor dramatic movement. The loves of "Troilus and Cressida" are of
a kind which are interesting only to the persons directly involved in
them; Achilles's sulking is of even less interest; and the death of
Hector affects us only like a newspaper announcement of the death of
some distinguished person, so little is he really involved in the action
of the drama. There is also a singular lack of that peculiar
characteristic of Shakespeare's dramatic style, the marked distinction
and nice discrimination of the individual traits, mental and moral, of
the various personages. Ulysses is the real hero of the play; the chief,
or at least the great purpose of which is the utterance of the Ulyssean
view of life; and in this play Shakespeare is Ulysses, or Ulysses
Shakespeare. In all his other plays Shakespeare so lost his personal
consciousness in the individuality of his own creations that they think
and feel as well as act like real men and women other than their
creator, so that we cannot truly say of the thoughts and feelings which
they express, that Shakespeare says thus or so; for it is not
Shakespeare who speaks, but they with his lips. But in Ulysses,
Shakespeare, acting upon a mere hint, filling up a mere traditionary
outline, drew a man of mature years, of wide observation, of profoundest
cogitative power, one who knew all the weakness and all the wiles of
human nature, and who yet remained with blood unbittered and soul
unsoured--a man who saw through all shams and fathomed all motives, and
who yet was not scornful of his kind, not misanthropic, hardly cynical
except in passing moods; and what other man was this than Shakespeare
himself? What had he to do when he had passed forty years but to utter
his own thoughts when he would find words for the lips of Ulysses? And
thus it is that "Troilus and Cressida" is Shakespeare's wisest play. If
we would know what Shakespeare thought of men and their motives after he
reached maturity, we have but to read this drama; drama it is, but with
what other character who shall say? For, like the world's pageant, it
is neither tragedy nor comedy, but a tragi-comic history, in which the
intrigues of amorous men and light-o'-loves and the brokerage of panders
are mingled with the deliberations of sages and the strife and the death
of heroes.
The thoughtful reader will observe that Ulysses pervades the serious
parts of the play, which is all Ulyssean in its thought and language.
And this is the reason or rather the fact of the play's lack of
distinctive characterization. For Ulysses cannot speak all the time that
he is on the stage; and therefore the other personages, such as may,
speak Ulyssean, with, of course, such personal allusion and peculiar
trick as a dramatist of Shakespeare's skill could not leave them without
for difference. For example, no two men could be more unlike in
character than Achilles and Ulysses, and yet the former, having asked
the latter what he is reading, he, uttering his own thought, says as
follows with the subsequent reply:
_Ulyss._--A strange fellow here
Writes me: That man, how dearly ever parted,[9]
How much in having, or without or in,
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath
Nor feels not what he owes but by reflection,
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.
_Achil._--This is not strange, Ulysses.
The beauty that is borne here in the face
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself,
That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself,
Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed,
Salutes each other with each other's form,
For speculation turns not to itself
Till it hath travelled and is mirror'd there
Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.
Now these speeches are made of the same metal and coined in the same
mint; and they both of them have the image and superscription of William
Shakespeare. No words or thoughts could be more unsuited to that bold,
bloody egoist, "the broad Achilles," than the reply he makes to Ulysses;
but here Shakespeare was merely using the Greek champion as a lay figure
to utter his own thoughts, which are perfectly in character with the
son of Autolycus. Ulysses thus flows over upon the whole serious part of
the play. Agamemnon, Nestor, AEneus, and the rest all talk alike, and all
like Ulysses. That Ulysses speaks for Shakespeare will, I think, be
doubted by no reader who has reached the second reading of this play by
the way which I have pointed out to him. And why, indeed, should Ulysses
not speak for Shakespeare, or how could it be other than that he should?
The man who had written "Hamlet," "King Lear," "Othello," and "Macbeth,"
if he wished to find Ulysses, had only to turn his mind's eye inward;
and thus we have in this drama Shakespeare's only piece of introspective
work.
But there is another personage who gives character to this drama, and
who is of a very different sort. Thersites sits with Caliban high among
Shakespeare's minor triumphs. He was brought in to please the mob. He is
the Fool of the piece, fulfilling the functions of Touchstone, and
Launce, and Launcelot, and Costard. As the gravediggers were brought
into "Hamlet" for the sake of the groundlings, so Thersites came into
"Troilus and Cressida." As if that he might leave no form of human
utterance ungilded by his genius, Shakespeare in Thersites has given us
the apotheosis of blackguardism and billingsgate. Thersites is only a
railing rascal. Some low creatures are mere bellies with no brain.
Thersites is merely mouth, but this mouth has just enough coarse brain
above it to know a wise man and a fool when he sees them. But the
railings of this deformed slave are splendid. Thersites is almost as
good as Falstaff. He is of course a far lower organization
intellectually, and somewhat lower, perhaps, morally. He is coarser in
every way; his humor, such as he has, is of the grossest kind; but still
his blackguardism is the ideal of vituperation. He is far better than
Apemantus in "Timon of Athens," for there is no hypocrisy in him, no
egoism, and, comfortable trait in such a personage, no pretence of
gentility. For good downright "sass" in its most splendid and aggressive
form, there is in literature nothing equal to the speeches of Thersites.
"Troilus and Cressida" is also remarkable for its wide range of style,
because of which it is a play of great interest to the student of
Shakespeare, who here adapted his style to the character of the matter
in hand. The lighter parts remind us of his earlier manner; the graver
are altogether in his later. He did this unconsciously, or almost
unconsciously, we may be sure. None the less, however, is the play
therefore valuable in a critical point of view, but rather the more so.
It is a standing and an undeniable warning to us not to lean too much
upon any one special trait of style in estimating the time in
Shakespeare's life at which a play was produced. Moreover it illustrates
the natural course of style development, showing that it is not only
gradual, but not by regular degrees; that is, that a writer does not
pass at one period absolutely from one style to another, dropping his
previous manner and taking on another, but that he will at one time
unconsciously recur to his former manner or manners, and at a late
period show traces of his early manner. Strata of his old fashion thrust
themselves up through the newer formation. "Troilus and Cressida" is so
remarkable in this respect that the chief of the absolute-period
critics, the Rev. Mr. Fleay, has been obliged to invent a most
extraordinary theory to account for it. His view is that there are three
plots interwoven, each of which is distinct in manner of treatment, and,
moreover, that each of these was composed at a different time from the
other two. He would have us believe that the parts embodying the Troilus
and Cressida story were written in Shakespeare's earliest period, those
concerning Hector in his middle period, and the Ajax parts in the last.
That these three stories were interwoven is manifest; but they came
naturally together in this Greek historical play--for it is that--and
their interweaving was hardly to have been avoided; the manner of each
is not distinct from that of the other, although there is, with
likeness, a noticeable unlikeness; but the notion that therefore
Shakespeare first wrote the Troilus and Cressida part as a play, and
then years afterward added the Hector part, and again years afterward
the Ajax and Ulysses part, seems to me only a monstrous contrivance of
an honest and an able man in desperate straits to make his theory square
with fact. As to detail upon this subject, I shall only notice one
point. Tag-rhymes, or rhymed couplets ending a scene or a speech in
blank verse or in prose, are regarded by the metre-critics (and justly
within reason) as marks of an early date of composition. Now in "Troilus
and Cressida" these abound. It contains more of them than any other
play, except one or two of the very earliest. The important point,
however, is that these rhymes appear no less in the Ulysses and Ajax
scenes of the play than in the others--a sufficient warning against
putting absolute trust in such evidence.
Among those few of Shakespeare's plays which are least often read is
"All's Well that Ends Well." This one, however, is to the earnest
student one of the most interesting of the thirty-seven which bear his
name; not only because it contains some of his best and most thoughtful
work, but because, being Shakespeare's all through, it is written in two
distinct styles--styles so distinct that there can be no doubt that as
it has come down to us it is the product of two distinct periods of his
dramatic life, and those the most distant, the first and the last. Its
singularity in this respect gives it a peculiar value to the student of
Shakespeare's style and of his mental development. There is not an
interweaving of styles as in "Troilus and Cressida"; the two are
distinctly separable; and there is external historical evidence which
supports the internal.
We have a record in Francis Meres's "Palladis Tamia" of a play by
Shakespeare called "Love's Labor's Won"; and there is no reasonable
doubt that that was the first name of "All's Well that Ends Well." As
the "Palladis Tamia" was published in 1598, this play was produced
before that year, and all the evidence, internal and external, goes to
show that Shakespeare wrote it soon after "Love's Labor's Lost," and as
a counterpart to that comedy. The difference of its style in various
parts had been remarked upon in general terms; but I believe that this
difference was first specially indicated in the following passage, which
I cannot do better here than to quote from the introduction to my
edition of the play published in 1857; and I do so with the greater
freedom because the particular traits which it discriminated have been
lately, in the present year, insisted upon by the Rev. Mr. Fleay, in his
very useful and suggestive, but not altogether to be trusted
"Shakespeare Manual," to which I have before referred.
"It is to be observed that passages of rhymed couplets, in which the
thought is somewhat constrained and its expression limited by the form
of the verse, are scattered freely through the play, and that these are
found side by side with passages of blank verse in which the thought, on
the contrary, so entirely dominates the form, and overloads and weighs
it down, as to produce the impression that the poet, in writing them,
was almost regardless of the graces of his art, and merely sought an
expression of his ideas in the most compressed and elliptical form. The
former trait is characteristic of his youthful style; the latter marks a
certain period of his maturer years. Contracted words, which Shakespeare
used more freely in his later than in his earlier works, abound; and in
some passages words are used in an esoteric sense, which is distinctive
of the poet's style about the time when 'Measure for Measure' was
produced. Note, for instance, the use of 'succeed' in 'owe and succeed
thy weakness,' in Act II., Sc. 4 of that play, and in 'succeed thy
father in manners,' Act I., Sc. 1 of this. It is to be observed also
that the advice given by the Countess to Bertram when he leaves
Rousillon is so like that of Polonius to Laertes in a similar situation,
that either the latter is an expansion of the former, or the former a
reminiscence of the latter; and as the passage is written in the later
style, the second supposition appears the more probable. Finally, it is
worthy of remark that both the French officers who figure in this play
as First Lord and Second Lord are somewhat strangely named _Dumain_, and
that in 'Love's Labor's Lost' Dumain is also the name of that one of the
three attendants and brothers in love of the King who has a post in the
army; which, when taken in connection with other circumstances, is at
least a hint of some relation between the two plays."
If the reader who has gone thoughtfully through the plays in the course
which I have indicated will take up this one, he will find in the very
first scene evidence and illustration of these views. It is almost
entirely in prose, which itself shows the weight of Shakespeare's mature
hand. The first blank verse is the speech of the Countess, in which she
gives a mother's counsel to Bertram as he is setting out for the wars,
as is pointed out above, and which is unmistakably of the "Hamlet"
period. Then comes a speech by Helen beginning,
O were that all! I think not on my father:
And these great tears grace his remembrance more
Than those I shed for him--
and ending with this charming passage, referring to the growth of her
love for Bertram:
'Twas pretty, though a plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls
In our heart's table; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favor:
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?
It is needless to say to the advanced student of Shakespeare's style
that this is in his later manner. A little further on is Helen's speech
to the detestable Parolles, beginning with the mutilated line, "Not my
virginity yet," which is followed by some ten, in which she pours out in
Euphuistic phrase her love for Bertram, saying that he has in her "a
mother, and a mistress, and a friend, a counsellor, a traitress, and a
dear"; and yet further,
His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster, with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious Christendoms
That blinking Cupid gossips.
This will remind the reader of Scott's Euphuist, Sir Piercie Shafton,
who, if I remember aright, uses some of these very phrases, in which
Shakespeare has beaten Lilly at his own weapons, and made his affected
phraseology the vehicle of the touching utterance of real feeling.
"Euphues" was published in 1580, when Shakespeare was only sixteen years
old; and this passage, although it may have been written or perhaps
altered later, was probably a part of the play as it was first produced.
The scene ends with the following speech by Helen, which, for its
peculiar characteristics, is worth quoting entire. The reader who will
compare it with "Love's Labor's Lost" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
will have not a moment's doubt as to the time when it was written:
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
What power is it which mounts my love so high
That makes me see and cannot feed mine eye?
The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes and kiss like native things.
Impossible be strange attempts to those
That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose
What hath been cannot be: whoever strove
To show her merit that did miss her love?
The king's disease--my project may deceive me,
But my intents are fixed and will not leave me.
Besides its formal construction and its rhyme, this passage is overmuch
afflicted with youngness to be accepted as the product of any other
than Shakespeare's very earliest period. Of like quality to this are
other passages scattered through the play. For example, the Countess's
speech, Act I., Sc. 3, beginning, "Even so it was with me"; all the
latter part of Act II., Sc. 1, from Helen's speech, "What I can do,"
etc., to the end, seventy lines; passages in the third scene of this
act, which the reader cannot now fail at once to detect for himself;
Helen's letter, Act III., Sc. 4, and Parolles's, Act IV., Sc. 3; and
various passages in the last act. Shakespeare, I have no doubt, wrote
this play at first nearly all in rhyme in the earliest years of his
dramatic life, and afterward, late in his career, possibly on two
occasions, rewrote it and gave it a new name; using prose, to save time
and labor, in those passages the elevation of which did not require
poetical treatment, and in those which were suited to such treatment
giving us true, although not highly finished specimens of his grand
style.
A few of the plays now remain unnoticed; but our purpose is accomplished
without further particular remark. The reader who has gone thus far with
me needs me no longer as a guide. The Roman plays, "Coriolanus," "Julius
Caesar," and "Antony and Cleopatra," particularly the last, should now
receive his careful attention. In "The Winter's Tale," "The Tempest,"
and "Henry VIII." he will find the very last productions of
Shakespeare's pen, and in the first and the third of these he will find
marks of hasty work both in the versification and in the construction;
but the touch of the master is unmistakable quite through them all, and
"The Tempest" is one of the most perfect of his works in all respects.
No true lover of Shakespeare should neglect the Sonnets, although many
do neglect them. They are inferior to the plays; but only to them.
As to helps to the understanding of Shakespeare, those who can
understand him at all need none except a good critical edition. And by a
good critical edition I mean only one which gives a good text, with
notes where they are needed upon obscure constructions, obsolete words
or phrases, manners and customs, and the like. Of the plays in the
Clarendon Press series, "The Merchant of Venice," "Richard II.,"
"Macbeth," "Hamlet," and "King Lear," better editions cannot be had,
particularly for readers inexperienced in verbal criticism. Those who
find any difficulty which the notes to those editions do not explain may
be pretty sure that, with the exception of a very few passages the
corruption of which is admitted on all hands, the trouble is not with
Shakespeare or the editor. Shakespeare read in the way which I have
indicated, and with the help of such an edition, has a high educating
value, and in particular will give the reader an insight into the
English language, if not a mastery of it, that is worth a course of all
the text-books of grammar and rhetoric that have been written ten times
over. As to editions, I shall give only one caution. Do not get Dyce's.
Mr. Dyce was a scholar, a man of fine taste, most thoroughly read in
English literature, particularly in that of the Elizabethan period. He
was a man for whom I had a very high respect, and whom I had reason to
regard with a somewhat warmer feeling than that of a mere literary
acquaintance. This and my deference to his age and his position
prevented me from saying during his life what there is no reason that I
should not say now--that in my opinion he was one of the most
unsuccessful of Shakespeare's editors. His edition is one of the worst
that has been published in the last century, both for its text and,
except as to their learning, for its notes. With all my deferential
respect for him,[10] I was prepared for this result before the
appearance of the first of his three editions. Being in correspondence
with him, and on such terms that I could make such a request, I asked
him to send me some sheets of his edition while it was passing through
the press. He replied that he could not do this; but the reason that he
gave was, not any unwillingness to confide them to me, but that it was
then impossible, because after his edition was half struck off he had
cancelled the greater part of it on account of changes in his opinions
as to the reading of so many passages! And this after he was well in
years; after having passed his life in the study of Elizabethan
literature; and after having edited Beaumont and Fletcher! I was never
more amazed. Such a man could have no principles of criticism. How could
he guide others who after such study was not sure of his own way? With
all his knowledge of the literature and the literary history of the
Elizabethan period, he seemed to lack the power of putting himself in
sympathy with Shakespeare as he wrote. Hence the crudity and incongruity
of his text, his vacillating opinions, and the weakness and poverty of
his annotation.
Of criticism of what has been called the higher kind, I recommend the
reading of very little, or better, none at all. Read Shakespeare; seek
aid to understand his language, if that be in any way obscure to you;
but that once comprehended, apprehension of his purpose and meaning will
come untold to those who can attain it in any way. In my own edition I
avoided as much as possible the introduction of aesthetic criticism, not
because I felt incapable of writing it; for it is easy work; on the
contrary, I freely essayed it when it was necessary as an aid to the
settlement of the text, or of like questions; and by its use I think
that I succeeded in establishing some points of importance. But in my
judgment the duty of an editor is performed when he puts the reader, as
nearly as possible, in the same position, for the apprehension of his
author's meaning, that he would have occupied if he had been
contemporary with him and had received from him a correct copy of his
writings. More than this seems to me to verge upon impertinence. Upon
this point I find myself supported by William Aldis Wright,[11] who is
in my judgment the ablest of all the living editors of Shakespeare; who
brings to his task a union of scholarship, critical judgment, and common
sense, which is very rare in any department of literature, and
particularly in Shakespearian criticism, and whose labors in this
department of letters are small and light in comparison with the graver
studies in which he is constantly engaged. He, in the preface to his
lately published edition of "King Lear" in the Clarendon Press series,
says: "It has been objected to the editions of Shakespeare's plays in
the Clarendon Press series that the notes are too exclusively of a
verbal character, and that they do not deal with aesthetic, or as it is
called, the higher criticism. So far as I have had to do with them, I
frankly confess that aesthetic notes have been deliberately and
intentionally omitted, because one main object in these editions is to
induce those for whom they are especially designed to read and study
Shakespeare himself, and not to become familiar with opinions about him.
Perhaps, too, it is because I cannot help experiencing a certain feeling
of resentment when I read such notes, that I am unwilling to intrude
upon others what I should regard myself as impertinent. They are in
reality too personal and objective, and turn the commentator into a
showman. With such sign-post criticism I have no sympathy. Nor do I wish
to add to the awful amazement which must possess the soul of Shakespeare
when he knows of the manner in which his works have been tabulated, and
classified, and labelled with a purpose, after the most approved method,
like modern _tendenzschriften_. Such criticism applied to Shakespeare is
nothing less than gross anachronism."
Not a little of the Shakespearian criticism of this kind that exists is
the mere result of an effort to say something fine about what needs no
such gilding, no such prism-play of light to enhance or to bring out its
beauties. I will not except from these remarks much of what Coleridge
himself has written about Shakespeare. But the German critics whom he
emulated are worse than he is. Avoid them. The German pretence that
Germans have taught us folk of English blood and speech to understand
Shakespeare is the most absurd and arrogant that could be set up.
Shakespeare owes them nothing; and we have received from them little
more than some maundering mystification and much ponderous platitude.
Like the western diver, they go down deeper and stay down longer than
other critics, but like him too they come up muddier. Above all of them,
avoid Ulrici and Gervinus. The first is a mad mystic, the second a very
literary Dogberry, endeavoring to comprehend all vagrom men, and
bestowing his tediousness upon the world with a generosity that
surpasses that of his prototype. Both of them thrust themselves and
their "fanned and winnowed opinions" upon him in such an obtrusive way
that if he could come upon the earth again and take his pen in his hand,
I would not willingly be in the shoes of either. He would hand them down
to posterity the laughing stock of men for ever.
Not Shakespeare only has suffered from this sort of criticism. The great
musicians fare ill at their hands. One of them, Schlueter, writing of
Mozart, says of his E flat, G minor, C (Jupiter) symphonies:
It is evident that these three magnificent works--produced
consecutively and at short intervals--are the embodiment of
_one_ train of thought pursued with increasing ardor; so that
taken as a whole they form a grand _trilogy_.... These three
grandest of Mozart's symphonies (the first lyrical, the second
tragic-pathetic, and the third of ethical import) correspond to
his three greatest operas, "Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Die
Zauberfloete."
Now, I venture to say, that there is no such consecutive train of
thought, and no such correspondence. Ethical import in the Jupiter and
in the "Zauberfloete," and correspondence between them! Mozart did not
evolve musical elephants out of his moral consciousness. But a German
professor of _esthetik_ is not happy until he has discovered a trilogy
and an inner life. Those found, he goes off with ponderous serenity into
the _ewigkeit_.
I have been asked, apropos of these articles, to give some advice as to
the formation of Shakespeare clubs. The best thing that can be done
about that matter is to let it alone entirely. According to my
observation, Shakespeare clubs do not afford their members any
opportunities of study or even of enjoyment of his works which are not
attainable otherwise. And how should they do so except by the formation
of libraries for the use of their members? In this respect they may be
of some use, but not of much. Few books, a very few, are necessary for
the intelligent and earnest student of Shakespeare, and those almost
every such student can obtain for himself. As I have said, a good
critical edition is all that is required; and whoever desires to wander
into the wilderness of Shakespearian commentary will find in the public
libraries ample opportunities of doing so. I have observed that those
who read Shakespeare most and understand him best do not use even
critical editions, except for occasional reference, but take the text by
itself, pure and simple. An edition with a good text, brief
introductions to each play, giving only ascertained facts, and a few
notes, glossological and historical, at the foot of the page, is still a
desideratum. Quiet reading with such an edition as this at hand will do
more good than all the Shakespeare clubs ever established have done. I
have seen something of such associations; and I have observed in them a
tendency on one hand to a feeble and fussy literary antiquarianism, and
on the other to conviviality; a thing not bad in itself, and indeed,
within bounds, much better than the other; but which has as little to
do as that has (and it could not have less) with an intelligent study of
Shakespeare. There is hardly anything less admirable to a reasonable
creature than the assemblage at stated times of a number of
semi-literary people to potter over Shakespeare and display before each
other their second-hand enthusiasm about "the bard of Avon," as they
generally delight to call him. Now, a true lover of Shakespeare never
calls him the bard of Avon, or a bard of anything; and he reads him o'
nights and ponders over him o' days while he is walking, or smoking, or
at night again while he is waking in his bed. If he is too poor to buy a
copy offhand, he saves up his pennies till he can get one, and he does
not trouble himself about the commentators or the mulberry tree. He
would not give two pence to sit in a chair made of it; for he knows that
he could not tell it from any other chair, and that it would not help
him to understand or to enjoy one line in "Hamlet," or "Lear," or
"Othello," or "As You Like It," or "The Tempest." These remarks have no
reference of course to such societies as the Shakespeare Societies of
London, past and present. They are associations of scholars for the
purpose of original investigations, and which they print for the use of
their subscribers, and for the republication of valuable and scarce
books and papers having a bearing upon Shakespeare and the literary
history of his time. We have no such material in this country. Whoever
wishes to go profoundly into the study of Shakespearian, or rather of
Elizabethan literature, would do well to obtain a set of the old
Shakespeare Society's publications, and to become a subscriber to the
other Shakespeare society, which is doing good thorough work. Clubs
might well be formed for the obtaining of these books and others, for
the use of their members who cannot afford or who do not care to buy
them for their own individual property; although a book really owned is,
I cannot say exactly why, worth more to a reader than one belonging to
some one else. But all other Shakespeare clubs are mere vanity. The true
Shakespeare lover is a club unto himself.
RICHARD GRANT WHITE.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] _I. e._, gifted, endowed with parts.
[10] See "Shakespeare's Scholar," _passim._
[11] Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and one of the editors of the
Cambridge edition.
THE PHILTER.
A LEGEND OF KING ARTHUR'S TIME.
Dying afar in Brittany,
The gallant Tristram lay;
His gentle bride's sweet ministry,
Her tender touch and way,
That erstwhile brought the rest he sought,
No more held soothing sway.
The naming of her tuneful name,
Isoude--so sweet to hear
Because its music was the same
With one long holden dear--
Now, like a bell discordant, fell,
And brought but mocking cheer.
Her eyne so blue, with lids so white,
Her tresses from their snood,
That rippling ambered all the light
About her where she stood,
Served only now to cloud his brow
Who longed for lost Isoude--
Isoude, who charmed him once when storm
Had blown his ship ashore
On Ireland's coast; Isoude, whose form
Bewitched him more and more,
As mem'ry came, his love to flame,
When hope, alas! was o'er:
Isoude, who sailed with him the sea
Across to Cornwall land,
To marry Mark, whose treachery
Did Tristram's faith command
To win her grace for kingly place,
And his own heart withstand.
On sultry deck becalmed they pine;
Careless, their thirst to ease,
A philter--mixt for bridal wine--
Her lip beguiles, and his:
O subtle draught unconscious quaffed!
They drained it to the lees--
Until in Tristram's knightly form
All joy for her seemed blent;
Until her cheek could only warm
Beneath his gaze intent;
Until her heart sought him apart,
Whoever came or went;
Until the potion did beget
An all-enduring spell;
Albeit Cornwall's king now met
And liked her fairness well,
And claimed her hand, while through the land
Rang sound of marriage bell;
Until, as fragrance from a flower,
True love outbrake control,
And dropped its sweetness as a shower
Of pearls, that threadless roll
To find their rest in some near nest;
Her home, Sir Tristram's soul!
And he, though frequent jousts he won;
Though many a valiant deed
Of prowess made his fame outrun
The claim of knightly creed;
Though maidens oft their glances soft
Bestowed in tenderest meed;
Though Brittany upon him prest
A bride, in gratitude
For service done; and though the quest
Of sacred grail subdued
His full heart-beat of smothered heat--
He loved but _Queen_ Isoude!
And now with holy vows all tossed
Of fever's frantic sway--
As mariner whose bark is crossed
Upon a peaceful way
By winds that lure from purpose pure
And well-meant plans bewray--
He bade a trusty servitor
To Cornwall's queen forthwith.
"Take this," he said, "and show to her
How great my languor, sith
This signet's round will not be found
To bear one hurted lith.
"Say that Sir Tristram prays her aid,
And so he prays not vain,
Let sails of silken white be made,
Whose gleam shall heal my pain,
As hither borne some favoring morn,
Love claims his own again!
"But if she yield no heed to these
Fond cravings of love's breath,
Then bearing on the burdened breeze
Let sail that shadoweth,
Of darkest dark, beshroud the bark,
A presage of my death."
So spake the Lord of Lyonesse,
And bode his joy or bale;
While jealous of her right to bless,
The wife Isoude, grown pale
As buds of light that shrink from night,
Made sad and lonely wail:
"Alas! all one the loss to me,
My lord alive or dead,
If life of his by sorcery
Of this fair queen be fed."
Then adding, "Be her answer _nay_,
Hope yet to hope is wed."
She scanned the sea. On waves of balm
A white sail of rare glow
Came rounding to the harbor's calm
With fullest promise--lo!
Bleak winds arise, as false she cries,
"_A black sail entereth_ slow."
Too weak to battle with his grief,
Sir Tristram breathed a sigh--
"Alack, that Isoude's sweet relief
Should fail me where I lie:
Sith not for me her face to see,
Is but to droop and die."
Black sails are hoisted now in truth!
They wing two forms to rest:
For Cornwall's queen a-cold, in ruth,
Fell prone on Tristram's breast;
And Cornwall's knight for kinsman's right
Of shrine had made request.
A letter lay upon the bier,
And this the word it bare:
"O love is sweet, O love is dear,
And followeth everywhere
Whoso has drained the chalice stained
With its red wine and rare.
"O love is dear, O love is sweet,
And yet, of faith's decree
Would Honor quench beneath stern feet
Love's bloom if that need be.
O King, one wills. But Love distils
His philters fatefully!"
Then did the King in penitence
Weep dole for these two dead.
Some slight remorse had pricked his sense
That he through wile had wed
His best knight's love; alas, to prove
Such end, so ill bestead!
In royal crypt he bade the twain
Be laid; and there a vine,
O'er which the murderous scythe was vain,
Sprang up the graves to twine,
Defying death with its green breath:
True plant of seed divine!
MARY B. DODGE.
MISS MISANTHROPE.
BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY.
CHAPTER I.
MISS MISANTHROPE.
The little town of Dukes-Keeton, in one of the more northern of the
midland counties, had in its older days two great claims to
consideration. One was a park, the other a sweetmeat. The noble family
whose name had passed through many generations of residence at the place
had always left their great park so freely open to every one, that it
came to be like the common property of the public, and the town had
grown into fame by the manufacture of the sweetmeat which bore its name
almost everywhere in the track of the meteor-flag of England. But as
time went on other places took to manufacturing the sweetmeat so much
better, and selling it so much more successfully than "Keeton," as the
town was commonly called, could do, that "Keeton" itself had long since
retired from the business, and was content to import the delicacy which
still bore its own name in consignments of canisters from Manchester or
London. During many years the heir of the noble family had deserted the
park, and absolutely never came near it or near England even, and
everything that gave the town a distinct reason for existence seemed to
be passing rapidly into tradition. It had lain out of the track of the
railway system for a long time, and when the railway system at length
enclosed it in its arms, the attention seemed to have come too late. All
the heat of life appeared to have chilled out of Dukes-Keeton in the
mean time, and it lay now between two railways almost as inanimate and
hopeless a lump as the child to whom the Erl-king's touch is fatal in
his father's arms.
The park, with its huge palace-like, barrack-like house, not a castle,
and too great to be called merely a hall, lies almost immediately
outside the town. From streets and shops the visitor passes straightway
through the gates of the great enclosure. Every stranger who has seen
the house is taken at once to see another object of interest.
In the centre of the park was a broad, clear space, made by the felling
and removing of every tree, until it spread there sharp and hard as a
burnt-out patch in a forest. Gravel and small shells made the pavement
of this space, and thus formed a new contrast with the turf, the
grasses, and the underwood of the park all around. In the midst of this
open space there rose a large circular building: a tower low in height
when the bulk enclosed by its circumference was considered, and standing
on a great square platform of solid masonry with steps on each of its
sides. The tower itself reminded one of the tomb of Cecilia Metella, or
some other of the tombs that still stand near Rome. It was in fact the
mausoleum which it had pleased the father of the present owner to have
erected for himself during his lifetime. He lavished money on it, cared
nothing for the cost of materials and labor, planned it out himself,
watched every detail, and stood by the workmen as they toiled. Within he
had prepared a lordly reception-room for his dead body when he should
come to die. A superb sarcophagus of porphyry, fit to have received the
remains of a Caesar, was there. When the work was done and all was ready,
the lonely owner visited it every day, unlocked its massive gate, and
went in, and sat sometimes for hours in his own mausoleum. He was
growing insane, people thought, in these later days, and they counted on
his soon becoming an actual madman. So far, however, he showed no
greater madness than in wasting his money on a huge tomb, and wasting so
much of his time in visiting it prematurely. The tomb proved a vanity in
a double sense. For the noble owner was seized with a sudden mania for
travel, and resolved to go round the world. Somewhere in mid ocean he
was attacked by fever, or what alarmed people called the plague, and he
died, and his body had to be committed without much delay or ceremonial
to the sea. He had built his monument to no purpose. He was never to
occupy it. It stood a vast and solid gibe at the vanity of its founder.
Over the great gate through which the mausoleum was entered were three
heads sculptured in stone. One was that of a man in the prime of
manhood, with lips and eyebrows contracted and puckered, forehead
wrinkled, eyes full of anxious strain, all telling of care, of pain, of
sleepless struggle against difficulty, watchfulness to ward off danger.
This was Life. The next was the face of the same man with the eyes
closed and the cheeks sunken, and the expression of one who had fallen
into sleep from pain--the struggle and agony gone indeed, but their
shadow still resting on the brows and the lips: and that of course was
Death. The third piece of carving showed the same face still, but now
with clear eyes looking broadly and brightly forward, and with features
all noble, serene, and glad. This was Eternity. These three faces were
the wonder and admiration of the neighborhood, and had been for now some
years back employed to solve the problem of existence for all the little
lads and lasses of Keeton who might otherwise have failed sometimes to
see the harmonious purpose working in all things. The sculptor had it
all his own way, and took care that Life should have the worst of it.
Keeton was in almost all its conditions a place of rather sleepy
contentment, and its people could be trusted to take just as much of the
moral as was good for them, and not to carry to extremes the lesson as
to the discomfort and dissatisfaction of the probationary life-period.
Otherwise there might perhaps be a chance that impressionable, not to
say morbid, persons would desire to hurry very rapidly through the dark
and anxious vestibule of life in order to get into the broad bright
temple of Eternity.
Some thought like this was passing through the mind of Miss Minola Grey,
who sat on the steps of the tomb and looked up into the faces
illustrative of man's struggle and final success. Life had long been
wearing a hard and difficult appearance to her, and she would perhaps
have been glad enough sometimes if she could have got into the haven of
quiet waters which, in the minds of so many people and in so many
symbolic representations, is made to stand for Eternity. She was a
handsome, graceful girl, rather tall, fair-haired, with deep bluish gray
eyes which seemed to darken as they looked earnestly at any one--eyes
which might be described in Matthew Arnold's words as "too expressive to
be blue, too lovely to be gray"--with a broad forehead, from which the
hair was thrown back in disregard of passing fashions. Perhaps it was
her attitude, as she leaned her chin upon her hand and looked up at the
mausoleum--perhaps it was the presence of that gloomy building
itself--that made her face seem like an illustration of melancholy.
Certainly her face was pale and a little wanting in fulness, and the
lips were of the kind that one can always think of as tremulous with
emotion of some kind. This was a beautiful summer evening, and all the
park around was green, sunny, and glad. The dry bare spot on which the
tomb was built seemed like a gray and withering leaf on a bright branch;
and the figure of the girl was more in keeping with the melancholy
shadow of the mausoleum than the joyousness of the sun and the trees and
the whole scene all around.
Indeed, there was a good deal of melancholy in the girl's mind at that
moment. She was taking leave of the place: had come to say it a
farewell. That park had been her playground, her studio, her stage, her
world of fancy and romance and poetry since her infancy. She had driven
her brother as a horse there, and had played with him at hunting lions.
She had studied landscape drawing there from the days when a half
staggery stroke with some blotches out of it was supposed to represent a
tree, and a thing shaped like the trade-mark on Mr. Bass's beer bottles
stood for a mountain. As she grew up she came there to read and to idle
and to think. There she revelled in all the boundless fancies and
extravagant ambitions of a clever, half-poetic child. There she was in
turn the heroine of every book that delighted her, and the heroine of
stories which had never been put into print. Heroes of surpassing
beauty, strength, courage, and devotion had rambled under these trees
for years with her, nor had the new-comer's presence ever been made a
cause of jealousy or complaint by the one whom his coming displaced.
They were a strange procession of all complexions and garbs. Achilles
the golden-haired had been with her in his day, and so had the
melancholy Master of Ravenswood: and the young Djalma, the lover of
Adrienne of the "Juif Errant," forgotten of English girls to-day; and
Nello, the proud gondolier lad with the sweet voice, who was loved by
the mother and the daughter of the Aldinis; and the unnamed youth who
went mad for Maud; and Henry Esmond, and Stunning Warrington, and Jane
Eyre's Rochester, and ever so many else. Each and all of these in turn
loved her and was passionately loved by her, and all had done great
things for her; and for each she had done far greater things. She had
made them victorious, crowned them with laurels, died for them. It was a
peculiarity of her temperament that when she read some pathetic story it
was not at the tragic passages that her tears came. It was not the
deaths that touched her most. It was when she read of bold and generous
things suddenly done, of splendid self-sacrifice, of impossible rescue
and superhuman heroism, that she could not keep down her feelings, and
was glad when only the watching, untelltale trees could see the tears in
her eyes.
She had, however, two heroes chief over all the rest, whose story she
found it impossible to keep apart, and whom she blended commonly into
one odd compound. These were Hamlet and Alceste, the "Misanthrope" of
Moliere. It was sometimes Alceste who offered to be buried quick with
Ophelia in the grave; and it was often Hamlet who interjected his scraps
of poetic cynicism between the pretty and scandalous prattlings of
Celimene and her petticoaterie. But perhaps Alceste came nearest to the
heart of our young maid as she grew up. She said to herself over and
over again that "C'est n'estimer rien qu'estimer tout le monde." She
refused "d'un coeur la vaste complaisance qui ne fait de merite aucune
difference," and declared that "pour le trancher net l'ami du genre
humain n'est point du tout mon fait." No doubt there was unconscious or
only half conscious affectation in this, as there is in the ways of
almost all young people who are fond of reading; and her way of thinking
herself a girl-Alceste would probably have vanished with other whims, or
been supplanted by fancies of imitation caught from other models, if
everything had gone well with her. But several causes conspired as she
grew into a woman to make her think very seriously that Alceste was not
wrong in his general estimate of men and their merits. She was intensely
fond of her mother, and when her mother died her father married again,
his second wife being a young woman who put him under the most absolute
control, being not by any means an ill-natured person, but only
strong-willed, serene, and stupid. Then her brother, to whom she was
devoted, and who was her absolute confidant, went away to Canada,
declaring he would not stand a stepmother, and that as soon as his
sister grew old enough to put away domestic control he would send for
her; and he soon got married and became a prominent member of the
Dominion Legislature, and in none of his not over frequent letters said
a word about his promise to send for her. Now, her father was some time
dead; her stepmother had married Mr. Saulsbury, an elderly Nonconformist
minister, who was shocked at all the ways of Alceste's admirer, and with
whom she could not get on. It would take a very sweet and resigned
nature to make one who had had these experiences absolutely in love with
the human race, and especially with men; and Alceste accordingly became
more dear than ever to Miss Grey.
Now she was about to leave the place and open of her own accord a new
chapter in life. She had to escape at once from the dislike of some and
the still less endurable liking of others. She was determined to go, and
yet as she looked around upon the place, and all its dear sweet memories
filled her, it is no wonder if she envied the calmness of the face that
symbolized eternal rest. At last she broke down, and covered her face
with her hands, and gave herself up to tears.
Her quick ears, however, heard sounds which she knew were not those of
the rustling woods. She started to her feet and dried her eyes hastily.
Straight before her now there lay the long broad path through the trees
which led up to the gate of the mausoleum. The air was so exquisitely
pure and still that the footfall of a person approaching could be
distinctly heard by the girl, although the newcomer was yet far away.
She could see him, however, and recognized him, and she had no doubt
that he had seen her. A thought of escape at first occurred to her; but
she gave it up in a moment, for she knew that the person approaching had
come to seek her, and must have seen her before she saw him. So she sat
down again defiantly and waited. She did not look his way, although he
raised his hat to her more than once.
As he comes near we can see that he is a handsome, rather stiff looking
man, with full formal dark whiskers, clearly cut face, and white teeth.
His hat is very shiny. He wears a black frock coat buttoned across the
chest, and dark trowsers, and dainty little boots, and gray gloves, and
has a diamond pin in his necktie. He is Mr. Augustus Sheppard, a very
considerable person indeed in the town. Dukes-Keeton, it should be said,
had three classes or estates. The noble owners of the park and the
guests whom they used to bring to visit them in their hospitable days
made one estate. The upper class of the town made another estate; and
the working people and the poor generally made the third. These three
classes (there were at present only two of them represented in Keeton)
were divided by barriers which it never occurred to any imagination to
think of getting over. Mr. Augustus Sheppard was a leading man among the
townspeople. His father was a solicitor and land agent of old standing,
and Mr. Augustus followed his father's profession, and now did by far
the greater part of its work. He was a member of the Church of England
of course, but he made it part of his duty to be on the best terms with
the Dissenters, for Keeton was growing to be very strong in dissent of
late years. Mr. Augustus Sheppard had done a great deal for the mental
and other improvement of the town. It was he who got up the Mutual
Improvement Society, and made himself responsible for the rent of the
hall in which the winter course of lectures, organized by him, used to
take place; and he always gave a lecture himself every season, and he
took the chair very often and introduced other lecturers. He always
worked most cordially with the Rev. Mr. Saulsbury in trying to restrict
the number of public houses, and he was one of the few persons whom Mrs.
Saulsbury cordially admired. He had a word of formal kindness for every
one, and was never heard to say an ill-natured thing of any one behind
his or her back. He was vaguely believed to be ambitious of worldly
success, but only in a proper and becoming way, and far-seeing people
looked forward to finding him one day in the House of Commons.
As he came near the mausoleum he raised his hat again, and then the girl
acknowledged his salute and stood up.
"A very lovely evening, Miss Grey."
"Yes," said Miss Grey, and no more.
"I have been at your house, Miss Grey, and saw your people; and I heard
that possibly you were in the park. I thought perhaps you would have
been at home. When I saw you last night you seemed to believe that you
would be at home all the day." This was said in a gentle tone of implied
reproach.
"_You_ spoke then of walking in the park, Mr. Sheppard."
"And I have kept my word, you see," Mr. Sheppard said, not observing the
implied reason for her change of purpose.
"Yes, I see it now," she answered, as one who should say, "I did not
count upon it then."
Of all men else, Minola Grey would have avoided him. She knew only too
well what he had come for. She would perhaps have disliked him for that
in any case, but she certainly disliked him on his own account. His
formal and heavy manners impressed her disagreeably, and she liked to
say things that puzzled and startled him. It was a pleasure to her to
throw some paradox or odd saying at him, and watch his awkward attempts
to catch it, and then while he was just on the point of getting at some
idea of it to bewilder him with some new enigma. To her he seemed to be
what he was not, simply a sham, a heavy piece of hypocrisy. Formalism
and ostentatious piety she recognized as part of the business of a
Nonconformist minister, in whom they were excusable, as his grave garb
would be, but they seemed insufferably out of place when adopted by a
layman and a man of the world, who was still young.
"I am glad to have found you at last," Mr. Sheppard said, with a grave
smile.
"You might have found me at first," Minola said, quoting from Artemus
Ward, "if you had come a little sooner, Mr. Sheppard. I have only lately
escaped here."
"I wish I had known, and I would have come a great deal sooner. May I
take the liberty of sitting beside you?"
"I am going to stand, Mr. Sheppard. But that need not prevent you from
sitting."
"I should not think of sitting unless you do. Shall we walk a little
among the trees? This is a gloomy spot for a young lady."
"I prefer to stand here for a little, Mr. Sheppard, but don't let me
keep you from enjoying a walk."
"Enjoying a walk?" he said, with a grave smile and solemn emphasis.
"Enjoying a walk, Miss Grey--and without you?"
She deliberately avoided meeting the glance with which he was
endeavoring to give additional meaning to this polite speech. She knew
that he had come to make love to her; and though she was longing to have
the whole thing done with, as it must be settled one way or the other,
she detested and dreaded the ordeal, and would have put it off if she
could. So she did not give any sign of having understood or even heard
his words, and the opportunity for going on with his purpose, which he
had hoped to extract, was lost for the moment. In truth, Mr. Sheppard
was afraid of this girl, and she knew it, and liked him none the more
for it.
"I have been studying something with great interest, Mr. Sheppard," she
began, as if determined to cut him off from his chance for the present.
"I have made a discovery."
"Indeed, Miss Grey? Yes--I saw that you were in deep contemplation as I
came along, and I wondered within myself what could have been the
subject of your thoughts."
She colored a little and looked suddenly at him, asking herself whether
he could have seen her tears. His face, however, gave no explanation,
and she felt assured that he had not seen them.
"I have found, Mr. Sheppard, that some of the weaknesses of men are
alive in the insect world."
"Indeed, Miss Grey? Some of the affections of men do indeed live, we are
told, in the insect world. So beautifully ordained is everything----"
"The affectations I meant, not the affections of men, Mr. Sheppard.
Could you ever have believed that an insect would be capable of a
deliberate attempt at imposture?"
"I should certainly not have looked for anything of the kind, Miss Grey.
But there is unfortunately so much of evil mixed up with all----"
"So there is. I was going to tell you that as I came here and passed
through the garden, my attention was directed--is not that the proper
way to put it?"
"To put it, Miss Grey?"
"Yes; my attention was directed to a large, heavy, respectable
blue-bottle fly. He kept flying from flower to flower, and burying his
stupid head in every one in turn, and making a ridiculous noise. I
watched his movements for a long time. It was evident to the meanest
understanding that he was trying to attract attention and was hoping the
eyes of the world were on him. You should have seen his pretence at
enjoying the flowers and drinking in sweetness from them--and he stayed
longest on the wrong flowers!"
"Dear me! Now why did he do that?"
"Because he didn't know any better, and he was trying to make us think
he did."
"But, Miss Grey--a fly--a blue-bottle! Now really--how did you know what
he was thinking of?"
"I watched him closely--and I found him out at last. Have you not
guessed what the meaning of the whole thing was?"
"Well, Miss Grey, I can't say that I quite understand it just yet; but I
am sure I shall be greatly interested on hearing the explanation."
"It was simply the imposture of a blue-bottle trying to pass himself off
as a bee! It was man's affectation put under the microscope!"
Mr. Sheppard looked up at her in the hope of catching from her face some
clear intimation as to whether she was in jest or earnest, and demeaning
himself accordingly. But her eyes were cast down and he could not make
out the riddle. Driven by desperation, he dashed in, to prevent the
possible propounding of another before he had time to come to his point.
"All the professions of men are not affectations, Miss Grey! Oh, no: far
from it indeed. There are some feelings in our breasts which are only
too real!"
She saw that the declaration was coming now and must be confronted.
"I have long wished for an opportunity of revealing to you some of my
feelings, Miss Grey, and I hope the chance has now arrived. May I
speak?"
"I can't prevent you from speaking, Mr. Sheppard."
"You will hear me?"
He was in such fear of her and so awkward about the terms of his
declaration of love that he kept clutching at every little straw that
seemed to give him something to hold on to for a moment's rest and
respite.
"I had better hear you, I suppose," she said with an air of profound
depression, "if you will go on, Mr. Sheppard. But if you would please
me, you would stop where you are and say no more."
"You know what I am going to say, Miss Grey--you must have known it this
long time. I have asked your natural guardians and advisers, and they
encourage me to speak. Oh, Miss Grey--I love you. May I hope that I may
look forward to the happiness of one day making you my wife?"
It was all out now, and she was glad. The rest would be easy. He looked
even then so prosaic and formal that she did not believe in any of his
professed emotions, and she was therefore herself unmoved.
"No, Mr. Sheppard," she said, looking calmly at him straight in the
face. "Such a day will never come. Nothing that I have seen in life
makes me particularly anxious to be married; and I could not marry you."
He had expected evasion, but not bluntness. He knew well enough that the
girl did not love him, but he had believed that he could persuade her to
marry him. Now her pointblank refusal completely staggered him.
"Why not, Miss Grey?" was all he could say at first.
"Because, Mr. Sheppard, I really much prefer not to marry you."
"There is not any one else?" he asked, his face for the first time
showing emotion and anger.
The faint light of a melancholy smile crossed Minola's face. He grew
more angry.
"Miss Grey--now, you must tell me that! I have a right to ask--yes: and
your people would expect me to ask. You must tell me _that_."
"Well," she said, "if you force me to it, and if you will have an
answer, I must give you one, Mr. Sheppard. I have a lover already, and I
mean to keep him."
Mr. Sheppard was positively shocked by the suddenness and coolness of
this revelation. He recovered himself, however, and took refuge in
unbelief.
"Miss Grey, you don't mean it, I know--I can't believe it. Why, I have
known you and seen you grow up since you were a child. Mrs. Saulsbury
couldn't but know----"
"Mrs. Saulsbury knows nothing of me: we know nothing of each other. I
_have_ a lover, Mr. Sheppard, for all that. Do you want to know his
name?"
"I should like to know his name, certainly," the breathless Sheppard
stammered out.
"His name is Alceste----"
"A Frenchman!" Sheppard was aghast.
"A Frenchman truly--a French gentleman--a man of truth and courage and
spirit and honor and everything good. A man who wouldn't tell a lie or
do a mean thing, or flatter a silly woman, or persecute a very unhappy
girl--no, not to save his soul, Mr. Sheppard. Do you happen to know any
such man?"
"No such man lives in Keeton." He was surprised into simple earnestness.
"At least I don't know of any such man."
"No; you and he are not likely to come together and be very familiar.
Well, Mr. Sheppard, that is the man to whom I am engaged, and I mean to
keep my engagement. You can tell Mrs. Saulsbury if you like."
"But you haven't told me his other name."
"Oh--I don't know his other name."
"Miss Grey! Don't know his other name?"
"No: and I don't think he has any other name. He has but the one name
for me, and I don't want any second."
"Where does he live, then--may I ask?"
"Oh, yes--I may as well tell you all now, since I have told you so much.
He only lives in a book, Mr. Sheppard; in what you would call a play,"
she added with contemptuous expression.
"Oh, come now--I thought you were only amusing yourself." A smile of
reviving satisfaction stole over his face. "I'm not much afraid of a
rival like that, Miss Grey--if he is my only rival."
"I don't know why you talk of a rival," the young woman answered, with a
scornful glance at him; "but I can assure you he would be the most
dangerous rival a living man could have. When I find a man like him, Mr.
Sheppard, I hope he will ask me to marry him; indeed, when I find such a
man I'll ask him to marry me--and if he be the man I take him for, he'll
refuse me. I have told you all the truth now, Mr. Sheppard, and I hope
you will think I need not say any more."
"Still, I'm not quite without hope that something may be done," Mr.
Sheppard said. "How if I were to study your hero's ways and try to be
like him, Miss Grey?"
A great brown heavy velvety bee at the moment came booming along, his
ponderous flight almost level with the ground and not far above it. He
sailed in and out among the trees and branches, now burying himself for
a few seconds in some hollow part of a trunk, and then plodding through
air again.
"Do you think it would be of any use, Mr. Sheppard," she calmly asked,
"if that honest bee were to study the ways of the eagle?"
"You are not complimentary, Miss Grey," he said, reddening.
"No: I don't believe in compliments: I very much prefer truth."
"Still there are ways of conveying the truth--and of course I never
professed to be anything very great and heroic----"
He was decidedly hurt now.
"Mr. Sheppard," she said, in a softer and more appealing tone, "I don't
want to quarrel with you or with anybody, and please don't drive me on
to make myself out any worse than I am. I don't care about you, and I
never could. We never could get on together. I don't care for any man--I
don't like men at all. I wouldn't marry you if you were an emperor. But
I don't say anything against you; at least I wouldn't if you would only
let me alone. I am very unhappy sometimes--almost always now; but at
least I mean to make no one unhappy but myself."
"That's what comes of books and poetry and solitary walks and nonsense!
Why can't you listen to the advice of those who love you?"
She turned upon him angrily again.
"Well, I am not speaking of myself now, but of your--your people, who
only desire your good. Mr. Saulsbury, Mrs. Saulsbury----"
"Once for all, Mr. Sheppard, I shall not take their advice; and if you
would have me think of you with any kindness at all, any memory not
disagreeable and--and detestable, you will not talk to me of their
advice. Even if I had been inclined to care for you, Mr. Sheppard, you
took a wrong way when you came in their name and talked of their
authority. Next time you ask a girl to marry you, Mr. Sheppard, do it in
your own name."
He caught eagerly at the kind of negative hope that seemed to be held
out to him.
"If that's an objection," he began, "I assure you that I came quite of
my own motion, and I am the last man in the world to endeavor to bring
any unfair means to bear. Of course it is not as if they were your own
parents, and I can quite understand how a young lady must feel----"
"I don't know much of how young ladies feel," Minola said quietly, "but
I know how I feel, Mr. Sheppard, and you know it too. Take my last word.
I'll never marry you. You only waste your time, and perhaps the time of
somebody else as well--some good girl, Mr. Sheppard, who would be glad
to marry you and whom you will be quite ready to make love to the day
after to-morrow."
Her heart was hardened against him now, for she thought him mean and
craven and unmanly. Perhaps, according to her familiar creed, she ought
rather to have thought him manly, meanness being in that sense one of
the attributes of man. She did not believe in the genuineness of his
love, and in any case no thought was more odious to her than that of a
man pressing a girl to marry him if she did not love him and was not
ready to meet him half way.
There was a curious contrast between these two figures as they stood on
the steps of that great empty tomb. The contrast was all the more
singular and even the more striking because the two might easily have
been described in such terms as would seem to suggest no contrast. If
they were described as a handsome young man (for he was scarcely more
than thirty) and a handsome young woman, the description would be
correct. He was rather tall, she was rather tall; but he was formal,
severe, respectable, and absolutely unpicturesque--she was picturesque
in every motion. His well-made clothes sat stiffly on him, and the first
idea he conveyed was that he was carefully dressed. Even a woman would
not have thought, at the first glance at least, of how _she_ was
dressed. She only impressed one with a sense of the presence of graceful
and especially emotional womanhood. The longer one looked at the two the
deeper the contrast seemed to become. Both, for example, had rather thin
lips; but his were rigid, precise, and seeming to part with a certain
deliberation and even difficulty. Hers appeared, even when she was
silent, to be tremulous with expression. After a while it would have
seemed to an observer, if any observing eye were there, that no power on
earth could have brought these two into companionship.
"I won't take this as your final answer," he said, after one or two
unsuccessful efforts to speak. "You will consider this again, and give
it some serious reflection."
She only shook her head, and once more seated herself on the steps of
the monument as if to suggest that now the interview was over.
"You are not walking homeward?" he asked.
"I am staying here for awhile."
He bade her good morning and walked slowly away. A rejected lover looks
to great disadvantage when he has to walk away. He ought to leap on the
back of a horse, and spur him fiercely and gallop off; or the curtain
ought to fall and so finish up with him. Otherwise, even the most heroic
figure has something of the look of one sneaking off like a dog told
imperatively to "go home." Mr. Sheppard felt very uncomfortable at the
thought that he probably did not seem dignified in the eyes of Miss
Grey. He once glanced back uneasily, but perhaps it was not a relief to
find that she was not looking in his direction.