CHAPTER XIV.

EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF.

Mr. Sandford walked towards his office, that fine autumn morning, in no

amiable mood. Nature seemed to protest against his angry violence; the

very stones of the pavement seemed to say,--"He need not thump us in

that way; _we_ can't pay his notes." The trees along Mount Vernon Street

rustled their leaves with a shudder, as he passed under them; they

dropped no benison upon a face which even the golden morning could not

lighten. "Let him stride on!" said they; "we shall be more cheerful in

company with the maids washing the sidewalks or taking out the children

(blessed darlings!) for an airing." Canaries ceased their songs in the

windows; urchins stopped their hoops and stood on the curbstones, eyeing

the gloomy man askance. When he passed the Granary Burying-Ground, he

saw a squirrel dart down a tree, and scamper over the old graves in

search of some one of his many stores; then rising on his haunches, he

munched the pea-nut which he had unearthed, (the gift of some schoolboy,

months ago,) as much as to say, "_We_ know how to look out for hard

times; but what have you done with _your_ pea-nuts, old fellow, that you

look so cross? Can't get 'em, eh? You should put 'em where you'll know

where they are." A whisk of his tail and he flew up the tree. The lesson

was lost upon the financier. At the office-door he met Bullion,--his

face a trifle more ruddy, his eye with a colder glitter, and his queer

eyebrow pointing with an odder significance.

"How are you, Sandford?"--A very short nod.--"Cool, this morning."--

Standing with his dumpy legs apart, he nibbled at the ivory head of his

cane.

"Mr. Bullion," said Sandford, "you must help me. You must lift that

note. Come, I know you can do it,--and I'll make it worth your while."

"Can't do it; you want a long extension, I s'pose."

"Say three or four months."

"Time is money, as I told you before. In four months, with forty

thousand dollars, I could--do pretty well," ending the sentence in a

lower tone, that indicated a desire to keep his first thought back.

"In a time like this, Mr. Bullion, it is the duty of every man to assist

his neighbor to the extent of his ability. If there is no forbearance,

no brotherly aid, how are the complicated settlements of a mad community

like this to be made? There is not money enough to pay what must be

paid."

The eyebrow was stiffly pointed as Bullion answered,--

"I do forbear. I must forbear. Stearine owes me; you indorse; you can't

pay, neither of you. I sha'n't get the money. I must go without."

It was an injured tone.

"Then why do you let it go to protest?"

"Only a form, Sandford. Usage of the mercantile world. Very irregular

not to do it. Sorry, but can't help it."

Mr. Sandford's patience was exhausted.

"It is my turn to-day, Bullion; I have no further resource; I am ruined.

You feel strong and look upon my distress in triumph. But your turn will

come. Mark my words. Within a fortnight I shall see you rushing down

State Street in despair; your property will be swept away with a flood,

and you will be a beggar,--as you deserve to be. Damn your stony heart!"

It was the first outburst of profanity from Mr. Sandford,--too

fastidious, usually, to allow himself the use of such expletives.

"Sorry to see you excited, Sandford. Best to keep temper. Guess you and

Fayerweather will raise the money. Pity Stearine hadn't wick enough in

him to stand alone. Rather a poor candle, he is,--he! he! Morning!"

The gray eyes twinkled, the eyebrow whisked, and the sturdy legs bore

the creditor away.

Entering the office, Mr. Sandford tried to assume a cheerful look. He

looked over the list of failures, in the "Independent," with something

of the interest which a patient in a hospital would feel when

overhearing the report from the dead-house. Was there no one of the bald

or grizzly-haired gentlemen who smiled so benignly whom he could ask for

aid? Not one; he knew their circumstances; they had no money at command;

all their property was locked up in investments. He thought of the many

chairmen and directors in benevolent associations with whom he was

connected. No,--they were either men of moderate means, or had some son

or nephew or brother in business whose credit they must uphold. How

gladly would he barter all his parchment testimonials for one good

"promise to pay"! He groaned almost audibly, and wondered how he could

pass the time till the close of bank-hours. The suspense was a torture

as keen as the calamity itself.

A visitor entered; it was Plotman. He came with a cheerful, even

exulting, look.

"Good news, Sandford!"

"News!" exclaimed Sandford, impetuously. "What news? How much?"

In his absent state he forgot that Plotman was not aware of his

thoughts, and associated good news only with an accommodation to serve

his present need. But his fluttering expectations were dashed to the

ground with the reply.

"'How much,' did you say? A clean majority over all. Your name stands at

the head of the ticket."

"I am obliged to you," replied Sandford, sadly, "but I don't think I can

accept the nomination."

"Well, that _is_ rather strong," said Plotman. "You'd best keep your

modesty for the papers; it's thrown away on me."

"I really can't bother with politics."

"Why in the Devil, then, did you lay your corns to get the place, and

make me all this trouble for nothing?"

"I am really sorry, Plotman; but, to tell you just how it is, I am so

much involved in this fearful monetary pressure that I have no time nor

heart for anything else."

"Confounded spooney!" muttered Plotman, between his teeth. "If I'd known

he was so weak in the knees. I'd have gone in for Spreadeagle, who

offered a handsome figure."

"Come in to-morrow, Plotman, and we'll talk about it. I can't think

about it now. I'll make all right with you."

Still muttering, the disappointed politician departed, leaving Sandford

in a deeper abyss than before. To prevent unwelcome visits, the latter

left word with his clerks that he could see no one whatever.

To wile away the time, he took out his cash-book and private papers.

There was about a thousand dollars in bank.

"It will be best to draw that," thought he, "for there's no knowing what

may happen."

And the office-boy was dispatched with a check for the amount.

"Let us see what other resources. There are Monroe's notes,--ten

thousand dollars. I can raise something on them. I'll borrow from

Tonsor, who seems to have funds enough."

He sent a clerk and succeeded in obtaining eight thousand dollars for

five days, by depositing the notes.

"If worst comes to worst, I have nine thousand to fall back upon. Now,

what next? Fletcher's note for five hundred, with the rather peculiar

admission at the beginning. I wonder, now, what he would give for this

little paper? Possibly he is in funds. He's a scheming devil and hasn't

been idle in this gale of wind. I'll send for him."

Fletcher entered with an air of confidence.

"Well, Mr. Sandford, you don't bear malice, I see. If you didn't want to

get a saucy answer, you shouldn't have threatened, the other day."

"You were hardly civil, Fletcher," said Sandford, gravely, "and rather

forgetful, besides. If I were you, I wouldn't bluster until a certain

piece of paper was safe in my possession."

"Do you suppose I ever forget that paper, or how you bullied it out of

me? But you know that at the time when I used that five hundred dollars,

I had money enough, and felt as sure of returning it the next day as you

do of paying the ten thousand you had of Monroe."

Sandford started.

"How did you know whose money I had?"

"Never mind. I hear a great many things. As I was saying, I didn't steal

the money, for you didn't miss it till I told you; and if I hadn't been

a coward and a fool to boot, I should never have signed that cursed

paper."

"I have it, though. The law calls it a confession of theft."

Fletcher winced.

"You have told me that often enough before. You needn't touch me on the

raw to make me remember it."

He waited, but Sandford made no reply. Fletcher continued:--

"Well, what is it? You've something on hand, or you wouldn't have sent

for me."

"You propose to pay sometime, I believe?"

"Of course, I do. I've offered to pay times enough, you know. I can get

the money in ten minutes."

"Can you! How much?"

"Why, the five hundred and interest."

"I rather think the document is worth more money."

"You'd take my heart's blood for it, I know. But you can't get any more

money than I have got."

"You were very ready in promising five hundred in ten minutes. It seems

to me that in an hour you might raise a larger sum."

"Do you suppose I am a capitalist?--that I own Fogarty, Danforth, and

Dot?"

"I'm sure, I can't tell. Stranger things have happened."

"I wonder if he suspects my connection with old Bullion?" thought

Fletcher.

"I'll make you a fair proposition, Fletcher. I need some money, for a

few days. Get me thirty thousand dollars for a week, say; I'll pay a

liberal interest and give up the paper."

"I can't do it. The figure is altogether above me. You don't want me to

rob my employers?"

"'Rob' is a hard word, Fletcher. No, I counsel no crime. You don't want

anything more to think of. But you may know some chance to borrow that

sum?"

Fletcher mused. "If Sandford comes to a man like me for such a sum, it

must be because he is devilish hard up; and if I get him the money, it

would likely be sunk. I can't do it."

"No, Mr. Sandford, it's out of the question. Everybody that has money

has twenty applications for every dollar."

"Then you'd rather see this paper in an officer's hands?"

Fletcher's face blanched and his knees shook, but he kept his resolution

in spite of his bodily tremor.

"I have been like a mouse cuffed between a cat's paws so long that I

don't care to run. If you mean to pounce up on me and finish me, go

ahead. I may as well die as to be always dreading it. But you'll please

remember what I said about overhauling your accounts."

Sandford found his man firmer than he had expected. He changed his

tactics.

"Fletcher, as you can't do what I want, how much will you give outright

for the little obligation? You shall have it for fifteen hundred

dollars. Come, now, that's reasonable."

"Reasonable as the fellow who puts a pistol to your head on a dark night

in the middle of Cambridge bridge."

"Tut, tut! Don't talk of highway-robbery! I think I am letting you off

cheap."

"How do you suppose I can raise fifteen hundred dollars?"

"That is your affair."

"You are as cruel as a bloodhound after a runaway nigger."

"I have once or twice remonstrated against your use of harsh words."

"What's the use of being mealy-mouthed? I owe you five hundred dollars.

Every dollar beyond that you get from me you rob me of; and it doesn't

matter whether it is a pistol or a writ that you threaten me with."

"You persist in a violent tone."

"I can't talk to suit you, and I shall stop. We shall never agree. I'll

tell you, though, what I will do. I'll give you a note, to-morrow, for a

thousand dollars, on short time, with a good name."

"Money, Fletcher!--money! I don't want any note."

"Well, I'll see what I can do. Perhaps I can get the money."

"And, Fletcher, I advise you to settle the affair to-day. It has stood

quite long enough. Just devote to-day to this little matter. Come in

before two,--not later than three, at any rate. Perhaps your employers

might advance it,--that is, rather than have their clerk compromised.

Suppose I lay the matter before them?"

Fletcher's rage broke out afresh. He gnashed his teeth and foamed at

the mouth. If he had had a weapon, it might have fared hard with his

oppressor. But his anger was inarticulate,--too mighty, too tumultuous,

for words. He left the office, his eyes glowing like a cat's, and his

fringy moustache trembling over his white teeth.

Mr. Sandford was somewhat exhilarated, and rubbed his smooth hands with

energy. "I think he'll come back," thought he. "Failure is inevitable.

Let it come! We must bear it as we can. And for a ruined man I don't

know of any consolation like a little ready money. Now to play my last

cards. These shares which I own in the Vortex are worth more to-day than

they are likely to be to-morrow. It would be a shame not to dispose of

them while they will bring something. Fayerweather and the others who

have agreed to buy at ninety per cent. are at the Board. I'll get a new

hand to take them in. They won't suspect, for they think Stearine's note

has been extended."

He called a junior clerk and dispatched the shares to a broker to be

sold for cash on account of whom it might concern. He then locked

himself in the back office to be free from troublesome visitors, keeping

a cautious lookout for Fletcher, whom he expected, and for the clerk

who was to bring the money. His chief anxiety was lest Mr. Fayerweather

should come before the sale was effected; and he was in a fever until

the money was brought to him. Through the window he saw his friends

Monroe, Bullion, and others, who called for him and were denied by his

order; he chose to remain unseen.

Fletcher did not return. In going out he met Bullion, and, telling him

that he had to pay Sandford a thousand dollars, asked for a part of the

money due him.

"Don't be a fool," replied that sturdy financier, "Sandford will fail

to-day, probably. That's the reason for his hurry to get the money. Let

him sweat. Keep your funds. You can pay his assignee any time these six

months to come."

It was near two o'clock. Mr. Sandford had in his pocket the proceeds of

the Vortex shares, the loan from Tensor, and his balance from bank,--a

comfortable sum altogether; and he thought it not prudent to risk the

whole by waiting for Fletcher, who, after all, might not come. So,

seeing the coast clear, he put on his surtout and walked out of the

front door with an unconcerned air.

The notary came with the inevitable protest. Mr. Fayerweather was the

astounded individual who received it. A sudden light broke upon him. He

was swindled. He took out the Vortex shares which he had just bought

by agreement, and, turning to the transfer-book, found that they were

Sandford's. The Secretary had weathered the President with a vengeance.

The lawyer to whom the protested note came happened to hold other claims

against Mr. Fayerweather and the Vortex, and, naturally judging that

the Company might be involved in the difficulties of its officers, he

commenced suit without a moment's delay. Ill news flies fast. In an hour

after the first writs were served, suit was brought by Tonsor and other

creditors, and the office was shut. The safe was found to hold nothing

more valuable than duplicates of policies, the Company's bank-account

was overdrawn, its stocks and bonds were sold or pledged, and its

available assets consisted of the office-furniture, a few reams of

paper, and half a dozen sticks of sealing-wax.

[To be continued.]

* * * * *

"THE NEW LIFE" OF DANTE.

[Continued.]

II.

Were the author of the "Vita Nuova" unknown, its story of youth and

love would still possess a charm, as standing in the dawn of modern

literature,--the first book in which modern sentiment finds free

expression. It would be of interest, as contrasted with the later growth

of the sentimental element in literature, which speedily exhibits the

influence of factitious feeling, of self-conscious effort, and of

ambitious display. The sentiment of the "Vita Nuova" is separated by

the wide gulf that lies between simplicity and affectation from the

sentimentality of Petrarch's sonnets. But connected as it is with

Dante's life,--the first of that series of works in which truth,

intensity, and tenderness of feeling are displayed as in the writings of

no other man,--its interest no longer arises merely from itself and from

its place in literature, but becomes indissolubly united with that which

belongs by every claim to the "Divina Commedia" and to the life of

Dante.

When the "Vita Nuova" was completed, Dante was somewhat less than

twenty-eight years old. Beatrice had died between two and three years

before, in 1290; and he seems to have pleased himself after her loss

by recalling to his memory the sweet incidents of her life, and of her

influence upon himself. He begins with the words:--

"In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be

read is found a rubric which says: _Incipit Vita Nova_ ['The New Life

begins']. Under which rubric I find the words written which it is my

intention to copy into this little book,--if not all of them, at least

their meaning."

This introduction, short as it is, exhibits a characteristic trait of

Dante's mind, in the declaration of his intention to copy from the

book of his memory, or, in other words, to write the true records of

experience. Truth was the chief quality of his intellect, and upon

this, as upon an unshaken foundation, rest the marvellous power and

consistency of his imaginations. His heart spoke clearly, and he

interpreted its speech plainly in his words. His tendency to mysticism

often, indeed, led him into strange fancies; but these, though sometimes

obscure, are never vague. After these few words of preface, the story

begins:--

"Nine times now, since my birth, the heaven of light had turned almost

to the same point in its gyration, when first appeared before my eyes

the glorious lady of my mind, who was called Beatrice, by many who did

not know why they thus called her.[A] She had now been in this life so

long, that in its time the starred heaven had moved toward the east one

of the twelve parts of a degree;[B] so that about the beginning of her

ninth year she appeared to me, and I near the end of my ninth year saw

her. She appeared to me clothed in a most noble color, a becoming and

modest crimson, and she was girt and adorned in the style that suited

her extreme youth. At that instant, I say truly, the spirit of life,

which dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble

with such violence, that it appeared horribly in the least pulses,

and, trembling, said these words: _Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens

dominabitur mihi!_ [Behold a god, stronger than I, who, coming, shall

rule me![C]]

[Footnote A: It may be that Dante here refers to the meaning of the name

Beatrice,--_She who renders happy. She who blesses._]

[Footnote B: According to the astronomy of the times, the sphere of the

stars moved from west to east one degree in a hundred years. The twelfth

of a degree was, therefore, eight and a half years. See the _Convito_,

Tratt. II. c. vi.]

[Footnote C: Compare with this passage Canzone x, st. 5, 6. Especially

the lines,

"E, se 'l libro non erra,

Lo spirito maggior tremò si forte,

Che parve ben, che morte

Per lui in questo mondo giunta fosse."

"And, if the book errs not, the chief spirit so greatly trembled, that

it plainly appeared that death for him had arrived in this world."

When Dante meets Beatrice in Purgatory, he says, referring to this

time,--and it is pleasant to note these connections between his earliest

and his latest works,--

"Tosto che nella vista mi percosse

L' alta virtù, che già m' avca trafitto

Prima ch' io fuor di puerizia fosse."

Canto xxx. l. 40-42.

]

"At that instant, the spirit of the soul, which dwells in the high

chamber to which all the spirits of the senses bring their perceptions,

began to marvel greatly, and, addressing the spirits of the sight, said

these words: _Apparuit jam beatitudo vestra._ [Now hath appeared your

bliss.] At that instant the natural spirit, which dwells in that part

where the nourishment is supplied, began to weep, and, weeping, said

these words: _Heu miser! quia frequenter impeditus ero deinceps._ [Woe

is me wretched! because frequently henceforth shall I be hindered.]

"From this time forward I say that Love lorded over my soul, which had

been thus quickly put at his disposal;[D] and he began to exercise

over me such control and such lordship, through the power which my

imagination gave to him, that I was obliged to perform completely all

his pleasure. He commanded me many times that I should seek to see this

youthful angel, so that I in my boyhood often went seeking her, and saw

her of such noble and praiseworthy deportment, that truly of her might

be said that saying of the poet Homer: 'She does not seem the daughter

of a mortal, but of God.' And it befell that her image, which stayed

constantly with me, inspired boldness in Love to hold lordship over me;

but it was of such noble virtue, that it never suffered that Love should

rule without the faithful counsel of Reason in those matters in which

such counsel could be useful."

[Footnote D: The text of the _Vita Nuova_ is often uncertain. Here, for

example, many authorities concur in the reading, "_la quale fu si tosto

a lui disponsata_," "which had been so quickly betrothed to him." But

we prefer to read "_disposta_," as being more in accordance with the

remainder of the figure concerning Love. Many other various readings

will be passed over without notice,--but a translation might be exposed

to the charge of inaccuracy, if it were judged by the text of any

special edition of the original, without comparison with others. The

text usually followed in these versions is that of Fraticelli.]

Such is the account which Dante gives of the beginning of his love for

Beatrice. The tenderness and purity of his passion are obscured, but not

concealed, by quaintness of expression and formality of learning. In

literary style the passage displays the uncertain hand of youth, and

in a translation something is lost of the charm of simplicity which

pervades the original. But in this passage the keynote of Dante's life

is struck.

Passing over many things, he says that exactly nine years were completed

after the above-described appearance of this most gentle lady, when it

happened that "she appeared before me clothed in purest white between

two noble ladies, and, passing along the street, she turned her eyes

toward that place where I stood very timidly, and, by her ineffable

courtesy, which is now rewarded in eternity, saluted me with such

virtue, that I seemed to behold all the bounds of bliss. The hour when

her most sweet salutation reached me was exactly the ninth of that day;

and since it was the first time that her words came to my ears, I felt

such great delight, that, as it were intoxicated, I turned away from the

crowd, and, betaking myself to the solitary place of my chamber, sat

myself down to think of this most courteous lady, and, thinking of her,

a sweet slumber came upon me, in which a marvellous vision appeared to

me." After describing this vision, he says, that, thinking of what had

appeared to him, he "proposed to bring it to the knowledge of many who

were famous poets at that time; and since I had already seen in myself

the art of speaking words in rhyme, I proposed to write a sonnet, in

which I would salute all the vassals of Love; and praying them to give

an interpretation of my vision, I wrote to them that which I had seen in

my slumber. And I began then this sonnet:--

"To every captive soul and gentle heart

Before whose sight may come the present

word,

That they may thereupon their thoughts

impart,

Be greeting in Love's name, who is their

lord.

"Now of those hours wellnigh one third had

gone

In which each star appears in heaven most

bright,

When on a sudden Love before me shone,

To think upon whose being gives me fright.

"Joyful seemed Love, and he was keeping

My heart within his hands, while on his arm

He held my Lady, covered o'er and sleeping.

"Then waking her, he with this flaming heart

Did humbly feed her, fearful of some harm.

Sudden I saw him weep, and quick depart."

This sonnet is somewhat obscure in the details of its meaning, and

has little beauty, but it is of interest as being the earliest poetic

composition by Dante that has been preserved for us, and it is curious

as being the account of a vision. In our previous article on the "New

Life," we referred to the fact of this book being in great part composed

of the account of a series of visions, thus connecting itself in the

form of its imaginations with the great work of Dante's later years. As

a description of things unseen except by the inward eye, this sonnet

is bound in poetic connection to the nobler visions of the "Divina

Commedia." The private stamp of Dante's imagination is indelibly

impressed upon it.

He tells us that many answers were made to this sonnet, and "among those

who replied to it was he whom I call the first of my friends, and he

wrote a sonnet which began,

'Thou seest in my opinion every worth.'

This was, as it were, the beginning of our friendship when he knew

that it was I who had sent these verses to him." This first of Dante's

friends was Guido Cavalcanti. Their friendship was of long duration,

beginning thus in Dante's nineteenth year, and ending only with Guido's

death, in 1300, when Dante was thirty-five years old. It may be taken as

a proof of its intimacy and of Dante's high regard for the genius of his

friend, that, when Dante, in his course through Hell, at Easter in 1300,

represents himself as being recognized by the father of Guido, the first

words of the old man to him are,

"If through this blind prison thou goest through loftiness of soul,

where is my son? oh, why is he not with thee?"[E]

[Footnote E: _Inferno_, x. 58-60.]

The sonnet of Guido, in reply to that sent him by Dante, has been

preserved, together with the replies by two other contemporary poets;

but Dante says of them all,--"The true meaning of my sonnet was not then

seen by any one, though now it is plain to the simplest."

After this vision, the poet, whose soul was wholly devoted to his most

gentle lady, was brought by Love into so frail a condition of health,

that his friends became anxious for him, and questioned him about that

which he most wished to conceal. Then he told them that it was Love

which had brought him to this pass. But when they asked him, "For whom

has Love thus wasted thee?" he looked at them smiling, and said nothing.

"One day it happened," he goes on to relate, "that this most gentle lady

sat where words concerning the Queen of Glory are heard, and I was in a

place from which I beheld my bliss. Between her and me in a direct line

sat a gentle lady of most pleasing aspect, who looked at me often,

wondering at my gaze, which seemed to terminate upon her; and many

observed her looks. So great attention, indeed, was paid to this, that

when I went out from the place I heard some one say, 'Behold how that

lady wastes the life of this man!'--and naming her, I heard that they

spoke of her who had been in the path of the straight line which,

parting from my most gentle Beatrice, had ended in my eyes." Then he

says he thought to make this lady serve as a screen for his real love,

and he did this so well that in a short time many persons fancied they

knew his secret. And in order to deceive them still more, he addressed

to this lady many trifles in rhyme, of which he will insert in this

account of his "New Life" only those which bear reference to Beatrice.

Some time after this, "it was the pleasure of the Lord of the Angels to

call to his glory a young and beautiful lady, who had been very lovely

in the city of Florence. And I saw her body lying without its soul,

surrounded by many ladies who wept grievously. Then remembering that I

had formerly seen her in company with that most gentle lady, I could not

restrain some tears; and, weeping, I proposed to say some words about

her death, as a return for that I had seen her sometimes with my lady."

Then, he says, he wrote two poems, of which we give the last, adding to

it his verbal comment, as an example of the style of commentary with

which he has accompanied all the poems of the "Vita Nuova":--

"O villain Death, compassion's foe,

The Mother from of old of woe,

Inexorable judge severe,

Thou givest sorrow for the heart to bear;

Wherefore in grief I go,

And blaming thee my very tongue outwear.

"And if of every grace thou wouldst be

bare,

It only needs that I declare

The guilt of this thy sinful blow,

So that all those shall know,

And each shall be thy foe,

Who erst were nurtured with Love's tender

care

"For thou hast taken from the world the

grace

And virtue which are woman's praise,

And in youth's gayest days

The charm of loveliness thou dost deface.

"Who is this lady is not to be told,

Save as these qualities do make her known.

He who deserves salvation may alone

Have hope companionship with her to hold.

"This sonnet is divided into four parts.[F] In the first I address Death

by certain of her proper names; in the second, speaking to her, I tell

the reason why I am moved to blame her; in the third, I revile her; in

the fourth, I speak to a person undefined, although definite as regards

my intention. The second part begins at _Thou givest_; the third at _And

if of every grace_; the fourth at _He who deserves_."

[Footnote F: Dante calls this little poem a sonnet, although, strictly,

the name does not belong to it.]

After this, Dante tells of a journey he was forced to take, in the

direction of the city to which the lady who had afforded him the means

of disguising his real love had gone. He says, that, on the way, which

he calls the way of sighs, he met Love, who was sad in aspect, and clad

like a pilgrim, and that Love told him the name of another lady who must

thenceforth serve as his screen to conceal his secret. He goes on to

relate, that, after his return,[G] he sought out this lady, and made her

his defence so effectually, that many persons spoke of it beyond the

terms of courtesy, which weighed on him heavily. And on account of this

lying talk which defamed him greatly, he says that Beatrice, "the most

gentle lady, who was the enemy of all the vices, and the queen of

virtue, passing by a certain place, denied me her most sweet salute, in

which consisted all my bliss. And departing a little from the present

subject, I will declare that which her salutation effected within me.

I say, then, that, whenever she appeared, in my hope for her admirable

salutation I no longer had an enemy, for a flame of charity possessed

me which made me pardon every one who had done me wrong; and if at that

time any one had asked anything of me, my only answer would have been

_Love_, and my face would have been clothed with humility. And when she

was near to giving me a salutation, a spirit of Love, destroying all the

other spirits of the senses, drove out the feeble spirits of the sight,

and said to them, 'Go and do honor to your lady,' and he stayed in their

place. And whoever had wished to know Love might have done so by looking

at the trembling of my eyes."

[Footnote G: In his few words of introduction to the _Vita Nuova_, Dante

implies that he shall not copy out into his book all his compositions

relating to its subject. Some of the poems of this period, not included

in the _Vita Nuova_, have been preserved, and we propose to refer to

them in their appropriate places. Compare with this passage Sonnet

lxxix., _Poesie Liriche_, ed. Fraticelli,--

"Se 'l bello aspetto non mi fosse tolto,"--

which was apparently written during Dante's absence from Beatrice.]

After the salutation which had been wont to bring to him a joy almost

beyond his capacity had been refused to him, Dante went weeping to his

chamber, where he could lament without being heard; and there he fell

asleep, crying like a little child who has been beaten. And in his sleep

he had a vision of Love, who entered into talk with him, and bade him

write a poem, adorned with sweet harmony, in which he should set forth

the truth and fidelity of his love for Beatrice, and should sue for her

pardon. Dante awoke at the ninth hour of the day, and at once began the

poem, of which the following is a portion. He personifies his poem, and

he bids it

"Tell her,--'O Lady, this his heart is stayed

On faithfulness so sure and firm,

Save to serve you it has no other care:

Early 'twas yours, and never has it strayed.'

But if she trust not what thou dost affirm,

Tell her to ask of Love, who will the truth declare;

And at the end, beg her, with humble prayer,

That she her pardon of its wrong would give;

Then let her bid that I no longer live,

And she shall see her servant quick obey."[H]

[Footnote H: Compare Canz. x. and xi.]

After this poem was finished, Dante describes what he calls "a battle of

thoughts" concerning Love within his mind, and then goes on to relate

that it happened one day that he was taken, by a friend who thought to

give him pleasure, to a feast at which many ladies were present. "They

were assembled," he says, "to attend a lady who was married that day,

and, according to the custom of the city, they bore her company at her

first sitting at table in the dwelling of her new husband." Dante,

believing thus to do pleasure to his friend, proposed to stand in

waiting upon these ladies. But at the moment of this intention he felt a

sudden tremor, which caused him to lean for support against a painting

which ran round the wall,[I] and, raising his eyes, he beheld Beatrice.

His confusion became apparent; and the ladies, not excepting Beatrice

herself, laughed at his strange appearance. Then his friend took him

from their presence, and having asked him what so ailed him, Dante

replied, "I have set my feet on that edge of life beyond which no man

can go with intent to return." Then leaving him, he went to the chamber

of tears, weeping and ashamed; and in his trouble he wrote a sonnet to

Beatrice, in which he says, that, if she had known the cause of his

trouble, he believes that she would have felt pity for him.[J]

[Footnote I: This is, perhaps, the earliest reference in modern

literature to the use of painting as a decoration for houses. It is

probable that it was a recent application of the art, and resulted from

the revival of interest in its works which accompanied the revival of

the art. We shall have occasion again to note a reference to painting.]

[Footnote J: To this period, apparently, belong Sonnets xxix. and xxx.

of the general collection. The last may not unlikely have been omitted

in the _Vita Nuova_ on account of the tenderness with which the death of

Beatrice had invested every memory of her, preventing the insertion of a

poem which might seem harsh in its expression:--

"I curse the day on which I first beheld

The light of thy betraying eyes."

]

The foregoing passage, like many others in the "Vita Nuova," is full of

the intense and exaggerated expressions of passionate feeling. But this

feeling is recorded with a frank simplicity which carries conviction

of the sincerity of emotion. It may be laughed at, but it cannot be

doubted. It is possible, though hardly probable, that the scene took

place at the wedding festival of Beatrice herself. She was married

sometime previous to 1287, and unless a reference to this event be

found here, no notice of it is taken by Dante in what he has written

concerning her. That the fact of her marriage changed in no degree the

feeling with which Dante regarded her is plain. His love was of no low

quality, to be altered by earthly circumstance. It was a love of the

soul. No change or separation that left the being untouched could part

him from it. To the marriage of true souls there was no impediment, and

he would admit none, in her being the wife of another. The qualities

which she possessed as a maiden belonged to her no less as a wife.

It was in the same year, probably, as that in which the "Vita Nuova" was

composed and published, that Dante himself was married to Gemma Donati.

There are stories that their married life was unhappy. But these stories

have not the weight of even contemporary gossip. Possibly they arose

from the fact of the long separation between Dante and his wife during

his exile. Boccaccio insinuates more than he asserts, and he concludes

a vague declamation about the miseries of married life with the words,

"Truly I do not affirm that these things happened to Dante, _for I do

not know_." Dante keeps utter silence in his works,--certainly giving no

reason to suppose that domestic trials were added to his other burdens.

One thing is known which deserves remembrance,--that, when, after some

years, a daughter was born to him, the name which she received was

Beatrice.

In the next few pages of the "Vita Nuova" Dante describes various

thoughts which came to his mind concerning his appearance when in

presence of his lady; but, passing over these, we come to a passage

which we give in full, as containing a delightful picture from Florence

in its old time, and many sentences of sweet and characteristic feeling.

"Many persons had now learned from my looks the secret of my heart. And

it happened that certain ladies, who well knew my heart, each of them

having witnessed many of my discomfitures, had assembled together,

taking pleasure in each other's company. And I, by chance passing near

them, was addressed by one of these gentle ladies. She who called to me

was very graceful in her speech, so that when I reached them, and saw

well that my most gentle lady was not with them, reassuring myself, I

saluted them, and asked what might be their pleasure. The ladies were

many, and some of them were laughing together, and others looked at me,

waiting for what I might say, while others spoke among themselves, and

one of them, turning her eyes toward me, and calling me by name, said,

'To what end dost thou love this lady, since thou canst not support her

presence? Tell us, for it is certain that the object of such a love must

be a very strange one.' And when she had said these words to me, not

only she, but all the others, began to attend in expectation of my

reply. Then I said to them, 'Ladies, the object of my love was, in

truth, the salutation of that lady of whom perhaps you speak; and in

that dwelt the bliss which was the end of all my desires. But since it

has pleased her to deny it to me, my lord Love, thanks be to him, has

placed all my bliss in that which cannot be taken from me.' Then these

ladies began to speak together, and, as we sometimes see rain falling

mingled with beautiful snow, so, it seemed to me, I saw their words

mingled with sighs. And after they had spoken for some time among

themselves, the same lady who had first spoken to me said to me, 'We

pray thee that thou wouldst tell us in what consists this thy bliss.'

And I, replying to her, said, 'In those words which speak my lady's

praise.' And she answered, 'If thou sayest truth in this, those words

which thou hast spoken concerning thine own condition must have been

written with another intention.'[K] Then I, thinking on these words,

and, as it were, ashamed of myself, departed from them, and went, saying

to myself, 'Since there is such bliss in those words which praise my

lady, why has my speech been of other things?' And I proposed to take

always for my subject, henceforward, the praise of this most gentle

lady. And thinking much on this, I seemed to myself to have taken too

lofty a subject for my power, so that I did not dare to begin. Thus

I delayed some days, with the desire to speak, and with a fear of

beginning.

[Footnote K: This refers to the sonnets Dante had written about his own

trouble and the conflict of his thoughts. It will be observed that the

words "speak" and "speech" are used in reference to poetic compositions.

In those days the poet was commonly called _il dicitore in rima_, "the

speaker in rhyme," or simply _il dicitore_.]

"Then it happened, that, walking along a road, at the side of which ran

a very clear stream, so great a wish to speak came to me, that I began

to think on the method I should observe; and I thought that to speak of

her would not be becoming, unless I addressed my words to ladies,--and

not to every lady, but only to those who are gentle, and not mere

women.[L] Then I say that my tongue spoke as if moved by its own accord,

and said, 'Ladies who have intelligence of Love.' These words I laid by

in my mind with great joy, thinking to take them for my beginning. And

returning to the city, after some days I began this Canzone:--[M]

[Footnote L: The epithet which Dante constantly applies to Beatrice is

"most gentle," _gentillisima_, while other ladies are called _gentile_,

"gentle." Here he makes the distinction between the _donna_ and the

_donna gentile_. The word is used with a signification similar to that

which it has in our own early literature, and fuller than that which it

now retains. It refers both to race, as in the phrase "of gentle birth,"

and to the qualities of character. "Gentleness means the same as

nobleness," says Dante, in the _Convito_; "and by nobleness is meant the

perfection of its own nature in anything." Tratt. iv. c. 14 16.

The delicacy and the dignity of meaning attaching to the word render it

an epithet especially appropriate to Beatrice, as implying all that is

loveliest in person and character. Its use in the _Vita Nuova_ is the

more to be remarked, as in the _Divina Commedia_ it is never applied to

Beatrice. Its appropriateness ceased with her earthly life, for there

was "another glory of the celestial body."]

[Footnote M: This Canzone is one of the most beautiful of Dante's minor

poems. We have preferred to give it in a literal translation, rather

than to attempt one in which the involved rhyme of the original should

be preserved, fearing lest this could not be done without sacrifice of

the meaning to the form. The original must be read by those who would

understand its grace of expression combined with its depth of feeling.

Dante himself prized this Canzone, and represents Buonagiunta da Lucca

in Purgatory as addressing him,--

"Ma di s' io veggio qui colui che fuore

Trasse le nuove rime, cominciando:

_Donne, ch' avete intelletto d'Amore."

"But tell me if I see him who wrote the new rhymes, beginning, 'Ladies

who have intelligence of Love.'" _Purgat_. c. xxiv. l. 49-51.]

"Ladies who have intelligence of Love,

I of my lady wish with you to speak;

Not that to tell her praise in full I think,

But to discourse that I may ease my mind.

"I say that when I think upon her worth,

So sweet doth Love make himself feel to me,

That if I then did not my courage lose,

Speaking I would enamor all mankind.

I do not wish so loftily to speak,

Lest I should fail and fall through very fear.

But of her gentle nature I will treat

With lightest touch compared with her desert,

Ladies and damsels bound to Love, with you;

For unto others this may not be told.

"An Angel cries aloud in tongue divine,

And says, 'O Sire! in the world is seen

A miracle in action, that proceeds

From out a soul which far as here doth shine.'

The Heavens, which have no other want, indeed,

But that of her, demand her of her Lord,

And every Saint doth for this favor beg;

Only Compassion our part defends.

What sayeth God? what of Madonna means?

'O my delights, now be content in peace

That, while I please, your hope should there remain

Where dwelleth one who loss of her awaits,

And who shall say in Hell to the condemned,

I have beheld the hope of those in bliss.'"[N]

[Footnote N: Note the reference implied in these words

to the journey of Dante through Hell.]

"My lady is desired in high heaven.

Her virtues now will I make known to you.

I say, whoso a gentle lady would appear

Should go with her: for when she passeth by,

Love casts a frost upon all villain hearts,

So that their every thought doth freeze and die;

And whoso bears to stay and look on her

Will nobler thing become or else will die;

And when one finds that he may worthy be

To look on her, he doth his virtue prove:

For then that comes to him which gives him health,

And humbleth him till he forgets all wrong;

And God hath given a still greater grace,

That who hath spoke with her cannot end ill.

"Love says of her, 'How can a mortal thing

Be thus in every part adorned and pure?'

Then, gazing on her, to himself he swears

That God in her a creature new designs.

Color of pearl doth clothe her, as it were,--

Not in excess, but most becomingly.

Whate'er of good Nature can make she is;

And by her model Beauty proves itself.

From out her eyes, wherever they may move,

Spirits inflamed with love do issue forth,

Which strike the eyes of whoso looks on her,

And enter so that every heart they find.

Love you behold depicted on her face,

On which with fixed look no one can gaze.

"I know, Canzone, thou wilt go to speak

With many ladies, when I send thee forth;

And now I bid thee, having bred thee up

Like to a young and simple child of Love,

That where thou goest thou shouldst praying say,

'Teach me which way to go, for I am sent

To her with praise of whom I am adorned.'

And if thou wishest not to go in vain,

Remain not there where villain folk may be;

Endeavor, if thou mayst, to be acquaint

Only with ladies, or with courteous men,

Who thee will guide upon the quickest way.

Love thou wilt find in company with her,

And to them both commend me as thou shouldst."

After explaining, according to his custom, and marking the divisions of

this poem, Dante copies out a sonnet in which he answers the question of

one of his friends, who, he says, perhaps entertaining an expectation of

him beyond what was due, asked him, 'What is Love?' Many of the poets

of that time tried their hands in giving an answer to this difficult

question, and Dante begins his with confirming the opinion expressed by

one of them:--

"Love is but one thing with the gentle heart,

As in the saying of the sage we find."[O]

[Footnote O: it is probable that Dante refers to the first of a Canzone

by Guido Guinicelli, which says,

"Within the gentle heart Love always stays,"

--a verse which he may have had still in his memory when he makes

Francesca da Rimini say, (_Inf_. v. 100,)

"Love which by gentle heart is quickly learned."

For other definitions of Love as understood by the Italian poets of the

trecento, see Guido Cavalcanti's most famous and most obscure Canzone,

_Donna mi priega_; the sonnet (No. xlii.) falsely ascribed to Dante,

_Molti volendo dir che fosse Amore_; the sonnet by Jacopo da Lentino,

_Amore è un desio che vien dal core_; and many others.]

Another sonnet follows upon this, telling how this Love was awakened by

Beatrice and beginning with the exquisite praise,

"Within her eyes my lady beareth Love,

So that who looks on her is gentle made."[P]

[Footnote P: Compare with this Sonnet xl.,--

"Dagli occhi della mia donna si muove."

]

Not many days after this, the father of Beatrice died.[Q] "And inasmuch

as it is the custom in the above-mentioned city for ladies to assemble

with ladies, and men with men, in such affliction, many ladies assembled

at the house where Beatrice was weeping piteously. And seeing certain of

them returning from her, I heard them speak of this most gentle lady,

how she was lamenting.... When these ladies had passed, I remained in

such grief that tears began to fall, and, putting my hands before my

eyes, I covered my face. And if it had not been that I expected to hear

further of her, for I stood near by where most of the ladies who came

from her passed, I should have hidden myself as soon as the tears

assailed me. While I still delayed, more ladies passed by, talking

together and saying, 'Who of us should ever be joyful after hearing this

lady speak so piteously?' After these others passed, who said, as they

went by, 'This one who is here weeps neither more nor less than if he

had seen her as we have.' And then others said of me, 'See! so overcome

is he, that he seems not himself.' And thus these ladies passing by, I

heard speech of her and of myself." And going away, after this, he wrote

two sonnets, telling of what he had seen and heard.[R]

[Footnote Q: Folco Portinari died December 31, 1289.]

[Footnote R: Compare with this passage Sonnet xlvi., which seems to have

been written on this occasion;--

"Voi, donne, che pietoso atto mostrate,"

and Sonnet xlvii.,--

"Onde venite voi, cosi pensose?"

]

It happened not long after this time that Dante was seized with grievous

illness, which reduced him to such a state of weakness that he lay as

one unable to move. And on the ninth day, suffering greatly, he thought

of his lady, and, reflecting on the frailty of life even at its best,

the thought struck him that even the most gentle Beatrice must at some

time die. And upon this, such consternation seized him that his fancy

began to wander, and, he says, "It seemed to me that I saw ladies, with

hair dishevelled, and marvellously sad, pass weeping by, and that I saw

the sun grow dark, so that the stars showed themselves of such a color

as to make me deem they wept. And it appeared to me that the birds as

they flew fell dead, and that there were great earthquakes. And struck

with wonder at this fantasy, and greatly alarmed, I imagined that a

friend came to me, who said, 'Dost thou not know? Thy admirable lady has

departed from this world.' Then I began to weep very piteously, and wept

not only in imagination, but with my eyes shedding real tears. Then I

imagined that I looked toward heaven, and it seemed to me that I saw a

multitude of angels who were returning upwards, having before them a

little cloud of exceeding whiteness. It seemed to me that these angels

sang gloriously, and that the words of their song were these: '_Osanna

in excelsis!_'--and other than these I did not hear.[S]

[Footnote S: In the _Divina Commedia_ frequent reference is made to the

singing of Osanna by the Angels. See _Purgat_. xi. 11; xxix. 51; _Par_.

vii. 1; xxviii. 94, 118; xxxii. 135; and especially viii. 28.]

"Then the heart in which abode such great love seemed to say to me, 'It

is true that our lady lies dead.' And thereupon I seemed to go to behold

the body in which that most noble and blessed soul had been. And the

erring fancy was so powerful that it showed to me this lady dead, and it

appeared to me that ladies were covering her head with a white veil, and

that her face had such an aspect of humility that it seemed to say, 'I

behold the beginning of peace.'"

Then Dante called upon Death to come to him; and when he had beheld in

his imagination the sad mysteries which are performed for the dead, he

seemed to return to his own chamber. And so strong was his imagining,

that, weeping, he said with his true voice, "O most beautiful soul! how

is he blessed who beholds thee!" Upon this, a young and gentle lady, who

was watching by his bed, thinking that he was grieving for his own pain,

began to weep; whereon other ladies who were in the chamber drew near

and roused him from his dream. Then they asked him by what he had been

troubled; and he told all that he had seen in fancy, keeping silence

only with regard to the name of Beatrice; and when, some time after, he

recovered from his illness, he wrote a poem which related his vision.

The next incident of his new life which Dante tells is one of a

different nature, and of pleasant character. One day he saw Love coming

to him full of joy; and his own heart became so joyful that it seemed to

him it could not be his heart, so changed was its condition. Then he saw

approaching him a lady of famous beauty, who had been the lady of his

first friend. Her name was Giovanna, but on account of her beauty she

was called Primavera, which means _Spring_. And with her was Beatrice.

Then Love, after they had passed, explained the hidden meaning of the

name Primavera, and said, that, by one considering subtilely, Beatrice

would be called _Love_, on account of the great resemblance she bore to

him. Then Dante, thinking over these things, wrote this sonnet to his

friend, believing that he still admired the beauty of this gentle

Primavera:--

"An amorous spirit in my heart who lay

I felt awaken from his slumber there;

And then I saw Love come from far away,

But scarce I knew him for his joyous air.

"'Honor to me,' he said, 'think now to pay,'

And all his words with smiles companioned were.

Then as my lord awhile with me did stay,

Along the way whence he appeared whilere

"The Lady Joan and Lady Bice I see,

Coming toward the place wherein I was;

And the two marvels side by side did move.

"Then, as my mind now tells it unto me,

Love said, 'This one is Spring, and this, because

She so resembleth me, is named Love.'"[T]

[Footnote T: See the charming Sonnet lii.:--

"Guido vorrei che tu, e Lappo, ed io."

]

After this sonnet, Dante enters on a long and fanciful discourse on the

use of figurative language, to explain how he speaks of Love as if it

were not a mere notion of the intellect, but as if it had a corporeal

existence. There is much curious matter in this dissertation, and it is

one of the most striking examples that could be found of the youthful

character of the literature at the time in which Dante was writing, and

of the little familiarity which those in whose hands his book was likely

to fall possessed of the common forms of poetry, and of the style of the

ancient Latin poets.

Returning from this digression, he says: "This most gentle lady, of whom

there has been discourse in what precedes, reached such favor among the

people, that when she passed along the way persons ran to see her, which

gave me wonderful delight. And when she was near any one, such modesty

took possession of his heart, that he did not dare to raise his eyes or

to return her salutation; and to this, should any one doubt it, many,

as having experienced it, could bear witness for me. She, crowned and

clothed with humility, took her way, displaying no pride in that which

she saw and heard. Many, when she had passed, said, 'This is not a

woman; rather is she one of the most beautiful angels of heaven.' Others

said, 'She is a miracle. Blessed be the Lord who can perform such a

marvel!' I say that she showed herself so gentle and so full of all

beauties, that those who looked on her felt within themselves a delight

so pure and sweet that they could not smile; nor was there any who could

look at her and not feel need at first to sigh. These and more wonderful

things proceeded from her, marvellously and in reality. Wherefore I,

thinking on all this, proposed to say some words, in which I would

exhibit her marvellous and excellent influences, to the end that not

only those who might actually behold her, but also others, might know of

her whatever words could tell. Then I wrote this sonnet:--

"So gentle and so modest doth appear

My lady when she giveth her salute,

That every tongue becometh trembling

mute,

Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare.

"And though she hears her praises, she doth

go

Benignly clothèd with humility,

And like a thing come down she seems

to be

From heaven to earth, a miracle to show.

"So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh,

She gives the heart a sweetness through

the eyes,

Which none can understand who doth

not prove.

"And from her lip there seems indeed to move

A spirit sweet and in Love's very guise,

Which goeth saying to the soul, 'Ah,

sigh!'"[U]

[Footnote U: Perhaps the spirit of the latter part of this sonnet may be

better conveyed by rendering thus:--

"So pleaseth she all those approaching nigh

her,

* * * * *

Which goeth saying to the soul, 'Aspire!'"

Compare the very beautiful Ballata vi. and Sonnet xlviii., beginning,

"Di donne io vidi una gentile schiera."

]

With this incomparable sonnet we close that part of the "Vita Nuova"

which relates to the life of Beatrice. It fitly completes the golden

record of youth. Its tender lines are the epitaph of happy days, and in

them is found that mingled sweetness and sadness which in this world are

always the final expression of love. Its tone is that of the wind of

autumn sighing among the leaves of spring. Beneath its outward meaning

lies a prophecy of joy,--but that joy is to be reached only through the

gates of death.

* * * * *

THE PHILTER.

"A draught of water, maiden fair,"

I said to the girl beside the well.

Oh, sweet was the smile on her face of guile,

As she gave me to drink,--that witch of hell!

I drank, and sweet was the draught I drank,

And thanked the giver, and still she smiled;

And her smile like a curse on my spirit sank,

Till my face grew wan, and my heart grew wild.

And lo! the light from the day was gone,

And gone was maiden, and gone was well:

The dark instead, like a wall of stone,

And rivers that roared through the dark, and fell.

Was it the draught, or was it the smile,

Or my own false heart? Ah, who shall tell?

But the black waves beat at my weary feet,

And sits at my side the witch of hell.

DID I?

"Giorno d'orrore."

Wheels rolled away in the distance; the corner of a gray cloak fluttered

where the drive turns down hill. From under the fore-wheel of Juggernaut

I struggled back to life with a great sob, that died before it sounded.

I looked about the library for some staff to help me to my feet again.

The porphyry vases were filled with gorgeous boughs, leaves of deep

scarlet, speckled, flushed, gold-spotted, rimmed with green, dashed with

orange, tawny and crimson, blood-sprinkled, faint clear amber; all hues

and combinations of color rioted and revelled in the crowded clusters.

To what hand but hers could so much beauty have gathered? to what eye

but hers did the magnificent secrets of Nature reveal themselves, so

that out of a whole forest her careless straying hand should bring only

its culminating glories, its most perfect results, whether of leaf or

flower or fruit. For in an urn of tintless alabaster, that had lain

centuries in the breathless dust and gloom of an Egyptian tomb, that

hand had set a sheaf of gentians, every fringed cup blue as the wild

river when a noon sky tints it, or as the vaulted azure of a June

midnight on the edge of the Milky Way,--a sheaf no Ceres owned, no

foodfull garner coveted, but the satiating aliment of beauty, fresh as

if God that hour had pronounced them good, and set his sign-manual upon

each delicate tremulous petal, that might have been sapphire, save for

its wistful translucence. And on the teapoy in the window stood two

dainty baskets of clean willow, in which we had that day brought home

chestnuts from the wood;--mine was full of nuts, but they were small and

angular and worm-eaten, as the fruitage of a wet season might well be;

hers scantily freighted, but every nut round, full, and glossy, perfect

from its cruel husk, a specimen, a type of its kind. And on the handle

of the basket hung a little kid glove. I looked at it closely; the

tiny finger-tops and oval nails had left light creases on the delicate

leather, and an indescribable perfume, in which violet predominated,

drove away the vile animal scent that pervades such gloves. I flung it

on the fire.

All about the room lay books that were not of my culling, from the oak

cases, whose every door stood ajar,--novels innumerable,--"The Arabian

Nights," Vaughan's "Silex Scintillans," with a scarlet leaf laid in

against "Peace," and "Tennyson" turned on its face at "Fatima," a heavy

volume of French moral philosophy, a Methodist hymn-book, Sir Thomas

Browne's "Hydriotaphia," and a gilded red-bound history of "Five Little

Pigs."

I rang the bell, and ordered all the books to be gathered up and put

into an old bookcase, long banished to a dark attic. I walked to the

fire and leaned my head against the mantel. The embers were all dead; in

the gray ashes was the print of a little foot, whose arched instep had

left no trace between the light track of the small heel and the deeper

impression that the slender toe had left. That footprint told the

secret of her airy motion,--that step so akin to flight, that on an

overhanging mountain-ledge I had more than once held my breath, looking

to see her extended wings float over the silent tree-tops below, or

longed to grasp her carelessly trailed shawl, that I might detain her

upon earth. To me the track had yet another language. An hour before,

as I stood there beside her, the bitter passion of a man solitary and

desperate shaking every faculty before the level rays of her scornful

eye, she had set her embroidered slipper in the ashes, and said,--"Look!

I leave a print there which the first breath of air shall dissipate;

all fire becomes ashes, and ashes blow away,"--and so left me. I stood

before the fire, that had been, still looking at that foot-mark; my

brain was stunned and stupid, my heart beat slow and loud; I knew

nothing, I felt nothing. I was nothing. Presently a bell rang.

The world is full of magicians, transformations, magnetic miracles,

juggling, chemical astonishments, moral gymnastics, hypocrisies, lies of

wonder,--but what is so strange, so marvellous, so inexplicable, as the

power of conventions? One minute found me tempting the blackness of

darkness, every idea astray and reeling, every emotion benumbed; the

next, a bell rang, and I went to the tea-table, sat in my own place,

answered my mother's questions, resumed the politenesses and habits of

daily life, seemed to be myself to those who had known me always,--ate,

drank, jested,--was a man,--no more the trodden ashes under a girl's

foot, no longer the sport of a girl's cool eye, no slave, no writhing

idolater under the car-wheel; and this lasted-half an hour! You have

seen the horses of Pharaoh following the glittering sand-track of the

Judaean host, walled in with curling beryl battlements, over whose

crests the white sea-foam dares no more laugh and threaten? You know

those curved necks clothed with strength, the bent head whose nostrils

flare with pride, the tossed and waving mane, the magnificent grace of

the nervous shoulder, the great, intelligent, expectant eyes? Suddenly

the roar of waves at the farther shore! Look at that head! strong and

quiet no more; terror erects the quivering ears; the nostril sinks and

contracts with fear; the eye glares and glances from side to side, mad

with prescient instinct; the corded veins that twist forkedly from the

lip upward swell to the utmost tension of the fine skin; that sweeping

mane rises in rough undulations, the forelock is tossed back, the

shoulder grows rigid with horror, the chest rises with a long indrawn

breath of dismay. Horrible beyond all horrid sounds, the yell of a horse

in mortal fear. Do you hear it? No,--it is a picture,--the picture of a

moment between one animal that sees the impending fate, and another that

has not yet caught it;--it is human that such moments interpose between

two oceans of agony, that man can momentarily control the rush of a sea

which the brute must yield to.--So the sea rushed back.

All night long, all the long night!--long as lifetimes are, measured

with slow-dropping arteries that drip away living blood. Once I watched

by a dying woman; wild October rains poured without, but all unheard; in

the dim-lit room, scented with quaint odors of lackered cases and chests

of camphor-wood, heavy with perfumes that failed to revive, and hushed

with whispers of hopeless comment, that delicate frame and angelic

face, which the innumerable lines of age could only exalt and sweeten,

shivered with the frosts of death; every breath was a sob; every sigh,

anguish; the terrible restlessness of the struggle between soul and body

in their parting writhed in every limb;--but there were no words other

than broken cries of prayer, only half-heard on earth, till at length

the tender, wistful eyes unclosed, and in a hoarse whisper, plaintive

beyond expression, full of a desolate and immortal weariness, bearing a

conviction of eternity and exhaustion that words cannot hope to utter,

she said, "Will it never be morning?" And so this night stayed its pace;

my room grew narrow and low; the ceiling pressed on my head; the walls

forever clasped me, yet receded ever as I paced the floor; the floor

fell in strange waves under me,--yet I walked steadily, up and down, up

and down! Still the night stayed. Fever set its hurried pulses fleeting

like wild-fire through every vein; a band of hot iron pressed above my

eyes;--but these were adjuncts; the curse consumed me within. In every

moment I heard those calm and fatal words, "I do not love you," sounding

clear and sweet through the dull leaden air of night,--an air full of

ghostly sounds, sighs about the casements, creaking stairs, taps at

the window, light sounds of feet in the long hall below; all falling

heedless on my ear, for my ghost walked and talked with me, a ghastly

reality, the galvanized corpse of a murdered life.

Still the night stayed. A weight of lead pressed on my brain and

concentrated it to frantic power; the months in which I had known her,

the only months I could call life, came back to me inch by inch, grain

by grain. I recalled our first meeting,--the sudden springing into

acquaintance,--the sympathetic power that had transfused those cold blue

eyes into depths of tenderness and pity,--the gay and genial manner that

aroused and charmed me,--the scornful lip that curled at the world for

its worldliness,--that fresh imagination, which, like the spirit of

frost, decked the commonest things with beauty; and I recalled those

early letters that had passed between us,--mine, insipid enough,--hers,

piquant, graphic, refined, tender, delicately passionate, sparkling,

full of lofty thought and profound feeling. Good God! could she not

have taken my heart, and wrung it, and thrown it away, under some more

commonplace pretext than the profaned name of Friendship? Her friend!

It is true I had called myself her friend; I had been strenuous in the

nomenclature to quiet my own conscience,--to satisfy her conventional

scruples; but had she no instinct to interpret the pretence? What friend

ever lived on every look, studied every phrase, watched every action and

expression, was so torn with jealousy and racked with doubt, bore

so humbly with caprices, and forgave every offence so instantly and

utterly,--nay, was scarce conscious that anything her soul entertained

could be an offence, could be wrong? Friendship!--ah, that deity is calm

and serene; that firm lip and pale cheek do not flush with apprehension

or quiver with passion; that tranquil eye does not shine with anything

but quiet tears. Rather call the dusky and dark-haired Twilight, whose

pensive face is limned against the western hills, by the name of that

fierce and fervid Noon that stands erect under the hot zenith, instinct

with the red blood of a thousand summers, casting her glittering tresses

abroad upon the south-wind, and holding in her hands the all-unfolded

rose of life. And if I was only her friend, was that a reason why she

should permit in me the thousand intimacies of look and caress that are

the novitiate of love? Was it a friend's calm duty to give me her tiny

hand to hold in mine, that I might fold and unfold the rosy fingers, and

explore the white dimples that were its ornamenting gems,--to rest her

tired head against my shoulder, even,--watching all day by the chair

where pain, life-long ministrant, held me on the rack?--was it only

friendly that she should press her soft little mouth to mine, and soothe

me into quiet as a mother soothes her last, her dearest child? No! no!

no! never could that be! She knew, she had known, that I loved her!

Deliberate cruelty outlined those lovely lips; every statue-like

moulding of that proud face told the hard and unrelenting nature of the

soul within. God forgive her!--the exclamation escaped me unaware, and

recoiled in a savage exultation that such treachery had no forgiveness

in heaven or on earth,--one gleam of desperate satisfaction in that

black night. But in its light, what new madness seized me? I had held

her stainless and holy, intact of evil or deceit; what was she now? My

whole brain reeled; the foundations were taken away; earth and heaven

met; even as when the West forges tempest and lightning-bolts upon its

melancholy hills, brooding and muttering hour by hour, till at length

the livid gloom rushes upward against sun and stars, and the blackening

sky shuts down upon the blackened earth, cowering at the shock, and the

torrents and flames are let loose upon their prey,--so an accumulated

storm of unutterable agony flung wave on wave above me, wrecked and

alone.

Still the night stayed; the black mass of forest that swept up the

hill-side stood in mystical gloom, in silence that could be felt; when

at once,--not suddenly,--as if the night could forbear no more, but

must utter some chord with the culmination of midnight horrors, a bird

uttered one sharp cry, desolate utterly, hopeless, concentred, as if a

keen blade parted its heart and the outraged life within remonstrated

and despaired,--despaired not of life, for still the note repeated its

monotone, but of death, of period to its pangs. That cry entered into my

brain; it was unjust of Nature so to taunt me, so to express where I was

speechless; yet I could not shut it out. A pitiful chill of flesh and

sense seized me; I was cold,--oh, how cold!--the fevered veins crept now

in sluggish ice; sharp thrills of shivering rigor racked me from head

to foot; pain had dulled its own capacity; wrapped in every covering my

room afforded, with blunted perceptions, and a dreadful consciousness of

lost vitality, which, even when I longed to die, appalled me with the

touch of death's likeness, I sunk on the floor,--and it was morning!

Morning! "a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of

thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains!" A pale sun

lit the earth, but earth and sky were black,--no sun touched me in heart

or eye; I saw nothing, felt nothing, but heavy and impenetrable gloom.

Yet again the ceremonies of life prevailed, and my real life slept

undiscovered. Whatever pallor or shadow lined my face was no stranger

there at that hour. The gray morning passed away; the village on the

hill sent down busy sounds of labor and cheer; flies buzzed on the sunny

pane, doors clicked and slammed in the house, fires crackled behind the

shining fire-dogs. I went to the library,--_the first breath of

air_ had--_dissipated it_! What a mockery! I went away,--out of the

house,--on, anywhere. Dry leaves rustled in my path and sent up a faint

aromatic breath as they were crushed in the undried dew; squirrels

chattered in the wood; here and there a dropping nut stirred the silence

with deliberate fall, or an unseen grouse whirred through the birches at

my approaching step. The way was trodden and led me by gradual slope and

native windings through the dull red oaks downward to the river. Once on

the path, a low cluster of sweet fern attracted me;--strange assertion

of human personality, that in the deepest grief a man knows and notices

the trivial features of Nature with microscopic fidelity! that the

veining of a leaf or the pencilling of a blossom will attract the eye

that no majesty or beauty of unwonted manifestation could light with

one appreciative spark! Is it that the injured and indignant soul

so vindicates its own essential and divine strength, and says,

unconsciously, to the most uncontrolled anguish, "There is in me a life

no mortal accident can invade; the breath of God is not altogether

extinct in any blast of man's devising; shake, torture, assault the

outer tenement,--darken its avenues with fire to stifle, and drench its

approaches with seas to drown,--there is that within that God alone can

vanquish,--yours is but a finite terror"? Half-crazed as I was, the

fern-bed attracted me, as I said, and I flung myself wearily down on the

leaves, whose healing and soothing odor stole up like a cloud all about

me; and I lay there in the sun, noting with pertinacious accuracy every

leaf or bloom that was within the range of sight,--the dark green leaves

of the wax-flower springing from their red stem, veined and threaded

with creamy white, stiff and quaint in form and growth,--the bending

sprays of goldenrod that bowed their light and brittle stems over me,

swaying gently to and fro in the gentle wind,--the tiny scarlet cups of

moss that held a little drop of dew brimming over their rims of fire, a

spark in the ashy gray moss-beds where they stood,--the shrinking and

wan wood-asters, branched out widely, but set with meagre bloom,--every

half-tint of the lichens, that scantily fed from the relentless granite

rock, yet clung to its stern face with fearless persistence,--the rough

seams and velvet green moss-tufts of the oak-trunks,--the light that

pierced the dingy hue of oak-leaves with vivid and informing crimson:

all these stamped themselves on my mind with inevitable minuteness; the

great wheel of Fate rolled over me, and I bore the marks even of its

ornamental rim; the grooves in its tire left traces of its track.

At length the minuteness of Nature oppressed me. The thousand odors,

spicy, acrid, aromatic, honeyed, that an autumnal dew expressed from

every herb, through that sense that is the slave of association,

recalled my youth, my boyhood, the free and careless hours I knew no

more, when, on just such mornings of hazy and splendid autumns, I had

just so lain on the fern-beds, heedless of every beauty that haunted the

woods, full of fresh life, rejoicing in dog and gun and rod as no man

ever rejoices in title-deeds or stocks or hoarded gold. The reminiscence

stung me to the quick; I could endure no more. Rising, I went on, and

through the oak-wood came to the brink of the river, and in a vague

weariness sat down upon the massive water-wall, and looked over into

the dark brown stream. It was deep below me; a little above were clear

shallows, where the water-spider pursued its toil of no result, and

cast upon the yellow sand beneath a shadow that was not a shadow, but,

refracted from the broken surface, spots of glittering light, clustered

like the diamonds of a brooch, separate, yet linked, and tremulously

bright. This, also, did I note; but below my feet the river flowed

darker and more deeply, darkness and depth broken only by the glancing

fins of little fishes, that slanted downward, catching a gleam as they

went. No other light pierced the sullen, apprehensive flood that rolled

past in tranquil gloom, leaden from the skies above, and without ripple

or fall to break its glassy quiet. Beside the wall grew a witch-hazel;

in my vague grasp at outside objects I saw it, full of wrinkled and

weird bloom, as if the golden fleece had strayed thereby, and caught

upon the ungainly twigs of the scragged bush, and left glittering curled

threads in flecked bunches scattered on every branch; the strange

spell-sweet odor of the flowers struck me before I saw them, and the

whole expression of their growth affected me with helpless admiration,

so brave as it was!--defying all Autumn to daunt the immortal Spring

ever surviving in its soul,--here, on October's edge, putting out its

freshness and perfume, as if seasons were an accident, and circumstance

a chimera,--as if will, good-will, will to be of strength and cheer,

were potent enough to laugh at Nature, and trust the God-given

consciousness within, whatever adverse fate ruled and triumphed without.

Not that all these ideas came to me then, else perhaps I had been spared

that morning's experience; but they entered my brain as lightning is

sometimes said to enter a tree and stamp some image from without

upon its heart, thereafter to be revealed by the hewing axe and the

persistent saw. No! I sat by the river and looked down into its dark

serenity, and again the horror of the past day swept over me with fresh

force. Could I live? The unswerving river lay before me; in its bed

nothing stirred; neither pang nor passion in those chill depths could

utter a cry; there she could not come; there was rest. I did not yield;

oh, no, I did not yield! I resisted,--passively. I laid hold upon the

eternal fact that there was a God; the blind and blank universe spun

about me; its pillars of support wavered like waterspouts; all that I

had ever believed or loved whirled up and down in one howling chaos,

and circled through all space in clouds of dust and floating atoms; but

through all I knew there was a God,--feel it I could not, neither did I

see nor did one of Nature's tongues spell me the lesson,--I only knew

it. And I did not, no, I did not rush before Him; but I lay at the

bottom of the river.

I have heard it said that drowning persons recall, as by a sudden

omniscience, all their past lives, as soon as the water closes above

them and the first shock of horror is past. It was not so with me. I

remembered nothing beyond the events of the past week; but, by some

strange action of the mind, as soon as the gasping sense of an unnatural

element passed away, my thoughts went forward. I became, as it were,

another man; and above me on the bank I saw calmly the stone where my

living double had left his cripple's cane, and thought to myself for one

sharp moment, "Fool!"--for I looked forward. _If I had not drowned_,

that was the key-note of the theme. Something that was me and was not me

rose up from the water-wall and went away,--a man racked and broken by

a great sorrow, it is true, but a man conscious of God. Life had turned

its darkest page for him, but there was the impassable fact that it was

the darkest; no further depths remained to dread; the worst had come,

and he looked it in the face and studied it; suffer he might, but

with full knowledge of every agony. Life had been wrecked, but living

remained. Calmly he took up the cripple's cane and went home; the

birds sang no song,--after tempests they do not sing until the sun

shines,--neither did the blossoms give him any greeting. Nature wastes

no trivialities on such grief; the mother, whose child comes in to her

broken-limbed and wounded, does not give it sugar-plums and kisses, but

waits in silence till the surgeon has done his kindly and appalling

office,--then, it may be, she sings her boy to sleep!

But this man took up life again and conquered it. Home grew about him

into serenity and cheer; as from the roots of a felled tree a thousand

verdant offshoots spring, tiny in stature, but fresh and vivid in

foliage, so out of this beheaded love arose a crowd of sweet affections

and tender services that made the fraternity of man seem possible, and

illustrated the pervasive care of God. He went out into life, and from

a heart wrung with all man can endure, and a brain tested in the fire,

spoke burning and fluent words of strength and consolation to hundreds

who, like him, had suffered, but were sinking under what he had borne.

And these words carried in them a reviving virtue. Men blessed him

silently, and women sang him in their hearts as they sing hymns of

prayer. Honors clustered about him as mosses to a rock; Fame relented,

and gave him an aureole in place of a crown; and Love, late, but sweeter

than sweet, like the last sun-ripened fruit of autumn, made honors and

fame alike endurable. This man conquered, and triumphed in the victory.

I held out my hand in that water and touched--a skeleton! What! had any

other man preceded me? I looked at it; it was the water-washed frame of

a horse,--brutes together! And death was at hand; the grasp tightened

on my breast with that acrid sense of weight and suffocation that the

redundant blood suffusing the lungs must needs produce. "The soul of the

brute goeth downward." Coward! what might not life have been? and I had

lost it!--lost it for the sting of a honey-bee!--for the contempt of a

woman! Every magnificent possibility, every immortal power, every hope

of a future, tantalizing in its grand mystery, all lost! What if that

sweeping star-seraph that men call a comet, speeding through heaven in

its lonely splendor, with nitent head, and pinions trailing with the

very swiftness and strength of its onward flight, should shudder from

its orbit, fling into star-strewn space its calm and awful glory, and

go crashing down into the fury and blackness of chaos, carrying with it

wrecks of horror, and the yelling fragments of spheres no longer choral,

but smitten with the lawless stroke of a creature regardless of its

Creator, an orb that made its solitary fate, and carried across the

order and the law of God ruin and wreck embodied?

And I had a soul;--I had flung it away; I had set my will up for my

destiny, and the one had worked out the other. But had I? When that

devilish suggestion came to me on the bank, did I entertain it? Have I

not said how I grasped at the great idea of a God, and held it with a

death-gripe in the midst of assault? How did I come in the water? I did

not plunge nor fall. No shock of horror chilled me; no remembrance of

a voluntary assent to the Tempter could I recall. I was there, it was

true; but was I guilty? Did I, in the eyes of any watching angel,

consciously cast my life, brittle and blind as it was, away in that

fashion? In the water, helpless now for any effort after upper air,

side by side with the fleshless anatomy of a brute, over-sailed by gray

fishes with speckled sides, whose broad, unwinking eyes glared at me

with maddening shine and stare,--oppressed, and almost struggling, yet

all unable to achieve the struggle with the curdling blood that gorged

every vein and air-cell with the hurried rush of death,--did I go out of

this life red with the sin of murder? Did I commit suicide?

Who knows?

* * * * *

THE MINISTER'S WOOING.

[Continued.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE DOCTOR.

It is seldom that man and woman come together in intimate association,

unless influences are at work more subtile and mysterious than the

subjects of them dream. Even in cases where the strongest ruling force

of the two sexes seems out of the question, there is still something

peculiar and insidious in their relationship. A fatherly old gentleman,

who undertakes the care of a sprightly young girl, finds, to his

astonishment, that little Miss spins all sorts of cobwebs round him.

Grave professors and teachers cannot give lessons to their female pupils

just as they give them to the coarser sex, and more than once has the

fable of "Cadenus and Vanessa" been acted over by the most unlikely

performers.

The Doctor was a philosopher, a metaphysician, a philanthropist, and in

the highest and most earnest sense a minister of good on earth. The

New England clergy had no sentimental affectation of sanctity that

segregated them from wholesome human relations; and consequently our

good Doctor had always resolved, in a grave and thoughtful spirit, at a

suitable time in his worldly affairs, to choose unto himself a helpmeet.

Love, as treated of in romances, he held to be a foolish and profane

matter, unworthy the attention of a serious and reasonable creature. All

the language of poetry on this subject was to him an unknown tongue. He

contemplated the entrance on married life somewhat in this wise:--That

at a time and place suiting, he should look out unto himself a woman of

a pleasant countenance and of good repute, a zealous, earnest Christian,

and well skilled in the items of household management, whom accosting as

a stranger and pilgrim to a better life, he should loyally and lovingly

entreat, as Isaac did Rebekah, to come under the shadow of his tent and

be a helpmeet unto him in what yet remained of this mortal journey. But

straitened circumstances, and the unsettled times of the Revolution, in

which he had taken an earnest and zealous part, had delayed to a late

bachelorhood the fulfilment of this resolution.

When once received under the shadow of Mrs. Scudder's roof, and within

the provident sphere of her unfailing housekeeping, all material

necessity for an immediate choice was taken away; for he was exactly in

that situation dearest to every scholarly and thoughtful man, in which

all that pertained to the outward life appeared to rise under his hand

at the moment he wished for it without his knowing how or why.