"Oh, Dr. Brunton--he who lives in the village. He has been here several

times, you remember?"

"I remember perfectly. How is his likeness sent to you? who sends it?"

"Himself probably, but I have not read the letter yet."

"Don't read it: hand it to me," he said sternly.

The duchess and Lady Helen were listening to this dialogue, and watching

the rising wrath of their father and the cool, calm bearing of Loo.

The earl read the letter, then rose and flung it and the carte into the

fire. "The man is a vain fool," he said--"a perfect fool!"

"I don't see that, papa. I should have wished to have his likeness: I am

not sure that I did not say so to him. I sometimes meet him in the

cottages of the people about."

"Do you know the kind of insult you have brought upon yourself?"

"I have brought no insult on myself, and I know of none."

"In that letter he asked you to be his wife."

"The thing is not possible," she said, starting from her chair: "he

must be mad. _I_ his wife! Why, he'll want the moon down to put into his

gig-lanterns next."

"If it were not for the laws of the country," said the earl, his face

red with wrath--"if it were not for the laws of the country, I would

shoot that man as I would shoot a partridge."

Lady Louisa rose and left the room: her sister Mary followed her. "Loo,"

she said, "you have been doing wrong."

"Not that I know of, Mary."

"Dr. Brunton would never have written or sent his carte if he had not

been led on to do it somehow."

"He never was led on by me: he may have been by his own vanity; only I

did not think he was so stupid."

"I don't say he was wise, but I say you have been foolish: you have done

a thing you had no right to do."

"I have done nothing. Is it reasonable to blame me because a man wrote a

foolish letter? His vanity is egregious: to think I was going to forget

my rank to marry him! I always gave him credit for more brains."

"Maybe you thought your rank entitled you to amuse yourself as you

liked."

"No, I didn't, but I certainly thought it enough to prevent him

forgetting himself so far as he seems to have done. I wish I had seen

that letter: I wonder how he expressed himself? It is a ridiculous

mistake, but I'll soon put it right."

"To love, and have your love flung back with contempt, is something more

than a ridiculous mistake. It is--" and the duchess stopped with a

quaver in her voice, and failed to go on: perhaps she was speaking from

experience that she was so strongly affected.

In the afternoon, at the usual time, Lady Louisa set out to walk to the

lodge; not that she did not know of what had happened, for she had heard

of that, but she thought it not unlikely that Dr. Brunton might be there

on the chance of meeting her, and the sooner this misunderstanding was

put right the better, especially as they were on the eve of leaving

Birns for London, and she might as well make things straight before

going. She was right in her calculations: Dr. Brunton was walking on

the road outside the park-gate, in the hope that Lady Louisa, not

knowing of the old woman's death, might come to visit her as before.

She came up as frankly as was her custom and shook hands, and there was

no unusual expression in her face whatever; but the doctor had too much

at stake, was feeling far too keenly, to be capable of sharp observation

at this time, and he said, hardly knowing what he was saying, "My

patient here does not need me any longer."

"Yes, I heard of her death," Lady Louisa said.

A great flash of joy thrilled him: she had come here, then, for no other

end than to meet him. He had difficulty in controlling himself. "You

have got my letter?" he said.

"Yes, I got it."

He was silent as he stood before her.

"I got it," she repeated, "but I did not read it: papa took it from me

and read it, and put it and the carte into the fire. I won't tell you

what he said, but I agreed with him, and came to say that you had made a

ridiculous mistake."

He was still silent.

"You knew," she went on--"you must have known from the first--that I

cared no more for you than I do for the shoe below my foot. Could you

think for a moment that I would demean myself by coming here to meet you

or any one else? Could you think it? It is impossible. That is all I

have to say."

"All?" he echoed.

"Yes, all. But I am sorry you should have made such a mistake--very

sorry."

"Thank you," he said, bowing his head; and they each turned and went

different ways.

Dr. Brunton went home. "Is Miss Robertson still here?" he said to his

sister.

"To be sure she is: she was not speaking of going away."

"Then send her away--send her away as soon as you can."

"Indeed! Have you taken a dislike to her?"

"No, but I want to be alone, in my own house at least."

"Oh, James, has anything happened?" she said anxiously, struck by his

look and tone.

"Nothing--nothing but what has happened often before, I dare say"--and

he laughed in a way painful to his sister to hear--"to other men, and is

not much thought of; but my organization is different. Mary, I feel as

if I shall lose my reason: I am dazed;" and he burst into tears.

Mary was dazed for the moment too: in all her life she had never seen

her brother like this. The peculiar gleam in his eye was altogether new

to her: could there be truth in what he said? Was it the glitter of

insanity that shone in his eyes? But she could not admit the idea.

In a small place like Birns the frequent meeting of Lady Louisa and Dr.

Brunton had not passed unnoticed, and had, of course, been the subject

of remark, and Mary guessed what had happened, and felt sure that Lady

Louisa had been guilty of heartless thoughtlessness, to give it the

mildest name. Oh, how from her inmost heart she wished they had never

seen her, or that she had exercised her folly on some one better able to

bear the consequences of it! How to commit the inhospitality of

suggesting her friend's departure Mary did not know, but it chanced that

Miss Robertson proposed it herself, having received a letter which made

her eager to get home; and the brother and sister were left alone to do

battle with the threatened calamity.

For months Dr. Brunton struggled like a man against the dark cloud that

was settling down upon him, but at last he said, "It's all in vain,

Mary; my mind is going from me; my memory is gone already; I forget

everything, even the most important engagement; and when a man told me

of a sad death to-day I burst out laughing: I could not help it. Mary,"

he said in a kind of cowering whisper, "I know what the end will be."

"No, you don't: no one knows what the end of anything will be. We'll

leave this place, James; we'll go and travel about; we'll sell off

everything--I'll manage that--and when you are better you can begin

life again elsewhere."

"Take me away from this place," he said with a kind of cry: "I'm not fit

to go about among people."

And they went away, and moved from place to place, but still the malady

grew, till at last, unutterably mournful as it was, Mary felt it a

relief when he ceased to be capable of watching the progress of it

himself: his misery at least was over. Thereafter he slipped into

perfect mindlessness, happy and harmless, but hopelessly mindless and

vacant. Meantime, Lady Louisa Moor made a very brilliant marriage to a

marquis, the eldest son of a duke, the account of which Mary Brunton

read in the newspapers while watching her brother's face with its

meaningless smile. How her heart swelled! and she burst into a passion

of weeping. She threw her arm round him as if to shield him from evil as

she said, "Oh, Jamie, nothing can reach you now--nothing." He looked at

her with the look that was always so touching, as if he were vainly

trying to remember or comprehend: that occasional look of effort was the

only remnant left of all his powers of mind.

The duchess of Dover asked her sister the marchioness one day if she

knew what had become of Dr. Brunton.

"No," said she, "I don't. He has left the Birns, I know."

"Shortly after he wrote that letter to you he became insane," said the

duchess: she put the information in that form, fearful that her sister

would be overwhelmed with self-reproach.

"He was insane before he wrote it," said the young marchioness: "only

insanity could excuse such presumption. Men don't go mad from

disappointed love, or women either, I believe, unless there's a

predisposition to madness. He must have had that, and any other accident

in his life would have brought it out as well as his foolish fancy for

me. If he had been thrown from his gig, or had two or three of his

patients die on his hands at once, the effect would have been the same;"

and she passed easily to other topics.

The marchioness was wonderfully beautiful, and she was clever and

ambitious, and took and kept a very conspicuous place in her sphere; but

her amusements were sometimes costly in their nature, whether she

thought so or not. THE AUTHOR OF "BLINDPITS."

WALPURGIS NIGHT.

Three travelers making haste,

And whisp'ring of some errand of their own,

With arms enlinked and garments backward blown,

Across a twilight waste.

Three gibbets dumb and tall,

Against the east, with scrawny arms, outlined;

Far off a lonely tower, left behind,

With silver cross and ball.

And distant, round and dim,

Behind the waste, behind the gibbets high,

The witches' moon, with filmy bloodshot eye,

Peering above the rim!

W. W. YOUNG.

FREDERIC LEMAITRE.

"Incomparably the finest acting I ever saw," wrote Dickens from Paris

twenty years ago, "I saw last night at the Ambigu." The actor was

Frederic Lemaitre, and the part he played was that of Georges de Germany

in the drama of _Thirty Years, or the Life of a Gambler_. At this time

(February, 1855) Lemaitre was already so old a man that Dickens was

surprised to see him still playing, and the part was one which the actor

had created originally twenty-eight years before that. He first played

it at the Porte Saint-Martin Theatre in 1827, close upon half a century

ago. "Never," continues Dickens, "did I see anything in art so exaltedly

horrible and awful. In the earlier acts he was so well made up and so

light and active that he really looked sufficiently young. But in the

last two, when he had grown old and miserable, he did the finest things,

I really believe, that are within the power of acting. Two or three

times a great cry of horror went all round the house. When he met in the

inn-yard the traveler whom he murders, and first saw his money, the

manner in which the crime came into his head--and eyes--was as truthful

as it was terrific. This traveler, being a good fellow, gives him wine.

You should see the dim remembrance of his better days that comes over

him as he takes the glass, and in a strange dazed way makes as if he

were going to touch the other man's, or do some airy thing with it, and

then stops and flings the contents down his hot throat, as if he were

pouring it into a limekiln. But this was nothing to what follows after

he has done the murder, and comes home with a basket of provisions, a

ragged pocket full of money, and a badly-washed, bloody right hand,

which his little girl finds out. After the child asked him if he had

hurt his hand, his going aside, turning himself round, and looking over

all his clothes for spots was so inexpressibly dreadful that it really

scared one. He called for wine, and the sickness that came upon him when

he saw the color was one of the things which brought out the curious cry

I have spoken of from the audience. Then he fell into a sort of bloody

mist, and went on to the end groping about, with no mind for anything

except making his fortune by staking this money and a faint dull kind of

love for the child. It is quite impossible to satisfy one's self by

saying enough of such a magnificent performance. I have never seen him

come near its finest points in anything else. He said two things in a

way that would put him far apart from all other actors. One to his wife,

when he has exultingly shown her the money, and she has asked him how he

got it--'I found it;' and the other to his old companion and tempter,

when he charged him with having killed that traveler, and he suddenly

went headlong mad and took him by the throat and howled out, 'It wasn't

I who murdered him--it was misery!' And such a dress! such a face! and,

above all, such an extraordinarily guilty, wicked thing as he made of a

knotted branch of a tree which was his walking-stick from the moment

when the idea of the murder came into his head! I could write pages

about him. It is an impression quite ineffaceable. He got half boastful

of that walking-staff to himself, and half afraid of it, and didn't know

whether to be grimly pleased that it had the jagged end, or to hate it

and be horrified at it. He sat at a little table in the inn-yard

drinking with the traveler; and this horrible stick got between them

like the Devil, while he counted on his fingers the uses he could put

the money to."

It will be a surprise to many readers to learn that Frederic Lemaitre is

still living and still playing. On the evening of March 25, 1874, I went

to this same old theatre of the Ambigu to see him play Feuillantin in

_Le Portier du Numero 15_. The part is that of an old man, and the

actor played it "in his habit as he lived," without artificial make-up

or wig. His own long iron-gray hair floated on the air; the wrinkles in

his old face were painted there by the hand of Time; his voice was

cracked and broken, and his gait that of advanced age. I had formed the

impression, beforehand, that Lemaitre was simply a tottering old wreck,

a painful and pitiable sight; and I went to the theatre prepared to be

saddened by the spectacle of a ruin. A ruin it was, perhaps, but what a

grand and impressive one! The old man was magnificent! So far from

exciting pity, he roused in me feelings of the warmest enthusiasm. So

far from seeming to ask for sympathy, he compelled admiration by force

of his splendid pantomime, in witnessing which one forgot he had no

voice, or remembered it only to see in the fact a fitting feature of the

old _portier_ he was playing. In the midst of my admiration for the

actor, however, I studied the man himself; and I saw that he dominated

his fellow-actors with a will of the most imperious sort. He swept along

the action of the piece, and manipulated the rather poor company of

actors who moved about him, with a leonine agility of movement and an

autocratic command of the scene which showed that even in his old age he

was no subject for patronizing sympathy. There was a meek, white-faced

young lady who played the part of granddaughter to the old _portier_,

and I transferred my pity to her; for the way Lemaitre hauled her hither

and thither by her slender wrists (not in simulated rudeness, for she

was the pet of the old _portier's_ heart, but simply in the actor's

imperative arrangements of tableaux), and the manner in which he dragged

her young head with his iron arms to his broad breast in affectionate

but rough and picturesque embrace, were enough to wear on the nerves of

the stoutest young woman; and this one was as frail in form as she was

fair in face.

A day or two later I had an opportunity of observing more closely the

hero of fifty years of mimic life. It was in the green-room of the

Ambigu, half an hour before the curtain rose on his fiftieth

performance of the _portier_, and the old man was in his shirt-sleeves

and with his apparel otherwise disordered. Learning that we were from

America, he invited us to sit for a moment in his dressing-room, which

adjoined the green-room, and waved us toward the door with as grand a

gesture as if he were Hamlet saying "Lead on! I'll follow thee." The

dressing-room was a pleasant little box (in French stage-parlance, by

the way, a player's dressing-room is always called his _loge_), with the

walls covered with portraits of theatrical and other celebrities. The

impression Lemaitre made on me at this time was more that which might be

made by an American statesman of the old school--a Clay, a Webster, an

Adams--than that one would expect from a mere mouther of other people's

words. However, I am wrong to apply this term to Lemaitre, who was in

the truest sense an _author_. But of this later. He was full of a sort

of sad dignity, and the burden of his conversation was, "I am no longer

young." He inquired curiously concerning America, but when it was

suggested that he should visit our country, shook his head: "No; I am

too old to cross the sea now." The above passage from Dickens was

referred to, but he had never heard of it: he said, however, that

Monsieur Dickens had once sent him some novels to read, and by his tone

did not imply that he was at all flattered by the admiration of the

Englishman. For in truth Lemaitre was already a spoiled child of

adulation years before Charles Dickens became famous; and now that

Dickens was nearly four years dead, the old actor still lived, and

remembered that every admiring adjective known to the French language

had been showered upon himself: what mattered a few more in the English

language? Looking in the tired, watery old eyes of the man sitting

before me with his hands thrust deep in his pockets--and what

magnificent, fiery, great black billiard-balls of eyes they must have

been in his youth!--looking at the skinny folds which years had gathered

about his aged jaws, it was still, strange to say, perfectly easy to

realize the fascinating man Lemaitre had been in his prime, the

tremendous power for swaying the emotions of his auditors which once

abode in that rugged frame.

Frederic Lemaitre was born at Havre on the 21st of July, 1798, and had

been on the stage thirty years at the time when Dickens saw him at the

Ambigu. As he was at that time already nearly sixty years old, it is

easy to believe what some have asserted, that his powers were beginning

to wane. Seeing him, therefore, in the year 1874, at the age of

seventy-six, still an actor of such fascination that I hardly know his

equal in Paris, and reading Dickens's account of his acting at the age

of fifty-eight, the most cautious critic may accept without modification

the extravagant stories told of the power he had over his audience when

he was still young. Similar stories are related of Edmund Kean, and the

resemblance in the private characters of the two men is most striking.

Lemaitre's father was an architect. There is nothing to show that the

boy displayed extraordinary mimetic genius. He was already about twenty

years old when his father, yielding to his wishes, and perceiving in him

a certain taste for declamation, brought him to Paris that he might be

educated for the stage. He was admitted to the Conservatoire[A] and

began his studies. He was not a very brilliant student, though he was

assiduous in his devotion to study. During his pupilage he secured his

first engagement as an actor at a little theatre on the Boulevard du

Crime, called the Varietes Amusantes--a theatre long since dead. They

were playing a piece with three actors, called _Pyramus and Thisbe_. As

in the Babylonian anecdote, the lovers of the play agreed to meet under

a mulberry tree at some distance from the town. Thisbe, who arrived

first, was surprised by a lion: she fled, and was about to hide when her

veil fell, and the lion seized it and tossed it about in his bloody

jaws. The lion was Frederic Lemaitre, who thus made his first appearance

on any stage on all fours. One night the actor who played Pyramus got

into a dispute in a neighboring cafe, and could not appear on account of

the exceeding warmth of the discussion, which resulted in sending him

home with a broken head. The manager was in a highly excited state of

mind. "Who the devil will play my Pyramus?" he cried. Whereupon the

lion, who was waiting on all fours to make his entrance, straightened

himself, took off his head, and said, "I'll play it if you

like."--"You?"--"I, who know the part."--"Well roared, lion!" quoth the

manager: "I accept your offer." This was Lemaitre's first essay in a

speaking part. It was greeted by the indulgent audience with cries of

indignation, peltings of apples, insults, hisses, whatever could most

energetically express disapprobation of the lion turned lover. The next

night Lemaitre resumed his dramatic career as a wild beast.

Yet he was at this period as handsome as Antinoeus, with an elegant and

slender but powerful figure, waving black hair, expressive and noble

features, a beautiful complexion, wide forehead, flashing dark eyes, and

a carriage full of grace and poetry. Rare personal beauty and

extraordinary strength were striking physical advantages for the stage:

the mental qualities were as yet but faintly shadowed forth.

On the conclusion of his studies at the Conservatoire young Lemaitre

sought admission to the classic Odeon Theatre, and would have failed had

not the tragedian Talma perceived what others could not, and insisted

that the young man had in him the making of a great actor. He made his

"serious" debut at the Odeon, and remained at this theatre five months,

but without producing any special impression as an actor. Then removing

to the Ambigu, he suddenly achieved a startling and brilliant success,

and created the first of that long list of parts which have since won

worldwide celebrity, and been played in every polite tongue, in every

civilized land. This was Robert Macaire in _L'Auberge des Adrets_. It is

no exaggeration to say that Lemaitre _created_ this part, though this

verb is used in our day in very slipshod fashion. Robert Macaire was the

creation of Lemaitre, and not of the authors of the play. At the

rehearsals he repeatedly declared that the part was "impossible," and

that the public would never receive it as the authors had written it.

The event justified his opinion: the piece was hissed outrageously. But

it was redeemed on the second night through the audacity of Lemaitre,

who, in strolling about the streets during the day in no very pleasant

frame of mind, racked his brains for an expedient for saving the

fortunes of the theatre. Suddenly he perceived a strange creature

standing before the open-air shop of a cake-seller--an outre individual,

clad in indescribable clothing. In some former day the man's garments

had been elegant and fashionable, but they were now dropping to pieces.

Misery and debauchery could be read in every stain upon them, but the

wearer seemed not to have lost a particle of his self-esteem. Standing

proudly in a pair of boots all run down at the heel and riddled with

holes, a greasy and misshapen felt hat perched on one ear, he daintily

broke with the extreme tips of his fingers a piece from a penny cake,

carried it to his lips with the delicate air of a dandy, and ate it as

if he were an Epicurean philosopher. His collation over, he drew from

the pocket of his coat a torn rag, wiped his hands elaborately upon it,

dusted his costume airily and then resumed his leisurely promenade up

the boulevard. "I've got him!" cried Lemaitre; for here he saw the

flesh-and-blood reality of the conception of Robert Macaire which had

been running through his brain during the rehearsals of the new piece.

That evening the actor appeared on the stage with a coat, hat and boots

modeled on those of the man on the boulevard. He reproduced the manner

of this ragged fashionable, his grotesque calm, his ridiculous dignity;

and having induced his fellow-actor, Serres, to get up a like

metamorphosis for the part of Bertrand, the piece obtained a marvelous

success.

The management of the Ambigu, appreciating the service Lemaitre had

rendered the theatre, immediately raised his salary to a high figure,

and from that day, as the saying is, his fortune was made. Saturday is

the usual pay-day in French theatres, and it was one of the first

illustrations of the eccentricity of Lemaitre's character that he took a

whim to have himself paid every Saturday in silver five-franc pieces.

Then throwing over his shoulder the bag of money, he would walk proudly

through the crowd which was waiting to see him at the door of the

theatre.

One of the earliest developments of Lemaitre's independence of spirit

and contempt of the honeyed adjectives of critics was displayed in his

refusal to pay those amiable taxes which are so much the rule in Paris,

if not in all European cities. Generous enough in his own way with the

abundant earnings of his art, Lemaitre declined to pay for puffery. A

well-known journalist of the time, counting on his success with less

eccentric artists, called one day at Lemaitre's residence and suggested

that the actor should smooth over the rough places of criticism by a

liberal _douceur_. Lemaitre refused. "It is but a small matter to you,"

said this gentle literary bandit: "a thousand or twelve hundred francs a

year--what does so trifling a sum signify to one who has your splendid

income? And thanks to this modest subvention you will be constantly well

treated in my columns." To which Lemaitre replied, "Monsieur, I will not

be eulogized for gold: other eulogies or none." Two days later a

slashing article against Lemaitre appeared in the columns over which the

blackmailer had control. Lemaitre made no complaint, but knowing that it

would not be long ere his assailant would visit the green-room of the

theatre according to French custom, he waited in patience. A night or

two later the critic appeared. Lemaitre walked up to him, made a low

bow, and while the crowd in the green-room were attending to see what

would follow, slapped the fellow's face. Naturally, this liberty was

resented by the journalist, who struck back at Lemaitre; but the actor,

who was gifted with extraordinary muscular power, took both the man's

hands in one of his own, and holding him thus, said to the witnesses of

the scene, "To-morrow, if it is necessary, I will fight this

_miserable_; but before all I desire to treat him in your presence as he

merits--that is to say as a vulgar scoundrel." With this he dragged the

blackmailer to the door and kicked him out.

The part of Georges de Germany, which Dickens saw played in 1856, was

Lemaitre's second great creation. Those who saw him in this part in his

younger days so rave about it that even Dickens's warm eulogy seems cool

in comparison. Such unheard-of developments of passion and disorder!

such incredible fire and magnetism! such subjugation of a vast audience

to his will!--language fails to express the rapturous accounts which

those old Frenchmen now living who saw him then will give you with many

a roll upward of the eyes, many a hopeless shake of head and shrug of

shoulder and agitation of outstretched hand.

Boiling over with health, radiant with youth, full of vigor, Lemaitre

now began to lead a life of extravagance which would almost have given

Bacchus the delirium tremens and driven Hercules into a consumption. But

his excesses seemed to take away nothing from the magnificence of his

physical beauty, and he was petted by the fair sex in a manner to which

the coddlings of a young English unmarried curate are as nothing. Nor

can it be said that the actor was quite an anchorite: few French

bachelors are. It is not meet to dwell on this phase of Lemaitre's

character at length, perhaps; but I should hardly envy the old man's

feelings in these days when, sitting by his lonely hearth, he lets his

fancy wander among the ruins of the dead past, if he ever does such a

thing.

There is a gray-haired and toothless old woman at present engaged in

that menagerie of old women, the old-clo' market of the Temple in Paris,

who might go wandering back with Lemaitre into that dead past of his if

he wanted company. Fifty years ago she was a ruddy-cheeked young girl

from the provinces, who had come up to Paris with a little fortune of

thirty thousand francs, which a relative had left her. Going one night

to the theatre where Lemaitre was playing, she became fascinated with

Georges de Germany, and went to see him evening after evening.

Forty-five nights in succession she attended the theatre to weep, to

shudder and to admire, and ended by offering the actor her heart, her

hand and her fortune. Lemaitre accepted the heart, but declined the

hand; and as for the fortune, pooh! What did he want of the lady's

pin-money? Nevertheless, six weeks saw the end of her little fortune,

and left her with a quantity of elegant dresses and a few diamonds.

Waking up one morning from her dream, she betook herself to the old

market of the Temple, and began to try and get her money back. She is

said to be worth a good deal more to-day than Lemaitre is.

In the drama of _Faust_ Lemaitre's genius took a new development in

creating the part of Mephistopheles. The feature of the part which

balked and baffled him was the infernal laugh indicated by Goethe. By

every expedient that mimicry could suggest day after day he studied to

give forth that terrible laugh, but all his efforts were useless: he

could not satisfy his conception with his execution. Then the idea came

into his head to abandon the laugh altogether, and substitute for it

that diabolical grimace which every Mephisto of the grand opera in our

day strives again to repeat. But, unless all testimony is to be utterly

flouted, there has never since been seen a grimace so inexpressibly

hideous and terrifying as that of Lemaitre. He practiced it before the

glass for days, and at last, succeeding in a play of muscles which gave

an expression to his face as sinister and frightful as he wished, he

walked to the window of his room to try the effect of it upon the

passers-by in the street. A woman who chanced to look up at him while he

stood there grinning fell to the ground in a swoon. "Good!" said the

artist, turning away from the window: "I have succeeded at last."

It does not seem wonderful at the present day that Robert Macaire or

Mephistopheles should be played in the manner which all play-goers are

so familiar with, and recognize as the correct mode of embodying the

part; but he who _creates_ the idea that is afterward accepted as a

matter of course is a very different being from him who repeats it. In

our day and country the actor who creates _one_ role in the way Lemaitre

created a score is a made man in his profession. Jefferson created Rip

Van Winkle--Sothern created Dundreary. But Lemaitre, in addition to the

parts already named, created Ruy Blas, Don Caesar de Bazan, Gennaro,

Corporal Cartouche, and a host of others familiar as household words to

American play-goers through the grand army of his imitators who have

played them since.

When Macaire, Germany and Mephisto had successively dawned on the

delighted consciousness of the Parisians--those most insatiate of all

theatre-goers--Lemaitre had won the sceptre of the Paris stage. He

reigned over the public with despotic sway, and the public adored its

theatrical monarch. With his subjects he could do anything, take any

liberty, without fear of dethronement. One evening, during an act in

which he had not to appear on the stage, he was leaning while chatting

with a comrade against that part of the wings known in French as

"harlequin's cloak"--in our stage language the prompt-place. A brass

knob was under his elbow. "What's this machine for?" he said, examining

it. "Don't touch it, Monsieur Frederic," cried an employe: "it's the

gas-regulator." "Bah! has the gas got a regulator, then? Lucky gas!

Let's see what will happen." With this he turned the knob and plunged

the whole theatre into darkness. Two thousand Frenchmen and women cried

out in alarm and consternation. Great was their indignation and savage

their inquiries as to the cause of the occurrence. But no sooner were

they informed that Lemaitre had committed this hangable feat than the

joke seemed charming, and when he came on the stage in the following act

they received him with bravos and joyous laughs.

Lemaitre was indeed a spoiled child of the public, and his prodigious

success began to have the effect which success often has upon us poor

mortals. He became impatient of all restraint, jealous of all honor

offered to his confreres. The Ambigu won him away from the Porte

Saint-Martin after a short time, and on the stage of his first successes

he was supported by Madame Dorval, one of the finest actresses the

French stage has known. These two dramatic powers did wonders, and the

public divided its applause between them. This did not suit the petted

genius. He complained to the manager. "Your horrible _claque_ splits my

ears," he cried in a fury: "I expect you to get rid of it at once. Or if

not--" Before his _ultimatum_ was pronounced Madame Dorval appeared.

"Are you crazy?" she said to the manager: "what is the use of these

imbeciles with their hand-clapping? Drive them all away from the

theatre, and leave the real public to its own impressions. If your

Romans[B] do not at once disappear, I play no more."--"Nor I," said

Lemaitre.--"So be it," said the manager: "the claque shall be

discharged."

Such a bold step in a Paris theatre was almost unheard of. What! try to

run a theatre without the regular corps of hired applauders? The thing

was incredible. But the leading artists demanded it, and the manager

notified his claqueurs that their pay was stopped. That night not a

ripple of applause disturbed the monotony of the performance. The

public, left to itself, and accustomed to have a gang of paid worthies

to start the applause at the right moment, applauded neither Lemaitre

nor Dorval, nor any of the other players. "It is evident," said Lemaitre

to himself, "that people who admire my acting fear being mistaken for

hired claqueurs if they express their enthusiasm. I must arrange that."

He therefore quietly caused to be planted a few judicious claqueurs

about the house at his own expense, and that night bravos and

hand-clappings were bestowed on Lemaitre alone. This suited the actor's

notions to a nicety. Not so with the actress, however. "These people

have no taste," she thought; "but that can't last." So she arranged

privately for a small claque of her own, and that night she also was

applauded. But this sort of game was one which the smaller players of

the theatre could take a hand in, too. And on the third night, strange

to say, there was applause for everything and everybody; all the

performers had "ovations" in turn; even the ballet-girls had a share in

the general glory so liberally bestowed. "What is the meaning of this?"

demanded Lemaitre and Dorval of the manager: "did you not promise that

your claque should be discharged?" The manager shrugged his shoulders.

"My claque is discharged," said he; "and now there are, I perceive,

three claques instead of one--yours, madame's and the whole company's.

Nothing could be fairer."

It may seem strange that our actor, who dealt so roughly with the critic

who suggested bribery, should have condescended to pay men for applause.

But custom regulates our sense of honor. The claque is an institution so

openly recognized in French theatres that the proudest dramatic or lyric

temple in Paris would not know what to do without it. Even the classic

Theatre Francais and the frigid Odeon, which are in great part supported

by the government, and about which hangs the purest odor of high art,

have each a regularly organized claque, which is paid to applaud, and

which holds its rehearsals with the same solemnity that the players do,

in order to introduce at the proper moment a gust of hand-clapping, a

burst of laughter, or cries of "Bravo! bravo!" There is no concealment

whatever about their operations. The claqueurs occupy conspicuous seats

in every theatre, and it is often quite an entertainment in itself to

watch their goings on. The leader gives the signal to begin and the sign

to stop; and if any man of his band applauds too idly, that man is

openly rebuked, and instructed by vehement gesture to do his duty

better.

But, as has been said, Lemaitre was growing spoiled as a man by his

success as an artist. He rebelled against the idea that any person

should be admired on the scene where he was king, and he carried this

feeling to the absurdest lengths. In one of his plays he had to bring in

the corpse of his young brother (of the story), and the actor who played

this part identified himself so well with the immobility of the last

sleep that the public, struck with astonishment, broke in upon one of

Lemaitre's finest speeches with cries of bravo for the little dead

brother. "This is a very impertinent rascal," muttered Lemaitre, "who

makes himself applauded in my very arms. I shall punish him for it."

Leaning over the supposed corpse while speaking his lines, he blew into

the dead boy's nostrils. Not a movement! Then pretending to yield to

despair--always in consonance with the part he was playing--Lemaitre

pulled the hair of the defunct with frantic gestures. Not a muscle

stirred! Whereupon Lemaitre seemed to break down utterly under his

grief, let go of the body, and it fell hard upon the stage like an inert

mass. The effect was superb. The whole house applauded, the bravos

became frantic, the great actor was hoist with his own petard. Lemaitre

passed the night in solemn reflection on the seriousness of the case.

The result was that at the next representation, while carrying in his

little dead brother, he delicately tickled him under the arms. The

unhappy defunct could not stand this. He came to life, burst out

laughing, and was heartily hissed, while Lemaitre, the picture of solemn

grief, inly chuckled at the success of his efforts to destroy rivalry.

But, notwithstanding his superb egotism and his jealousy of applause,

Lemaitre was capable of mocking at himself in a most amusing manner. At

one of the last representations of _Robert Macaire_ he expected to be

called before the curtain at the end of the play. He was not, however;

whereupon he ordered the curtain to be raised and came forward with his

gravest air. "Gentlemen," said he, addressing the audience, "I desire to

know if M. Auguste is not here." M. Auguste does not answer, and the

spectators look at each other in surprise. "M. Antoine!" Silence again.

"Well, gentlemen, I am the victim of the dishonesty of the chef and

sous-chef of the claque. I gave them forty francs this morning to call

me out, and neither of them is here. You perceive, gentlemen, how

grossly I have been swindled."

After his fame had grown to greatness Lemaitre reappeared on the classic

stage of the Odeon, the scene of his earliest efforts. Here he played a

number of parts, including Othello. But the actor had in his mind an

idea which haunted him. It was that his favorite role of Robert Macaire

had not had all the development of which it was capable. He associated

with himself two authors, Antier and Saint-Amant, who accepted his ideas

and wove them into a new play under his direction, bearing the name of

his thieving hero. The success the piece achieved was something

prodigious. All Paris ran to see it, and it was played for an

unparalleled length of time. Lemaitre was so in love with the part that

he used often to play it off the stage. Thus, one day at the Cafe de

Malte they brought him his bill after breakfast. He arose, threw ten

francs on the counter, and was leaving. "But the bill is ten francs

fifty," said the cafe-master. "Very good," said Lemaitre: "the fifty

centimes are for the garcon." The stage and caricature have since

dressed up this _mot_ in various forms, but Lemaitre was its first

publisher. During this same winter of 1836 he was skating one afternoon

on the basin in the Luxembourg garden, where he was the object of great

admiration for his graceful evolutions. Presently one of a group of

women, as he passed near, recognized him and cried out, "My fifteen

francs, Monsieur Frederic: have you forgotten my fifteen francs?" The

actor stopped. The woman was his former hostess of the Latin quarter,

with whom he had lived in the days of his impecuniosity during his first

connection with the Odeon. Putting on the air of Robert Macaire,

Lemaitre replied, "Your fifteen francs, madam? You are mighty

impertinent. Under the alcove in my room I left an old wig. That wig

cost me thirty-five francs: you owe me a louis. I will send for it

to-morrow." And he skated calmly away. Next day, however, the hostess

received her due.

After having played this wicked and trivial thief so long that people

began to say (as they say now of the creator of Rip Van Winkle) that he

could not play anything else, Lemaitre startled the town with a new

creation, utterly distinct from anything he had hitherto done. From

depicting the most abject rascality he passed in a moment, as it seemed,

to the representation of delicacy of sentiment and grandeur of soul in

Alexandre Dumas's play of _Richard d'Arlington_, and again as Gennaro in

Victor Hugo's _Lucretia Borgia_. Yet the wild dissipation of the man's

life was never so great as at this precise period of his career. Harel,

the manager of the theatre where he was now playing (the Porte

Saint-Martin), was obliged almost every night to send emissaries after

him to the restaurant opposite the play-house, where Lemaitre was

indulging in monstrous dinners and was usually hilarious with wine.

Harel, it must be mentioned, was a very penurious man, who never paid

his people when he could postpone it, and whose meanness of soul

Lemaitre delighted to excoriate. Often when dining bountifully at his

restaurant, the actor being sent for in hot haste with the intelligence

that the curtain was just going up, would cry, "_Diable!_ And I haven't

a sou in my pocket! Here's the bill. Carry it to Harel, and tell him

they are keeping me here as a hostage." Though grinding his teeth with

rage, the manager never failed to send the necessary sum for the release

of his principal actor. At other times, when Lemaitre had breakfasted

copiously, he did not dine, but the manager's purse then ran another

peril. His actor would arrive at the theatre in a carriage, after having

been driven about for five or six hours "for the benefit of his

digestion," as he said, but never did he have the necessary sum to

settle with the _cocher_, and again Harel paid before Lemaitre would get

out of the vehicle. At other times during an _entr' acte_ Lemaitre would

disappear from the theatre, and when the curtain was ready to go up

again could nowhere be found. "Frederic! where is Frederic?" the

distracted manager would cry. Frederic was down stairs in the cafe under

the theatre playing games where the stakes were high, and almost always

losing. "Monsieur Frederic, the curtain is up!" the prompter would rush

in to say. "_Ciel!_ What can I do?" the imperturbable actor would reply.

"I can't leave here, my dear fellow: I must win back what I've lost."

Poor Harel had to pay again. As the receipts of the theatre were large,

he did not dare complain much of these forced presents of money:

Lemaitre called them his perquisites. He had a profound contempt for his

manager's slippery financial manoeuvres. Harel was really almost as

eccentric in his own way as Lemaitre was in his. The history of some of

his subterfuges with his creditors would make a curious chapter. One day

he stuck up the following notice in the theatre: "To-morrow the

box-office will be open from three-quarters past two until a quarter

before three for the payment of claims." The box-office was besieged at

half-past two by a crowd of creditors who had failed to see the hoax.

"My dear Frederic," said Harel one night to the actor, "I have a

proposition to make to you that will not displease you."--"Very good:

tell it me to-morrow at breakfast." The next day they breakfasted, as

our hero always breakfasted in those days, on truffles and champagne.

Harel's proposition was this: "My project is to diminish your salary

one-half."--"What!" cried Lemaitre in very natural surprise, "are you

mocking me?"--"The theatre is on the verge of bankruptcy," pleaded

Harel.--"How can that be? I have earned more than a million francs for

it. What the devil do you do with your money?"--"My dear fellow," quoth

Harel, "what do you do with yours?"--"Ah! that's different: I have no

account to give to anybody but myself."--"But come, let us not get

angry," said Harel: "I will continue to pay you the whole sum, while

appearing to give you but half of it. In this way I shall be at liberty

to cut down the other salaries, and the theatre can go on." Lemaitre

arose, looked Harel straight in the eyes, and answered, "You have the

secret of sobering a man by a single phrase. So you think me capable--"

Harel interrupted him hurriedly, not relishing the angry light in the

actor's eyes: "No, no--not at all: I was joking."--"Ah, you were joking?

_Eh bien_, your joke is a horribly bad one. Pray don't repeat it."

Lemaitre was not deceived by the manager's sudden change of base. Three

days afterward he revenged himself by a cutting bit of sarcasm. It was

in Harel's own office. A young and well-dressed man presented himself,

carrying a roll of manuscript. At sight of Lemaitre he drew back

modestly, but Harel bade him remain, and asked him if he brought a

drama. "Yes," answered the young man.--"Your own?"--"Yes."--"Then you

have a reputation, doubtless?"--"No, it is my first piece."--"Ah," said

the manager, who had taken note of the fact that the young author was

far from shabby-looking, "in that case you are no doubt aware of the

conditions. The essential thing with us managers always is to raise the

receipts over the expenses."--"I understand that, sir."--"We prudent

managers are obliged to refuse the pieces of all authors who have not

yet achieved success, unless they will guarantee us the expenses that

the rehearsal of the piece will entail upon us."--"That is my

intention," was the young man's reply.--"Then we shall be able to

understand each other. Your piece is in five acts?"--"In three,

sir."--"Five acts would not have cost you a sou more." The conversation

continued in this strain until the young author had signed a contract to

pay ten thousand francs. With the spirit of a Shylock, Harel made out an

account of actors, actresses, costumes, musicians, etc. that would have

given gooseflesh to a less anxious and less wealthy author. Lemaitre

remained sitting in a corner of the room until the manager arose to

conduct the young man to the door: then he went up to them, laid his

hand on Harel's shoulder, and said, "Why do you let him go? He has got

his watch yet."

When Victor Hugo wrote _Ruy Blas_ he informed the director of the

Renaissance--for which theatre the piece was intended--that the only

actor who could play the part of Ruy was Lemaitre. The result was

another of his wonderful creations, which set all Paris wild with

excitement. Those who have admired Fechter in this part will perhaps be

surprised to hear that in Paris his performance was pronounced but a

faint imitation of Lemaitre's. Soon after this Lemaitre's despotic and

ungovernable disposition began to get him into trouble with the law. He

quarreled with the manager of the Renaissance, and was compelled by a

judicial condemnation to play his part. Later, he threw up the principal

part in _Zacharie_, and compelled the manager to post up an

announcement, after repeated postponements and disappointments of the

public, that Lemaitre refused to play, and the theatre was closed in

consequence. The press took sides with the manager. Threatened again

with the terrors of the law, Lemaitre consented to play. He came on the

stage and was greeted with a storm of hisses. With imperturbable

coolness he advanced to the footlights and with hand on heart said, "I

am really confused, embarrassed, gentlemen, by the enthusiastic

reception you have so kindly given me. Pray receive the expressions of

my gratitude, and believe that I will place at the service of this drama

all my good will and my best efforts." Thereupon the wind changed: that

weather-cock, the French public, whirled around and applauded to the

echo.

Lemaitre did not often speak to his audience with so much

submissiveness. Sometimes he treated them to such impertinences that he

brought the police on him. After these theatrical escapades he not

unfrequently slept in the station-house. He once made a bet that he

could take off his wig on the stage without his audience getting angry.

No American play-goer, unacquainted with the temper of French audiences,

their reverence for stage decorum, can fully appreciate what a defiance

of public sentiment this was on Lemaitre's part. He did it, however,

and the action was received in silence. This indulgence encouraging him,

he took the wig off again and wiped his face with it: still no

expression from the audience. Lemaitre then put the wig in his pocket:

the audience remained silent. Surprised at their indulgence, the actor

advanced to the prompter's hole at the front of the stage, bent down

grotesquely, took out his snuff-box and offered some to the invisible

functionary: the audience broke out in a fury. Lemaitre drew the wig

from his pocket and threw it at the _souffleur's_ head: a frightful

tumult followed. The pit climbed over the footlights, determined to make

the insolent actor offer apologies: he refused. The play was stopped,

and the commissaire of the theatre sent the offending actor to prison,

where he remained thirty-nine days. When he got out again Lemaitre

hastened to make his peace with the public. It was easy enough. He had

only to act in the superb manner of which he was master, and everything

was forgiven.

The great genius of the actor finally triumphed over the erratic

dispositions of the man so far as to secure for him a call to that

theatrical holy of holies, the stage of the Comedie Francaise. He made

his debut at the theatre in the Rue Richelieu in _Fredegonde et

Brunehaut_. The frigid array of respectable and scholarly old men who

sit in solemn state in the orchestra-stalls of the Francaise, holding

their seats from year to year by subscription, cabaled against Lemaitre,

and endeavored to drive him from the stage. But the audience with a

tumult of applause stifled the rancor of the classic phalanx of

orchestra-ancients. Lemaitre afterward, in _Othello_, conquered even the

prejudices of these stern stage-censors, and they applauded with the

rest. The actor was in his place at the Comedie Francaise, because it is

by common consent the leading theatre of the world; but the man was

sadly out of his element there. In the "House of Moliere" there is an

atmosphere of respectability as severe among the artists as that of the

most dignified college in America, and the stage is bound round with a

solemn network of dignified forms and sacred traditions, amid which

Lemaitre chafed and fretted like a caged lion. His strolling-player

instincts, his lack of self-respect, his bacchanalian habits and his

irregularities generally unfitted him for association with the scholarly

and correct-lived men who for the most part formed the company. Lemaitre

felt ill at ease there, and conceived the idea that the _societaires_

did not respect him enough. The actors of the Comedie Francaise are of

two bodies--the first and controlling one in the councils of the theatre

being composed of men who are participators in the profits of the house

as well as recipients of salaries. They are an extremely dignified body

of artists, with the utmost reverence for the proprieties of life. For

these _societaires_ Lemaitre entertained a profound dislike, and loved

to sneer at them and ridicule their dignity. One day these artists were

giving a grand dinner to some manager when a knock was heard at the door

of the banquet-hall. "Who is there?" cried several voices.--"A man,"

answered Lemaitre outside, "who wishes to have some converse with you,

and tell you once for all what he has on his heart." So saying, he

entered, threw off his cloak, and appeared before the company dressed

simply in a shirt-collar and a pair of stockings.

Lemaitre returned to the Porte Saint-Martin, and soon after created the

role of Don Caesar de Bazan, a part in which he was indescribably

delightful, and of which he was the real author. The play, written by

Dumanoir and Dennery, was roundly condemned by the critics for its

weakness, but the actor created prodigious effects, and the piece

obtained a great success. In the _Ragpicker of Paris_, a sort of honest

Robert Macaire, written by Felix Pyat for Lemaitre, this extraordinary

actor went through another transformation not less striking than some

which had preceded it. He engaged the lamplighter of the theatre to wear

the ragpicker's costume for three weeks, so that it might be suitably

dirty. He went every day into the low cabarets of the Rue Mouffetard,

where ragpickers congregated in great numbers (and still do), in order

to study from nature the peculiarities of the race. One day, as he was

chatting with his models, familiarizing himself with their characters

and manners, he was recognized by one of them, who immediately

communicated his discovery to his companions. The report spread up and

down the Rue Mouffetard like wild-fire. In a few minutes two or three

hundred ragpickers had assembled about the door of the cabaret, and as

many as could get in crowded about the wonderful actor whom they had

seen from their perch in the gallery of the theatre. They pressed him to

drink with them; they poured out their compliments and praises on him;

they wanted to carry him in triumph through the streets. Not relishing

the idea of such an ovation, Lemaitre jumped through a window and took

to flight.

It was not until he had passed the age of fifty that Lemaitre began in

the least to modify the excesses of his career, either on or off the

stage. He still indulged in bacchanalian orgies; he still broke out at

times into those violations of the stage proprieties which are so

startling to any audience, but which are to a French audience something

bordering on the incredible and awful. He was already an old man when he

was playing one evening at Amiens, on a provincial tour, in

_Tragaldabas_, a play written for him by M. Vacquerie, who shared Victor

Hugo's exile at Jersey. At a certain point in the piece the actor is

supposed to drink champagne. Now, dramatic managers are obliged to be

economical about such things as food and drink, and generally replace

the sparkling vintage by another liquid quite as gaseous, but less

agreeable to the palate. Lemaitre put the glass to his lips, made a

horrible grimace, spit out the mouthful, and to the consternation of the

audience cried out, "Where is the manager of this theatre? Send me the

manager instantly!" Great excitement behind the scenes: the manager

arrives. "Approach," says the actor to him gravely, and he walks upon

the stage in full view of the audience. "What is the meaning of this bad

joke, Mr. Manager? Do you think me capable of being your accomplice in

the wickedness of deceiving the public!" "Deceive the public! I!"

stammers the manager.--"Yes, sir, you:" then addressing the pit,

"Gentlemen, you think I am drinking champagne. No, it is seltzer-water."

At this there was a roar of laughter, and the manager, deeming it wise

to humor the joke, promised to go and get real champagne. During the

time he was gone--when necessarily the action of the piece was brought

to a standstill--Lemaitre entertained his audience with a dissertation

on seltzer-water and the consciencelessness of managers.

With regard to similar stories related of the elder Booth, it is often

said now-a-days that his audiences were not made up of the decorous

class which attends theatres in _our_ times, and that managers of the

present day would not for a moment tolerate such insolent violations of

theatrical discipline. This may be possible as regards Booth, but so far

as it relates to Lemaitre it affords no explanation of the anecdotes in

question. For the severest theatrical audience that can be gathered in

America to-day--at Wallack's, at Booth's, or wherever decorum is

supposed to be most preserved--could not for a moment compare, in the

severity of its artistic judgments and the sternness of its

requirements, with the audiences which Lemaitre so boldly trifled with.

And the fact illustrates, as nothing else could, the prodigious

popularity of the man and the marvelous power of his art. At the

_repetition generale_ of _Toussaint L'Ouverture_ the cream of artistic

Paris was present. The members of the Comedie Francaise came in force;

Lamartine occupied a stage-box; the house was full of poets, novelists,

painters, artists and authors of every description. Yet on _this_ solemn

night Lemaitre had one of his explosions of temper, and stopped the play

to publicly scold the stage-carpenter for setting a scene wrong in some

trifling detail. The incident was destructive to the power of the play,

or would have been in an ordinary case; but before the evening was over

Lemaitre regained perfect control of himself and swept his audience

with him as by storm.

Before passing his sixtieth year Lemaitre turned over a new leaf. He

abandoned his dissipated habits and set to work to take care of his

health and his morals. Better late than never. He had always borne a

good reputation for generosity: he now set about winning one for virtue.

He devoted himself to his children--of whom he had four--with exemplary

care and solicitude. The Antinoeus of former days is now, as has been

said, but a ruin, but what a magnificent ruin! He has no voice, but

voice seems hardly necessary to him, so eloquent is his pantomime, so

expressive are his features, so full of fire his great black eyes when

acting. Several years ago, while still in his full vigor, he sustained a

loss of his teeth, which temporarily destroyed his articulation. He was

playing in a piece called _The Black Doctor_ at the time, and did not

intermit his representations on account of his misfortune. But one who

was present on the occasion relates that the audience heard him repeat

again and again, in ever-varying tones, "Ellla marrr montaaat tojors"

("Et la mer montait toujours"--"And the sea still rose!"), and shuddered

and sobbed under the pathos of his tones for more than twenty minutes

without appearing to notice the absurdity of the language. And for fully

fifteen years Frederic Lemaitre has now been playing without a voice.

No stage reputation in the century he lives in has equaled this actor's.

Talma and Rachel, if as great as he, were not so complete, so versatile.

This sketch has mentioned but a few of his many marvelous creations,

each so rich in individuality, each so marked and so distinct from the

other, and each in its turn so original and novel. In his proud face,

his fiery eyes, his trembling lip, there seems still energy enough for a

hundred ordinary actors of merit; and yet he gives to any part he essays

the minute attention to details, the unwearying patience, which would in

themselves almost win success for an incarnation of commonplace.

WIRT SIKES.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The Conservatoire de Musique et de Declamation lyrique is a

municipal and governmental institution in the French capital, founded

for the gratuitous instruction of youth of both sexes in singing, music

and declamation. It accommodates six hundred pupils, and has a library

of eight thousand volumes.

[B] A cant name among the French for the claque.

THE SONG-WIND.

I stand in a climate of spring,

Overblown by a wind from the South,

With joy unspeakable thrilled,

Ineffable song in my mouth;

For the wind is a breeze of delight,

And its blowing is rhythmic and fleet;

It comes from the heart of the South.

Oh, the South wind, the song-wind is sweet!

It comes like the breath of a dream

Blown through the still regions of sleep;

It comes from the islands of love,

Lying midmost the tropical deep;

It has the fresh smell of sea-grass,

It is woven of coolness and heat,

Fruit-flavored and burdened with spice.

Oh, the South wind, the song-wind is sweet!

It stirs the high tops of the trees,

With greenness and fragrance o'erfraught,

Through which the swift sun-glories glance

Like flashes of wonderful thought;

It touches the rose till it burns

Like love in a heart made complete;

It kisses the world into flower.

Oh, the South wind, the song-wind is sweet!

A breath of all ages it is,

From Teos, and Lesbos, and Ind;

Through the years, like a shuttle of gold,

Runs the wonder of song on the wind--

The wonder of flute and of lyre,

A music made mellow and meet

For Sappho, the princess of song.

Oh, the South wind, the song-wind is sweet!

O Sappho! O love-laden soul!

A thrill in the rushes there is,

And the sea breaks into loud song

That throbs with the pulse of the breeze;

And singers, remembering thee,

Cast their crowns and their lyres at their feet,

For the South wind rewakens thy song.

Oh, the South wind, the song-wind is sweet!

It blows with a rustle of palms

And a sound of the laurel and bay,

Far voices and clapping of hands,

Like applause at the end of a play:

It strengthens the poet like wine,

And clothes him from head unto feet

In the power and glory of life.

Oh, the South wind, the song-wind is sweet!

It lifts the gold hair of a girl

Till it shines in the sun like a flame,

It flows through the locks of a man

Toiling hard at his song and his fame;

It is heavy with music of birds;

It has whispers no lips can repeat:

The angels float by on its tide.

Oh, the South wind, the song-wind is sweet!

Ah, world! while the South wind prevails--

With flowers and rushes and streams,

Intrude not a sound of thy wheels,

But leave me alone with my dreams--

My reveries born of this breeze;

And my life, though lowly it be,

Will be happier far than a king's

If the South wind, the song-wind kiss me!

JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON.

NORTHWARD TO HIGH ASIA.

From Calcutta my route was northward to Thibet, to reach, if possible,

its capital city of Lhassa, residence of the Grand Lama of the

Booddhists--the pontifical sovereign of Eastern Asia. My journey thither

was planned by the way of Sikkim, and thence through the Cholah Pass in

the Himalaya range. I was most anxious to reach a city so interestingly

described by the Abbe Huc nearly thirty years ago, and to learn

something further about the present condition and prospects of the

"Snowy Region of the North" and the lofty table-lands of Central Asia,

so seldom visited by European travelers.

The cars of the East Indian Railway carry one in a single night 220

miles to the town of Sahibgunge and the banks of the Ganges. The first

sight of the sacred river excited in me but little enthusiasm. It was

about a mile in width, shallow and very muddy, with a swift current and

dreary sandy banks, where huge crocodiles were basking in the sun. Its

religious character among the Hindoos is well known. Though highly

esteemed from its source to its mouth, there are some particular places

more eminently sacred than others--as Benares, Allahabad and

Hurdwar--and to these pilgrims resort from great distances to perform

their ablutions and carry off water to be used in future ceremonies. The

Ganges water is also valued for its supposed medicinal properties, and

in the British courts of justice witnesses of the Brahmanical faith are

sworn upon it.

Having been ferried across the sacred flood, I journeyed onward in what

is termed a _shigram_--simply a large palanquin on wheels drawn by two

horses. As I reclined at length upon its cushion-covered bottom, I could

see that the country through which we passed was an immense plain, and a

clump of bamboos or an occasional palm alone hinted at an Oriental and

a tropical landscape. The trees were mostly banians, peepuls and

mangoes, and there were many large fields of rice and corn. The native

huts were made of bamboo reeds and mud, with straw-thatched roofs. A

view of their interiors was of course forbidden me on account of that

cursed system of caste which prevails from Peshawur to Rangoon and from

Cashmere and Thibet to Cape Cormorin and Ceylon. The road was

macadamized and shaded by rows of immense trees. The tricky and balky

horses (Mongol ponies) delayed us considerably, but it was very amusing

to see the methods employed to coax or coerce them. A groom held in his

hand a piece of bamboo about two feet in length, at the extremity of

which was fastened a strong looped horsehair cord, which was twisted

around the ear of a fractious beast, and a very little power applied a

few paces in advance generally removed all scruples as to its progress.

Horses who would not back into the shafts were assisted by a rope

secured round a hind leg, and one who would not start forward was

suddenly persuaded to change its mind through a similar combination of

rope and pressure applied to a fore leg. Often one native would take a

wheel, others would push from behind, some would lift one of the fore

feet of the obstinate brutes, a few would take their heads, and then,

after much alternate fondling and beating, off we would go at a very

break-neck speed for perhaps a mile, when the horses would quiet down

into an easy trot for the remainder of the stage.

About twelve o'clock on the first night a very provoking yet amusing

incident happened. I had some time previously covered myself with my

blankets and closed the sliding doors of the vehicle, as it was a bitter

cold night, and had been enjoying a sound sleep, when, waking suddenly,

I found the shigram standing in the middle of the road, but without

either horses, coachman or groom. I had heard that such an event will

occasionally happen in Indian dak-posting and so endeavored not to be

disconcerted. Alighting from the shigram, I walked toward a fire which

was just discernible through the trees, and found my missing coachman

taking a comfortable smoke and a quiet chat with half a dozen

bullock-drivers, friends of his, who were camping there for the night. I

approached the social group with the feelings of a ghoul, shook my fists

in the coachman's face and talked exceedingly loud, making free use of

all the bad words in Bengalee of which my then limited vocabulary would

admit, placing particular emphasis upon the scathing _soour_ ("pig") and

the withering _gudha_ ("fool")--epithets more dreaded by the Hindoos

than the most profane oaths. The man jabbered something in his native

tongue, about as intelligible to me as if spoken in the language of the

Bechuanas of South Africa or in that of our Sioux Indians. Returning to

the shigram, I quietly prepared myself to await the issue. But the

effects of my furious philippic had been complete, and in less than ten

minutes the ponies were harnessed and we were again on our way.

In the morning I stopped at a dak-bungalow for breakfast. The word _dak_

means post or stage, and the bungalows are inns for the accommodation of

post-travelers built by government at distances of about twenty miles

apart. They are of one story, and usually contain some half dozen

apartments for sitting, dining and sleeping, besides dressing- and

bath-rooms. These bungalows are under the direction of a _khansamah_, or

native butler, who hires a small corps of servants to attend the wants

of travelers. If you bring provisions, the khansamah will have them

cooked for you, or he will supply you with a limited bill of fare,

charging for each dish according to an official scale with which every

bungalow is furnished. Any traveler can obtain rooms in a dak-bungalow

during twenty-four hours, for which he must pay one rupee (fifty cents),

and no one can claim shelter for more than this period should the

bungalow be full or should other travelers arrive.

On the afternoon of the following day we reached the foot of the hills

and the terminus of the shigram travel. The Himalayas in view were bold

and sharp in outline, and densely wooded to their very tops, and my

route lay directly over the nearer range, which was something more than

a mile in height. You may ascend the foot-hills by palanquin or pony.

For the former, previous application is necessary, as relays of bearers

must be arranged on the road. There are eight bearers, four of whom

carry you at a time. They have two movements--a sharp trot, and a long

even step as a rest from the regular gait--but neither is very enjoyable

to the occupant of the palanquin after a few hours' trial. They relieve

each other every half mile. The stages are about eight miles in length,

at the end of each of which an entire new set of bearers is obtained. On

comparatively good and level roads these bearers will average four miles

an hour: in ascending or descending steep mountains the rate of speed is

of course somewhat less. I chose a mountain-pony, a wiry and vicious

little fellow, and engaged a coolie to carry my baggage to a village

thirty miles distant for the grand recompense of one rupee.

Soon after starting I met people of both sexes who were neither Hindoos

nor Mohammedans, but bore a strong resemblance to the Chinese. The men

were short, stout and muscular, and their faces wore a stolid and almost

stupid look, which was not at all improved by their long black hair or

by their filthy garments and persons. The women, however, were rather

good-looking, not concealing the face as in the plains. These people

were natives of Nepaul and Bhotan, independent states of India. After a

ride of five or six miles I passed a _terai_, a great jungle infested by

tigers and elephants; so at least my companion, a devout follower of the

Prophet, informed me. This terai consisted of rank grass fifteen feet in

height, thick underbrush and some few huge trees; and so dense was it

that a passage could only be made with an axe. It is always advisable to

pass through such places during the daytime. At Kurseong there was a

good hotel, the Clarendon, kept by an old New Yorker, who told me he had

left America fifteen years before, and during that period had traveled

all over the world, had made a great deal of money in Western Africa in

the palm-oil trade, and had finally "settled down" (or rather _up_) in

India. He started the first tea-plantation in the Himalayas, and is

reported to be worth at present more than a million rupees.

The coolie, a Nepaulese, carried my baggage up the mountains at a sharp

trot, and reached the hotel but two hours after my own arrival. It was a

wonderful exhibition of strength and endurance. The distance was thirty

miles and the weight of the burden nearly eighty pounds. The

hill-tribes, breathing a cool and invigorating air, are alone equal to

such displays of vigor and endurance. Some time afterward, in going to

Simla in the Western Himalayas, I employed coolies who were possessed of

the same wonderful stamina as these Nepaulese. They were

splendid-looking men, shorty but thick-set and very muscular, with

olive-brown skins, piercing black eyes, long glossy hair and regular and

handsome features. One of this class of men (Hindoo hill-tribes) will

carry thirty _seers_ (sixty pounds) upon his back, or twenty-five seers

upon his head, up the hills for fifty miles, without rest or food, in

twenty-four hours; his charge for which is but one rupee--a special

instance of the astonishingly cheap labor of all India.

The road ran the whole distance on the face of almost perpendicular

hills, and for the greater part of the way was guarded by a low wall on

the dangerous side. The scenery was most grand, and I already felt well

repaid for the arduous journey from Calcutta. Some views were, however,

rather frightful. Imagine a ride on the very brink of a precipice

thirty-five hundred feet in depth, with the hills rising abruptly on the

other hand twenty-five hundred feet in height above you. The tops of the

distant and lofty mountains were all hidden in the clouds, but the

scenery of the valleys beneath one's feet was very beautiful. The

immense fields of tea planted in rectangular rows, the dark-green and

dense foliage of the forests, with here a planter's dwelling or a

factory glistening in the morning's sun, and there perhaps a little

silvery waterfall or a bubbling brook, and great black shadows cast by

the clouds, made a truly impressive picture. And yet, though already on

hills more than a mile in height, I had only gained this altitude in

order to obtain glimpses of much higher and grander mountains, nearly a

hundred miles distant.

Just before reaching Darjeeling there is a military cantonment, where

some troops are stationed for the active duty of protecting Her

Majesty's northern Indian boundaries. The officers' residences and the

barracks are situated on the top and upon the precipitous sides of a

small hill, and bridle-paths wind between, and flower-gardens and

ornamental trees are to be seen grouped about each dwelling. Darjeeling

is distant about three hundred and fifty miles almost due north from

Calcutta, of which it is regarded as the sanitarium, though, owing to

the hardships of the journey from that city, the more distant Simla is

quite as often resorted to by the invalided officials, merchants and

troops of Hindostan. The feasibility of building a railroad to

Darjeeling has long been discussed, and it appears that the engineering

difficulties, though great, can nevertheless be overcome; but no active

steps have as yet been taken toward the attainment of so desirable an

object. The European residents of the town of Darjeeling number about

fifty, and there are perhaps four times as many tea-planters in the

surrounding country.

The next day being Sunday, and the day on which marketable supplies are

brought into town for the whole week, the proprietor of my hotel took me

to see the bazaar. It much resembled others visited in and near

Calcutta, but I was surprised at the variety of European vegetables

offered for sale: there were peas, onions, potatoes, squashes, lettuce,

radishes, turnips and many kinds of grain, including that peculiarly

Yankee "institooshun" pop-corn. The bazaar was held out of doors in a

public square, with a few shops of dry goods around, and a most terrible

din arose from the motley crowd there assembled. In one place a number

of soldiers from the cantonments were bidding on some glassware offered

at auction, and in another mothers of families and _khansamahs_ were

bustling about engaging their necessary household supplies. Here was a

wretched beggar, with a grotesque mask on his face, dancing before some

of the merchants, who gave him a few potatoes in exchange for his

contortions. The people embraced Hindoos, Mohammedans, Bhoteeas,

Nepaulese and Sikkimites, and presented every variety of dress and

figure, having seemingly but one feature or possession in common, and

that was a very prominent display of unclean skin and raiment. The

Nepaulese women wore bracelets and necklaces of Indian coins, besides

silver anklets, finger- and nose-rings, gold earrings and beads, and

each had also suspended from her neck a silver snuff-box. These boxes

were three or four inches square, made of the purest metal, and

handsomely carved and embossed.

At Darjeeling I learned that my plan of traveling to Lhassa was not

feasible--that the Tale Lama ("sea of wisdom") and the great palace, and

a city whose three productions, according to Chinese travelers, are

lamas, women and dogs--many of whose streets are lined with houses built

of ox and rams' horns; and a people whose mode of salutation is by

uncovering the head, thrusting out the tongue and scratching the right

ear, and whose manner of disposal of their dead is by cutting the

corpses in pieces and giving them to "sacred dogs," raised and nurtured

in convents for the express purpose--would have to be known only through

the reports of others. The Thibetan traders in Darjeeling reported that

the _Pugla Diwan_ of Sikkim had become a great man in Thibet, and had

seized everything _en route_ from Lhassa during the year, and, having

stored all in huge warehouses, would allow nothing to pass into Sikkim

and Bengal. Previous travelers and missionaries had all of them entered

the country in the disguise of priests or of Chinese or Mogul traders,

having a knowledge of the Thibetan or some allied language; and even

then so greatly fearing detection as to be unable to learn very much of

the condition and capabilities of the land or the habits and usages of

the people. That foreigners should be so rigorously excluded from Thibet

is doubtless owing to Chinese influence--to the fear and jealousy of

British power and possession in the East, the southern boundaries being

rigorously guarded by a _cordon_ of Chinese garrison-stations on the

highlands of the Himalayas.

I might approach nearer, or perhaps ascend the great mountain

Kanchinjinga, which is about fifty miles distant from Darjeeling, though

there are no roads over or around the intervening hills, and the journey

would have to be undertaken on foot, and tents, provisions and a large

retinue of servants would be necessary. And then, at best, but the

snow-limit or a little higher could be reached (hardly two-thirds the

distance to the summit), and therefore the interest of the trip would

scarcely compensate for its hardships. Instead of this, the proprietor

of the hotel proposed a little excursion on horseback into Sikkim, the

country of the Lepchas. It is ten or twelve miles to the bottom of the

valley, and the road (or rather bridle-path) winds around the hills

forward and back, but constantly descending, until at length the Rungeed

River is reached. Some of the precipices were frightful to look over,

and I clutched the reins tightly, braced myself in the saddle, and

almost held my breath as the pony trotted quietly along a path three

feet in width and often lying at an angle of 45 deg.; but there was no

danger, unless it might perhaps be from the sliding away of part of the

road, since the ponies are mountain-bred and very sure-footed. The views

were extremely grand, and the distances from peak to peak so immense

that the mind was almost lost to detail. Much of the land is cleared of

forest trees and covered with tea-plants: cinchona also is cultivated,

and with great success.

The Rungeed is a small mountain-torrent, a branch of the Peesta, which

latter empties its waters into the great Brahmapootra ("son of Brahma").

It serves as a boundary-line between Bengal and Sikkim. Crossing this

stream at a height of about thirty feet, there is a bamboo-cane

suspension bridge three hundred feet in length, which was built entirely

by the natives. It is intended for foot-passengers, and will safely

support a dozen people at a time. It consists of sixteen bamboo canes,

of the size of the finger, on either side. The bottom is formed of three

very large stems of bamboo, and a sort of wickerwork extends from these

upward to the supporting canes, which are about six feet from side to

side, and may in crossing just be grasped by the hands. The bridge has a

peculiar oscillating motion, which increases so much at the centre,

together with an up-and-down movement, that, with a sight of the

fiercely rushing water beneath, the traveler's head is apt to become

giddy.

Crossing to the other side, I met in the forests an English gentleman,

who informed me he was just returning from a two weeks' tour through

Sikkim. It was Colonel Manwaring of H. M.'s Indian army, who was engaged

in compiling under government orders a dictionary of the Lepcha tongue.

Salutations over, Briton like, he pressed me at once to drink, asked if

I would try a native beer, and upon my assenting ordered a quantity of

_chi_ (a drink made of fermented millet) from a hut near at hand. It

proved a nutritious and exhilarating though not intoxicating beverage,

and we drank it _a la_ Sikkimite, warm, through a reed a foot in length

and from a joint of bamboo holding perhaps a couple of quarts. The

colonel informed me that the Lepcha language is very copious, expressive

and beautiful, abounding largely in metaphor. The number of words is

very extraordinary, and requires a person to be something of a

geologist, botanist and zoologist--in short, to understand very many of

the sciences and not a few of the arts--in order to learn perfectly this

curious tongue. His labors among the people he described as very trying

and discouraging. He had been employed upon the dictionary more than

three years, and it was not nearly completed. We rode slowly up the

hills, and reached the inn late in the evening.

I had waited nearly a week for a clear day on which to view the highest

mountain-peaks in the world, and had almost despaired of success when on

the last morning of my stay, upon looking from my window at daybreak, I

saw that although the valleys and sides of some of the hills were

covered with clouds and fog, still a lofty peak near Darjeeling showed

its face distinctly and for the first time during my visit. Remembering

that this mountain was over two miles in height, perhaps Mount

Kanchinjinga might be in sight, but I hardly dared entertain the

thought. It was my last chance, for I intended to return to the plains

in the afternoon; so, jumping into my clothes, pulling on my hat and

snatching up my field-glass, I walked, or rather ran, to the other side

of the hill for an unobstructed view. Suddenly turning a sharp bend in

the road, I saw through the trees a clearly-defined, substantial-looking

cloud--was it a cloud, though?--and rushing forward a dozen paces, lo

and behold! one of the highest mountain-summits on the globe stood

unveiled before me! I confess never in my travels to have experienced

like sensations of awe and reverence. My eyes involuntarily filled with

tears, and I stood completely lost in wonder and admiration.

It was early morning. The sun had newly risen, though not yet visible,

and threw a flood of rosy light upon the gigantic snow-tipped pinnacles,

causing them to glisten like polished white marble. The valley below,

four or five thousand feet deep, was filled with an ocean of silvery

clouds, which majestically rolled and rose upon the forest-clad sides of

the great mountains as far as the limit of perpetual snow; and from this

fleecy mass as a border towered aloft against an azure-hued sky the

magnificent form of Kanchinjinga. For miles in each direction the

thickly-wooded sub-hills were in sight, but all interest centred in the

never-by-man-trodden peak before and above me. A dread and awful silence

seemed to pervade the air, and the total absence of life or motion lent

an almost supernatural glamour to the scene. For nearly two hours I sat

as one entranced, until the sun gently lifted the clouds from the

valleys, and as with a silver-wrought screen shut off from my eyes the

most impressive sight they ever beheld. During this marvelous exhibition

the "littleness of man" had been made very painfully lucid. Yet,

perhaps, there is nothing so calculated to raise the thoughts, enlarge

the mind or purify the heart as the contemplation of the sublime and

beautiful in Nature.

Kanchinjinga, properly speaking, consists of three peaks, which are

sharp, serrated, precipitous, and apparently composed of solid rock from

the snow-limit to the summit. Its immense height is not thoroughly

appreciated by the traveler for two causes--its great distance (fifty

miles "as the crow flies"), and the fact that the point of observation

is itself one-fourth the height of the mountain. Had I risen earlier and

ridden to Mount Senchal, fifteen hundred feet above Darjeeling, I

_might_ have obtained a view of Mount Everest, which is nearly thirty

thousand feet in perpendicular height above the sea (about five and a

half miles), and is the supremest point upon our globe, while Mount

Kanchinjinga, which until quite recently was supposed to be the higher

of the two, is found to be of about eight hundred feet less altitude.

Mount Everest is a single peak, a cone, and appears like a small white

tent above the clouds, but in grandeur and sublimity it is excelled by

Kanchinjinga. Well do the Himalaya Mountains bear out the meaning of

their name--the "abode of snow"--for on their southern slopes in some

places the snow-line descends to fourteen thousand feet. The mean

elevation of this remarkable range is double that of the Alps, and many

of its passes to the elevated table-lands of Central Asia are higher

than the summit of Mont Blanc. Huge glaciers of smooth ice, though none

so vast as those of the Alps, are numerous in parts of this stupendous

mountain-chain, and even descend from the regions of perpetual snow to

eleven thousand feet. Though the Andes of South America present a

mountain-system twice the length of the Himalayas, still in respect to

altitude the former are much surpassed by the latter. Mount Dwalaghiri

in Nepaul is of nearly the same height as Kanchinjinga: then, there are

two peaks which attain twenty-six thousand feet; four about twenty-four

thousand feet; and over twenty that reach an elevation exceeding twenty

thousand feet!

Leaving Darjeeling, I visited one of the large tea-gardens near the

terai at the foot of the hills. The best of land may be purchased at ten

rupees per acre, and an average-sized plantation embraces about two

hundred acres. The prospective garden must be cleared of its forest and

jungle, which is an arduous task, but when once it is in order one

native can properly cultivate an acre. The best teas are raised upon the

tops of the hills, upward of seven thousand feet above the sea-level.

Good tea can only be grown under two conditions: these are moisture and

heat, and hence the southern slopes of the Himalayas are admirably

adapted to its cultivation, for during the middle of the day the sun is

warm, and at night there are very copious dews. The laborers employed

are all natives, and one or two Europeans only are necessary to

superintend the largest plantation. The indigenous tea-plant was first

discovered in Assam (the north-eastern district of Bengal) in the year

1830. From there it was introduced into Cachar and Darjeeling, and from

these places into the hills in the north-western part of Hindostan. In

1850 the English government founded plantations in the Kangra Valley,

about one hundred and twenty miles from Lahore, on the borders of

Cashmere, which proved so successful that many were soon established in

various other localities. Cinchona (_Cinchona calisaya_) also succeeds

well upon the hills, and is being extensively grown, as, owing to the

prevalence of fevers of all kinds, quinine is in great demand throughout

India.

Reaching the Ganges again without accident or noteworthy event, I

traveled on westward up its rich valley, and soon entered upon the great

plain of Hindostan (embracing an area of half a million square miles),

which, though nearly treeless, contains some of the most fertile soil on

the globe. There were clusters of huts and dilapidated mosques at short

intervals, and the natives might be seen at work in the fields with

their antiquated wooden ploughs, the bent limbs of trees, or engaged in

cutting _paddy_ (rice in the husk), or hoeing poppy-plants, or digging

little drains. Wherever we met them they would stop work, drop

everything, and gaze at the railway train, which seemed to them

apparently as strange a sight as if it had just dropped down from the

clouds.

In Hindostan, land is owned either by government or by the native rajahs

and nawabs. That belonging to the former is leased to a class of people

called _zemindars_ (the word means "landholder," "landkeeper"), and they

sublet it to another class styled _ryots_ (the "husbandmen,"

"peasants"), who are the real tillers of the soil. A well-to-do zemindar

will rent two thousand acres of land, for which he pays about four

_annas_ (twelve cents) an acre. The hardships of the ryots are

great--they are treated like slaves, and can barely make a

subsistence--but among the zemindars are numbered some of the wealthiest

men in the country: one, for instance, owns fifty square miles of

fertile land, all wrung from the labor of the poor peasants. Formerly

these zemindars were merely the superintendents of the land, but

latterly they have been declared its hereditary proprietors, and the

before fluctuating dues of government have under a permanent settlement

been unalterably fixed in perpetuity.

As we rolled along, on both sides of the railroad as far as the eye

could see were immense fields of wheat and barley, paddy, tobacco,

mustard, the castor-oil plant, millet, maize, the poppy, indigo and

sugar-cane. Wheat and barley are not sown broadcast as with us, but in

drills a few inches apart: both grains are consumed in the

country--little or none is exported. The paddy resembles rye or wheat

when growing, the rice-kernels being contained in husks at the top of

the spires. The plant requires a wet loamy soil (such as is best offered

in Cambodia and Siam, the former being styled "the Asiatic storehouse of

rice"), and there is but one crop in the year. The mustard-plants which

we saw were about two feet in height, and bore small yellow flowers as

crests. The oil and the table article of commerce are made by grinding

the seeds in mills constructed for the purpose. The castor-oil plant is

a green and succulent shoot about six feet in height, with white flowers

hanging in bunches like hops. Maize is never fed to cattle as in

America, but is all consumed by the poorer classes of natives. But most

interesting were the poppy-plants. These are raised in oblong patches of

ground surrounded by low mud walls for retaining the water which is

essential to their growth. The plants are quite small, with green leaves

at the base, from which rise tall stalks with bulb-like tops, the pod of

the flower. At the proper season, when ripe, incisions are made in these

bulbs--simple scratches--by drawing two needles across them toward

evening, and the juice, which exudes during the night, is scraped off in

the morning and collected in shells. This operation is performed upon

all sides of the bulb, and then the juice is sent in earthenware jars to

Bankipore to be manufactured into opium by drying in the sun and various

other processes. When quite prepared it is pressed into balls, boxed and

exported to China, to the great emolument of the British Indian

government, in whose hands the trade is a monopoly (it deriving

one-twelfth of its entire income from this traffic alone), and to the

fearful moral and physical degradation of the Chinese.

Patna is one of the oldest cities in India. It extends for a mile and a

half along the south bank of the Ganges, which is here five miles in

width in the rainy season. It consists properly of but a single street

eight miles in length and thirty feet in width, with numerous short

byways. Patna contains about two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants,

and was formerly a place of such considerable trade that the English,

French, Dutch and Danes had factories here, though few European

merchants remain at the present day. I found the streets crowded with

gayly-dressed, vivacious Mohammedans and Hindoos and solemn,

gruff-looking Afghans. Some were on foot; some on horseback, astride

splendid horses brought from the Deccan; many rode in _eckas_, a few in

_baillies_--two varieties of native vehicle. The dwellings in the city,

built of mud with tiled roofs, were mostly but one story in height. In

those of two stories the lower is rented as a shop to the merchants (or

used as such by the owners), and in the upper the family dwells, as is

customary in our cities. The stores were of all denominations, but the

manufactures were principally of cotton goods and earthenware, which

latter is made in feeble imitation of European crockery. The smell of

the curry and _ghee_ (clarified butter) in some shops was intensely

disagreeable, and the numerous shelves of _metai_ (sweets compounded of

sugar, butter and flour, and of which the natives are very fond) looked

anything but inviting to a _gora-log_ (a fair-complexioned person). It

is generally supposed that the Hindoos never use intoxicating beverages,

but I passed several liquor-shops and saw three or four men drunk in the

streets. The drink in general request is the fermented juice of the

_taul_ or Indian palm tree, which, though mild and soft to the palate,

is yet very acrid and baneful to the stomach.

There is an old granary in Patna, a large beehive-shaped structure of

brick and plaster, at a guess two hundred feet in diameter by one

hundred feet in height and twelve feet in thickness. Two stair-cases of

one hundred and fifty steps each wind upward to its summit on either

side, giving the building from a distance the appearance of a huge brick

cork-screw. These steps were intended to be used for carrying up the

grain, the building being filled through a small aperture at the top,

and up them Shah Maharaj, the present premier of Nepaul, is said once

to have ridden his pony--a most daring feat of horsemanship and nerve.

On one side were two large stone tablets with inscriptions--the one in

Persian, the other in English. They simply stated that the granary was

erected in 1786 as part of a general plan ordered by the

governor-general and council of India for the perpetual prevention of

famine. It has never yet, however, been filled with grain, but has been

employed as a military magazine. From the summit a fine view of the

surrounding country is to be had, comprising plains and forests, stately

bungalows and flowery "compounds," vegetable gardens, native huts, and

in the distance the sacred Ganges, with its stony bed more than half

exposed.

Formerly, famines were not infrequent in Hindostan, which was owing to

an insufficient fall of rain at the proper season and consequent failure

of the crops. One occurred in the year 1770, in which thirty millions of

people are said to have perished in the valley of the Ganges. This Patna

granary was doubtless one of a number which it was intended should be

built throughout the country and filled with grain in times of plenty to

supply the people in case of famine, like those in the cities of ancient

Egypt which Joseph filled with corn in the seven years of plenteousness

and opened in the seven years of dearth, when "famine waxed sore in the

land." But the building of the Ganges Canal and the railroads have

rendered it almost impossible that a widespread calamitous famine should

again occur in this section of India--the former by providing a more

thorough system of irrigation, and the latter by affording means for the

rapid and easy transportation of food from one province to another. The

extent of the recent famine has been grossly exaggerated. Had certain

public works--the construction of railroads and other sources of

communication and of canals for the irrigation of the rice-fields--which

the government contemplated prior to the outbreak of the distress, been

completed, probably no reckless, sensational reports of "a disaster

which had no parallel in the history of human misery" would have reached

our ears.

In the long street already mentioned as extending from Bankipore to

Patna is situated the government opium manufactory and warehouse. March

and April are the months in which opium is made: at the time of my visit

it was being packed and prepared for shipment to China. The various

buildings are of brick, and the grounds are surrounded by a high wall.

Entering one of the gates, I passed a Sepoy sentinel, and a little

farther on some stone barracks. I then entered one of the largest

buildings, and found about a hundred natives, with a European

superintendent, busily engaged in weighing and packing the drug. The

juice of the poppy-plant is brought in by the farmers from the

surrounding country in stone jars, and has the appearance of thick tar.

It is placed in large tanks, well worked up, and then dried in the sun.

Next, cases are made about six inches in diameter, resembling

cannon-balls, of alternate layers of thin poppy-leaves, of the

poppy-flowers and of the liquid juice, and these are an inch in

thickness. The whole interior is then filled with the viscous fluid, and

the balls are placed to dry in earthenware cups upon immense shelves

with which many entire buildings are filled. The balls weighed two seers

(four pounds), and were worth thirty-two rupees (sixteen dollars) each.

They were packed in long wooden boxes with thin partitions, rolled in

poppy-leaves. There were forty balls in a box, which was worth when

filled twelve hundred and eighty rupees or six hundred and forty

dollars. About three thousand natives were employed in this manufactory.

From Patna I went on to Benares, the Mecca of Hindooism, where for the

space of two weeks I was royally feted by Maharajah Isuree Pershod,

chief of the four great castes of the Hindoos.

FRANK VINCENT, JR.

BEHIND THEIR FANS.

FROM THE FRENCH OF GUSTAVE DROZ.

Last evening I was guilty of a very shameful action. I hid behind a

curtained door and listened to a conversation, and, what makes it still

more unpardonable in me, I cannot help telling you what I heard. It was

this.

I had been at the ball about half an hour when I saw in a corner of the

parlor, through the door which leads into the conservatory, a little

group of three young girls arrayed in billows of white muslin, who were

talking behind their fans with so much animation that it was impossible

not to notice them.

These three girls had reached that age when young women's hands are

slender but still rosy, when their forms have still that charming

delicacy which some people call thinness and others youthfulness, and

when their movements have that excessive suppleness which is like

awkwardness, but which it would be the height of art to imitate. Leaning

back with easy grace in their arm chairs, which were drawn up close

together, they were laughing unrestrainedly. Already women and

coquettes, they would from time to time stretch out their well-gloved

hands and pat their ample draperies with a thousand graceful little

gestures. They were already mistresses of the art of looking at things

without seeing them, of laughing when they were not amused, of showing

their white teeth while smoothing their gloves at the wrist, and while

modestly looking down of giving a vibration to their voices like the

striking of glass, which cannot fail to attract attention. They had,

too, the trick of stopping short in the midst of a movement and posing

that you might see the turn of a shoulder or a graceful arm, and of

turning their profile to you to show a pretty nose, of catching up their

skirts and turning away with a movement like a frightened dove till the

ear alone is visible, and replying, "Oh, how you frightened me!" when

you have said nothing to them but "How do you do?" Then their way of

prattling unceasingly without rhyme or reason, or when both ideas and

words fail them of exclaiming, "Oh! oh! oh! yes, indeed!" while stroking

their hair!

Ah, dear little creatures! I love them just as they are, so knowing and

so pure, so gracious and so skillful. I really love these little angels

who make their entrance into the great world between two polkas--who go

to a ball instead of going to bed--who broke their doll into pieces two

days ago, and now think of painting themselves under the eyes like

mamma--who know to a louis the price of a cashmere shawl--are

connoisseurs in diamonds, look men straight in the eye, are all worn out

when Lent comes, and who during Holy Week, after devoutly nibbling a bit

of salmon salad, run off to their religious exercises in boots with

tassels and with their hair powdered. I love these little painted lambs

as one loves roses in December or green peas in the middle of January.

There is simplicity even in their excessive self-possession--something,

at any rate, which reminds one of green apples which one longs to taste.

They are already women--in fact, they were when they were born--but

still one guesses at their motives, reads their little thoughts:

sometimes, too, one finds a clue which is like a revelation. They are--

But pardon me, young ladies! I am afraid I am going too far: perhaps as

you turn over these pages you will recall the gentleman who was looking

at you so attentively the other evening. Perhaps you will recognize

yourselves, however imperfect the sketch may be, and then--But it is too

late now not to tell you all.

I slyly opened the library-door, and, turning to the left, I made my way

to the conservatory, and stationed myself directly behind you, near the

door, in the folds of the curtain, and there I heard it all. I did even

more than that: in coming away I snapped off a branch of camellia. What

follows is merely the work of a reporter: if memory or skill is lacking,

forgive me and I will do better another time.

"No," said the youngest, looking at her pink satin slipper, "I mean the

one with the decoration in his buttonhole: don't you see him? He is

standing by the mantelpiece, by the side of the big bald man in a white

waistcoat."

"Why, the big bald man is not a colonel--no indeed. I know him very

well: he comes to see papa. It's Mr. Thingamy--some queer name. After

every visit of his we find two casters off the easy-chair. Mamma says

he's clever, papa says he's not: as for me, I think he smells of

pomade."

"Where does he put his pomade? He has hardly three hairs on his head."

"Yes, but they curl, my dear. I am sure he ought to wear a little

crimson velvet cap with tassels. Dear me! how I do hate a man as fat as

that! Papa, who is slender in comparison with this bear, seems to me a

little--when he is shaving--Well, if it was not papa, I should like to

plane him down a little."

"But, girls, I don't mean the stout one: I mean the one by his side,

with an aquiline nose and moustaches. There, he is taking an ice. He

seems to be a lion. Now he's blowing his nose: he's Colonel C----."

"Oh yes, I see. Dear me! how hard he blows his nose! Your colonel has a

cold: one can hear him from here--ha! ha!"

"There is nothing strange in his having a cold: he has just come from

Africa: see how tanned he is. Well, my dear, he _is_ a lion."

"Then he is an attache?"

"Oh, how stupid you are! I said he is a lion because he fought like a

tiger, and he--"

"Then say he is a tiger, and have done with it."

--(Shrugging her shoulders) "and that at the battle of

Rapata--Ratapa--or Patara--I can't remember exactly what, but it was a

frightful battle--where the Arabs bit the dust--That's it, word for

word, as papa read it aloud the other day out of the paper."

"Why did they bite the dust?"

"Why, because they were so angry. You know when you are in a

passion--Well, in this battle the colonel received a cannon-ball or

bullet--I don't remember which--in his left shoulder, and they could not

extract it, so he returned to France very ill."

"How terrible those battles must be!"

"It is the day after a battle that is terrible. Just think of it! They

found this poor colonel under a mountain of dead men at the very moment

the wild beasts were going to devour him like the missionary in the

_Propagation of the Faith_. Being swallowed by a crocodile is indeed

terrible."

"That's nothing. When you think you have before you a man with an iron

machine in his shoulder that you could hardly lift, you can't help

shivering. Oh, it's fine to be a soldier: in fact, you may call it the

noblest profession. To begin with, every one respects them, and their

life is full of triumph."

"Yes, in time of war, but in time of peace--in time of peace--well, they

talk over the way they got their wounds, and the band plays while they

are at dinner. It seems the colonel can have the band play whenever he

wants to."

"Naturally, since it's his band."

"Well, all that is very nice, and besides that you make calls on the

wife of the prefect, the receiver-general and the bishop."

"On the bishop's wife? What are you talking about? Ha! ha!" (She takes

off her gloves and begins to bite her nails.)

"I did not say the bishop's wife: you are a naughty girl."

"Besides, it's only a general's wife who makes calls on the prefect's

wife, like that."

"I only began with the colonel: one soon gets to be general. Do you

suppose that Colonel C----, for instance, won't be a general soon?"

"As for me, I would rather marry a general at once."

"Yes, but a general does not get married in uniform."

"Why not, if you ask him to? That is something fine--a general at the

altar. There is nothing more imposing than the military at church. Their

gold epaulettes seem to go well with the organ. At the church of the

Carmelites there are always one or two officers, but they are little

ones, and they do not have the same effect. You did not know I was at

the church of the Carmelites on Advent Sunday? Oh, there was a good

father there who preached: it was indescribable!--Why don't you wear a

braid across the top of your head? My dear child, everybody wears them:

won't your mamma let you?"

"It is not that, but you can't possibly make a braid to go over the top

and then two rolls behind, all out of your own hair."

"Well, you can get false hair. Ha! ha! what an innocent lamb you are!

You can get false hair, my dear child."

"Yes, but papa won't let me: he says I'm too young to begin."

"What a pity! As for me, I had no trouble about it. Mamma said, 'It's

vexatious, but what can you do, my child? You can't go to a ball in a

cap;' and so we went and bought two beautiful blond braids."

"Why two?"

"Let me finish.--See, there is Madame de V---- coming in: do you hear

the door creaking?--Well, as I was saying, I had to buy two braids, for

the very simple reason that I lost the first. It was very funny. We had

hired a coupe for the day, papa having taken ours for himself: he always

does. We started off for the hairdresser's in this hired carriage. I

bought a superb braid, and they wrapped it up nicely for me. I got into

the coupe and put my little parcel up against the window, you know,

under the strap that you pull it up and down by. That was all very nice,

but when we got home, and I was looking for my parcel before getting

out, no parcel was to be found. I made a great fuss, and mamma did too.

Only think! it had slipped in by the glass of the window, and had fallen

into the inside of the door. I suppose it's still there. There's no way

of getting it again, you see, so I had to buy another braid" (bending

down her head coquettishly), "which I have the honor of introducing to

you: it is thick, of a good color--one of the very best."

"Oh, I wish I could have one, but I'm afraid I sha'n't before I'm

married.--See, there is Jeanne bowing to us. Oh, that everlasting dress

of hers! Doesn't she look like a fright with that pink pom-pon in her

hair and her red nose? She's a kind-hearted girl, but then that pink!

Pink never looks well with light hair. It always looks to me like salmon

with white sauce. Ha! ha! Speaking of salmon, by the way, you left too

early the other evening: we had such a supper, my dear!"

"Oh, how lovely Juliette looked! Didn't she? What a lovely head she has!

I would give ten years of my life to have a head like hers. Ten years,

dear me! yes, gladly: life isn't such very good fun, after all. And how

becoming that headdress was to her!"

"It was really magnificent: you know it came from Persia."

"Did it, really? From Persia? I heard it came from--you know the place,

ever so far off, where the colonies are. And how about her marriage?"

"It's broken off: she said no, and it's all settled."

"But the trousseau? Mamma saw the three cashmere shawls, three wonders!

One had red ground with little figures on it--you know the sort they're

wearing now: that shawl was really eloquent. I think that sort of thing

is like music, it delights one so."

"That was very fine--three cashmeres, and diamonds too, and she said

no?"

"She said no, and she was right, for it seems he limped frightfully."

"Who did?"

"The gentleman, of course."

"But, my dear girl, people always give three cashmeres. Only think a

minute: the long cashmere for calls in winter--well, that's one; then

you must have a square one: it would kill you to wear a long cashmere

in hot weather; and then you could not refuse a third to go to the bath

or to mass in--well, that makes three, don't you see? I would not be

married with fewer. No, thank you, I wouldn't go about looking like a

chambermaid. No, indeed I wouldn't."

"Did the gentleman limp very badly? For, after all, he was a consul."

"Oh, as to that, his position is a magnificent one. It seems that in the

country where he is consul people are carried in palanquins."

"That's the least thing they can do for lame people. As for me, I think

she has done quite right. I have a horror of deformed people: one is

never sure that it may not be something catching. Do you remember Sister

Adelaide at the convent, who had one leg shorter than the other? Well, I

wouldn't have sat down in her chair for a hundred thousand francs."

"What would you have done if you had had to marry her?"

"How silly you are!--Don't look over there: I see M. Pincette coming to

ask us to dance. The more I see of him, the more I detest him. He is

stupid, he is fair, his whiskers are too large, he doesn't dance in

time: he has no attractions. Don't you think he looks like the Abbe

Julien, who used to hear our catechisms, and who was always saying, 'Not

another word, my children'?"

"Yes, he does look like him, especially when he is waltzing: he has the

same eyes. As for me, I don't like a man who looks like a priest. That

is not saying anything against priests, my dear. In the first place, a

man ought to have brown moustaches: without them he is not worth looking

at. Have you seen my brother's moustaches since he left Saint-Cyr? That

is the kind of moustaches I like--pointed, pointed and waxed. I used to

do them for him last summer, and I fully understand them."

"Ernest is a fine-looking young man; and then he's so strong."

"I hate a Hercules. M. de Saint-Flair is not handsome, is he? Well, I

can see very well how he fascinated Adele with his pale face, thin hair

and his look of illness."

"Your M. de Saint-Flair looks as if he were just getting over a fever.

When he is sitting round in the corners I am always tempted to offer him

a bowl of gruel."

"Oh, that's all very well, but as for distinction, I don't see any one

who comes up to him. And then, too, they say he writes poetry."

"Still, I must say I prefer M. de P----."

"What an idea! M. de P----! He's a perfect barrel, and besides he's

forty-six or forty-eight years old."

"Well, my dear, a man has to be as old as that to be able to offer a

woman an acceptable position. It's not at all bad to be the wife of a

banker."

At this moment the music began, and the men came forward to ask my

little neighbors to dance. They accepted languidly, with a

half-indifferent air. The gentlemen placed their opera-hats on the

chairs the ladies had left, and they all advanced, talking, to join the

dancers. I followed them with my eyes through the crowd. Each abandoned

herself with charming grace to her partner's arm, turning her head a

little to one side, her hair floating on the waves of the waltz. Perhaps

there was exaggerated ease and a trace of childish awkwardness in their

manner. In ten minutes they came back to their places, out of breath,

but with bright eyes. They took up their fans again, and while fanning

themselves went on with their conversation.

"That gentleman dances very well, but he's a queer creature: he talked

to me about geography. Do you know the principal town in the department

of the Eastern Pyrenees?"

"No I have forgotten. Dear me! how warm I am! I danced with that partner

of yours the other evening: he talked about geography to me too. Isn't

it strange that some partners always say the same thing over and over

again?"

"Oh, there is mamma making me a sign that it is time to go home. Oh

dear! no indeed! It will be like the other evening, when we should have

gone to bed as early as the hens if mamma hadn't been asked for the

German. Tell your cousin to ask mamma to dance, and to ask me. I like

him very much: he at least makes you laugh, even if you don't understand

very well what he is talking about. He seems sometimes to be making fun

of you, but that's no matter: he's very nice; and then, too, he holds

you firmly while dancing, so that you feel perfectly comfortable."

* * * * *

Toward two o'clock in the morning, after having looked through M. de

B.'s collection of etchings and played a game of whist, I returned to my

station behind the three girls. Two were bravely drinking a glass of

claret, and the third a cup of chocolate. They were laughing so loud

while leaning back in their chairs, and so talking all together, that I

could scarcely catch what they said, but I saw by their loosened hair

and the brilliancy of their eyes, and their feverish agitation, that

they had not wasted their time. Their mothers, who were quite as

animated, had collected together, and three or four gentlemen had

gathered round them saying a thousand charming bits of nonsense. The

gayety had become so fast and furious in that corner that I despaired of

hearing anything more, so I went back to the ante-chamber.

What charming women my adorable little girls will have become in a few

years!

Pray do not think that the fever of pleasure, that candlelight and love

of waltzing will at all impair the solid treasures which a good

education has stored up in their little hearts. This very night when

they go to bed these three little angels will piously fold their hands

beneath the quilt, so as to keep warm, and will thank Heaven for all

that has been done for them, and will beg that they may not catch a

horrible cold in the head which will prevent their going to the opera

to-morrow. Then, having kissed the little gold medal which protects them

from fire and spraining their ankles, and makes them dance in time, they

will fall fast asleep to the dim murmur of a waltz, like a bird in his

nest.

T. S. PERRY.

A MODERN ART-WORKSHOP IN UMBRIA.

I met with a book on Italy some little time ago by an American author,

whose name was not given--or if it was, I have forgotten it, and beg his

pardon for the negligence--of which this was the first sentence: "Art is

fast asleep in Italy, and that is why Italy is called the cradle of

Art." If the statement be not altogether accurate, it is neatly said

enough. But I am afraid that the facts of the case go farther than one

would wish to believe toward bearing out the severe critic's judgment.

Assuredly, the arts if not fast asleep, are but beginning to arouse

themselves from a very long and lethargic nap in their classic

cradle-land. But I think that signs are not wanting that they _are_

beginning to shake off their slumber, and that when they shall have

effectually done so, it will once again become evident to the world that

this Italian race is very specially endowed with those gifts and

qualities which go to make up the artistic temperament and to fit eye

and head for artistic creation. A recent visit to an Italian

country-town, one of the secondary centres of population in the

Peninsula, has done much to confirm the correctness of these views, and

has at the same time introduced me to some circumstances and scenes so

interesting, and lying so far out of the path of the experiences and

ideas of our ordinary nineteenth-century world, that I cannot but think

some account of them will be acceptable to the general reader, and

especially worthy of the attention of lovers of art.

The town in question is Perugia, where I spent a week in the early part

of last February, and which boasts the best inn in all Central Italy,

ruled by a clever and notable English landlady, who has entirely

un-Italian notions of a good fire and warm rooms. Let travelers, whether

in winter or in summer, ask for the "Hotel Brufani," disregarding the

fact that, being recently established, it is not mentioned in some of

the guidebooks, and they will, I am very sure, thank me for the

recommendation.

There is an immense wealth of fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth

century Umbrian art to be seen in Perugia, besides some of the most

interesting extant remains of Etruscan antiquity. But I am not going to

trespass on the domain of the guidebooks, though, truth to say, the best

of them are very defective in completeness as well as accuracy of

information. Nor are the professional local _ciceroni_ much more to be

trusted. They will indeed probably show the traveler all or almost all

that there is to be seen. But he must guard himself against accepting

their statements in the matter of names and dates, and such like

archaeological particulars. If the stranger can have the good fortune to

make the acquaintance of Signor Adamo Rossi, the accomplished and

learned archivist and librarian of the municipal library, he will hardly

fail to bring away with him from this centre of the old Umbrian

art-world a considerably larger stock of ideas and information upon the

subject than he carried thither with him.

But now for the special experience which it is my present object to

share with the reader. We went as a matter of course into the Duomo or

cathedral. We did not enter the huge old church in the hope of seeing

its special and much-boasted treasure, "the marriage-ring of the Virgin

Mary." And if such had been our object, it would have been baffled, for

the ring in its casket of mediaeval jeweler's work (which really is

worth seeing, as far as may be judged from engravings of it) is only

shown on St. Joseph's Day; and being locked up under Heaven knows how

many different keys, all in the custody of an equal number of

ecclesiastical bigwigs, no human power short, I suppose, of that of the

pope in person, can get at the relic on any other occasion. But what we

did see--what instantly arrested and riveted our attention--was a modern

painted window which has been put up for the adornment of the chapel

where the ring is kept. It is by far the finest specimen of modern

painted glass which I have seen in any country; and I have seen a great

deal of all the manufactures, English, Belgian and Bavarian, which have

recently been competing for the approval of the artistic world. The

window in question in the cathedral at Perugia fills a plain Gothic arch

seven metres in height by one metre eighty-five centimetres in width,

and it is divided into two parts by a slender column of stone eighteen

centimetres broad. The window which fills this space is occupied by a

representation of one subject only, the Virgin and Child in--or rather

sitting in front of--the stable; Saint Joseph leaning on his staff and

gazing at the Divine Infant; a knot of shepherds in adoration, some

bringing gifts and others playing on bagpipes, exactly similar to the

instruments still used in the Neapolitan Apennines; other figures in the

middle distance; beyond these a delicious bit of mountain-landscape; "a

glory" above; and in the arch of the window a half-figure representation

of God the Father. The composition, drawing and disposition of this

design, which I had subsequently an opportunity of examining in the

cartoon, is truly masterly. The figure of the Virgin, with long flowing

locks of the richest and most sunny auburn, is of very great beauty and

quite Peruginesque in style and conception. Her figure and the others in

the immediate foreground are somewhat above life-size, so that the

Virgin would be, if standing, about six feet in height, and the male

figures in proportion. Those in the middle distance are about ordinary

life-size. And in all of them there is that dignity of pose and

conception inseparable from perfect unself-conscious simplicity which is

so prevalent in the Italian art up to the period of the end of Raphael's

first manner, which he began to lose in his second, and from which his

successors strayed ever farther as the generations succeeded each other.

The fullness and richness of coloring of the glass leaves really nothing

to be desired. It is as brilliant, as jewel-like, and at the same time

as free from opacity and heaviness, as the best ancient glass; and it is

mainly in these respects that it so far excels the productions of other

makers of painted glass. The landscape is treated with a pellucid

delicacy and accuracy of truth which I have seen very rarely equaled in

ancient windows. In a word, we were absolutely struck dumb with

astonishment at finding such a work in such a place. And it may be

imagined that this surprise was in no small degree increased, and a

vivid sentiment of interest and curiosity added to it, when we were told

on inquiry that this magnificent work of an art which was but recently

deemed all but lost was produced wholly and entirely in Perugia, and,

far more astonishing still, by the brain and hands of one single artist!

In other countries--in England, at Munich, at Brussels--a cartoon

prepared by an artist who has not the smallest knowledge of

glass-painting or its special needs and limitations is taken to a

_factory_, where a variety of artificers are employed in carrying out

the various processes needed for the completion of the product. But in

this case the conception of the design, the preparation of the cartoon,

the selection of the colors, the arrangement of the glass, the coloring

and burning of it, all are the work of one brain and one pair of hands.

Our next demand, after again admiring in all its details the work, was

to see the man who was the author of it, and our desire was very readily

gratified.

We have all heard much of the circumstances and conditions, so different

from those of our day, under which the old Italian art-workers of the

palmy days of art lived and worked. We have read Vasari's naive

gossiping, and have endeavored to picture to ourselves the life and

surroundings of the craftsman of a time when the line which is

now-a-days supposed to divide the artist from the artisan did not exist

or was ignored. We have followed the patient investigations which

Leonardo, while his brain was teeming with forms of beauty and new

creations, did not disdain to expend on matters which we in these days

deem the province of the colorman. We have been delighted by Cellini's

simple accounts of his methods of subjecting matter to the conceptions

of his brain, uncaring and unconscious whether such methods involved

processes that belonged to high art or low art, fine art or not

fine--caring only for the beauty that his handiwork was to create. The

modern "studio" is a phrase that claims greater affinity with strictly

intellectual processes, but in the days and generations when immortal

works were being produced in every little town throughout the central

part of Italy, the men who created them were content to call the place

in which they worked a _bottega_--"a shop." And the blacksmith who

wrought with sturdy arm and hammer the ironwork that museums now contend

against each other for the possession of, and pay for as if it were

gold--the wood-carver who produced by his free fancy the gems which our

best artists are content to servilely copy--the sculptor who would sign

works that now make the cities that possess them famous--the _lapicido_

("stone-cutter"), like that Agostino Fiorentino whose inimitable chisel

produced the front of the oratorio of Saint Bernardino in this same

Perugia--the goldsmith, the delicate fancy of whose handiwork puts to

shame the coarser and heavier work of our time--the painter for whose

presence at their courts princes were bidding against each other,--all

these alike lived and labored in a _bottega_, and would have scorned the

notion of calling themselves or imagining themselves other than

craftsmen.