I was visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been spent

--Hannibal, Marion County. Several of us got together in a secret place by

night and formed ourselves into a military company. One Tom Lyman, a

young fellow of a good deal of spirit but of no military experience, was

made captain; I was made second lieutenant. We had no first lieutenant;

I do not know why; it was long ago. There were fifteen of us. By the

advice of an innocent connected with the organisation, we called

ourselves the Marion Rangers. I do not remember that any one found fault

with the name. I did not; I thought it sounded quite well. The young

fellow who proposed this title was perhaps a fair sample of the kind of

stuff we were made of. He was young, ignorant, good-natured,

well-meaning, trivial, full of romance, and given to reading chivalric

novels and singing forlorn love-ditties. He had some pathetic little

nickel-plated aristocratic instincts, and detested his name, which was

Dunlap; detested it, partly because it was nearly as common in that

region as Smith, but mainly because it had a plebeian sound to his ear.

So he tried to ennoble it by writing it in this way: d'Unlap. That

contented his eye, but left his ear unsatisfied, for people gave the new

name the same old pronunciation--emphasis on the front end of it. He

then did the bravest thing that can be imagined--a thing to make one

shiver when one remembers how the world is given to resenting shams and

affectations; he began to write his name so: d'Un Lap. And he waited

patiently through the long storm of mud that was flung at this work of

art, and he had his reward at last; for he lived to see that name

accepted, and the emphasis put where he wanted it, by people who had

known him all his life, and to whom the tribe of Dunlaps had been as

familiar as the rain and the sunshine for forty years. So sure of

victory at last is the courage that can wait. He said he had found, by

consulting some ancient French chronicles, that the name was rightly and

originally written d'Un Lap; and said that if it were translated into

English it would mean Peterson: Lap, Latin or Greek, he said, for stone

or rock, same as the French Pierre, that is to say, Peter; d', of or

from; un, a or one; hence d'Un Lap, of or from a stone or a Peter; that

is to say, one who is the son of a stone, the son of a Peter--Peterson.

Our militia company were not learned, and the explanation confused them;

so they called him Peterson Dunlap. He proved useful to us in his way;

he named our camps for us, and he generally struck a name that was 'no

slouch,' as the boys said.

That is one sample of us. Another was Ed Stevens, son of the town

jeweller,--trim-built, handsome, graceful, neat as a cat; bright,

educated, but given over entirely to fun. There was nothing serious in

life to him. As far as he was concerned, this military expedition of

ours was simply a holiday. I should say that about half of us looked

upon it in the same way; not consciously, perhaps, but unconsciously.

We did not think; we were not capable of it. As for myself, I was full

of unreasoning joy to be done with turning out of bed at midnight and

four in the morning, for a while; grateful to have a change, new scenes,

new occupations, a new interest. In my thoughts that was as far as I

went; I did not go into the details; as a rule one doesn't at

twenty-five.

Another sample was Smith, the blacksmith's apprentice. This vast donkey

had some pluck, of a slow and sluggish nature, but a soft heart; at one

time he would knock a horse down for some impropriety, and at another he

would get homesick and cry. However, he had one ultimate credit to his

account which some of us hadn't: he stuck to the war, and was killed in

battle at last.

Jo Bowers, another sample, was a huge, good-natured, flax-headed lubber;

lazy, sentimental, full of harmless brag, a grumbler by nature; an

experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar,

and yet not a successful one, for he had had no intelligent training, but

was allowed to come up just any way. This life was serious enough to

him, and seldom satisfactory. But he was a good fellow, anyway, and the

boys all liked him. He was made orderly sergeant; Stevens was made

corporal.

These samples will answer--and they are quite fair ones. Well, this herd

of cattle started for the war. What could you expect of them? They did

as well as they knew how, but really what was justly to be expected of

them? Nothing, I should say. That is what they did.

We waited for a dark night, for caution and secrecy were necessary; then,

toward midnight, we stole in couples and from various directions to the

Griffith place, beyond the town; from that point we set out together on

foot. Hannibal lies at the extreme south-eastern corner of Marion

County, on the Mississippi River; our objective point was the hamlet of

New London, ten miles away, in Ralls County.

The first hour was all fun, all idle nonsense and laughter. But that

could not be kept up. The steady trudging came to be like work; the play

had somehow oozed out of it; the stillness of the woods and the

sombreness of the night began to throw a depressing influence over the

spirits of the boys, and presently the talking died out and each person

shut himself up in his own thoughts. During the last half of the second

hour nobody said a word.

Now we approached a log farm-house where, according to report, there was

a guard of five Union soldiers. Lyman called a halt; and there, in the

deep gloom of the overhanging branches, he began to whisper a plan of

assault upon that house, which made the gloom more depressing than it was

before. It was a crucial moment; we realised, with a cold suddenness,

that here was no jest--we were standing face to face with actual war. We

were equal to the occasion. In our response there was no hesitation, no

indecision: we said that if Lyman wanted to meddle with those soldiers,

he could go ahead and do it; but if he waited for us to follow him, he

would wait a long time.

Lyman urged, pleaded, tried to shame us, but it had no effect. Our

course was plain, our minds were made up: we would flank the farmhouse

--go out around. And that is what we did. We turned the position.

We struck into the woods and entered upon a rough time, stumbling over

roots, getting tangled in vines, and torn by briers. At last we reached

an open place in a safe region, and sat down, blown and hot, to cool off

and nurse our scratches and bruises. Lyman was annoyed, but the rest of

us were cheerful; we had flanked the farm-house, we had made our first

military movement, and it was a success; we had nothing to fret about, we

were feeling just the other way. Horse-play and laughing began again;

the expedition was become a holiday frolic once more.

Then we had two more hours of dull trudging and ultimate silence and

depression; then, about dawn, we straggled into New London, soiled,

heel-blistered, fagged with our little march, and all of us except

Stevens in a sour and raspy humour and privately down on the war. We

stacked our shabby old shot-guns in Colonel Ralls's barn, and then went

in a body and breakfasted with that veteran of the Mexican War.

Afterwards he took us to a distant meadow, and there in the shade of a

tree we listened to an old-fashioned speech from him, full of gunpowder

and glory, full of that adjective-piling, mixed metaphor, and windy

declamation which was regarded as eloquence in that ancient time and that

remote region; and then he swore us on the Bible to be faithful to the

State of Missouri and drive all invaders from her soil, no matter whence

they might come or under what flag they might march. This mixed us

considerably, and we could not make out just what service we were

embarked in; but Colonel Ralls, the practised politician and

phrase-juggler, was not similarly in doubt; he knew quite clearly that he

had invested us in the cause of the Southern Confederacy. He closed the

solemnities by belting around me the sword which his neighbour, colonel

Brown, had worn at Buena Vista and Molino del Rey; and he accompanied

this act with another impressive blast.

Then we formed in line of battle and marched four miles to a shady and

pleasant piece of woods on the border of the far-reached expanses of a

flowery prairie. It was an enchanting region for war--our kind of war.

We pierced the forest about half a mile, and took up a strong position,

with some low, rocky, and wooded hills behind us, and a purling, limpid

creek in front. Straightway half the command were in swimming, and the

other half fishing. The ass with the French name gave this position a

romantic title, but it was too long, so the boys shortened and simplified

it to Camp Ralls.

We occupied an old maple-sugar camp, whose half-rotted troughs were still

propped against the trees. A long corn-crib served for sleeping quarters

for the battalion. On our left, half a mile away, was Mason's farm and

house; and he was a friend to the cause. Shortly after noon the farmers

began to arrive from several directions, with mules and horses for our

use, and these they lent us for as long as the war might last, which they

judged would be about three months. The animals were of all sizes, all

colours, and all breeds. They were mainly young and frisky, and nobody

in the command could stay on them long at a time; for we were town boys,

and ignorant of horsemanship. The creature that fell to my share was a

very small mule, and yet so quick and active that it could throw me

without difficulty; and it did this whenever I got on it. Then it would

bray--stretching its neck out, laying its ears back, and spreading its

jaws till you could see down to its works. It was a disagreeable animal,

in every way. If I took it by the bridle and tried to lead it off the

grounds, it would sit down and brace back, and no one could budge it.

However, I was not entirely destitute of military resources, and I did

presently manage to spoil this game; for I had seen many a steam-boat

aground in my time, and knew a trick or two which even a grounded mule

would be obliged to respect. There was a well by the corn-crib; so I

substituted thirty fathom of rope for the bridle, and fetched him home

with the windlass.

I will anticipate here sufficiently to say that we did learn to ride,

after some days' practice, but never well. We could not learn to like

our animals; they were not choice ones, and most of them had annoying

peculiarities of one kind or another. Stevens's horse would carry him,

when he was not noticing, under the huge excrescences which form on the

trunks of oak-trees, and wipe him out of the saddle; in this way Stevens

got several bad hurts. Sergeant Bowers's horse was very large and tall,

with slim, long legs, and looked like a railroad bridge. His size

enabled him to reach all about, and as far as he wanted to, with his

head; so he was always biting Bowers's legs. On the march, in the sun,

Bowers slept a good deal; and as soon as the horse recognised that he was

asleep he would reach around and bite him on the leg. His legs were

black and blue with bites. This was the only thing that could ever make

him swear, but this always did; whenever the horse bit him he always

swore, and of course Stevens, who laughed at everything, laughed at this,

and would even get into such convulsions over it as to lose his balance

and fall off his horse; and then Bowers, already irritated by the pain of

the horse-bite, would resent the laughter with hard language, and there

would be a quarrel; so that horse made no end of trouble and bad blood in

the command.

However, I will get back to where I was--our first afternoon in the

sugar-camp. The sugar-troughs came very handy as horse-troughs, and we

had plenty of corn to fill them with. I ordered Sergeant Bowers to feed

my mule; but he said that if I reckoned he went to war to be dry-nurse to

a mule, it wouldn't take me very long to find out my mistake. I believed

that this was insubordination, but I was full of uncertainties about

everything military, and so I let the thing pass, and went and ordered

Smith, the blacksmith's apprentice, to feed the mule; but he merely gave

me a large, cold, sarcastic grin, such as an ostensibly seven-year-old

horse gives you when you lift his lip and find he is fourteen, and turned

his back on me. I then went to the captain, and asked if it was not

right and proper and military for me to have an orderly. He said it was,

but as there was only one orderly in the corps, it was but right that he

himself should have Bowers on his staff. Bowers said he wouldn't serve

on anybody's staff; and if anybody thought he could make him, let him try

it. So, of course, the thing had to be dropped; there was no other way.

Next, nobody would cook; it was considered a degradation; so we had no

dinner. We lazied the rest of the pleasant afternoon away, some dozing

under the trees, some smoking cob-pipes and talking sweethearts and war,

some playing games. By late supper-time all hands were famished; and to

meet the difficulty all hands turned to, on an equal footing, and

gathered wood, built fires, and cooked the meal. Afterward everything

was smooth for a while; then trouble broke out between the corporal and

the sergeant, each claiming to rank the other. Nobody knew which was the

higher office; so Lyman had to settle the matter by making the rank of

both officers equal. The commander of an ignorant crew like that has

many troubles and vexations which probably do not occur in the regular

army at all. However, with the song-singing and yarn-spinning around the

camp-fire, everything presently became serene again; and by-and-by we

raked the corn down level in one end of the crib, and all went to bed on

it, tying a horse to the door, so that he would neigh if any one tried to

get in.[1]

We had some horsemanship drill every forenoon; then, afternoons, we rode

off here and there in squads a few miles, and visited the farmers' girls,

and had a youthful good time, and got an honest good dinner or supper,

and then home again to camp, happy and content.

For a time, life was idly delicious, it was perfect; there was nothing to

mar it. Then came some farmers with an alarm one day. They said it was

rumoured that the enemy were advancing in our direction, from over Hyde's

prairie. The result was a sharp stir among us, and general

consternation. It was a rude awakening from our pleasant trance. The

rumour was but a rumour--nothing definite about it; so, in the confusion,

we did not know which way to retreat. Lyman was for not retreating at

all, in these uncertain circumstances; but he found that if he tried to

maintain that attitude he would fare badly, for the command were in no

humour to put up with insubordination. So he yielded the point and

called a council of war--to consist of himself and the three other

officers; but the privates made such a fuss about being left out, that we

had to allow them to remain, for they were already present, and doing the

most of the talking too. The question was, which way to retreat; but all

were so flurried that nobody seemed to have even a guess to offer.

Except Lyman. He explained in a few calm words, that inasmuch as the

enemy were approaching from over Hyde's prairie, our course was simple:

all we had to do was not to retreat toward him; any other direction would

answer our needs perfectly. Everybody saw in a moment how true this was,

and how wise; so Lyman got a great many compliments. It was now decided

that we should fall back upon Mason's farm.

It was after dark by this time, and as we could not know how soon the

enemy might arrive, it did not seem best to try to take the horses and

things with us; so we only took the guns and ammunition, and started at

once. The route was very rough and hilly and rocky, and presently the

night grew very black and rain began to fall; so we had a troublesome

time of it, struggling and stumbling along in the dark; and soon some

person slipped and fell, and then the next person behind stumbled over

him and fell, and so did the rest, one after the other; and then Bowers

came with the keg of powder in his arms, whilst the command were all

mixed together, arms and legs, on the muddy slope; and so he fell, of

course, with the keg, and this started the whole detachment down the hill

in a body, and they landed in the brook at the bottom in a pile, and each

that was undermost pulling the hair and scratching and biting those that

were on top of him; and those that were being scratched and bitten,

scratching and biting the rest in their turn, and all saying they would

die before they would ever go to war again if they ever got out of this

brook this time, and the invader might rot for all they cared, and the

country along with them--and all such talk as that, which was dismal to

hear and take part in, in such smothered, low voices, and such a grisly

dark place and so wet, and the enemy maybe coming any moment.

The keg of powder was lost, and the guns too; so the growling and

complaining continued straight along whilst the brigade pawed around the

pasty hillside and slopped around in the brook hunting for these things;

consequently we lost considerable time at this; and then we heard a

sound, and held our breath and listened, and it seemed to be the enemy

coming, though it could have been a cow, for it had a cough like a cow;

but we did not wait, but left a couple of guns behind and struck out for

Mason's again as briskly as we could scramble along in the dark. But we

got lost presently among the rugged little ravines, and wasted a deal of

time finding the way again, so it was after nine when we reached Mason's

stile at last; and then before we could open our mouths to give the

countersign, several dogs came bounding over the fence, with great riot

and noise, and each of them took a soldier by the slack of his trousers

and began to back away with him. We could not shoot the dogs without

endangering the persons they were attached to; so we had to look on,

helpless, at what was perhaps the most mortifying spectacle of the civil

war. There was light enough, and to spare, for the Masons had now run

out on the porch with candles in their hands. The old man and his son

came and undid the dogs without difficulty, all but Bowers's; but they

couldn't undo his dog, they didn't know his combination; he was of the

bull kind, and seemed to be set with a Yale time-lock; but they got him

loose at last with some scalding water, of which Bowers got his share and

returned thanks. Peterson Dunlap afterwards made up a fine name for this

engagement, and also for the night march which preceded it, but both have

long ago faded out of my memory.

We now went into the house, and they began to ask us a world of

questions, whereby it presently came out that we did not know anything

concerning who or what we were running from; so the old gentleman made

himself very frank, and said we were a curious breed of soldiers, and

guessed we could be depended on to end up the war in time, because no

Government could stand the expense of the shoe-leather we should cost it

trying to follow us around. 'Marion Rangers! good name, b'gosh!' said

he. And wanted to know why we hadn't had a picket-guard at the place

where the road entered the prairie, and why we hadn't sent out a scouting

party to spy out the enemy and bring us an account of his strength, and

so on, before jumping up and stampeding out of a strong position upon a

mere vague rumour--and so on, and so forth, till he made us all fell

shabbier than the dogs had done, and not half so enthusiastically

welcome. So we went to bed shamed and low-spirited; except Stevens.

Soon Stevens began to devise a garment for Bowers which could be made to

automatically display his battle-scars to the grateful, or conceal them

from the envious, according to his occasions; but Bowers was in no humour

for this, so there was a fight, and when it was over Stevens had some

battle-scars of his own to think about.

Then we got a little sleep. But after all we had gone through, our

activities were not over for the night; for about two o'clock in the

morning we heard a shout of warning from down the lane, accompanied by a

chorus from all the dogs, and in a moment everybody was up and flying

around to find out what the alarm was about. The alarmist was a horseman

who gave notice that a detachment of Union soldiers was on its way from

Hannibal with orders to capture and hang any bands like ours which it

could find, and said we had no time to lose. Farmer Mason was in a

flurry this time, himself. He hurried us out of the house with all

haste, and sent one of his negroes with us to show us where to hide

ourselves and our tell-tale guns among the ravines half a mile away. It

was raining heavily.

We struck down the lane, then across some rocky pasture-land which

offered good advantages for stumbling; consequently we were down in the

mud most of the time, and every time a man went down he blackguarded the

war, and the people who started it, and everybody connected with it, and

gave himself the master dose of all for being so foolish as to go into

it. At last we reached the wooded mouth of a ravine, and there we

huddled ourselves under the streaming trees, and sent the negro back

home. It was a dismal and heart-breaking time. We were like to be

drowned with the rain, deafened with the howling wind and the booming

thunder, and blinded by the lightning. It was indeed a wild night. The

drenching we were getting was misery enough, but a deeper misery still

was the reflection that the halter might end us before we were a day

older. A death of this shameful sort had not occurred to us as being

among the possibilities of war. It took the romance all out of the

campaign, and turned our dreams of glory into a repulsive nightmare. As

for doubting that so barbarous an order had been given, not one of us did

that.

The long night wore itself out at last, and then the negro came to us

with the news that the alarm had manifestly been a false one, and that

breakfast would soon be ready. Straightway we were light-hearted again,

and the world was bright, and life as full of hope and promise as ever

--for we were young then. How long ago that was! Twenty-four years.

The mongrel child of philology named the night's refuse Camp Devastation,

and no soul objected. The Masons gave us a Missouri country breakfast,

in Missourian abundance, and we needed it: hot biscuits; hot 'wheat

bread' prettily criss-crossed in a lattice pattern on top; hot corn pone;

fried chicken; bacon, coffee, eggs, milk, buttermilk, etc.;--and the

world may be confidently challenged to furnish the equal to such a

breakfast, as it is cooked in the South.

We stayed several days at Mason's; and after all these years the memory

of the dullness, the stillness and lifelessness of that slumberous

farm-house still oppresses my spirit as with a sense of the presence of

death and mourning. There was nothing to do, nothing to think about;

there was no interest in life. The male part of the household were away

in the fields all day, the women were busy and out of our sight; there

was no sound but the plaintive wailing of a spinning-wheel, forever

moaning out from some distant room--the most lonesome sound in nature, a

sound steeped and sodden with homesickness and the emptiness of life.

The family went to bed about dark every night, and as we were not invited

to intrude any new customs, we naturally followed theirs. Those nights

were a hundred years long to youths accustomed to being up till twelve.

We lay awake and miserable till that hour every time, and grew old and

decrepit waiting through the still eternities for the clock-strikes. This

was no place for town boys. So at last it was with something very like

joy that we received news that the enemy were on our track again. With a

new birth of the old warrior spirit, we sprang to our places in line of

battle and fell back on Camp Ralls.

Captain Lyman had taken a hint from Mason's talk, and he now gave ordered

that our camp should be guarded against surprise by the posting of

pickets. I was ordered to place a picket at the forks of the road in

Hyde's prairie. Night shut down black and threatening. I told Sergeant

Bowers to go out to that place and stay till midnight; and, just as I was

expecting, he said he wouldn't do it. I tried to get others to go, but

all refused. Some excused themselves on account of the weather; but the

rest were frank enough to say they wouldn't go in any kind of weather.

This kind of thing sounds odd now, and impossible, but it seemed a

perfectly natural thing to do. There were scores of little camps

scattered over Missouri where the same thing was happening. These camps

were composed of young men who had been born and reared to a sturdy

independence, and who did not know what it meant to be ordered around by

Tom, Dick, and Harry, whom they had known familiarly all their lives, in

the village or on the farm. It is quite within the probabilities that

this same thing was happening all over the South. James Redpath

recognised the justice of this assumption, and furnished the following

instance in support of it. During a short stay in East Tennessee he was

in a citizen colonel's tent one day, talking, when a big private appeared

at the door, and without salute or other circumlocution said to the

colonel:

'Say, Jim, I'm a-goin' home for a few days.'

'What for?'

'Well, I hain't b'en there for a right smart while, and I'd like to see

how things is comin' on.'

'How long are you going to be gone?'

''Bout two weeks.'

'Well don't be gone longer than that; and get back sooner if you can.'

That was all, and the citizen officer resumed his conversation where the

private had broken it off. This was in the first months of the war, of

course. The camps in our part of Missouri were under Brigadier-General

Thomas H. Harris. He was a townsman of ours, a first-rate fellow, and

well liked; but we had all familiarly known him as the sole and

modest-salaried operator in our telegraph office, where he had to send

about one dispatch a week in ordinary times, and two when there was a

rush of business; consequently, when he appeared in our midst one day, on

the wing, and delivered a military command of some sort, in a large

military fashion, nobody was surprised at the response which he got from

the assembled soldiery:

'Oh, now, what'll you take to don't, Tom Harris!'

It was quite the natural thing. One might justly imagine that we were

hopeless material for war. And so we seemed, in our ignorant state; but

there were those among us who afterward learned the grim trade; learned

to obey like machines; became valuable soldiers; fought all through the

war, and came out at the end with excellent records. One of the very

boys who refused to go out on picket duty that night, and called me an

ass for thinking he would expose himself to danger in such a foolhardy

way, had become distinguished for intrepidity before he was a year older.

I did secure my picket that night--not by authority, but by diplomacy. I

got Bowers to go, by agreeing to exchange ranks with him for the time

being, and go along and stand the watch with him as his subordinate. We

stayed out there a couple of dreary hours in the pitchy darkness and the

rain, with nothing to modify the dreariness but Bowers's monotonous

growlings at the war and the weather; then we began to nod, and presently

found it next to impossible to stay in the saddle; so we gave up the

tedious job, and went back to the camp without waiting for the relief

guard. We rode into camp without interruption or objection from anybody,

and the enemy could have done the same, for there were no sentries.

Everybody was asleep; at midnight there was nobody to send out another

picket, so none was sent. We never tried to establish a watch at night

again, as far as I remember, but we generally kept a picket out in the

daytime.

In that camp the whole command slept on the corn in the big corn-crib;

and there was usually a general row before morning, for the place was

full of rats, and they would scramble over the boys' bodies and faces,

annoying and irritating everybody; and now and then they would bite some

one's toe, and the person who owned the toe would start up and magnify

his English and begin to throw corn in the dark. The ears were half as

heavy as bricks, and when they struck they hurt. The persons struck

would respond, and inside of five minutes every man would be locked in a

death-grip with his neighbour. There was a grievous deal of blood shed

in the corn-crib, but this was all that was spilt while I was in the war.

No, that is not quite true. But for one circumstance it would have been

all. I will come to that now.

Our scares were frequent. Every few days rumours would come that the

enemy were approaching. In these cases we always fell back on some other

camp of ours; we never stayed where we were. But the rumours always

turned out to be false; so at last even we began to grow indifferent to

them. One night a negro was sent to our corn-crib with the same old

warning: the enemy was hovering in our neighbourhood. We all said let

him hover. We resolved to stay still and be comfortable. It was a fine

warlike resolution, and no doubt we all felt the stir of it in our veins

--for a moment. We had been having a very jolly time, that was full of

horse-play and school-boy hilarity; but that cooled down now, and

presently the fast-waning fire of forced jokes and forced laughs died out

altogether, and the company became silent. Silent and nervous. And soon

uneasy--worried--apprehensive. We had said we would stay, and we were

committed. We could have been persuaded to go, but there was nobody

brave enough to suggest it. An almost noiseless movement presently began

in the dark, by a general and unvoiced impulse. When the movement was

completed, each man knew that he was not the only person who had crept to

the front wall and had his eye at a crack between the logs. No, we were

all there; all there with our hearts in our throats, and staring out

toward the sugar-troughs where the forest foot-path came through. It was

late, and there was a deep woodsy stillness everywhere. There was a

veiled moonlight, which was only just strong enough to enable us to mark

the general shape of objects. Presently a muffled sound caught our ears,

and we recognised it as the hoof-beats of a horse or horses. And right

away a figure appeared in the forest path; it could have been made of

smoke, its mass had so little sharpness of outline. It was a man on

horseback; and it seemed to me that there were others behind him. I got

hold of a gun in the dark, and pushed it through a crack between the

logs, hardly knowing what I was doing, I was so dazed with fright.

Somebody said 'Fire!' I pulled the trigger. I seemed to see a hundred

flashes and hear a hundred reports, then I saw the man fall down out of

the saddle. My first feeling was of surprised gratification; my first

impulse was an apprentice-sportsman's impulse to run and pick up his

game. Somebody said, hardly audibly, 'Good--we've got him!--wait for the

rest.' But the rest did not come. There was not a sound, not the

whisper of a leaf; just perfect stillness; an uncanny kind of stillness,

which was all the more uncanny on account of the damp, earthy, late-night

smells now rising and pervading it. Then, wondering, we crept stealthily

out, and approached the man. When we got to him the moon revealed him

distinctly. He was lying on his back, with his arms abroad; his mouth

was open and his chest heaving with long gasps, and his white shirt-front

was all splashed with blood. The thought shot through me that I was a

murderer; that I had killed a man--a man who had never done me any harm.

That was the coldest sensation that ever went through my marrow. I was

down by him in a moment, helplessly stroking his forehead; and I would

have given anything then--my own life freely--to make him again what he

had been five minutes before. And all the boys seemed to be feeling in

the same way; they hung over him, full of pitying interest, and tried all

they could to help him, and said all sorts of regretful things. They had

forgotten all about the enemy; they thought only of this one forlorn unit

of the foe. Once my imagination persuaded me that the dying man gave me

a reproachful look out of his shadowy eyes, and it seemed to me that I

would rather he had stabbed me than done that. He muttered and mumbled

like a dreamer in his sleep, about his wife and child; and I thought with

a new despair, 'This thing that I have done does not end with him; it

falls upon them too, and they never did me any harm, any more than he.'

In a little while the man was dead. He was killed in war; killed in fair

and legitimate war; killed in battle, as you might say; and yet he was as

sincerely mourned by the opposing force as if he had been their brother.

The boys stood there a half hour sorrowing over him, and recalling the

details of the tragedy, and wondering who he might be, and if he were a

spy, and saying that if it were to do over again they would not hurt him

unless he attacked them first. It soon came out that mine was not the

only shot fired; there were five others--a division of the guilt which

was a grateful relief to me, since it in some degree lightened and

diminished the burden I was carrying. There were six shots fired at

once; but I was not in my right mind at the time, and my heated

imagination had magnified my one shot into a volley.

The man was not in uniform, and was not armed. He was a stranger in the

country; that was all we ever found out about him. The thought of him

got to preying upon me every night; I could not get rid of it. I could

not drive it away, the taking of that unoffending life seemed such a

wanton thing. And it seemed an epitome of war; that all war must be just

that--the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal

animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you

found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it. My

campaign was spoiled. It seemed to me that I was not rightly equipped

for this awful business; that war was intended for men, and I for a

child's nurse. I resolved to retire from this avocation of sham

soldiership while I could save some remnant of my self-respect. These

morbid thoughts clung to me against reason; for at bottom I did not

believe I had touched that man. The law of probabilities decreed me

guiltless of his blood; for in all my small experience with guns I had

never hit anything I had tried to hit, and I knew I had done my best to

hit him. Yet there was no solace in the thought. Against a diseased

imagination, demonstration goes for nothing.

The rest of my war experience was of a piece with what I have already

told of it. We kept monotonously falling back upon one camp or another,

and eating up the country--I marvel now at the patience of the farmers

and their families. They ought to have shot us; on the contrary, they

were as hospitably kind and courteous to us as if we had deserved it.

In one of these camps we found Ab Grimes, an Upper Mississippi pilot, who

afterwards became famous as a dare-devil rebel spy, whose career bristled

with desperate adventures. The look and style of his comrades suggested

that they had not come into the war to play, and their deeds made good

the conjecture later. They were fine horsemen and good revolver-shots;

but their favourite arm was the lasso. Each had one at his pommel, and

could snatch a man out of the saddle with it every time, on a full

gallop, at any reasonable distance.

In another camp the chief was a fierce and profane old blacksmith of

sixty, and he had furnished his twenty recruits with gigantic home-made

bowie-knives, to be swung with the two hands, like the machetes of the

Isthmus. It was a grisly spectacle to see that earnest band practising

their murderous cuts and slashes under the eye of that remorseless old

fanatic.

The last camp which we fell back upon was in a hollow near the village of

Florida, where I was born--in Monroe County. Here we were warned, one

day, that a Union colonel was sweeping down on us with a whole regiment

at his heels. This looked decidedly serious. Our boys went apart and

consulted; then we went back and told the other companies present that

the war was a disappointment to us and we were going to disband. They

were getting ready, themselves, to fall back on some place or other, and

were only waiting for General Tom Harris, who was expected to arrive at

any moment; so they tried to persuade us to wait a little while, but the

majority of us said no, we were accustomed to falling back, and didn't

need any of Tom Harris's help; we could get along perfectly well without

him and save time too. So about half of our fifteen, including myself,

mounted and left on the instant; the others yielded to persuasion and

stayed--stayed through the war.

An hour later we met General Harris on the road, with two or three people

in his company--his staff, probably, but we could not tell; none of them

was in uniform; uniforms had not come into vogue among us yet. Harris

ordered us back; but we told him there was a Union colonel coming with a

whole regiment in his wake, and it looked as if there was going to be a

disturbance; so we had concluded to go home. He raged a little, but it

was of no use; our minds were made up. We had done our share; had killed

one man, exterminated one army, such as it was; let him go and kill the

rest, and that would end the war. I did not see that brisk young general

again until last year; then he was wearing white hair and whiskers.

In time I came to know that Union colonel whose coming frightened me out

of the war and crippled the Southern cause to that extent--General Grant.

I came within a few hours of seeing him when he was as unknown as I was

myself; at a time when anybody could have said, 'Grant?--Ulysses S.

Grant? I do not remember hearing the name before.' It seems difficult

to realise that there was once a time when such a remark could be

rationally made; but there was, and I was within a few miles of the place

and the occasion too, though proceeding in the other direction.

The thoughtful will not throw this war-paper of mine lightly aside as

being valueless. It has this value: it is a not unfair picture of what

went on in many and many a militia camp in the first months of the

rebellion, when the green recruits were without discipline, without the

steadying and heartening influence or trained leaders; when all their

circumstances were new and strange, and charged with exaggerated terrors,

and before the invaluable experience of actual collision in the field had

turned them from rabbits into soldiers. If this side of the picture of

that early day has not before been put into history, then history has

been to that degree incomplete, for it had and has its rightful place

there. There was more Bull Run material scattered through the early

camps of this country than exhibited itself at Bull Run. And yet it

learned its trade presently, and helped to fight the great battles later.

I could have become a soldier myself, if I had waited. I had got part of

it learned; I knew more about retreating than the man that invented

retreating.

[1] It was always my impression that that was what the horse was there

for, and I know that it was also the impression of at least one other of

the command, for we talked about it at the time, and admired the military

ingenuity of the device; but when I was out West three years ago I was

told by Mr. A. G. Fuqua, a member of our company, that the horse was his,

that the leaving him tied at the door was a matter of mere forgetfulness,

and that to attribute it to intelligent invention was to give him quite

too much credit. In support of his position, he called my attention to

the suggestive fact that the artifice was not employed again. I had not

thought of that before.

MEISTERSCHAFT

IN THREE ACTS [1]

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

MR. STEPHENSON. MARGARET STEPHENSON.

GEORGE FRANKLIN. ANNIE STEPHENSON.

WILLIAM JACKSON. MRS. BLUMENTHAL, the Wirthin.

GRETCHEN, Kellnerin

ACT I. SCENE I.

Scene of the play, the parlour of a small private dwelling in a village.

(MARGARET discovered crocheting--has a pamphlet.)

MARGARET. (Solus.) Dear, dear! it's dreary enough, to have to study

this impossible German tongue: to be exiled from home and all human

society except a body's sister in order to do it, is just simply

abscheulich. Here's only three weeks of the three months gone, and it

seems like three years. I don't believe I can live through it, and I'm

sure Annie can't. (Refers to her book, and rattles through, several

times, like one memorising:) Entschuldigen Sie, mein Herr, konnen Sie

mir vielleicht sagen, um wie viel Uhr der erste Zug nach Dresden abgeht?

(Makes mistakes and corrects them.) I just hate Meisterschaft! We may

see people; we can have society; yes, on condition that the conversation

shall be in German, and in German only--every single word of it! Very

kind--oh, very! when neither Annie nor I can put two words together,

except as they are put together for us in Meisterschaft or that idiotic

Ollendorff! (Refers to book, and memorises: Mein Bruder hat Ihren Herrn

Vater nicht gesehen, als er gestern in dem Laden des deutschen Kaufmannes

war.) Yes, we can have society, provided we talk German. What would

conversation be like! If you should stick to Meisterschaft, it would

change the subject every two minutes; and if you stuck to Ollendorff, it

would be all about your sister's mother's good stocking of thread, or

your grandfather's aunt's good hammer of the carpenter, and who's got it,

and there an end. You couldn't keep up your interest in such topics.

(Memorising: Wenn irgend moglich--mochte ich noch heute Vormittag

Geschaftsfreunde zu treffen.) My mind is made up to one thing: I will be

an exile, in spirit and in truth: I will see no one during these three

months. Father is very ingenious--oh, very! thinks he is, anyway.

Thinks he has invented a way to force us to learn to speak German. He is

a dear good soul, and all that; but invention isn't his fach'. He will

see. (With eloquent energy.) Why, nothing in the world shall--Bitte,

konnen Sie mir vielleicht sagen, ob Herr Schmidt mit diesem Zuge

angekommen ist? Oh, dear, dear George--three weeks! It seems a whole

century since I saw him. I wonder if he suspects that I--that I--care

for him--j-just a wee, wee bit? I believe he does. And I believe Will

suspects that Annie cares for him a little, that I do. And I know

perfectly well that they care for us. They agree with all our opinions,

no matter what they are; and if they have a prejudice, they change it, as

soon as they see how foolish it is. Dear George! at first he just

couldn't abide cats; but now, why now he's just all for cats; he fairly

welters in cats. I never saw such a reform. And it's just so with all

his principles: he hasn't got one that he had before. Ah, if all men

were like him, this world would--(Memorising: Im Gegentheil, mein Herr,

dieser Stoff ist sehr billig. Bitte, sehen Sie sich nur die Qualitat

an.) Yes, and what did they go to studying German for, if it wasn't an

inspiration of the highest and purest sympathy? Any other explanation is

nonsense--why, they'd as soon have thought of studying American history.

[Turns her back, buries herself in her pamphlet, first memorising aloud,

until Annie enters, then to herself, rocking to and fro, and rapidly

moving her lips, without uttering a sound.]

Enter ANNIE, absorbed in her pamphlet--does not at first see MARGARET.

ANNIE. (Memorising: Er liess mich gestern fruh rufen, und sagte mir dass

er einen sehr unangenehmen Brief von Ihrem Lehrer erhalten hatte.

Repeats twice aloud, then to herself, briskly moving her lips.)

M. (Still not seeing her sister.) Wie geht es Ihrem Herrn Schwiegervater?

Es freut mich sehr dass Ihre Frau Mutter wieder wohl ist. (Repeats.

Then mouths in silence.)

A. (Repeats her sentence a couple of times aloud; then looks up, working

her lips, and discovers Margaret.) Oh, you here? (Running to her.) O

lovey-dovey, dovey-lovey, I've got the gr-reatest news! Guess, guess,

guess! You'll never guess in a hundred thousand million years--and more!

M. Oh, tell me, tell me, dearie; don't keep me in agony.

A. Well I will. What--do--you--think? They're here!

M. Wh-a-t! Who? When? Which? Speak!

A. Will and George!

M. Annie Alexandra Victoria Stephenson, what do you mean?

A. As sure as guns!

M. (Spasmodically embracing and kissing her.) 'Sh! don't use such

language. O darling, say it again!

A. As sure as guns!

M. I don't mean that! Tell me again, that--

A. (Springing up and waltzing about the room.) They're here--in this

very village--to learn German--for three months! Es sollte mich sehr

freuen wenn Sie--

M. (Joining in the dance.) Oh, it's just too lovely for anything!

(Unconsciously memorising:) Es ware mir lieb wenn Sie morgen mit mir in

die Kirche gehen konnten, aber ich kann selbst nicht gehen, weil ich

Sonntags gewohnlich krank bin. Juckhe!

A. (Finishing some unconscious memorising.)--morgen Mittag bei mir

speisen konnten. Juckhe! Sit down and I'll tell you all I've heard.

(They sit.) They're here, and under that same odious law that fetters us

--our tongues, I mean; the metaphor's faulty, but no matter. They can go

out, and see people, only on condition that they hear and speak German,

and German only.

M. Isn't--that--too lovely!

A. And they're coming to see us!

M. Darling! (Kissing her.) But are you sure?

A. Sure as guns--Gatling guns!

M. 'Sh! don't, child, it's schrecklich! Darling--you aren't mistaken?

A. As sure as g--batteries! [They jump up and dance a moment--then--]

M. (With distress.) But, Annie dear!--we can't talk German--and neither

can they!

A. (Sorrowfully.) I didn't think of that.

M. How cruel it is! What can we do?

A. (After a reflective pause, resolutely.) Margaret--we've got to.

M. Got to what?

A. Speak German.

M. Why, how, child?

A. (Contemplating her pamphlet with earnestness.) I can tell you one

thing. Just give me the blessed privilege: just hinsetzen Will Jackson

here in front of me, and I'll talk German to him as long as this

Meisterschaft holds out to burn.

M. (Joyously.) Oh, what an elegant idea! You certainly have got a mind

that's a mine of resources, if ever anybody had one.

A. I'll skin this Meisterschaft to the last sentence in it!

M. (With a happy idea.) Why Annie, it's the greatest thing in the world.

I've been all this time struggling and despairing over these few little

Meisterschaft primers: but as sure as you live, I'll have the whole

fifteen by heart before this time day after to-morrow. See if I don't.

A. And so will I; and I'll trowel in a layer of Ollendorff mush between

every couple of courses of Meisterschaft bricks. Juckhe!

M. Hoch! hoch! hoch!

A. Stoss an!

M. Juckhe! Wir werden gleich gute deutsche Schulerinnen werden! Juck--

A. --he!

M. Annie, when are they coming to see us? To-night?

A. No.

M. No? Why not? When are they coming? What are they waiting for? The

idea! I never heard of such a thing! What do you--

A. (Breaking in.) Wait, wait, wait! give a body a chance. They have

their reasons.

M. Reasons?--what reasons?

A. Well, now, when you stop and think, they're royal good ones. They've

got to talk German when they come, haven't they? Of course. Well, they

don't know any German but Wie befinden Sie sich, and Haben Sie gut

geschlafen, and Vater unser, and Ich trinke lieber Bier als Wasser, and a

few little parlour things like that; but when it comes to talking, why,

they don't know a hundred and fifteen German words, put them all

together.

M. Oh, I see.

A. So they're going to neither eat, sleep, smoke, nor speak the truth

till they've crammed home the whole fifteen Meisterschafts auswendig!

M. Noble hearts!

A. They've given themselves till day after to-morrow, half-past 7 P.M.,

and then they'll arrive here loaded.

M. Oh, how lovely, how gorgeous, how beautiful! Some think this world

is made of mud; I think it's made of rainbows. (Memorising.) Wenn irgend

moglich, so mochte ich noch heute Vormittag dort ankommen, da es mir sehr

daran gelegen ist--Annie, I can learn it just like nothing!

A. So can I. Meisterschaft's mere fun--I don't see how it ever could

have seemed difficult. Come! We can't be disturbed here; let's give

orders that we don't want anything to eat for two days; and are absent to

friends, dead to strangers, and not at home even to nougat peddlers--

M. Schon! and we'll lock ourselves into our rooms, and at the end of two

days, whosoever may ask us a Meisterschaft question shall get a

Meisterschaft answer--and hot from the bat!

BOTH. (Reciting in unison.) Ich habe einen Hut fur meinen Sohn, ein Paar

Handschuhe fur meinen Bruder, und einen Kamm fur mich selbst gekauft.

[Exeunt.]

Enter Mrs. BLUMENTHAL, the Wirthin.

WIRTHIN. (Solus.) Ach, die armen Madchen, sie hassen die deutsche

Sprache, drum ist es ganz und gar unmoglich dass sie sie je lernen

konnen. Es bricht mir ja mein Herz ihre Kummer uber die Studien

anzusehen.... Warum haben sie den Entchluss gefasst in ihren Zimmern ein

Paar Tagezu bleiben?... Ja--gewiss--das versteht sich; sie sind

entmuthigt--arme Kinder!(A knock at the door.) Herein!

Enter GRETCHEN with card.

GR. Er ist schon wieder da, und sagt dass er nur Sie sehen will. (Hands

the card.) Auch-WIRTHIN. Gott im Himmel--der Vater der Madchen? (Puts

the card in her pocket.) Er wunscht die Tochter nicht zu treffen? Ganz

recht; also, Du schweigst.

GR. Zu Befehl. WIRTHIN. Lass ihn hereinkommen.

GR. Ja, Frau Wirthin! [Exit GRETCHEN.]

WIRTHIN. (Solus.) Ah--jetzt muss ich ihm die Wahrheit offenbaren.

Enter Mr. STEPHENSON.

STEPHENSON. Good-morning, Mrs. Blumenthal--keep your seat, keep your

seat, please. I'm only here for a moment--merely to get your report, you

know. (Seating himself.) Don't want to see the girls--poor things,

they'd want to go home with me. I'm afraid I couldn't have the heart to

say no. How's the German getting along?

WIRTHIN. N-not very well; I was afraid you would ask me that. You see,

they hate it, they don't take the least interest in it, and there isn't

anything to incite them to an interest, you see. And so they can't talk

at all.

S. M-m. That's bad. I had an idea that they'd get lonesome, and have

to seek society; and then, of course, my plan would work, considering the

cast-iron conditions of it.

WIRTHIN. But it hasn't, so far. I've thrown nice company in their way

--I've done my very best, in every way I could think of--but it's no use;

they won't go out, and they won't receive anybody. And a body can't

blame them; they'd be tongue-tied--couldn't do anything with a German

conversation. Now, when I started to learn German--such poor German as I

know--the case was very different: my intended was a German. I was to

live among Germans the rest of my life; and so I had to learn. Why,

bless my heart! I nearly lost the man the first time he asked me--I

thought he was talking about the measles. They were very prevalent at

the time. Told him I didn't want any in mine. But I found out the

mistake, and I was fixed for him next time.... Oh yes, Mr. Stephenson, a

sweetheart's a prime incentive.

S. (Aside.) Good soul! she doesn't suspect that my plan is a double

scheme--includes a speaking knowledge of German, which I am bound they

shall have, and the keeping them away from those two young fellows

--though if I had known that those boys were going off for a year's foreign

travel, I--however, the girls would never learn that language at home;

they're here, and I won't relent--they've got to stick the three months

out. (Aloud.) So they are making poor progress? Now tell me--will they

learn it--after a sort of fashion, I mean--in three months?

WIRTHIN. Well, now, I'll tell you the only chance I see. Do what I

will, they won't answer my German with anything but English; if that goes

on, they'll stand stock-still. Now I'm willing to do this: I'll

straighten everything up, get matters in smooth running order, and day

after to-morrow I'll go to bed sick, and stay sick three weeks.

S. Good! You are an angel? I see your idea. The servant girl--

WIRTHIN. That's it; that's my project. She doesn't know a word of

English. And Gretchen's a real good soul, and can talk the slates off a

roof. Her tongue's just a flutter-mill. I'll keep my room--just ailing

a little--and they'll never see my face except when they pay their little

duty-visits to me, and then I'll say English disorders my mind. They'll

be shut up with Gretchen's windmill, and she'll just grind them to

powder. Oh, they'll get a start in the language--sort of a one, sure's

you live. You come back in three weeks.

S. Bless you, my Retterin! I'll be here to the day! Get ye to your

sick-room--you shall have treble pay. (Looking at watch.) Good! I can

just catch my train. Leben Sie wohl! [Exit.]

WIRTHIN. Leben Sie wohl! mein Herr!

ACT II. SCENE I.

Time, a couple of days later. The girls discovered with their work and

primers.

ANNIE. Was fehlt der Wirthin?

MARGARET. Das weiss ich nicht. Sie ist schon vor zwei Tagen ins Bett

gegangen--

A. My! how fliessend you speak!

M. Danke schon--und sagte dass sie nicht wohl sei.

A. Good? Oh no, I don't mean that! no--only lucky for us--glucklich,

you know I mean because it'll be so much nicer to have them all to

ourselves.

M. Oh, naturlich! Ja! Dass ziehe ich durchaus vor. Do you believe

your Meisterschaft will stay with you, Annie?

A. Well, I know it is with me--every last sentence of it; and a couple

of hods of Ollendorff, too, for emergencies. Maybe they'll refuse to

deliver--right off--at first, you know--der Verlegenheit wegen--aber ich

will sie spater herausholen--when I get my hand in--und vergisst Du das

nicht!

M. Sei nicht grob, Liebste. What shall we talk about first--when they

come?

A. Well--let me see. There's shopping--and--all that about the trains,

you know--and going to church--and--buying tickets to London, and Berlin,

and all around--and all that subjunctive stuff about the battle in

Afghanistan, and where the American was said to be born, and so on--and

--and ah--oh, there's so many things--I don't think a body can choose

beforehand, because you know the circumstances and the atmosphere always

have so much to do in directing a conversation, especially a German

conversation, which is only a kind of an insurrection, anyway. I believe

it's best to just depend on Prov--(Glancing at watch, and gasping.)

--half-past--seven!

M. Oh, dear, I'm all of a tremble! Let's get something ready, Annie!

(Both fall nervously to reciting): Entschuldigen Sie, mein Herr, konnen

Sie mir vielleicht sagen wie ich nach dem norddeutschen Bahnhof gehe?

(They repeat it several times, losing their grip and mixing it all up.)

BOTH. Herein! Oh, dear! O der heilige--

Enter GRETCHEN.

GRETCHEN (Ruffled and indignant.) Entschuldigen Sie, meine gnadigsten

Fraulein, es sind zwei junge rasende Herren draussen, die herein wollen,

aber ich habe ihnen geschworen dass--(Handing the cards.)

M. Due liebe Zeit, they're here! And of course down goes my back hair!

Stay and receive them, dear, while I--(Leaving.)

A. I--alone? I won't! I'll go with you! (To GR.) Lassen Sie die

Herren naher treten; und sagen Sie ihnen dass wir gleich zuruckkommen

werden. [Exit.]

GR. (Solus.) Was! Sie freuen sich daruber? Und ich sollte wirklich

diese Blodsinnigen, dies grobe Rindvieh hereinlassen? In den hulflosen

Umstanden meiner gnadigen jungen Damen?--Unsinn! (Pause--thinking.)

Wohlan! Ich werde sie mal beschutzen! Sollte man nicht glauben, dass

sie einen Sparren zu viel hatten? (Tapping her skull significantly.) Was

sie mir doch Alles gesagt haben! Der Eine: Guten Morgen! wie geht es

Ihrem Herrn Schwiegervater? Du liebe Zeit! Wie sollte ich einen

Schwiegervater haben konnen! Und der Andere: 'Es thut mir sehr leid dass

Ihrer Herr Vater meinen Bruder nicht gesehen hat, als er doch gestern in

dem Laden des deutschen Kaufmannes war!' Potztausendhimmelsdonnerwetter!

Oh, ich war ganz rasend! Wie ich aber rief: 'Meine Herren, ich kenne Sie

nicht, und Sie kennen meinen Vater nicht, wissen Sie, denn er ist schon

lange durchgebrannt, und geht nicht beim Tage in einen Laden hinein,

wissen Sie--und ich habe keinen Schwiegervater, Gott sei Dank, werde auch

nie einen kriegen, werde uberhaupt, wissen Sie, ein solches Ding nie

haben, nie dulden, nie ausstehen: warum greifen Sie ein Madchen an, das

nur Unschuld kennt, das Ihnen nie Etwas zu Leide gethan hat?' Dann haben

sie sich beide die Finger in die Ohren gesteckt und gebetet:

'Allmachtiger Gott! Erbarme Dich unser?' (Pauses.) Nun, ich werde schon

diesen Schurken Einlass gonnen, aber ich werde ein Auge mit ihnen haben,

damit sie sich nicht wie reine Teufel geberden sollen. [Exit, grumbling

and shaking her head.]

Enter WILLIAM and GEORGE.

W. My land, what a girl! and what an incredible gift of gabble!--kind

of patent climate-proof compensation-balance self-acting automatic

Meisterschaft--touch her button, and br-r-r! away she goes!

GEO. Never heard anything like it; tongue journalled on ball-bearings!

I wonder what she said; seemed to be swearing, mainly.

W. (After mumbling Meisterschaft a while.) Look here, George, this is

awful--come to think--this project: we can't talk this frantic language.

GEO. I know it, Will, and it is awful; but I can't live without seeing

Margaret--I've endured it as long as I can. I should die if I tried to

hold out longer--and even German is preferable to death.

W. (Hesitatingly.) Well, I don't know; it's a matter of opinion.

GEO. (Irritably.) It isn't a matter of opinion either. German is

preferable to death.

W. (Reflectively.) Well, I don't know--the problem is so sudden--but I

think you may be right: some kinds of death. It is more than likely that

a slow, lingering--well, now, there in Canada in the early times a couple

of centuries ago, the Indians would take a missionary and skin him, and

get some hot ashes and boiling water and one thing and another, and

by-and-by that missionary--well, yes, I can see that, by-and-by, talking

German could be a pleasant change for him.

GEO. Why, of course. Das versteht sich; but you have to always think a

thing out, or you're not satisfied. But let's not go to bothering about

thinking out this present business; we're here, we're in for it; you are

as moribund to see Annie as I am to see Margaret; you know the terms:

we've got to speak German. Now stop your mooning and get at your

Meisterschaft; we've got nothing else in the world.

W. Do you think that'll see us through?

GEO. Why it's got to. Suppose we wandered out of it and took a chance

at the language on our own responsibility, where the nation would we be!

Up a stump, that's where. Our only safety is in sticking like wax to the

text.

W. But what can we talk about?

GEO. Why, anything that Meisterschaft talks about. It ain't our affair.

W. I know; but Meisterschaft talks about everything.

GEO. And yet don't talk about anything long enough for it to get

embarrassing. Meisterschaft is just splendid for general conversation.

W. Yes, that's so; but it's so blamed general! Won't it sound foolish?

GEO. Foolish! Why, of course; all German sounds foolish.

W. Well, that is true; I didn't think of that.

GEO. Now, don't fool around any more. Load up; load up; get ready. Fix

up some sentences; you'll need them in two minutes new. [They walk up

and down, moving their lips in dumb-show memorising.]

W. Look here--when we've said all that's in the book on a topic, and

want to change the subject, how can we say so?--how would a German say

it?

GEO. Well, I don't know. But you know when they mean 'Change cars,'

they say Umsteigen. Don't you reckon that will answer?

W. Tip-top! It's short and goes right to the point; and it's got a

business whang to it that's almost American. Umsteigen!--change subject!

--why, it's the very thing!

GEO. All right, then, you umsteigen--for I hear them coming.

Enter the girls.

A. to W. (With solemnity.) Guten Morgen, mein Herr, es freut mich sehr,

Sie zu sehen.

W. Guten Morgen, mein Fraulein, es freut mich sehr Sie zu sehen.

[MARGARET and GEORGE repeat the same sentences. Then, after an

embarrassing silence, MARGARET refers to her book and says:]

M. Bitte, meine Herren, setzen Sie sich.

THE GENTLEMEN. Danke schon.[The four seat themselves in couples, the

width of the stage apart, and the two conversations begin. The talk is

not flowing--at any rate at first; there are painful silences all along.

Each couple worry out a remark and a reply: there is a pause of silent

thinking, and then the other couple deliver themselves.]

W. Haben Sie meinen Vater in dem Laden meines Bruders nicht gesehen?

A. Nein, mein Herr, ich habe Ihren Herrn Vater in dem Laden Ihres Herrn

Bruders nicht gesehen.

GEO. Waren Sie gestern Abend im Koncert, oder im Theater?

M. Nein, ich war gestern Abend nicht im Koncert, noch im Theater, ich war

gestern Abend zu Hause.[General break-down--long pause.]

W. Ich store doch nicht etwa?

A. Sie storen mich durchaus nicht.

GEO. Bitte, lassen Sie sich nicht von mir storen.

M. Aber ich bitte Sie, Sie storen mich durchaus nicht.

W. (To both girls.) Wenn wir Sie storen so gehen wir gleich wieder.

A. O, nein! Gewiss, nein!

M. Im Gegentheil, es freut uns sehr, Sie zu sehen, alle beide.

W. Schon!

GEO. Gott sei dank!

M. (Aside.) It's just lovely!

A. (Aside.) It's like a poem. [Pause.]

W. Umsteigen!

M. Um--welches?

W. Umsteigen.

GEO. Auf English, change cars--oder subject.

BOTH GIRLS. Wie schon!

W. Wir haben uns die Freiheit genommen, bei Ihnen vorzusprechen.

A. Sie sind sehr gutig.

GEO. Wir wollten uns erkundigen, wie Sie sich befanden.

M. Ich bin Ihnen sehr verbunden--meine Schwester auch.

W. Meine Frau lasst sich Ihnen bestens empfehlen.

A. Ihre Frau?

W. (Examining his book.) Vielleicht habe ich mich geirrt. (Shows the

place.) Nein, gerade so sagt das Buch.

A. (Satisfied.) Ganz recht. Aber--

W. Bitte empfehlen Sie mich Ihrem Herrn Bruder.

A. Ah, das ist viel besser--viel besser. (Aside.) Wenigstens es ware

viel besser wenn ich einen Bruder hatte.

GEO. Wie ist es Ihnen gegangen, seitdem ich das Vergnugen hatte, Sie

anderswo zu sehen?

M. Danke bestens, ich befinde mich gewohnlich ziemlich wohl.

[GRETCHEN slips in with a gun, and listens.]

GEO. (Still to Margaret.) Befindet sich Ihre Frau Gemahlin wohl?

GR. (Raising hands and eyes.) Frau Gemahlin--heiliger Gott! [Is like to

betray herself with her smothered laughter, and glides out.]

M. Danke sehr, meine Frau ist ganz wohl. [Pause.]

W. Durfen wir vielleicht--umsteigen?

THE OTHERS. Gut!

GEO. (Aside.) I feel better, now. I'm beginning to catch on. (Aloud.)

Ich mochte gern morgen fruh einige Einkaufe machen und wurde Ihnen seht

verbunden sein, wenn Sie mir den Gefallen thaten, mir die Namen der

besten hiesigen Firmen aufzuschreiben.

M. (Aside.) How sweet!

W. (Aside.) Hang it, I was going to say that! That's one of the noblest

things in the book.

A. Ich mochte Ihnen gern begleiten, aber es ist mir wirklich heute

Morgen ganz unmoglich auszugehen. (Aside.) It's getting as easy as 9

times 7 is 46.

M. Sagen Sie dem Brieftrager, wenn's gefallig ist, er, mochte Ihnen den

eingeschriebenen Brief geben lassen.

W. Ich wurde Ihnen sehr verbunden sein, wenn Sie diese Schachtel fur

mich nach der Post tragen wurden, da mir sehr daran liegt einen meiner

Geschaftsfreunde in dem Laden des deutschen Kaufmanns heute Abend treffen

zu konnen. (Aside.) All down but nine; set'm up on the other alley!

A. Aber, Herr Jackson! Sie haven die Satze gemischt. Es ist

unbegreiflich wie Sie das haben thun konnen. Zwischen Ihrem ersten Theil

und Ihrem letzten Theil haben Sie ganz funfzig Seiten ubergeschlagen!

Jetzt bin ich ganz verloren. Wie kann man reden, wenn man seinen Platz

durchaus nicht wieder finden kann?

W. Oh, bitte, verzeihen Sie; ich habe das wirklich nicht beabsichtigt.

A. (Mollified.) Sehr wohl, lassen Sie gut sein. Aber thun Sie es nicht

wieder. Sie mussen ja doch einraumen, das solche Dinge unertragliche

Verwirrung mit sich fuhren.

[GRETCHEN slips in again with her gun.]

W. Unzweifelhaft haben Sic Recht, meine holdselige Landsmannin....

Umsteigen!

[As GEORGE gets fairly into the following, GRETCHEN draws a bead on him,

and lets drive at the close, but the gun snaps.]

GEO. Glauben Sie dass ich ein hubsches Wohnzimmer fur mich selbst und

ein kleines Schlafzimmer fur meinen Sohn in diesem Hotel fur funfzehn

Mark die Woche bekommen kann, oder, wurden Sie mir rathen, in einer

Privatwohnung Logis zu nehmen? (Aside.) That's a daisy!

GR. (Aside.) Schade! [She draws her charge and reloads.]

M. Glauben Sie nicht Sie werden besser thun bei diesem Wetter zu Hause

zu bleiben?

A. Freilich glaube ich, Herr Franklin, Sie werden sich erkalten, wenn

Sie bei diesem unbestandigen Wetter ohne Ueberrock ausgehen.

GR. (Relieved--aside.) So? Man redet von Ausgehen. Das klingt schon

besser. [Sits.]

W. (To A.) Wie theuer haben Sie das gekauft? [Indicating a part of her

dress.]

A. Das hat achtzehn Mark gekostet.

W. Das ist sehr theuer.

GEO. Ja, obgleich dieser Stoff wunderschon ist und das Muster sehr

geschmackvoll und auch das Vorzuglichste dass es in dieser Art gibt, so

ist es doch furchtbat theuer fur einen solcehn Artikel.

M. (Aside.) How sweet is this communion of soul with soul!

A. Im Gegentheil, mein Herr, das ist sehr billig. Sehen Sie sich nur

die Qualitat an.

[They all examine it.]

GEO. Moglicherweise ist es das allerneuste das man in diesem Stoff hat;

aber das Muster gefallt mir nicht.

[Pause.]

W. Umsteigen!

A. Welchen Hund haben Sie? Haben Sie den hubschen Hund des Kaufmanns,

oder den hasslichen Hund der Urgrossmutter des Lehrlings des

bogenbeinigen Zimmermanns?

W. (Aside.) Oh, come, she's ringing in a cold deck on us: that's

Ollendorff.

GEO. Ich habe nicht den Hund des--des--(Aside.) Stuck! That's no

Meisterschaft; they don't play fair. (Aloud.) Ich habe nicht den Hund

des--des--In unserem Buche leider, gibt es keinen Hund; daher, ob ich

auch gern von solchen Thieren sprechen mochte, ist es mir doch unmoglich,

weil ich nicht vorbereitet bin. Entschuldigen Sie, meine Damen.

GR. (Aside) Beim Teufel, sie sind alle blodsinnig geworden. In meinem

Leben habe ich nie ein so narrisches, verfluchtes, verdammtes Gesprach

gehort.

W. Bitte, umsteigen.

[Run the following rapidly through.]

M. (Aside.) Oh, I've flushed an easy batch! (Aloud.) Wurden Sie mir

erlauben meine Reisetasche heir hinzustellen?

GR. (Aside.) Wo ist seine Reisetasche? Ich sehe keine.

W. Bitte sehr.

GEO. Ist meine Reisetasche Ihnen im Wege?

GR. (Aside.) Und wo ist seine Reisetasche?

A. Erlauben Sie mir Sie von meiner Reisetasche zu bereien.

GR. (Aside.) Du Esel!

W. Ganz und gar nicht. (To Geo.) Es ist sehr schwul in diesem Coupe.

GR. (Aside.) Coupe.

GEO. Sie haben Recht. Erlauben Sie mir, gefalligst, das Fenster zu

offnen. Ein wenig Luft wurde uns gut thun.

M. Wir fahren sehr rasch.

A. Haben Sie den Namen jener Station gehort?

W. Wie lange halten wir auf dieser Station an?

GEO. Ich reise nach Dresden, Schaffner. Wo muss ich umsteigen?

GR. (Aside.) Sie sind ja alle ganz und gar verruckt. Man denke sich sie

glauben dass sie auf der Eisenbahn reisen.

GEO. (Aside, to William.) Now brace up; pull all your confidence

together, my boy, and we'll try that lovely goodbye business a flutter.

I think it's about the gaudiest thing in the book, if you boom it right

along and don't get left on a base. It'll impress the girls. (Aloud.)

Lassen Sie uns gehen: es ist schon sehr spat, und ich muss morgen ganz

fruh aufstehen.

GR. (Aside--grateful.) Gott sei Dank dass sie endlich gehen.

[Sets her gun aside.]

W. (To Geo.) Ich danke Ihnen hoflichst fur die Ehre die Sie mir

erweisen, aber ich kann nicht langer bleiben.

GEO. (To W.) Entschuldigen Sie mich gutigst, aber ich kann wirklich

nicht langer bleiben.

[GRETCHEN looks on stupefied.]

W. (To Geo.) Ich habe schon eine Einladung angenommen; ich kann wirklich

nicht langer bleiben.

[GRETCHEN fingers her gun again.]

GEO. (To W.) Ich muss gehen.

W. (To GEO.) Wie! Sie wollen schon wieder gehen? Sie sind ja eben

erst gekommen.

M. (Aside.) It's just music!

A. (Aside.) Oh, how lovely they do it!

GEO. (To W.) Also denken Sie doch noch nicht an's Gehen.

W. (To Geo.) Es thut mir unendlich leid, aber ich muss nach Hause.

Meine Frau wird sich wundern, was aus mir geworden ist.

GEO. (To W.) Meine Frau hat keine Ahnung wo ich bin: ich muss wirklich

jetzt fort.

W. (To Geo.) Dann will ich Sie nicht langer aufhalten; ich bedaure sehr

dass Sie uns einen so kurzen Besuch gemacht haben.

GEO. (To W.) Adieu--auf recht baldiges Wiedersehen.

W. UMSTEIGNEN!

[Great hand-clapping from the girls.]

M. (Aside.) Oh, how perfect! how elegant!

A. (Aside.) Per-fectly enchanting!

JOYOUS CHORUS. (All) Ich habe gehabt, du hast gehabt, er hat gehabt,

wir haben gehabt, ihr habet gehabt, sie haben gehabt.

[GRETCHEN faints, and tumbles from her chair, and the gun goes off with a

crash. Each girl, frightened, seizes the protecting hand of her

sweetheart. GRETCHEN scrambles up. Tableau.]

W. (Takes out some money--beckons Gretchen to him. George adds money to

the pile.) Hubsches Madchen (giving her some of the coins), hast Du etwas

gesehen?

GR. (Courtesy--aside.) Der Engel! (Aloud--impressively.) Ich habe

nichts gesehen.

W. (More money.) Hast Du etwas gehort?

GR. Ich habe nichts gehort.

W. (More money.) Und morgen?

GR. Morgen--ware es nothig--bin ich taub und blind.

W. Unvergleichbares Madchen! Und (giving the rest of the money)

darnach?

GR. (Deep courtesy--aside.) Erzengel! (Aloud.) Darnach, mein

gnadgister, betrachten Sie mich also taub--blind--todt!

ALL. (In chorus--with reverent joy.) Ich habe gehabt, du hast gehabt, er

hat gehabt, wir haben gehabt, ihr habet gehabt, sie haben gehabt!

ACT III.

Three weeks later.

SCENE I.

Enter GRETCHEN, and puts her shawl on a chair. Brushing around with the

traditional feather-duster of the drama. Smartly dressed, for she is

prosperous.

GR. Wie hatte man sich das vorstellen konnen! In nur drei Wochen bin

ich schon reich geworden! (Gets out of her pocket handful after handful

of silver, which she piles on the table, and proceeds to repile and

count, occasionally ringing or biting a piece to try its quality.) Oh,

dass (with a sigh) die Frau Wirthin nur ewig krank bliebe!... Diese

edlen jungen Manner--sie sind ja so liebenswurdig! Und so fleissig!

--und so treu! Jeden Morgen kommen sie gerade um drei Viertel auf neun;

und plaudern und schwatzen, und plappern, und schnattern, die jungen

Damen auch; um Schlage zwolf nehmen sie Abschied; um Sclage eins kommen

sie schon wieder, und plauden und schwatzen und plappern und schnattern;

gerade um sechs Uhr nehmen sie wiederum Abschied; um halb acht kehren sie

noche'mal zuruck, und plaudern und schwatzen und plappern und schnattern

bis zehn Uhr, oder vielleicht ein Viertel nach, falls ihre Uhren nach

gehen (und stets gehen sie nach am Ende des Besuchs, aber stets vor

Beginn desselben), und zuweilen unterhalten sich die jungen Leute beim

Spazierengehen; und jeden Sonntag gehen sie dreimal in die Kirche; und

immer plaudern sie, und schwatzen und plappern und schnattern bis ihnen

die Zahne aus dem Munde fallen. Und ich? Durch Mangel an Uebung, ist

mir die Zunge mit Moos belegt worden! Freilich ist's mir eine dumme Zei

gewesen. Aber--um Gotteswillen, was geht das mir an? Was soll ich

daraus machen? Taglich sagt die Frau Wirthin, 'Gretchen' (dumb-show of

paying a piece of money into her hand), 'du bist eine der besten Sprach

--Lehrerinnen der Welt!' Act, Gott! Und taglich sagen die edlen jungen

Manner, 'Gretchen, liebes Kind' (money-paying again in dumb-show--three

coins), 'bleib' taub--blind--todt!' und so bleibe ich.... Jetzt wird es

ungefahr neun Uhr sein; bald kommen sie vom Spaziergehen zuruck. Also,

es ware gut dass ich meinem eigenen Schatz einen Besuch abstatte und

spazieren gehe.

[Dons her shawl. Exit. L.]

Enter WIRTHIN. R.

WIRTHIN. That was Mr. Stephenson's train that just came in. Evidently

the girls are out walking with Gretchen;--can't find them, and she

doesn't seem to be around. (A ring at the door.) That's him. I'll go

see. [Exit. R.]

Enter STEPHENSON and WIRTHIN. R.

S. Well, how does sickness seem to agree with you?

WIRTHIN. So well that I've never been out of my room since, till I heard

your train come in.

S. Thou miracle of fidelity! Now I argue from that, that the new plan

is working.

WIRTHIN. Working? Mr. Stephenson, you never saw anything like it in the

whole course of your life! It's absolutely wonderful the way it works.

S. Succeeds? No--you don't mean it.

WIRTHIN. Indeed I do mean it. I tell you, Mr. Stephenson, that plan was

just an inspiration--that's what it was. You could teach a cat German by

it.

S. Dear me, this is noble news! Tell me about it.

WIRTHIN. Well, it's all Gretchen--ev-ery bit of it. I told you she was

a jewel. And then the sagacity of that child--why, I never dreamed it

was in her. Sh-she, 'Never you ask the young ladies a question--never

let on--just keep mum--leave the whole thing to me,' sh-she.

S. Good! And she justified, did she?

WIRTHIN. Well, sir, the amount of German gabble that that child crammed

into those two girls inside the next forty-eight hours--well, I was

satisfied! So I've never asked a question--never wanted to ask any.

I've just lain curled up there, happy. The little dears! they've flitted

in to see me a moment, every morning and noon and supper-time; and as

sure as I'm sitting here, inside of six days they were clattering German

to me like a house afire!

S. Sp-lendid, splendid!

WIRTHIN. Of course it ain't grammatical--the inventor of the language

can't talk grammatical; if the dative didn't fetch him the accusative

would; but it's German all the same, and don't you forget it!

S. Go on--go on--this is delicious news--

WIRTHIN. Gretchen, she says to me at the start, 'Never you mind about

company for 'em,' sh-she--'I'm company enough.' And I says, 'All right

--fix it your own way, child;' and that she was right is shown by the fact

that to this day they don't care a straw for any company but hers.

S. Dear me; why, it's admirable!

WIRTHIN. Well, I should think so! They just dote on that hussy--can't

seem to get enough of her. Gretchen tells me so herself. And the care

she takes of them! She tells me that every time there's a moonlight

night she coaxes them out for a walk; and if a body can believe her, she

actually bullies them off to church three times every Sunday!

S. Why, the little dev--missionary! Really, she's a genius!

WIRTHIN. She's a bud, I tell you! Dear me, how she's brought those

girls' health up! Cheeks?--just roses. Gait?--they walk on

watch-springs! And happy?--by the bliss in their eyes, you'd think

they're in Paradise! Ah, that Gretchen! Just you imagine our trying to

achieve these marvels!

S. You're right--every time. Those girls--why, all they'd have wanted

to know was what we wanted done, and then they wouldn't have done it--the

mischievous young rascals!

WIRTHIN. Don't tell me? Bless you, I found that out early--when I was

bossing.

S. Well, I'm im-mensely pleased. Now fetch them down. I'm not afraid

now. They won't want to go home.

WIRTHIN. Home! I don't believe you could drag them away from Gretchen

with nine span of horses. But if you want to see them, put on your hat

and come along; they're out somewhere trapseing along with Gretchen.

[Going.]

S. I'm with you--lead on.

WIRTHIN. We'll go out the side door. It's towards the Anlage. [Exit

both. L.]

Enter GEORGE and MARGARET. R. Her head lies upon his shoulder, his arm

is about her waist; they are steeped in sentiment.

M. (Turning a fond face up at him.) Du Engel!

GEO. Liebste!

M. Oh, das Liedchen dass Du mir gewidmet hast--es ist so schon, so

wunderschon. Wie hatte ich je geahnt dass Du ein Poet warest!

GEO. Mein Schatzchen!--es ist mir lieb wenn Dir die Kleinigkeit

gefallt.

M. Ah, es ist mit der zartlichsten Musik gefullt--klingt ja so suss und

selig--wie das Flustern des Sommerwindes die Abenddammerung hindurch.

Wieder--Theuerste!--sag'es wieder.

GEO. Du bist wie eine Blume!--So schon und hold und rein--Ich schau'

Dich an, und WehmuthSchleicht mir ins Herz hinein. Mir ist als ob ich

die HandeAufs Haupt Dir legen sollt', Betend, dass Gott Dich erhalte, So

rein und schon und hold.

M. A-ch! (Dumb-show sentimentalisms.) Georgie--

GEO. Kindchen!

M. Warum kommen sie nicht?

GEO. Das weiss ich gar night. Sie waren--

M. Es wird spat. Wir mussen sie antreiben. Komm!

GEO. Ich glaube sie werden recht bald ankommen, aber--[Exit both. L.]

Enter GRETCHEN, R., in a state of mind. Slumps into a chair limp with

despair.

GR. Ach! was wird jetzt aus mir werden! Zufallig habe ich in der Ferne

den verdammten Papa gesehen!--und die Frau Wirthin auch! Oh, diese

Erscheinung--die hat mir beinahe das Leben genommen. Sie suchen die

jungen Damen--das weiss ich wenn sie diese und die jungen Herren zusammen

fanden--du heileger Gott! Wenn das gescheiht, waren wir Alle ganz und

gar verloren! Ich muss sie gleich finden, und ihr eine Warnung geben!

[Exit. L.]

Enter ANNIE and WILL, R., posed like the former couple and sentimental.

A. Ich liebe Dich schon so sehr--Deiner edlen Natur wegen. Dass du dazu

auch ein Dichter bist!--ach, mein Leben ist ubermassig reich geworden!

Wer hatte sich doch einbilden konnen dass ich einen Mann zu einem so

wunderschonen Gedicht hatte begeistern konnen?

W. Liebste! Es ist nur eine Kleinigkeit.

A. Nein, nein, es ist ein echtes Wunder! Sage es noch einmal--ich flehe

Dich an.

W. Du bist wie eine Blume!--So schon und hold und rein--Ich schau' Dich

an, und WehmuthSchleicht mir ins Herz hinein. Mir ist als ob ich die

HandeAufs Haupt Dir legen sollt', Betend, dass Gott Dich erhalt, So rein

und schon und hold.

A. Ach, es ist himmlisch--einfach himmlisch. [Kiss.] Schreibt auch

George Gedicht?

W. Oh, ja--zuweilen.

A. Wie schon!

W. (Aside.) Smouches 'em, same as I do! It was a noble good idea to

play that little thing on her. George wouldn't ever think of that

--somehow he never had any invention.

A. (Arranging chairs.) Jetzt will ich bei Dir sitzen bleiben, und Du--

W. (They sit.) Ja--und ich--

A. Du wirst mir die alte Geschichte, die immer neu bleibt, noch wieder

erzahlen.

W. Zum Beispiel, dass ich Dich liebe!

A. Wieder!

W. Ich--sie kommen!

Enter GEORGE and MARGARET.

A. Das macht nichts. Fortan! [GEORGE unties M.'s bonnet. She reties

his cravat--interspersings of love-pats, etc., and dumb show of

love-quarrellings.]

W. Ich liebe Dich.

A. Ach! Noch einmal!

W. Ich habe Dich vom Herzen lieb.

A. Ach! Abermals!

W. Bist Du denn noch nicht satt?

A. Nein! (The other couple sit down, and MARGARET begins a retying of

the cravat. Enter the WIRTHIN and STEPHENSON, he imposing silence with a

sign.) Mich hungert sehr, ich verhungre!

W. Oh, Du armes Kind! (Lays her head on his shoulder. Dumb-show

between STEPHENSON and WIRTHIN.) Und hungert es nicht mich? Du hast mir

nicht einmal gesagt--

A. Dass ich Dich liebe? Mein Eigener! (Frau WIRTHIN threatens to

faint--is supported by STEPHENSON.) Hore mich nur an: Ich liebe Dich,

ich liebe Dich--

Enter GRETCHEN.

GR. (Tears her hair.) Oh, dass ich in der Holle ware!

M. Ich liebe Dich, ich liebe Dich! Ah, ich bin so glucklich dass ich

nicht schlafen kann, nicht lesen kann, nicht reden kann, nicht--

A. Und ich! Ich bin auch so glucklich dass ich nicht speisen kann,

nicht studieren, arbeiten, denken, schreiben--

S. (To Wirthin--aside.) Oh, there isn't any mistake about it

--Gretchen's just a rattling teacher!

WIRTHIN. (To Stephenson--aside.) I'll skin her alive when I get my

hands on her!

M. Komm, alle Verliebte! [They jump up, join hands, and sing in chorus--]

Du, Du, wie ich Dich liebe, Du, Du, liebest auch mich! Die, die

zartlichsten Triebe--

S. (Stepping forward.) Well! [The girls throw themselves upon his neck

with enthusiasm.]

THE GIRLS. Why, father!

S. My darlings! [The young men hesitate a moment, they they add their

embrace, flinging themselves on Stephenson's neck, along with the girls.]

THE YOUNG MEN. Why, father!

S. (Struggling.) Oh, come, this is too thin!--too quick, I mean. Let

go, you rascals!

GEO. We'll never let go till you put us on the family list.

M. Right! hold to him!

A. Cling to him, Will! [GRETCHEN rushes in and joins the general

embrace, but is snatched away by the WIRTHIN, crushed up against the

wall, and threatened with destruction.]

S. (Suffocating.) All right, all right--have it your own way, you

quartette of swindlers!

W. He's a darling! Three cheers for papa!

EVERYBODY. (Except Stephenson, who bows with hand on heart) Hip--hip

--hip: hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!

GR. Der Tiger--ah-h-h!

WIRTHIN. Sei ruhig, you hussy!

S. Well, I've lost a couple of precious daughters, but I've gained a

couple of precious scamps to fill up the gap with; so it's all right.

I'm satisfied, and everybody's forgiven--[With mock threats at Gretchen.]

W. Oh, wir werden fur Dich sorgen--dur herrliches Gretchen!

GR. Danke schon!

M. (To Wirthin.) Und fur Sie auch; denn wenn Sie nicht so freundlich

gewesen waren, krank zu werden, wie waren wir je so glucklich geworden

wie jetzt?

WIRTHIN. Well, dear, I was kind, but I didn't mean it. But I ain't

sorry--not one bit--that I ain't. [Tableau.]

S. Come, now, the situation is full of hope, and grace, and tender

sentiment. If I had in the least poetic gift, I know I could improvise

under such an inspiration (each girl nudges her sweetheart) something

worthy to--to--Is there no poet among us? [Each youth turns solemnly his

back upon the other, and raises his hands in benediction over his

sweetheart's bowed head.]

BOTH YOUTHS AT ONCE. Mir ist als ob ich die HandeAufs Haupt Dir legen

sollt'--[They turn and look reproachfully at each other--the girls

contemplate them with injured surprise.]

S. (Reflectively.) I think I've heard that before somewhere.

WIRTHIN. (Aside.) Why, the very cats in Germany know it!

(Curtain.)

[1] [EXPLANATORY.] I regard the idea of this play as a valuable

invention. I call it the Patent Universally-Applicable Automatically

Adjustable Language Drama. This indicates that it is adjustable to any

tongue, and performable in any tongue. The English portions of the play

are to remain just as they are, permanently; but you change the foreign

portions to any language you please, at will. Do you see? You at once

have the same old play in a new tongue. And you can keep changing it

from language to language, until your private theatrical pupils have

become glib and at home in the speech of all nations. Zum Beispiel,

suppose we wish to adjust the play to the French tongue. First, we give

Mrs. Blumenthal and Gretchen French names. Next, we knock the German

Meisterschaft sentences out of the first scene, and replace them with

sentences from the French Meisterschaft--like this, for instance: 'Je

voudrais faire des emplettes ce matin; voulez-vous avoir l'obligeance de

venir avec moi chez le tailleur francais?' And so on. Wherever you find

German, replace it with French, leaving the English parts undisturbed.

When you come to the long conversation in the second act, turn to any

pamphlet of your French Meisterschaft, and shovel in as much French talk

on any subject as will fill up the gaps left by the expunged German.

Example--page 423, French Meisterschaft: On dirait qu'il va faire chaud.

J'ai chaud. J'ai extremement chaud. Ah! qu'il fait chaud! Il fait une

chaleur etouffante! L'air est brulant. Je meurs de chaleur. Il est

presque impossible de supporter la chaleur. Cela vous fait transpirer.

Mettons-nous a l'ombre. Il fait du vent. Il fait un vent froid. Il

fait un tres agreable pour se promener aujourd'hui. And so on, all the

way through. It is very easy to adjust the play to any desired language.

Anybody can do it.

MY BOYHOOD DREAMS

The dreams of my boyhood? No, they have not been realised. For all who

are old, there is something infinitely pathetic about the subject which

you have chosen, for in no greyhead's case can it suggest any but one

thing--disappointment. Disappointment is its own reason for its pain:

the quality or dignity of the hope that failed is a matter aside. The

dreamer's valuation of the thing lost--not another man's--is the only

standard to measure it by, and his grief for it makes it large and great

and fine, and is worthy of our reverence in all cases. We should

carefully remember that. There are sixteen hundred million people in the

world. Of these there is but a trifling number--in fact, only

thirty-eight millions--who can understand why a person should have an

ambition to belong to the French army; and why, belonging to it, he

should be proud of that; and why, having got down that far, he should

want to go on down, down, down till he struck the bottom and got on the

General Staff; and why, being stripped of this livery, or set free and

reinvested with his self-respect by any other quick and thorough process,

let it be what it might, he should wish to return to his strange serfage.

But no matter: the estimate put upon these things by the fifteen hundred

and sixty millions is no proper measure of their value: the proper

measure, the just measure, is that which is put upon them by Dreyfus, and

is cipherable merely upon the littleness or the vastness of the

disappointment which their loss cost him. There you have it: the measure

of the magnitude of a dream-failure is the measure of the disappointment

the failure cost the dreamer; the value, in others' eyes, of the thing

lost, has nothing to do with the matter. With this straightening out and

classification of the dreamer's position to help us, perhaps we can put

ourselves in his place and respect his dream--Dreyfus's, and the dreams

our friends have cherished and reveal to us. Some that I call to mind,

some that have been revealed to me, are curious enough; but we may not

smile at them, for they were precious to the dreamers, and their failure

has left scars which give them dignity and pathos. With this theme in my

mind, dear heads that were brown when they and mine were young together

rise old and white before me now, beseeching me to speak for them, and

most lovingly will I do it. Howells, Hay, Aldrich, Matthews, Stockton,

Cable, Remus--how their young hopes and ambitions come flooding back to

my memory now, out of the vague far past, the beautiful past, the

lamented past! I remember it so well--that night we met together--it was

in Boston, and Mr. Fiends was there, and Mr. Osgood, Ralph Keeler, and

Boyle O'Reilly, lost to us now these many years--and under the seal of

confidence revealed to each other what our boyhood dreams had been: reams

which had not as yet been blighted, but over which was stealing the grey

of the night that was to come--a night which we prophetically felt, and

this feeling oppressed us and made us sad. I remember that Howells's

voice broke twice, and it was only with great difficulty that he was able

to go on; in the end he wept. For he had hoped to be an auctioneer. He

told of his early struggles to climb to his goal, and how at last he

attained to within a single step of the coveted summit. But there

misfortune after misfortune assailed him, and he went down, and down, and

down, until now at last, weary and disheartened, he had for the present

given up the struggle and become the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. This

was in 1830. Seventy years are gone since, and where now is his dream?

It will never be fulfilled. And it is best so; he is no longer fitted

for the position; no one would take him now; even if he got it, he would

not be able to do himself credit in it, on account of his deliberateness

of speech and lack of trained professional vivacity; he would be put on

real estate, and would have the pain of seeing younger and abler men

intrusted with the furniture and other such goods--goods which draw a

mixed and intellectually low order of customers, who must be beguiled of

their bids by a vulgar and specialised humour and sparkle, accompanied

with antics. But it is not the thing lost that counts, but only the

disappointment the loss brings to the dreamer that had coveted that thing

and had set his heart of hearts upon it, and when we remember this, a

great wave of sorrow for Howells rises in our breasts, and we wish for

his sake that his fate could have been different. At that time Hay's

boyhood dream was not yet past hope of realisation, but it was fading,

dimming, wasting away, and the wind of a growing apprehension was blowing

cold over the perishing summer of his life. In the pride of his young

ambition he had aspired to be a steamboat mate; and in fancy saw himself

dominating a forecastle some day on the Mississippi and dictating terms

to roustabouts in high and wounding terms. I look back now, from this

far distance of seventy years, and note with sorrow the stages of that

dream's destruction. Hay's history is but Howells's, with differences of

detail. Hay climbed high toward his ideal; when success seemed almost

sure, his foot upon the very gang-plank, his eye upon the capstan,

misfortune came and his fall began. Down--down--down--ever down: Private

Secretary to the President; Colonel in the field; Charge d'Affaires in

Paris; Charge d'Affaires in Vienna; Poet; Editor of the Tribune;

Biographer of Lincoln; Ambassador to England; and now at last there he

lies--Secretary of State, Head of Foreign Affairs. And he has fallen

like Lucifer, never to rise again. And his dream--where now is his

dream? Gone down in blood and tears with the dream of the auctioneer.

And the young dream of Aldrich--where is that? I remember yet how he sat

there that night fondling it, petting it; seeing it recede and ever

recede; trying to be reconciled and give it up, but not able yet to bear

the thought; for it had been his hope to be a horse-doctor. He also

climbed high, but, like the others, fell; then fell again, and yet again,

and again and again. And now at last he can fall no further. He is old

now, he has ceased to struggle, and is only a poet. No one would risk a

horse with him now. His dream is over. Has any boyhood dream ever been

fulfilled? I must doubt it. Look at Brander Matthews. He wanted to be

a cowboy. What is he to-day? Nothing but a professor in a university.

Will he ever be a cowboy? It is hardly conceivable. Look at Stockton.

What was Stockton's young dream? He hoped to be a barkeeper. See where

he has landed. Is it better with Cable? What was Cable's young dream?

To be ring-master in the circus, and swell around and crack the whip.

What is he to-day? Nothing but a theologian and novelist. And Uncle

Remus--what was his young dream? To be a buccaneer. Look at him now.

Ah, the dreams of our youth, how beautiful they are, and how perishable!

The ruins of these might-have-beens, how pathetic! The heart-secrets that

were revealed that night now so long vanished, how they touch me as I

give them voice! Those sweet privacies, how they endeared us to each

other! We were under oath never to tell any of these things, and I have

always kept that oath inviolate when speaking with persons whom I thought

not worthy to hear them. Oh, our lost Youth--God keep its memory green

in our hearts! for Age is upon us, with the indignity of its infirmities,

and Death beckons!

TO THE ABOVE OLD PEOPLE

Sleep! for the Sun that scores another Day

Against the Tale allotted You to stay,

Reminding You, is Risen, and now

Serves Notice--ah, ignore it while You stay!

The chill Wind blew, and those who stood before

The Tavern murmured, 'Having drunk his Score,

Why tarries He with empty Cup? Behold,

The Wine of Youth once poured, is poured no more

'Come, leave the Cup, and on the Winter's Snow

Your Summer Garment of Enjoyment throw:

Your Tide of Life is ebbing fast, and it,

Exhausted once, for You no more shall flow.'

While yet the Phantom of false Youth was mine,

I heard a Voice from out the Darkness whine,

'O Youth, O whither gone? Return,

And bathe my Age in thy reviving Wine.'

In this subduing Draught of tender green

And kindly Absinth, with its wimpling Sheen

Of dusky half-lights, let me drown

The haunting Pathos of the Might-Have-Been.

For every nickeled Joy, marred and brief,

We pay some day its Weight in golden Grief

Mined from our Hearts. Ah, murmur not

--From this one-sided Bargain dream of no Relief!

The Joy of Life, that streaming through their Veins

Tumultuous swept, falls slack--and wanes

The Glory in the Eye--and one by one

Life's Pleasures perish and make place for Pains.

Whether one hide in some secluded Nook

--Whether at Liverpool or Sandy Hook

--'Tis one. Old Age will search him out--and He

--He--He--when ready will know where to look.

From Cradle unto Grave I keep a House

OF Entertainment where may drowse

Bacilli and kindred Germs--or feed--or breed

Their festering Species in a deep Carouse.

Think--in this battered Caravanserai,

Whose Portals open stand all Night and Day,

How Microbe after Microbe with his Pomp

Arrives unasked, and comes to stay.

Our ivory Teeth, confessing to the Lust

Of masticating, once, now own Disgust

Of Clay-Plug'd Cavities--full soon our Snags

Are emptied, and our Mouths are filled with Dust.

Our Gums forsake the Teeth and tender grow,

And fat, like over-riped Figs--we know

The Sign--the Riggs' Disease is ours, and we

Must list this Sorrow, add another Woe;

Our Lungs begin to fail and soon we Cough,

And chilly Streaks play up our Backs, and off

Our fever'd Foreheads drips an icy Sweat

--We scoffered before, but now we may not scoff.

Some for the Bunions that afflict us prate

Of Plasters unsurpassable, and hate

To Cut a corn--ah cut, and let the Plaster go,

Nor murmur if the Solace come too late.

Some for the Honours of Old Age, and some

Long for its Respite from the Hum

And Clash of sordid Strife--O Fools,

The Past should teach them what's to Come:

Lo, for the Honours, cold Neglect instead!

For Respite, disputatious Heirs a Bed

Of Thorns for them will furnish. Go,

Seek not Here for Peace--but Yonder--with the Dead.

For whether Zal and Rustam heed this Sign,

And even smitten thus, will not repine,

Let Zal and Rustam shuffle as they may,

The Fine once levied they must Cash the Fine.

O Voices of the Long Ago that were so dear!

Fall'n Silent, now, for many a Mould'ring Year,

O whither are ye flown? Come back,

And break my heart, but bless my grieving ear.

Some happy Day my Voice will Silent fall,

And answer not when some that love it call:

Be glad for Me when this you note--and think

I've found the Voices lost, beyond the Pall.

So let me grateful drain the Magic Bowl

That medicines hurt Minds and on the Soul

The Healing of its Peace doth lay--if then

Death claim me--Welcome be his Dole!

SANNA, SWEDEN, September 15th.

Private.--If you don't know what Riggs's Disease of the Teeth is, the

dentist will tell you. I've had it--and it is more than interesting.

M.T.

EDITORIAL NOTE

Fearing that there might be some mistake, we submitted a proof of this

article to the (American) gentlemen named in it, and asked them to

correct any errors of detail that might have crept in among the facts.

They reply with some asperity that errors cannot creep in among facts

where there are no facts for them to creep in among; and that none are

discoverable in this article, but only baseless aberrations of a

disordered mind. They have no recollection of any such night in Boston,

nor elsewhere; and in their opinion there was never any such night. They

have met Mr. Twain, but have had the prudence not to intrust any

privacies to him--particularly under oath; and they think they now see

that this prudence was justified, since he has been untrustworthy enough

to even betray privacies which had no existence. Further, they think it

a strange thing that Mr. Twain, who was never invited to meddle with

anybody's boyhood dreams but his own, has been so gratuitously anxious to

see that other people's are placed before the world that he has quite

lost his head in his zeal and forgotten to make any mention of his own at

all. Provided we insert this explanation, they are willing to let his

article pass; otherwise they must require its suppression in the interest

of truth.

P.S.--These replies having left us in some perplexity, and also in some

fear lest they distress Mr. Twain if published without his privity, we

judged it but fair to submit them to him and give him an opportunity to

defend himself. But he does not seem to be troubled, or even aware that

he is in a delicate situation. He merely says: 'Do not worry about those

former young people. They can write good literature, but when it comes

to speaking the truth, they have not had my training.--MARK TWAIN.'

The last sentence seems obscure, and liable to an unfortunate

construction. It plainly needs refashioning, but we cannot take the

responsibility of doing it.--EDITOR.

IN MEMORIAM

OLIVIA SUSAN CLEMENS

DIED AUGUST 18, 1896; AGED 24

In a fair valley--oh, how long ago, how long ago!--

Where all the broad expanse was clothed in vines,

And fruitful fields and meadows starred with flowers,

And clear streams wandered at their idle will;

And still lakes slept, their burnished surfaces

A dream of painted clouds, and soft airs

Went whispering with odorous breath,

And all was peace--in that fair vale,

Shut from the troubled world, a nameless hamlet drowsed.

Hard by, apart, a temple stood;

And strangers from the outer world

Passing, noted it with tired eyes,

And seeing, saw it not:

A glimpse of its fair form--an answering momentary thrill--

And they passed on, careless and unaware.

They could not know the cunning of its make;

They could not know the secret shut up in its heart;

Only the dwellers of the hamlet knew;

They knew that what seemed brass was gold;

What marble seemed, was ivory;

The glories that enriched the milky surfaces--

The trailing vines, and interwoven flowers,

And tropic birds a-wing, clothed all in tinted fires--

They knew for what they were, not what they seemed:

Encrustings all of gems, not perishable splendours of the brush.

They knew the secret spot where one must stand--

They knew the surest hour, the proper slant of sun--

To gather in, unmarred, undimmed,

The vision of the fane in all its fairy grace,

A fainting dream against the opal sky.

And more than this. They knew

That in the temple's inmost place a spirit dwelt,

Made all of light!

For glimpses of it they had caught

Beyond the curtains when the priests

That served the altar came and went.

All loved that light and held it dear

That had this partial grace;

But the adoring priests alone who lived

By day and night submerged in its immortal glow

Knew all its power and depth, and could appraise the loss

If it should fade and fail and come no more.

All this was long ago--so long ago!

The light burned on; and they that worshipped it,

And they that caught its flash at intervals and held it dear,

Contented lived in its secure possession. Ah,

How long ago it was!

And then when they

Were nothing fearing, and God's peace was in the air,

And none was prophesying harm,

The vast disaster fell:

Where stood the temple when the sun went down

Was vacant desert when it rose again!

Ah yes! 'Tis ages since it chanced!

So long ago it was,

That from the memory of the hamlet-folk the Light has passed--

They scarce believing, now, that once it was,

Or if believing, yet not missing it,

And reconciled to have it gone.

Not so the priests! Oh, not so

The stricken ones that served it day and night,

Adoring it, abiding in the healing of its peace:

They stand, yet, where erst they stood

Speechless in that dim morning long ago;

And still they gaze, as then they gazed,

And murmur, 'It will come again;

It knows our pain--it knows--it knows--

Ah surely it will come again.

S.L.C.

LAKE LUCERNE, August 18, 1897.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN

(Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910)

CONTENTS:

What Is Man?

The Death of Jean

The Turning-Point of My Life

How to Make History Dates Stick

The Memorable Assassination

A Scrap of Curious History

Switzerland, the Cradle of Liberty

At the Shrine of St. Wagner

William Dean Howells

English as She is Taught

A Simplified Alphabet

As Concerns Interpreting the Deity

Concerning Tobacco

Taming the Bicycle

Is Shakespeare Dead?

WHAT IS MAN?

I

a. Man the Machine. b. Personal Merit

[The Old Man and the Young Man had been conversing. The Old Man had

asserted that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing more. The

Young Man objected, and asked him to go into particulars and furnish his

reasons for his position.]

Old Man. What are the materials of which a steam-engine is made?

Young Man. Iron, steel, brass, white-metal, and so on.

O.M. Where are these found?

Y.M. In the rocks.

O.M. In a pure state?

Y.M. No--in ores.

O.M. Are the metals suddenly deposited in the ores?

Y.M. No--it is the patient work of countless ages.

O.M. You could make the engine out of the rocks themselves?

Y.M. Yes, a brittle one and not valuable.

O.M. You would not require much, of such an engine as that?

Y.M. No--substantially nothing.

O.M. To make a fine and capable engine, how would you proceed?

Y.M. Drive tunnels and shafts into the hills; blast out the iron ore;

crush it, smelt it, reduce it to pig-iron; put some of it through the

Bessemer process and make steel of it. Mine and treat and combine

several metals of which brass is made.

O.M. Then?

Y.M. Out of the perfected result, build the fine engine.

O.M. You would require much of this one?

Y.M. Oh, indeed yes.

O.M. It could drive lathes, drills, planers, punches, polishers, in a

word all the cunning machines of a great factory?

Y.M. It could.

O.M. What could the stone engine do?

Y.M. Drive a sewing-machine, possibly--nothing more, perhaps.

O.M. Men would admire the other engine and rapturously praise it?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. But not the stone one?

Y.M. No.

O.M. The merits of the metal machine would be far above those of the

stone one?

Y.M. Of course.

O.M. Personal merits?

Y.M. PERSONAL merits? How do you mean?

O.M. It would be personally entitled to the credit of its own

performance?

Y.M. The engine? Certainly not.

O.M. Why not?

Y.M. Because its performance is not personal. It is the result of the

law of construction. It is not a MERIT that it does the things which it

is set to do--it can't HELP doing them.

O.M. And it is not a personal demerit in the stone machine that it does

so little?

Y.M. Certainly not. It does no more and no less than the law of its

make permits and compels it to do. There is nothing PERSONAL about it;

it cannot choose. In this process of "working up to the matter" is it

your idea to work up to the proposition that man and a machine are about

the same thing, and that there is no personal merit in the performance of

either?

O.M. Yes--but do not be offended; I am meaning no offense. What makes

the grand difference between the stone engine and the steel one? Shall

we call it training, education? Shall we call the stone engine a savage

and the steel one a civilized man? The original rock contained the stuff

of which the steel one was built--but along with a lot of sulphur and

stone and other obstructing inborn heredities, brought down from the old

geologic ages--prejudices, let us call them. Prejudices which nothing

within the rock itself had either POWER to remove or any DESIRE to

remove. Will you take note of that phrase?

Y.M. Yes. I have written it down; "Prejudices which nothing within the

rock itself had either power to remove or any desire to remove." Go on.

O.M. Prejudices must be removed by OUTSIDE INFLUENCES or not at all.

Put that down.

Y.M. Very well; "Must be removed by outside influences or not at all."

Go on.

O.M. The iron's prejudice against ridding itself of the cumbering rock.

To make it more exact, the iron's absolute INDIFFERENCE as to whether the

rock be removed or not. Then comes the OUTSIDE INFLUENCE and grinds the

rock to powder and sets the ore free. The IRON in the ore is still

captive. An OUTSIDE INFLUENCE smelts it free of the clogging ore. The

iron is emancipated iron, now, but indifferent to further progress. An

OUTSIDE INFLUENCE beguiles it into the Bessemer furnace and refines it

into steel of the first quality. It is educated, now--its training is

complete. And it has reached its limit. By no possible process can it

be educated into GOLD. Will you set that down?

Y.M. Yes. "Everything has its limit--iron ore cannot be educated into

gold."

O.M. There are gold men, and tin men, and copper men, and leaden mean,

and steel men, and so on--and each has the limitations of his nature, his

heredities, his training, and his environment. You can build engines out

of each of these metals, and they will all perform, but you must not

require the weak ones to do equal work with the strong ones. In each

case, to get the best results, you must free the metal from its

obstructing prejudicial ones by education--smelting, refining, and so

forth.

Y.M. You have arrived at man, now?

O.M. Yes. Man the machine--man the impersonal engine. Whatsoever a man

is, is due to his MAKE, and to the INFLUENCES brought to bear upon it by

his heredities, his habitat, his associations. He is moved, directed,

COMMANDED, by EXTERIOR influences--SOLELY. He ORIGINATES nothing, not

even a thought.

Y.M. Oh, come! Where did I get my opinion that this which you are

talking is all foolishness?

O.M. It is a quite natural opinion--indeed an inevitable opinion--but

YOU did not create the materials out of which it is formed. They are

odds and ends of thoughts, impressions, feelings, gathered unconsciously

from a thousand books, a thousand conversations, and from streams of

thought and feeling which have flowed down into your heart and brain out

of the hearts and brains of centuries of ancestors. PERSONALLY you did

not create even the smallest microscopic fragment of the materials out of

which your opinion is made; and personally you cannot claim even the

slender merit of PUTTING THE BORROWED MATERIALS TOGETHER. That was done

AUTOMATICALLY--by your mental machinery, in strict accordance with the

law of that machinery's construction. And you not only did not make that

machinery yourself, but you have NOT EVEN ANY COMMAND OVER IT.

Y.M. This is too much. You think I could have formed no opinion but

that one?

O.M. Spontaneously? No. And YOU DID NOT FORM THAT ONE; your machinery

did it for you--automatically and instantly, without reflection or the

need of it.

Y.M. Suppose I had reflected? How then?

O.M. Suppose you try?

Y.M. (AFTER A QUARTER OF AN HOUR.) I have reflected.

O.M. You mean you have tried to change your opinion--as an experiment?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. With success?

Y.M. No. It remains the same; it is impossible to change it.

O.M. I am sorry, but you see, yourself, that your mind is merely a

machine, nothing more. You have no command over it, it has no command

over itself--it is worked SOLELY FROM THE OUTSIDE. That is the law of its

make; it is the law of all machines.

Y.M. Can't I EVER change one of these automatic opinions?

O.M. No. You can't yourself, but EXTERIOR INFLUENCES can do it.

Y.M. And exterior ones ONLY?

O.M. Yes--exterior ones only.

Y.M. That position is untenable--I may say ludicrously untenable.

O.M. What makes you think so?

Y.M. I don't merely think it, I know it. Suppose I resolve to enter

upon a course of thought, and study, and reading, with the deliberate

purpose of changing that opinion; and suppose I succeed. THAT is not the

work of an exterior impulse, the whole of it is mine and personal; for I

originated the project.

O.M. Not a shred of it. IT GREW OUT OF THIS TALK WITH ME. But for that

it would not have occurred to you. No man ever originates anything. All

his thoughts, all his impulses, come FROM THE OUTSIDE.

Y.M. It's an exasperating subject. The FIRST man had original thoughts,

anyway; there was nobody to draw from.

O.M. It is a mistake. Adam's thoughts came to him from the outside.

YOU have a fear of death. You did not invent that--you got it from

outside, from talking and teaching. Adam had no fear of death--none in

the world.

Y.M. Yes, he had.

O.M. When he was created?

Y.M. No.

O.M. When, then?

Y.M. When he was threatened with it.

O.M. Then it came from OUTSIDE. Adam is quite big enough; let us not

try to make a god of him. NONE BUT GODS HAVE EVER HAD A THOUGHT WHICH

DID NOT COME FROM THE OUTSIDE. Adam probably had a good head, but it was

of no sort of use to him until it was filled up FROM THE OUTSIDE. He was

not able to invent the triflingest little thing with it. He had not a

shadow of a notion of the difference between good and evil--he had to get

the idea FROM THE OUTSIDE. Neither he nor Eve was able to originate the

idea that it was immodest to go naked; the knowledge came in with the

apple FROM THE OUTSIDE. A man's brain is so constructed that IT CAN

ORIGINATE NOTHING WHATSOEVER. It can only use material obtained OUTSIDE.

It is merely a machine; and it works automatically, not by will-power.

IT HAS NO COMMAND OVER ITSELF, ITS OWNER HAS NO COMMAND OVER IT.

Y.M. Well, never mind Adam: but certainly Shakespeare's creations--

O.M. No, you mean Shakespeare's IMITATIONS. Shakespeare created

nothing. He correctly observed, and he marvelously painted. He exactly

portrayed people whom GOD had created; but he created none himself. Let

us spare him the slander of charging him with trying. Shakespeare could

not create. HE WAS A MACHINE, AND MACHINES DO NOT CREATE.

Y.M. Where WAS his excellence, then?