CHAPTER III.

HIGH ART.

The room into which Mr. Loretz conducted Leonhard seemed to our young

friend, as he glanced around it, fit for the court of Apollo. Its

proportions had obviously been assigned by some music-loving soul. It

occupied two-thirds of the lower floor of the house, and its high

ceiling was a noticeable feature. The furniture had all been made at the

factory; the floor-mats were woven there; and one gazing around him

might well have wondered to what useful or ornamental purpose the green

willows growing everywhere in Spenersberg Valley might not be applied.

The very pictures hanging on the wall--engraved likenesses of the great

masters Mozart and Beethoven--had their frames of well-woven willow

twigs; and the rack which held the books and sheets of music was

ornamented on each side with raised wreaths of flowers wrought by deft

hands from the same pliant material.

At the piano, in the centre of the room, sat Sister Benigna--by her

side, Elise Loretz.

It seemed, when Elise's father entered with the stranger, as if there

might be a suspension of the performance, but Loretz said, "Two

listeners don't signify: we promise to make no noise. Sit down, sir:

give me your bag;" and taking Leonhard's satchel, he retired with it to

a corner, where he sat down, and with his elbows on his knees, his head

between his hands, prepared himself to listen.

Sister Benigna said to her companion, "It is time we practiced before an

audience perhaps;" and they went on as if nothing had happened.

And sitting in that cool room on the eve of a scorching and distracted

day, is it any wonder that Leonhard composed himself to accept any

marvel that might present itself? Once across the threshold of the

Every-day, and there is nothing indeed for which one should not be

prepared.

If in mood somewhat less enthusiastic than that of our traveler we look

in upon that little company, what shall we see?

In the first place, inevitably, Sister Benigna. But describe a picture,

will you, or the mountains, or the sea? It must have been something for

the Spenersberg folk to know that such a woman dwelt among them, yet

probably two-thirds of her influence was unconsciously put forth and as

unconsciously received. They knew that in musical matters she inspired

them and exacted of them to the uttermost, but they did not and could

not know how much her life was worth to all of them, and that they lived

on a higher plane because of those half dozen wonderful notes of hers,

and the unflagging enthusiasm which needed but the name of love-feast or

festival to bring a light into her lovely eyes that seemed to spread up

and around her white forehead and beautiful hair like a supernatural

lustre. There was a fire that animated her which nobody who saw its glow

or felt its warmth could question. Without that altar of music--But why

speculate on what she might have been if she had not been what she was?

That would be to consider not Benigna, but somebody else.

She was accompanying Elise through Handel's "Pastoral Symphony." Elise

began: "He is the righteous Saviour, and He shall speak peace unto the

heathen." At the first notes Leonhard looked hastily toward the window,

and if it had been a door he would have passed out on to the piazza,

that he might there have heard, unseeing, unseen. While he sat still and

looked and listened it seemed to him as if he had been engaged in

foolish games with children all his life. He sat as it were in the dust,

scorning his own insignificance.

The young girl who now sat, now stood beside her, must have been the

child of her training. For six years, indeed, they have lived together

under one roof, sharing one apartment. Within the hour just passed, that

has been said by them toward which all the talk and all the action of

the six years has tended, and the heart of the girl lies in the hand of

the woman, and what will the woman do with it?

Perhaps all that Benigna can do for Elise has to-day been accomplished.

It may be that to grow beside her now will be to grow in the shade when

shade is needed no longer, and when the effect will be to weaken life

and to deepen the spirit of dependence. Possibly sunlight though

scorching, winds though wild, would be better for Elise now than the

protecting shadow of her friend.

Looking at Elise, Leonhard feels more assured, more at home. She has a

kindly face, a lovely face, he decides, and what a deliciously rich,

smooth voice! She is rather after the willowy order in her slender

person, and when she begins to sing "Rejoice greatly," he looks at her

astonished, doubting whether the sound can really have proceeded from

her slender throat. He is again reminded of Marion, but by nothing he

hears or sees: poor Marion has her not small reputation as a singer in

A----, yet her voice, compared with this, is as wire--gold wire

indeed--wire with a _color_ of richness at least; while Elise's is as

honey itself--honey with the flavor of the sweetest flowers in it, and,

too, the suggestion of the bee's swift, strong wing.

Into the room comes at last Mrs. Loretz. It is just as Elise takes up

the final air of the symphony that she appears. She would look upon her

daughter while she sings, "Come unto Him, all ye that labor and are

heavy laden, and He shall give you rest. Take His yoke upon you, and

learn of Him," etc. Chiefly to look upon her child she comes--to listen

with her loving, confident eyes.

But on the threshold of the music-room she pauses half a second,

perceiving the stranger by the window: then she nods pleasantly to him,

which motion sets the short silvery hair on her forehead waving, as

curls would have waved there had she only let them. She wears a cap

trimmed with a blue ribbon tied beneath her chin, and such is the order

of her comely gown and apron that it commands attention always, like a

true work of art.

She sits down beside her husband, and presently, as by the flash of a

single glance indeed, has taken the weight and measure of the gentleman

opposite. She likes his appearance, admires his fine dark face and his

fine dark eyes, wonders where he came from, what he wants, and--will he

stay to tea?

Gazing at her daughter, she looks a little sad: then she smooths her

dress, straightens herself, shakes her head, and is absorbed in the

music, beating time with tiny foot and hand, and following every strain

with an intentness which draws her brows together into a slight frown.

Elise almost smiles as she glances toward her mother: she knows where to

find enthusiasm at a white heat when it is wanted. With the final

repetition, "Ye shall find rest to your souls," the dame rises quickly,

and hastening to her daughter embraces her; then passing to the next

room, she pauses, perhaps long enough to wipe her eyes; then the jingle

of a bell is heard.

At the ringing of this bell, Sister Benigna rose instantly, saying,

"Welcome sound!" Loretz also came forth from his corner. He was about to

speak to Leonhard, when Benigna took up the trombone which was lying on

the piano, and said, "I am curious to know how many rehearsals you have

had, sir. It is time, Elise, that our trombonist reported."

Loretz, casting an eye toward his daughter, said, "Never mind Sister

Benigna. Our quartette will be all right." Then he turned to Leonhard:

it was not now that he felt for the first time the relief of the

stranger's presence. "We are going to take food," said he: "will you

give me your name and come with us?"

Leonhard gave his name, and moreover his opinion that he had trespassed

too long already on the hospitality of the house.

To this remark Loretz paid no attention. "Wife," he called out, "isn't

that name down in the birthday book--_Leonhard Marten?_ I am sure of it.

He was a Herrnhuter."

"Very likely, husband," was the answer from the other room. "Will you

come, good people?" The good people who heard that voice understood just

what its tone meant, and there was an instant response.

"Come in, sir," said Loretz; and the invitation admitted no argument,

for he went forward at once with a show of alacrity sufficient to

satisfy his wife. "This young man here was looking for a public-house.

They are full at the Brethren's, I hear. I thought he could not do

better than take luck with us," he said to her by way of explanation.

"He is welcome," said the wife in a prompt, business-like tone, which

was evidently her way. "Daughter!" She looked at Elise, and Elise

brought a plate, knife and fork for "this young man," and placed them

where her mother indicated--that is, next herself. Between the mother

and daughter Leonhard therefore took refuge, as it were, from the rather

too majestic presence opposite known as Sister Benigna. He should have

felt at ease in the little circle, for not one of them but felt the

addition to their party to be a diversion and a relief. As to Dame Anna

Loretz, thoughts were passing through her mind which might pass through

the minds of others also in the course of time should Leonhard prove to

be a good Moravian and decide to remain among them. They were thoughts

which would have sent a dubious smile around the board, however, could

they have been made known just now to Elise and her father and Sister

Benigna; and what would our young friend--from the city evidently--have

looked or said could they have been communicated to him? Already the

mind and heart of the mother of Elise, disconcerted and distracted for

the moment by that untoward casting of the lot, had risen to a calm

survey of the situation of things; and now she was endeavoring to

reconcile herself to the prospect which imagination presented to the eye

of faith, _If_ she had perceived in the unannounced appearing of the

young gentleman who sat near her devouring with keen appetite the good

fare before him, and apologizing for his hunger with a grace which

ensured him constant renewal of vanishing dishes,--if she had perceived

in it a manifestation of the will of Providence, she could not have

smiled on Leonhard more kindly, or more successfully have exerted

herself to make him feel at home.

And might not Mr. Leonhard have congratulated himself? If there was a

"great house" in Spenersberg, this was that mansion; and if there were

great people there, these certainly were they. And to think of finding

in this vale cultivators of high art, intelligent, simple-hearted,

earnest, beautiful!

CAROLINE CHESEBRO'.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE IRISH CAPITAL.

The metropolis of Ireland about the middle of the last century was the

fourth in Europe in point of size. Since then it has made little

progress in comparison with many others. Yet it is a large place,

covering a great area, and holding a population which numbers some three

hundred thousand souls.

It may further be said that notwithstanding the withdrawal, consequent

on the Union, of the aristocratic classes from Dublin, the city has

improved more in the last fifty years than at any previous period.

Dublin, at the Union, and for some time after, was a very dirty place

indeed. To-day, although, from that antipathy to paint common to the

whole Irish nation--which can apparently never realize the Dutch

proverb, that "paint costs nothing," or the English one, that "a stitch

in time saves nine"--much of the town looks dingy, it is, as a whole,

cleaner than almost any capital in Europe, so far as drainage and the

sanitary state of the dwellings are concerned. And here we speak from

experience, having last year, in company with detective officers,

visited all its lowest and poorest haunts.

The cause of this sanitary excellence is that matters of this kind are

placed entirely in the hands of the police, who rigorously carry out the

orders given to them on such points. It is devoutly to be hoped that a

similar system will ere long be in vogue in the towns of our own

country.

The noblesse have now quite deserted the Irish capital. Besides the

lord-chancellor, there is probably not a single peer occupying a house

there to-day. Houses are excellent and very cheap. An immense mansion in

the best situation can be had for a thousand dollars a year. The markets

are capitally supplied, and the prices are generally about one-third of

those of New York. Not a single item of living is dear. But,

notwithstanding these and many other advantages, the place has lost

popularity, has a "deadly-lively" air about it, and, it must be

admitted, is in many respects wondrously dull, especially to those who

have been used to the brisk life of a great commercial or

pleasure-loving capital.

"Cornelius O'Dowd" paid a visit to Dublin in 1871 after a long absence,

and said some very pretty things about it. Never was the company or

claret better. Well, the fact was, that while the great and lamented

Cornelius was there he was fêted and made much of. Lord Spencer gave him

a dinner, so did other magnates, and his séjour was one prolonged

feasting; but nevertheless the every-day life of the Irish capital is

awfully and wonderfully dull, as those who know it best, and have the

cream of such society as it offers, would in strict confidence admit.

From January to May there is an attempt at a "season," during the

earlier part of which the viceroy gives a great many entertainments.

These are remarkably well done, and the smaller parties are very

agreeable. But politics intervene here, as in everything else in

Ireland, to mar considerably the brilliancy of the vice-regal court.

When the Whigs are "in" the Tory aristocracy hold off from "the Castle,"

and _vice versâ_. Dublin is generally much more brilliant under a Tory

viceroy, inasmuch as nine-tenths of the Irish peerage and landed gentry

support that side of politics. The vice-reign of the duke of Abercorn,

the last lord-lieutenant, will long be remembered as a period of

exceptional splendor in the annals of Dublin. He maintained the dignity

of the office in a style which had not been known for half a century,

and in this respect proved particularly acceptable to people of all

classes. Besides, he is a man of magnificent presence, and has a fitting

helpmate (sister of Earl Russell) and beautiful daughters; and it was

universally admitted that the round people had got into the round holes,

so far as the duke and duchess were concerned.

The lord-lieutenant's levees and drawing-rooms take place at night, and

are therefore much more cheerful than similar ceremonials at Buckingham

Palace. His Excellency kisses all the ladies presented to him. The

vice-regal salary is one hundred thousand dollars, with allowances, but

most viceroys spend a great deal more. There are in such a poor country,

where people have no sort of qualms about asking, innumerable claims

upon their purses.

The office of viceroy of Ireland is one which prime ministers find it no

easy task to fill. Just that kind of person is wanted for the office who

has no wish to hold it. A great peer with half a million of dollars'

income doesn't care about accepting troublesome and occasionally anxious

duties, from which he, at all events, has nothing to gain. For some time

Lord Derby was in a quandary to get any one who would do to take it, and

it may be doubted whether the marquis of Abercorn would have sacrificed

himself if the glittering prospect of a coronet all strawberry leaves

(for he was created a duke while in office) had not been held before his

eyes. The vice-regal lodge is a plain, unpretending building. It is

charmingly situated in the Phoenix Park (1760 acres), and commands

delightful views over the Wicklow Mountains. Within, it is comfortable

and commodious. The viceroy resides there eight months in the year. He

goes to "the Castle" from December to April. The Castle is "no great

thing." It is situated in the heart of Dublin. Around it are the various

government offices. St. Patrick's Hall is a fine apartment, but

certainly does not deserve the name of magnificent, and is a very poor

affair compared with the reception-saloons of third-rate continental

princes.

The Dublin season culminates, so far at least as the vice-regal

entertainments go, in the ball given here on St. Patrick's Day (March

17). On such occasions it is _de rigueur_ to wear a court-dress. Even

those who venture to appear in the regulation trowsers admissible at a

levee at St. James's are seriously cautioned "not to do it again."

Though Dublin is now deserted by the aristocracy, most of the

_grand-seigneur_ mansions are still standing. Leinster House, built

about 1760, and said to have served as a model for the "White House,"

was in 1815 sold by the duke to the Royal Dublin Society. Up to 1868 the

duke of Leinster[1] was Ireland's only duke, and the house is certainly

a stately and appropriate ducal residence.

It must, however, be confessed that there is something decidedly

_triste_ and severe about this big mansion. A celebrated whilom tenant

of it, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, appeared to think so, for in 1791 he

writes to his mother, after his return from the bright and sunny

atmosphere of America: "I confess Leinster House does not inspire the

brightest ideas. By the by, what a melancholy house it is! You can't

conceive how much it appeared so when first we came from Kildare. A

country housemaid I brought with me cried for two days, and said she

thought that she was in a prison." It was at Leinster House that "Lord

Edward"--he is to this day always thus known by the people of Ireland,

who never think it needful to add his surname--after having joined "the

United Irishmen," had interviews with the informer Reynolds, who, it is

believed, afterward betrayed him.

Lady Sarah Napier, mother of Sir William Napier, the well-known

historian of the Peninsular War, and other eminent sons, was aunt to

Lord Edward, being sister of his mother. These ladies were daughters of

the duke of Richmond, and Lady Sarah was remarkable as being a lady to

whom George III. was passionately attached, and whom, but for the

vehement opposition of his mother and her _entourage_, he would have

married. In a journal of this lady's I find the following interesting

account of the search for her nephew: "The separate warrant went by a

messenger, attended by the sheriff and a party of soldiers, into

Leinster House. The servants ran to Lady Edward, who was ill, and told

her. She said directly, 'There is no help: send them up.' They asked

very civilly for her papers and for Edward's, and she gave them all.

Her apparent distress moved Major O'Kelly to tears, and their whole

conduct was proper."

Lady Edward Fitzgerald (whose husband had served under Lord Moira in

America) was at Moira House on the evening of her husband's arrest.

Writing from Castletown, county Kildare, two days after that event, Lady

Louisa Connolly, Lord Edward's aunt, says: "As soon as Edward's wound

was dressed he desired the private secretary at the Castle to write for

him to Lady Edward and tell her what had happened. The secretary carried

the note himself. Lady E. was at Moira House, and a servant of Lady

Mountcashel's came soon after to forbid Lady Edward's servants saying

anything to her that night." She continued, after Lord E.'s death, to

reside at Moira House till obliged by an order of the privy council to

retire to England, where she became the guest of her husband's uncle,

the duke of Richmond.[2]

Lady Moira, who so kindly befriended Lady Edward, was unquestionably a

very remarkable woman, and had considerable influence, politically and

socially, in the Dublin of her day. Although an Englishwoman, she became

in some respects _ipsis Hibernis Hibernior,_ and for a very long period

prior to her death never quitted the soil of Ireland. Had the Irish

aristocracy generally been of the complexion of those who assembled in

the more intimate reunions at Moira House, the history of that country

during the past century would have been a widely different one. The

members of that brilliant circle were thorough anti-Unionists, and Lord

Moira and his sons-in-law, the earls of Granard and Mountcashel, proved

that they were not to be conciliated by bribes, either in money or

honors, by entering their formal protest against that measure on the

books of the Irish House of Lords.

When the delegates on behalf of Catholic claims came to London in 1792,

it was this enlightened Irish nobleman who received them, and who, in

the event of the minister declining to admit them, intended as a peer to

have claimed an audience of the king. Lord Moira both in the English and

Irish Houses of Peers denounced the oppressive measures of the

government, and his opposition gave so much offence that the English

general Lake was reported to hayer declared that if a town in the North

was to be burnt, they had best begin with Lord Moira's, causing him so

much apprehension that he removed his collection, which was of

extraordinary value, from his seat, Moira Hall, in the county Down, to

England.

The celebrated John Wesley visited Lady Moira at Moira House in 1775,

"and was surprised to observe, though not a more grand, a far more

elegant room than he had ever seen in England. It was an octagon, about

twenty feet square, and fifteen or sixteen high, having one window (the

sides of it inlaid throughout with mother-of-pearl) reaching from the

top of the room to the bottom: the ceiling, sides and furniture of the

room were equally elegant." It was here that two of the greatest members

of their respective legislatures--Charles Fox and Henry Grattan--first

met in 1777, and Moira House continued to be the scene of splendid

entertainments up to the death of the first Lord Moira, in 1793. Wesley

concludes his letter about Moira House by asking, "Must this too pass

away like a dream?" Whether like a dream or no, it certainly has been

signally the fate of this whilom proud mansion to pass from the highest

to the very humblest almost at a bound. For some years after Lady

Moira's death (in 1808) the house was kept up by the family, but in 1826

it was let to an anti-mendicity society. The upper story was removed,

the mansion was stripped throughout of its splendid decorations--some

of the furniture is now at Castle Forbes, the seat of the earl of

Granard, Lady Moira's great-grandson, a worthy descendant--and the

saloons which were wont to be thronged with the most brilliant and

splendid society of the Irish metropolis in its heyday are now the abode

of perhaps the very poorest outcasts who are to be found in the whole

wide world.

The district in which Moira House stands has long ceased to be

fashionable. The mansion stands close to the Liffey, a few yards back

from the road. An elderly man who has charge of the mendicity

institution for whose purposes the house is at present used, told me

that he remembered it when kept up by the family, although its members

were not actually residing there. What is now a fearfully dreary

courtyard, where the outcasts of Dublin disport themselves, was then, he

said, a fine garden with splendid mulberry trees, which he, being a

favorite with the gardener, was permitted to climb--a circumstance which

had naturally impressed itself on his childish memory. I told him that I

had heard that long after the difficulties of the first marquis--who

lent one hundred thousand pounds to George the Magnificent when that

glorious prince was at the last gasp for _£ s. d_.--had compelled him to

part with his large estates; in the county Down, he had retained

possession of this mansion, and that it had even descended to the last

marquis, whose wild career concluded when he was only six-and-twenty;

but the old man thought it had passed from them long before. He

remembered, he said, the last peer (with whom the title became extinct)

coming to Dublin, because he had an interview with him about some

furniture for his yacht, my informant being at that time in business,

and he thought he should have heard if the property had been still

retained. I asked if the marquis had exhibited any interest as to the

old historical mansion of his family. "Not the slightest," he replied.

Hardy, in his well-known life of Lord Charlemont, says: "His (Lord

Moira's) house will be long, very long, remembered: it was for many

years the seat of refined hospitality, of good nature and of good

conversation. In doing the honors of it, Lord Moira had certainly one

advantage above most men, for he had every assistance that true

magnificence, the nobleness of manners peculiar to exalted birth, and

talents for society the most cultivated, could give him in his

illustrious countess."

Powerscourt House, a really noble mansion in St. Andrew street, is now

used by a great wholesale firm, but is so little altered that it could

be fitted for a private residence again in a very brief time. The

staircase is grand in proportion, and the steps and balustrades are of

polished mahogany, the last being richly carved.

Tyrone House is now the Education Office, and Mornington House, where

Wellington's father resided, and where or at Dangan--for it is a

doubtful point--the duke was born, is also used for government purposes.

The great squares of Dublin are St. Stephen's Green, Rutland, Mountjoy,

Merrion and Fitzwilliam Squares. The first of these dates from the

latter half of the seventeenth century, and is probably in a far more

prosperous condition now than it ever was before. If we are to judge by

Whitelaw's history, it presented in 1819 an aspect such as no public

square out of Dublin--the enclosure of Leicester Square, London,

excepted--could present. "Of that kind of architectural beauty," he

says, "which arises from symmetry and regularity, here are no traces."

Some houses were on a level with the streets, others were approached by

a grand _perron_. The proprietors were of all degrees: here was the

great house of a lord, there a miserable dramshop. The enclosure

consisted of no less than thirteen acres, making Stephen's Green the

largest public square in Europe. It was simply a great treeless field,

with an equestrian statue of George II. stuck in the middle of it. The

principal entrance to the ground is described as "decorated with four

piers of black stone crowned with globes of mountain granite, once

respectable, but exhibiting shameful symptoms of neglect and decay."

There had been a gravel walk called the "Beaux' Walk," from its having

been a fashionable resort, "but," says Whitelaw, "the ditch which bounds

it is now usually filled with stagnant water, which seems to be the

appropriate receptacle of animal bodies in a disgusting state of

putrefaction." At night this charming recreation-ground was illumined by

twenty-six lamps, at a distance of one hundred and seventy feet from

each other, stuck on wooden poles. Such an account of the grand square

of Dublin does not make one surprised to learn that the main approach to

it from the heart of the city was of a very miserable description.

In reading Whitelaw's history of Dublin it is impossible not to be

struck with the fact that it records a degree of neglect and

indifference on the part of the people and the local authorities to

beauty, decency and order such as could scarcely be found in another

country. In the centre of Merrion Square was a fountain of very

ambitious expense and design, erected to the honor of the duke and

duchess of Rutland, a lord and lady lieutenant. The fountain was only

finished in 1791, but "from a fault in the foundation, or some shameful

negligence in the construction, is already cracked and bulged in several

places; and though intended as a monument to perpetuate the memory of an

illustrious nobleman and his heroic father (the famous Lord Granby), is,

after an existence of only sixteen years, tottering to its fall." Mr.

Whitelaw continues: "Unhappily, _a savage barbarism that seems hostile

to every idea of order or decency, of beauty and elegance, prevails

among but too many of the lower orders_; and hence the decorations of

almost every public fountain have been destroyed or disfigured: the

figure, shamefully mutilated, of the water-nymph in this fountain has

been reduced to a disgusting trunk, and the _alto relievo_ over it shows

equal symptoms of decay, arising partly from violence, and partly,

perhaps, from the perishable nature of the materials." Truly a forcible

picture of art and the appreciation thereof in Ireland!

During the last century some Italians came to Dublin, who left their

mark upon the interior decorations of rich men's houses. Many of the old

houses retain the beautiful mantelpieces designed and executed by these

accomplished artists. A leading house-fitter of Dublin has, however,

bought up a good many, and they are finding their way to London, where

it is to be hoped they may produce a revolution in taste, for London

mantelpieces are, as a rule, hideous. Some of these specimens of art

have been bought by wealthy Irishmen and transferred to their

country-houses. One nobleman, Lord Langford, whose ancestral home was

wrecked in the rebellion of 1798, has lately been restoring it, and

bought up many of the Dublin mantelpieces.

The ornamentation of Belvedere House, in Gardener Row, is particularly

elaborate and in wonderfully good repair.

Irish family history contains few sadder stories than that of the first

countess of Belvedere. Lord Belvedere was a man of fashion who much

frequented St. James's, and indeed owed his elevation, first to a barony

and then to an earldom, to the favor of that highly uninteresting

monarch, George II. Leaving his wife sometimes for long periods at

Gaulston, a vast and dreary residence (since pulled down) in Westmeath,

he betook himself to London, and Lady Belvedere at such times lived much

with her husband's brother, Mr. Arthur Rochfort, and his family. It is

said that some woman with whom Lord Belvedere had long been connected

was determined to make mischief between him and his wife. Eight years

after their marriage, Lady Belvedere was accused of adultery with Mr.

Rochfort: in an action of _crim. con._ damages to the extent of twenty

thousand pounds were given, and the defendant was obliged to fly the

country. For many years he lived abroad, but at length ventured to

return, when his brother caused him to be arrested, and he died in

confinement, protesting to the last, as did Lady Belvedere, his

innocence. For Lady Belvedere a terrible punishment for her alleged

misdeeds was in store. Her husband quitted Gaulston for a cheerful

retreat in another part of the county, and henceforth that gloomy

mansion became the prison-house of the unhappy countess.

When her imprisonment commenced Lady Belvedere was twenty-five. For

eighteen years she remained a prisoner. Her husband often visited

Gaulston, but uniformly avoided all personal communication with her.

Once she succeeded in speaking to him, but her entreaties were in vain,

and thenceforward, whenever he was about the grounds at Gaulston, the

attendant accompanying Lady Belvedere in her walks was instructed to

ring a bell to give warning of her approach. At length, after twelve

years of captivity, Lady Belvedere contrived to escape, but Lord

Belvedere, who had been apprised of the fact, reached her father's house

in Dublin before her, and she found that his representations had weighed

so strongly with Lord Molesworth--who had married a second time--that

orders had been given that she was not to be admitted. She then took a

very unfortunate step by repairing to the house of her friends, the wife

and family of the brother-in-law with whom she had been accused of being

guilty of misconduct, Mr. Rochfort himself being in exile. She was

presently seized and reconveyed to Gaulston, where a much more rigorous

treatment was henceforth pursued toward her. At length her husband's

death set her free.

Lady Belvedere passed the rest of her days in peace and comfort at the

house of her daughter and son-in-law, Lord and Lady Lanesborough. She

did not long survive her husband, and on her deathbed, after partaking

of the holy communion, affirmed with a most solemn oath her perfect

innocence of the crime for which she had suffered so much.

But perhaps in many respects Charlemont House has the most interesting

recollections connected with it of all the _grand-seigneur_ mansions of

the Irish metropolis. It was here that the first earl of Charlemont,

the best specimen of a nobleman that Ireland has to boast of, passed the

greater portion of his later life. Lord Charlemont's name is to be found

in all the memoirs of eminent political and literary men of his time. He

was the friend of Burke and Johnson, a popular member of _the_ club, and

a munificent patron of literature and art. But more than all this, he

stuck bravely to his country, and to no man in Ireland did the Stopford

motto, _Patriæ infelici fidelis_, more correctly apply. Had more of his

order been like him, what a different country might Ireland have been!

I found Charlemont House full of painters and glaziers. The mansion,

which was retained _in statu quo_ by the late earl, although, for fifty

years no member of the family had slept there, has now been sold to the

government, and is being prepared for the accommodation of the survey

department. The mouldings of the beautiful ceilings are still extant in

some of the rooms, although what once was gilt is now white-wash. The

library is much as it was, minus the very valuable collection of books,

which were sold some time since by the present earl, and fetched a large

sum, albeit many of the most valuable were destroyed in a fire which

broke out at the auctioneer's where they were deposited in London.[3]

With his friend Edmund Burke, Lord Charlemont maintained a close

correspondence. One of Burke's published letters relates to an American

gentleman, Mr. Shippen, whom he was introducing to the hospitalities of

Charlemont House, and whom he describes as very agreeable, sensible and

accomplished. "America and we," he concludes, "are not under the same

crown, but if we are united by mutual good-will and reciprocal good

offices, perhaps it may do almost as well. Mr. Shippen will give you no

unfavorable specimen of the New World."

From the middle of the last century Henrietta street,[4] on the north

bank of the Liffey, was the residence of many of the leading members of

the aristocracy. The street is a _cul-de-sac_, with the King's Inn (the

Temple and Lincoln's Inn of Dublin) at the farther end. The houses are

extremely spacious and richly ornamented; in fact, far finer in point of

proportion and design than ordinary London houses of the first class.

Through the politeness of a gentleman who possesses half the street, I

went over some of the houses, which are extremely spacious, and contain

beautifully-proportioned rooms richly ornamented with carving and

moulding. In what was formerly Mountjoy House I found a dining-room

whose cornices and ceilings were of the most elegant design and

execution. This house had seen many curious scenes. It was formerly the

town-house of the earl of Blessington--whose second title was Viscount

Mountjoy--to whom the whole street belonged. The founder of this family,

Luke Gardiner, rose from a humble origin by energy and intrigue, and his

son married the heiress of the Mountjoys. It was occupied up to 1830 by

the last earl of Blessington, husband of the celebrated literary star.

Soon after their marriage Lady Blessington accompanied her husband to

Ireland, and he invited some of his friends who were ignorant of the

event to dine at his house in Henrietta street. These latter were

somewhat startled when he entered the room with a beautiful woman

leaning on his arm whom he introduced as his wife. Among the guests was

a gentleman who had been in that room only four years before, when the

walls were hung with black, and in the centre, on an elevated platform,

was placed a coffin with a gorgeous velvet pall, with the remains in it

of a woman once scarcely surpassed in loveliness by the lady then

present in bridal costume. This was the first Lady Blessington.

The last of the Irish noblesse in this street was Lady Harriet, widow of

the Right Hon. Denis Bowes-Daly, on whom Grattan passed such warm

eulogies, and who was the original of Lever's happiest creation, _The

Knight of Gwynne_.

It has been a frequent subject of conjecture why the Phoenix Park was so

called. The best explanation seems to be that on a site within its

boundaries there formerly stood, close to a remarkable spring of water,

an ancient manor-house. The manor was called Fionn-uisge, pronounced

_finniské_, which signifies clear or fair water, and this term easily

became corrupted into Phoenix. The land became Crown property in 1559,

and was made into a park in 1662. It was immensely improved and put into

its present shape by the earl of Chesterfield, author of the

_Letters_--one of the best viceroys Ireland ever had--about 1743. The

area is seventeen hundred and sixty acres. With the exception of Windsor

and our own Fairmount, no public park in the world can compare with it.

The ground undulates charmingly, the views are extensive and beautiful.

Grouped around the Phoenix Park are many beautiful seats: the finest is

Woodlands. This belonged formerly to the Luttrells, a notorious family,

the head of which was raised to the Irish peerage as earl of Carhampton.

It was with a Lord Carhampton that his son declined to fight a duel, not

at all because he was his father, but because he "did not consider him a

gentleman." Early in the century, Woodlands, then known as

Luttrellstown, became the property of Luke White, one of the most

remarkable men that Ireland has produced. In 1778, Luke White was in the

habit of buying cheap odds and ends of literature from a bookseller,

named Warren, in Belfast to peddle about the country. In 1798 he loaned

the Irish government, then in great difficulty, a million of pounds! Mr.

Warren, who found him very punctual and exact, used to permit him to

leave his pack behind his counter and call for it in the morning. No one

would then have dreamed that the greasy bag was to lead to such results.

By degrees, White scraped together some means. He used to take odd

volumes to a binder in Belfast and employ him to get the "vol." at the

beginning and end of an odd volume erased, so as to pass it off among

the unwary as a perfect book, and generally furbish it up. Then he used

to sell his literary wares by auction in the streets of Belfast. The

knowledge he thus acquired of public sales procured him a clerkship with

a Dublin auctioneer. He opened first a book-stall, and then a regular

book-shop, in Dawson street, a leading thoroughfare of Dublin. There he

became eminent. He sold lottery-tickets, speculated in the funds and

contracted for government loans. In 1798, when the rebellion broke out,

the Irish government was desperately in need of funds. They came into

the Dublin market for a loan of a million, and the best terms they could

get were from Luke White, who offered to take it at sixty-five pounds

per one hundred pound share at five per cent.--not unremunerative terms.

At the time of his death, in 1824, he had long been M.P. for Leitrim,

and his son was member for the county of Dublin. He left property worth

a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars a year. Eventually almost

the whole of it devolved on his fourth son, who some years ago was

created a peer of the United Kingdom as Lord Annaly.

The family has probably spent more than a million and a half of dollars

on elections. It has always been on the Liberal side. The present peer

has property in about a dozen counties, and is lord-lieutenant of

Langford, whilst his younger son holds the same high office in Clare.

The University of Dublin consists of a single college--Trinity. This

edifice forms a prominent feature in the Irish metropolis. It stands in

College Green, almost opposite to the Bank of Ireland, the former

legislative chambers. Since the Union, Trinity College has been but

little resorted to by men of the upper ranks of Irish society, although

it has certainly contributed some very eminent men to the public

service--notably, the late unfortunate governor-general, Lord Mayo, and

Lord Cairns, ex-lord-chancellor of England. Trinity is one of the

largest owners of real estate in the country. The fellowships are far

better than those of the English universities. The provost, who occupies

a large and stately mansion, has a separate estate worth some fifteen

thousand dollars a year, which he manages himself.

Trinity has a very fine library. It is one of the five which by an act

of Parliament has a right to demand from the publisher a copy of every

work published. The origin of the library is quite unique. It dates from

a benefaction by the victorious English army after its defeat of the

Spaniards at Kinsale in 1603, when they devoted one thousand eight

hundred pounds--a sum equivalent to five times that money at present

rates--to establish a library in the university, being, it may be

presumed, instigated by some eminent personage, who suggested that such

a course would be acceptable to the queen, who had founded the

university.

Dr. Chaloner and Mr. (afterward Archbishop) Ussher were appointed

trustees of this donation; "and," says Dr. Parr, "it is somewhat

remarkable that at this time, when the said persons were in London about

laying out this money in books, they there met Sir Thomas Bodley, then

buying books for his newly-erected library in Oxford; so that there

began a correspondence between them upon this occasion, helping each

other to procure the choicest and best books on moral subjects that

could be gotten; so that the famous Bodleian Library at Oxford and that

of Dublin began together."

The private collection of Ussher himself, consisting of ten thousand

volumes, was the first considerable donation which the library

received, and for this also, curiously enough, it was again indebted to

the English army. In 1640, Ussher left Ireland. The insurgents soon

after destroyed all his effects with the exception of his books, which

were secured and sent to London. In 1642--when the troubles between King

and Parliament had broken out--Ussher was nominated one of the

Westminster Assembly of Divines, but having offended the parliamentary

authorities by refusing to attend, his library was confiscated as that

of a delinquent by order of the House of Commons. However, his friend,

the celebrated John Selden, got leave to buy the books, as though for

himself, but really to restore them to Ussher. Narrow circumstances

subsequently caused him to leave the library to his daughter, instead of

to Trinity. Cardinal Mazarin and the king of Denmark made offers for it,

but Cromwell interfered to prevent their acceptance. Soon after, the

officers and, soldiers of Cromwell's army then in Ireland, wishing to

emulate those of Elizabeth, purchased the whole library, together with

all the archbishop's very valuable manuscripts and a choice collection

of coins, for the purpose of presenting them to the college. But when

these articles were brought over to Ireland, Cromwell refused to permit

the intentions of the donors to be carried into effect, alleging that he

intended to found a new college, in which the collection might more

conveniently be preserved separate from all other books. The library was

therefore deposited in Dublin Castle, and so neglected that a great

number of valuable books and manuscripts were stolen or destroyed. At

the Restoration, Charles II. ordered that what remained of the primate's

library should be given to the university, as originally intended.

One of the most extraordinary persons who ever occupied the position of

provost, or indeed any position, was John Hely Hutchinson. He was a man

of great ability, and perfectly determined to succeed, without being

troubled with any very tiresome qualms as to the means he employed in

the process. Such an officeholder as this man the world probably never

saw. He was at the same time reversionary principal secretary of state

for Ireland, a privy councilor, M.P. for Cork, provost of Trinity

College, Dublin, major of the fourth regiment of horse, and searcher of

the port of Strangford. When he was appointed provost--a situation

always filled since the foundation by a bachelor--there was great

indignation amongst the fellows, and to appease them he ultimately

procured a decree permitting them to marry--a privilege which they,

unlike their brethren at Oxford and Cambridge, enjoy to this day. His

position as provost did not prevent his righting a duel with a Mr.

Doyle, but neither was hurt. Mr. Hutchinson had a great dislike to a Mr.

Shrewbridge, one of the junior fellows, who had shown opposition to him.

Mr. Shrewbridge died, and the under--graduates attributed his death to

the provost's having refused him permission to go away for change of

air. A thoroughly Hiber-man _émeute_ was the consequence. The provost

ordered that the great bell, which usually tolls for a fellow, should

not toll, and that the body should be privately buried at six A.M. in

the fellows' burial-ground. The students immediately posted up placards

that the great bell _should_ toll, and that the funeral should be by

torchlight. They carried the point. Almost all the students attended the

corpse to the grave in scarfs and hatbands at their own expense, and

when the funeral oration was pronounced they flew in wild excitement to

the provost's house, burst open his doors and smashed the furniture to

pieces. The provost had a hint given him, and with his family had

retreated to his house near Dublin. It was subsequently stated on good

authority that Mr. Shrewbridge could not in any case have recovered.

Any one who takes an interest in the most original writer--not to say,

man--of the eighteenth century will not fail to find his way to "the

Liberties," as that queer district is called which surrounds St.

Patrick's Cathedral. Some years ago the present writer made his way into

the great deserted deanery--the then dean resided in another part of

the city--got the old woman in charge of the house to open the shutters

of the dining-room, and gazed at the original portrait of Jonathan

Swift, which hangs there an heirloom to his successors. Of the precincts

of his cathedral he writes to Pope: "I am lord-mayor of one hundred and

twenty houses,[5] I am absolute lord of the greatest cathedral in the

kingdom, and am at peace with the neighboring princes--_i.e._, the

lord-mayor of the city and the archbishop of Dublin--but the latter

sometimes attempts encroachments on my dominions, as old Lewis did in

Lorraine."

Again, he writes to Dr. Sheridan: "No soul has broken his neck or is

hanged or married; only Cancerina is dead.[6] I let her go to her grave

without a coffin and without fees."

St. Patrick's, which was, in a deplorable state during Swift's deanship,

and indeed for a century after, is now restored to its original

magnificence. Indeed, it may be doubted whether it is not in a condition

superior to what it ever was. This superb work has been effected

entirely by the princely munificence of the Guinness family, the great

_stout_ brewers of Dublin; and Mr. Roe, a wealthy distiller, is now

engaged in the work of restoring Christ Church, the other Protestant

cathedral.

I paid a visit to the Bank of Ireland, the edifice on which the hopes of

so many patriotic Irishmen have been centred, insomuch as it is the old

Parliament-house. The elderly official who conducted us over the

building took us first through the bank-note manufacturing rooms, where

we espied in a corner a queer wooden figure draped in a queerer

uniform. Demanding its history, he said that the clothes had belonged to

an old servant of the establishment, and were discovered after his

decease a few years ago. Formerly the Bank of Ireland was guarded by a

special corps of its own, and the ancient retainer, who had been a

member of this very commercial regiment, was proud of it, and had kept

his dress as a cherished memorial. When George IV. came to Ireland, on

his celebrated popularity-hunt, in 1821--previous to which no English

monarch had visited Ireland since William III.--he graciously

condescended to give the bank a military guard, which has since been

continued. On the day I went I found a number of soldiers of the Scots

Fusileer Guards occupying the guard-room. The officer on duty receives

an allowance of two dollars and a half for his dinner. At the Bank of

England he gets instead a dinner for himself and a friend, and a couple

of bottles of wine.

The interior of the Parliament-house is almost the same as when Ireland

had her own separate legislature. The House of Lords is in precisely the

condition in which it was left in 1801. It is a large oak-paneled,

oblong chamber of no particular beauty, and might very well pass for the

dining-hall of a London guild. There is a handsome fireplace, and the

walls are in great part covered with two fine pieces of tapestry

representing the battle of the Boyne and the siege of Derry, King

William, "of glorious, pious and immortal," etc., being of course the

most conspicuous object in the foreground. The attendant stated that a

special clause in the lease of the buildings, to the Bank of Ireland

Company stipulated that the House of Lords was to remain _in statu quo_.

Perhaps it may return some of these days to its former use. The House of

Commons, a large stone hall of stately dimensions, is now the

cash-office of the bank. There seemed nothing about it architecturally

to call for special notice. I mooted the probability of the Parliament

being restored, but found, rather to my surprise, that the attendant

was by no means disposed to regard such a step with unqualified

approval. It would be a blessing if the country was fit to govern

itself, he said, or words to that effect, but looking at the religious

dissension and political bitterness existing in the country, he feared

that it wouldn't do yet a while; and I suspect he's right. Ireland is a

house divided against itself: fifty years hence it may resemble

Scotland. Meanwhile, there is no doubt whatever that a measure giving

both Ireland and Scotland something in the nature of State legislatures

would find favor with many English M.P.s, who greatly grudge having the

valuable time of the imperial legislature wasted over a gas-bill in

Tipperary or a water-works scheme for Dundee. The bank seemed to me to

be guarded with extraordinary care. I went all over the roof, on which a

guard is mounted at night. At "coigns of vantage" there is a

bullet-proof palisading, with peepholes through which a volley of

musketry might be poured. I should fancy that extra precautions have

probably been taken since the Fenian _émeutes_ of the last ten years.

Dublin swarms with soldiers, constabulary and police. The metropolitan

police is divided into six divisions, each two hundred strong. Its men

are, I believe, beyond a doubt the very finest in the world in point of

physique. Numbers of them are six feet two or three inches high, and

they are broad and athletic in proportion. Indeed, the magnificence of

some of them who are detached for duty at certain "great confluences of

human existence" is such that you see strangers standing and gaping at

the giants in sheer amazement. The metropolitan police is quite distinct

from the constabulary, and under a different chief.

Outside the bank, in College Green, is the celebrated statue of William

III. Its location has been more than once changed, and it is now placed

where the officer on guard at the bank can keep an eye upon it. This

fearful object, which would make a Pradier or Chantrey shudder, is

painted and gilt annually. It has long served as a bone of contention

between Protestant and Papist, and has come off very badly several times

at the hands of the latter--a circumstance which probably accounts for

one of the horse's legs being about a foot longer than the rest--half of

that limb having been renewed after it had been lost in one of the many

free fights in which this remarkable quadruped has seen service. The

greatest proprietor of real estate in Dublin is the young earl of

Pembroke, son of the late Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, so well known in

connection with the Crimean war, who was created, shortly before his

death, Lord Herbert of Lea. His estate, which is the most valuable in

Ireland, comprises Merrion Square and all the most fashionable part of

the Irish metropolis, and extends for several miles along the railway

line running from Kingstown, the landing-place from England, to the

capital. The property also includes Mount Merrion, a neglected seat

about four miles from the city. This mansion, which might easily be made

delightful, commands a charming view over the lovely bay, and is

surrounded by a small but picturesque park containing deer. It was, with

the rest of Lord Pembroke's estate, formerly the property of Viscount

Fitzwilliam, who founded the Fitzwilliam Museum in the University of

Cambridge.

Lord Fitzwilliam was a somewhat eccentric person. His nearest relation

had displeased him by some very trivial offence, such as coming down

late for dinner, so he determined to leave his estate to his distant

cousin, Lord Pembroke. Falling ill, Lord Fitzwilliam, desired that Lord

Pembroke might be summoned from London. Word came back that it was

unfortunately impossible for him to leave England immediately. Presently

news arrived from Dublin that Lord Fitzwilliam was dead, and had

bequeathed all--the property is now three hundred and fifty thousand

dollars a year--to Lord Pembroke, with remainder to his second son. By

the death of the late Lord Pembroke the English and Irish properties

have become united, and are to-day worth not less than six hundred

thousand dollars a year! It is this young nobleman who has lately

written _The Earl and The Doctor_.

REGINALD WYNFORD.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The Fitzgeralds, of which family the duke of Leinster is

chief, became Protestant in 1611, when George, sixteenth earl of

Kildare, coming to the title and estates when eight years old, was given

in ward, according to the custom of the time, to the duke of Lenox (then

lord privy seal), who bred him a Protestant.]

[Footnote 2: In June, 1798, the corpse of Lord Edward Fitzgerald was

conveyed from the jail of Newgate and entombed in St. Werburgh's church,

Dublin, until the times would admit of their being removed to the family

vault at Kildare. "A guard," says his brother, "was to have attended at

Newgate the night of my poor brother's burial, in order to provide

against all interruption from the different guards and patrols in the

streets: it never arrived, which caused the funeral to be several times

stopped on its way, so that the funeral did not take place until nearly

two in the morning, and the people attending were obliged to stay in

church until a pass could be procured to permit them to go out."]

[Footnote 3: Lord Charlemont had a seat called Marino, beautifully

situated within a few miles of Dublin. There is within the grounds an

exquisite building erected from designs of Sir William Chambers. It is a

small villa, in its arrangements suggesting a _maison de joie_. The

furniture is just as it was, and although sadly out of repair, the

visitor can easily judge how exquisite the place must once have been.

There is a superb mantelpiece, richly mounted in bronze and inlaid with

lapis lazuli.]

[Footnote 4: The occupants of Henrietta street in 1784 included--the

primate (Lord Rokeby); the earl of Shannon; Hon. Dr. Maxwell, bishop of

Meath; the bishop of Kilmore; the bishop of Clogher; Right Hon. Luke

Gardiner, M.P.; Viscount Kingsborough; Right Hon. D. Bowes-Daly, M.P.;

Sir E. Crofton, Bart.

Twenty years later, Dublin was nearly deserted by the aristocracy on

account of the Union. Up to that time nearly all the peers, except those

really English, seem to have had residences in Dublin. In 1844, Lords

Longford, De Vesci and Monck were the only peers who had houses there.]

[Footnote 5: The precincts, including a portion of the Liberties, were

then entirely under the jurisdiction of the dean of St. Patrick's.]

[Footnote 6: It was a part of the grim and ghastly humor of this

extraordinary man,

"Who left what little wealth he had

To found a home for fools or mad,

And prove by one satiric touch

No nation wanted it so much,"

to give nicknames, of which Cancerina was one, to the poor old wretches

he met in his walks, to whom he gave charity.

Amongst Cancerina's sisters in misery were Stompanympha, Pullagowna,

Friterilla, Stumphantha.]

THE MAESTRO'S CONFESSION.

(ANDREA DAL CASTAGNO--1460.)

I.

Threescore and ten!

I wish it were all to live again.

Doesn't the Scripture somewhere say,

By reason of strength men oft-times may

Even reach fourscore? Alack! who knows?

Ten sweet, long years of life! I would paint

Our Lady and many and many a saint,

And thereby win my soul's repose.

Yet, Fra Bernardo, you shake your head:

Has the leech once said

I must die? But he

Is only a fallible man, you see:

Now, if it had been our father the pope,

I should _know_ there was then no hope.

Were only I sure of a few kind years

More to be merry in, then my fears

I'd slip for a while, and turn and smile

At their hated reckonings: whence the need

Of squaring accounts for word and deed

Till the lease is up?... How? hear I right?

No, no! You could not have said, _To-night_!

II.

Ah, well! ah, well!

"Confess"--you tell me--"and be forgiven."

Is there no easier path to heaven?

Santa Maria! how can I tell

What, now for a score of years and more,

I've buried away in my heart so deep

That, howso tired I've been, I've kept

Eyes waking when near me another slept,

Lest I might mutter it in my sleep?

And now at the last to blab it clear!

How the women will shrink from my pictures! And worse

Will the men do--spit on my name, and curse;

But then up in heaven I shall not hear.

I faint! I faint!

Quick, Fra Bernardo! The figure stands

There in the niche--my patron saint:

Put it within my trembling hands

Till they are steadier. So!

My brain

Whirled and grew dizzy with sudden pain,

Trying to span that gulf of years,

Fronting again those long laid fears.

_Confess_? Why, yes, if I must, I must.

Now good Sant' Andrea be my trust!

But fill me first, from that crystal flask,

Strong wine to strengthen me for my task.

(That thing is a gem of craftsmanship:

Just mark how its curvings fit the lip.)

Ah, you, in your dreamy, tranquil life,

How can _you_ fathom the rage and strife,

The blinding envy, the burning smart,

That, worm-like, gnaws the Maestro's heart

When he sees another snatch the prize

Out from under his very eyes,

For which he would barter his soul? You see

I taught him his art from first to last:

Whatever he was he owed to me.

And then to be browbeat, overpassed,

Stealthily jeered behind the hand!

Why that was more than a saint could stand;

And I was no saint. And if my soul,

With a pride like Lucifer's, mocked control,

And goaded me on to madness, till

I lost all measure of good or ill,

Whose gift was it, pray? Oh, many a day

I've cursed it, yet whose is the blame, I say?

_His name_? How strange that you question so,

When I'm sure I have told it o'er and o'er,

And why should you care to hear it more?

III.

Well, as I was saying, Domenico

Was wont of my skill to make such light,

That, seeing him go on a certain night

Out with his lute, I followed. Hot

From a war of words, I heeded not

Whither I went, till I heard him twang

A madrigal under the lattice where

Only the night before I sang.

--A double robbery! and I swear

'Twas overmuch for the flesh to bear.

_Don't ask me_. I knew not what I did,

But I hastened home with my rapier hid

Under my cloak, and the blade was wet.

Just open that cabinet there and see

The strange red rustiness on it yet.

A calm that was dead as dead could be

Numbed me: I seized my chalks to trace--

What think you?--_Judas Iscariot's face_!

I just had finished the scowl, no more,

When the shuffle of feet drew near my door

(We lived together, you know I said):

Then wide they flung it, and on the floor

Laid down Domenico--dead!

Back swam my senses: a sickening pain

Tingled like lightning through my brain,

And ere the spasm of fear was broke,

The men who had borne him homeward spoke

Soothingly: "Some assassin's knife

Had taken the innocent artist's life--

Wherefore, 'twere hard to say: all men

Were prone to have troubles now and then

The world knew naught of. Toward his friend

Florence stood waiting to extend

Tenderest dole." Then came my tears,

And I've been sorry these twenty years.

Now, Fra Bernardo, you have my sin:

Do you think Saint Peter will let me in?

MARGARET J. PRESTON.

MONSIEUR FOURNIER'S EXPERIMENT.

"_La transfusion parait avoir eu quelque succes dans ces derniers

temps_."

A dejected man, M. le docteur Maurice Fournier locked the door of his

physiological laboratory in the Place de l'École de Médecine, and walked

away toward his rooms in the rue Rossini. At two-and-thirty, rich,

brilliant, an ambitious graduate of l'École de Médecine, an enthusiastic

pupil of Claude Bernard's, a devoted lover of science, and above all of

physiology, yesterday he was without a care save to make his name great

among the great names of science--to win for himself a place in the

foremost rank of the followers of that mistress whom only he loved and

worshiped. To-day a word had swept away all his fondest hopes.

Trousseau, the keenest observer in all Paris, formerly his father's

friend, now no less his own, had kindly but firmly called his attention

to himself, and to the malady that had so imperceptibly and insidiously

fastened itself upon him that until the moment he never dreamed of its

approach. He had been too full of his work to think of himself. In any

other case he would scarcely have dared to dispute the opinion of the

highest medical authority in Europe; nevertheless in his own he began to

argue the matter: "But, my dear doctor, I am well."

"No, my friend, you are not. You are thin and pale, and I noticed the

other night, when you came late to the meeting of the Institute, that

your breathing was quick and labored, and that the reading of your

excellent paper was frequently interrupted by a short cough."

"That was nothing. I was hurried and excited, and I have been keeping

myself too closely to my work. A run to Dunkerque, a week of rest and

sea-air, will make all right again."

But the great man shook his head gravely: "Not weeks, but years, of a

different life are needed. You must give up the laboratory altogether if

you want to live. Remember your mother's fate and your father's early

death--think of the deadly blight that fell so soon upon the rare beauty

of your sister. Some day you will realize your danger: realize it now,

in time. Close your laboratory, lock up your library, say adieu to

Paris, and lead the life of a traveler, an Arab, a Tartar. For the

present cease to dream of the future: strength is better than a

professorship in the College of France, and health more than the cross

of the Legion of Honor."

Fournier was at first surprised and incredulous: he became convinced,

then alarmed. After some thought he was horribly dejected. At such a

time an Englishman becomes stolid, a German gives up utterly, an

American begins to live fast, since he may not live long; but he, being

a Frenchman and a Parisian, had alternations--first, the idea of

suicide, which means sleep; second, reaction, which is hopefulness.

He chose to react, and did it promptly. A little time, and the rooms in

the Place de l'École de Médecine, opposite the bookseller's, displayed a

card stuck on the entrance-door with red wafers, "_à louer_," the hammer

of the auctioneer knocked down the comfortable furniture of the

apartments in the rue Rossini, while that of the carpenter nailed up the

well-beloved books in stout boxes, and the places that had known M. le

docteur knew him no more. None but those who have experienced the

pleasures of a life devoted to scientific research can understand how

hard all this was to him. The fulfillment of long-cherished desires, the

completion of elaborate systematic investigations, the realization of

pet theories, the establishment of new principles,--all, all abandoned

after so much toil and care. To struggle painfully through a desert

toward some beautiful height, which, at first dimly seen, has grown

clearer and clearer and always more splendid as he advances, and now at

its very foot to be turned back by a gloomy stream in whose depths lurks

death itself; to reach out his hand to the golden truth, fruit of much

winnowing of human knowledge, and as he grasps the precious grains to be

borne back by a grim spectre whose very breath is horrible with the

noisome odors of the tomb; to choose an arduous life, and learn to love

it because it has high aims, and then to give it up at once and

utterly!--alas, poor Fournier!

"Nevertheless," he said as he turned his back on Paris, "even idle

wanderings are better than dying of consumption."

Behold the student of science a wanderer--sailing his yacht among the

islands of the Mediterranean; making long journeys through the wild

mountain-regions and lovely valleys of untraveled Spain; stemming the

historic current of the Nile; among the nomad tribes, in Arab costume

riding an Arabian mare, as wild an Arab as the wildest of them; killing

tigers in India, tending stock in Australia, chasing buffaloes in

Western America,--everywhere avoiding civilization and courting Nature

and the company of men who either by birth or adoption were the children

of Nature. By day the winds of heaven kissed his cheeks and the sun

bronzed them: at night he often fell asleep wondering at the star-worlds

that gemmed the only canopy over his welcome blanket-couch.

His treatment of consumption was certainly a rational one, and perhaps

the only one that is ever wholly successful. But, alas! few can take so

costly a prescription.

How often had his studies led him to dissect the bodies of animals that

had died in their dens in the Jardin des Plantes! Often in the first

generation of cage-life, almost always in the second, invariably in the

third, they grow dull, listless, the fire goes out of their eyes, the

litheness out of their limbs: they forget to eat, they cough, and soon

they die. Of what? Consumption. Once our fathers were wild and lived in

the open air: they scarcely ever died, as we do, of consumption.

Crowded cities, bad drainage, overwork, want of healthful exercise,

stimulating food, dissipation,--these are human cage-life. If a man is

threatened with consumption, let him go back to the plains and forests

before it is too late.

Certainly the treatment benefited Fournier. By and by it did more--it

cured him. The cough was forgotten, the cheeks filled out, the muscles

became hard as bundles of steel wire, his strength was prodigious: he

ate his food with a relish unknown in Paris, and slept like a child.

Nevertheless, his mind, trained to habits of thought and observation,

was not idle. When a city was his home he had been a physiologist and

had studied _man_: he made the world his dwelling-place, and wandering

among the nations he became an ethnologist and began to study _men_.

A distinguished professor, writing of the influence of climate upon man,

for the sake of illustration supposes the case of a human being whose

life should be prolonged through many ages, and who should pass that

life in journeying slowly from the arctic regions southward through the

varying climates of the earth to the eternal winter of the antarctic

zone. Always preserving his personal identity, this traveler would

undergo remarkable changes in form, feature and complexion, in habits

and modes of life, and in mental and moral attributes. Though he might

have been perfectly white at first, his skin would pass through every

degree of darkness until he reached the equator, when it would be black.

Proceeding onward, he would gradually become fairer, and on reaching the

end of his journey he would again be pale. His intellectual powers would

vary also, and with them the shape of his skull. His forehead, low and

retreating, would by degrees assume a nobler form as he advanced to more

genial climes, the facial angle reaching its maximum in the temperate

zone, only to gradually diminish as he journeyed toward the torrid, and

to again exhibit under the equator its original base development. As he

continued his journey toward the south pole he would undergo a second

time this series of progressing and retrograding changes, until at

length, as he laid his weary bones to rest in some icy cave in the drear

antarctics,

Multum ille et terris jactatus et alto,

he would be in every respect, save in age and a ripe experience, the

same as at the outset of his wanderings.

Extravagant as this illustration may appear, the professor goes on to

say, philosophically, on the doctrine of the unity of the human race, it

is not so; for what else than such an imaginary prolonged individual

life is the life of the race? And what greater changes have occurred to

our imaginary traveler than have actually befallen the human family?

The facts are patent. Under the equator is found the negro, in the

temperate zones the Indo-European, and toward the pole the Lapp and

Esquimaux. They are as different as the climates in which they dwell;

nevertheless, history, philology, the common traditions of the race,

revelation, point to their brotherhood.

How is it that climate can bring about such modifications in man? Is it

possible that the sun, shining upon his face and his children's faces

for ages, can make their skin dark, and their hair crisp and curly, and

their foreheads low? Or that sunshine and shadow, spring-time and

autumn, summer's showers beating upon him and winter's snows falling

about his path, can make him fair and free? Or that the dreary night and

cheerless day of many changeless arctic years can make him short and fat

and stolid as a seal? Surely not. These avail much; but other

influences, indirect and obscure in their workings, but not the less

essentially climatic, are required. Food, raiment, shelter, occupation,

amusement, influences that tell upon the very citadel and stronghold of

life--and all in their very nature climatic, since they are controlled

and modified by climate--are the means by which such changes are

effected. The savage living in the open air, not trammeled with much

clothing, anointing his skin with oil, eating uncooked food, delighting

in the chase and in battle, and living thus because his surroundings

indicate it, becomes swart and athletic, fierce, cunning and

cruel--takes ethnologically the lowest place. Of literature, science,

art, he knows nothing: for him will is justice, fear law, some miserable

fetich God. Still, in his nature lie dormant all the capabilities of the

noblest manhood, awaiting only favorable surroundings to call them into

glorious being. It might shock the salt of the earth to reflect that

some centuries of life among them and their fair descendants would make

him like them.

The arctic savage clad in furs and eating blubber does not differ

essentially from his brother of the tropics. So much of his food is

necessarily converted into heat that he cannot afford to lead so active

a life; but he also, like him of the tropics, partakes with his

surroundings in color. The one, living amid snowclad scenery, where the

sparse vegetation is gray and grayish-green, and the birds and animals

almost as white as the snow over which they wander, is pale, etiolated.

The other, under a vertical sun, surrounded by a lush and lusty growth,

whose flowers for variety and intensity of color are beyond description,

and in which birds of brightest plumage and black and tawny beasts make

their home, has the most marked supply of pigment--is dark-hued, black,

in short a negro. Between these two extremes is the typical man, fair of

face, with expanded brow and wavy hair, well fed, well clad, well

housed, wresting from Nature her hidden things and making her mightiest

forces the workers of his will; heaping together knowledge, cherishing

art, reverencing justice, worshiping God. How startling the contrast

between brothers!

Such changes do not take place in a few generations. For their

completion hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years must elapse. The

descendants of the blacks who were carried from Africa to America as

slaves two centuries and a half ago, save where their color has been

modified by a mixed parentage, are still black. Already the influence

of new climatic surroundings and of association has wrought great

changes upon them: they are no longer savages. But their complexion is

as dark as that of their kidnapped forefathers. Their original physical

condition remains almost unaltered, and with it many mental

characteristics: their love of display and of bright colors, their

fondness for tune and the power of music to move them, their weird and

fantastic belief in ghosts and spirits, in signs, omens and charms, and

many other traits, still bear witness to their savage origin. But even

these are fading away, and these men are slowly but not the less surely

becoming civilized and _white_.

The point of departure for every structural change in a living organism

lies in the apparatus by which nutrition is maintained; and this in the

higher classes is the blood. Most complex and wonderful of fluids, it

contains in unexplained and inscrutable combination salts of iron, lime,

soda and potassa, with water, oil, albumen, paraglobulin and fibrinogen,

which united form fibrine--in fact, at times, some part of everything we

eat and all that goes to form our bodies, which it everywhere permeates,

vitalizes and sustains. Borne in countless numbers in its ever-ebbing

and returning streams are little disks, flattened, bi-concave, not

larger in man than one-three-thousandth of an inch in diameter, called

red corpuscles, whose part it is to carry from the lungs to the tissues

pure oxygen, without which the fire called life cannot be sustained, and

back from the tissues to the lungs carbonic acid, one of the products of

that fire; and larger, yet marvelously small, bodies called leucocytes

or white corpuscles, whose precise origin and use to this day, in spite

of all the labor that has been spent upon their study, remain unknown.

But that which makes the blood wonderful above all other fluids is its

vitality. Our common expression, "life's blood," is no idle phrase. The

blood is indeed the very throne of life. If its springs are pure and

bountiful, if its currents flow strong and free, muscle, bone and brain

grow in symmetry and power, and there is cunning to devise and the

strong right arm to execute. But if it be thin and poor, and its

circulation feeble and uncertain, the will flags, the mind is weak and

vacillating, the muscles grow puny, and the man becomes an unresisting

prey to disease and circumstance. If it escape through a wound, strength

ebbs with it, until at length life itself flows out with the unchecked

crimson stream. Thus, then, by acting upon the blood, climate has

wrought and is working such changes upon man. But why are

constantly-acting causes so slow in producing their effects? How is it

that countless generations must pass away before purely climatic causes,

potent as they are, begin to manifest themselves in physical changes in

the races of men exposed to them?

Fournier, physiologist, as I have said, by the education of the schools,

but by the broader education of his travels sociologist and ethnologist,

devoted himself again to science, and framed this hypothesis: _Climatic

influences, acting upon man, bring about physical changes exceedingly

slowly, because they are resisted by an inveterate habit of

assimilation. This habit pertains either to the blood or the tissues,

possibly to both, probably to the blood alone_.

To establish an hypothesis experiment is necessary. Physiology is a

science of experiment. Hence the frequent uncertainty of its results,

since no two observers conduct an experiment in exactly the same

manner--certainly no two ever institute it under precisely the same

conditions. Nevertheless, let us not decry science. Out of much

searching after truth comes the finding of truth--after long groping in

darkness one comes upon a ray of light.

An experiment was necessary. To the ingenious mind of Fournier an

elaborate one occurred. If he could perform it, not only would his

hypothesis be established and confirmed beyond all cavil, but a, field

of scientific research also be opened such as was yet undreamed of.

However, for this experiment subjects were needed. Brutes, beasts of the

field? Not so: that were easy to achieve. Human beings, two living,

healthy men, one white, one black, were the requirements. Impossible!

The experiment could never be performed: its requirements were

unattainable. O tempora! O mores! Alas, for the degeneracy of the age!

In the days of the Roman emperors men were fed, literally fed, to wild

beasts in the arena--Gauls, Scythians, Nubians, even Roman freedmen when

barbarians were scarce. This to amuse the populace alone. Frightful

waste of life! In India, a thousand lives thrown away in a day under the

wheels of Juggernaut; in Europe, tens of thousands to gratify the

imperious wills of grasping monarchs; in America, hundreds to sate the

greed of railroad corporations. And now not two men to be had for an

experiment of untold value to science, that would scarcely endanger life

in one of them, and in the other would necessitate only the merest

scratch! To what are we coming? No one complains that tattooed heads are

going out of fashion--that the king of the Cannibal Isles no longer

flatters a ship's master by inquiring which head of all his subjects is

ornamented most to his fancy, and the next day sending him that head as

a souvenir of his visit to the anthropophagic shores. It is well that

the custom is dead. But is there not danger of drifting too far even

toward the shore of compassion? May it not be that there is something

wrong with the bowels of mercy when criminals are executed barbarously,

while science needs their lives, or at least an insight into the method

of their dying; when precise examination of the manner of nerve and

blood supply to the organs of a superannuated horse is heavily finable;

when charitable but perchance too enthusiastic societies for the

prevention of cruelty to animals push their earnestness even to

interference with scientific researches, because, forsooth! they

jeopardize the lives of rabbits, guinea-pigs and dogs? The legend _Cave

canem_ bears a deeper meaning now than it did in the inlaid pavements

of Pompeian vestibules. We dare not trample it under foot.

Five years passed, and with restored health back came the old desires in

redoubled force. Fournier longed to return to civilization and to work.

The life that had been so delightful while it did him good became

utterly unbearable when he had reaped its full benefit. I am tempted to

quote a line about Europe and Cathay, but refrain: it will recur to the

reader. He burned to renew the labors he had abandoned, to take up again

the work he had laid down to do battle with disease, now that disease

was vanquished. Thus the year 1863 found him in the city of Charleston,

homeward bound in his journey around the world.

While still in the wilds west of the Mississippi he could have shaped

his course northward and readily proceeded directly by steamer from New

York to Europe. But a determined purpose led him to choose a different

course, though he was well aware that it would involve indefinite delay

in reaching Paris, and great personal risk. The life he had been leading

made him think lightly of danger, and years would be well spent if he

could accomplish the plans that induced him to go into the disorganized

country of the South.

He straightway connected himself with the army as surgeon, and solicited

a place at the front. He wanted active service. In this he was

disappointed. Charleston, blockaded and beseiged, was in a state of

military inaction. Save the occasional exchange of shot and shell at

long range between the works on shore and those which the Unionists had

erected and held upon the neighboring islands and marshes, nothing was

done, and for nearly a year Fournier experienced the irksomeness of

routine duty in a wretchedly arranged and appointed military hospital.

Nevertheless, the time was not wholly wasted. From a planter fleeing

from the anarchy of civil war he procured a native African slave, one of

the shipload brought over a few years before in the Wanderer, the last

slave-ship that put into an American harbor. This man he made his

body-servant and kept always near him, partly to study him, but chiefly

to secure his complete mental and moral thraldom. An almost unqualified

savage, Fournier avoided systematiclly everything that would tend to

civilize him. He taught him many things that were convenient in his

higher mode of life, and taught him well, but of the great principles of

civilization he strove to keep him in ignorance; and more, he so

confused and distorted the few gleams of light that had reached that

darkened soul that they made its gloom only the more hideous and

profound. He wanted a man altogether savage, mentally, morally and

physically. Instead of teaching him English or French, he learned from

him many words of his own rude native tongue, and communicated with him

as much as possible in that alone, aided by gesture, in which, like all

Frenchmen, he possessed marvelous facility of expression. In the

unexplored back-country of Africa the negro had been a prince, and

Fournier bade him look forward to the time when he would return and

rule. He always addressed him by his African name and title in his own

tongue. He took him into the wards of his hospital, and taught him to be

useful at surgical operations and to care for the instruments, that he

might become familiar with them and with the sight of blood, which at

first maddened him. Once he gave him a drug that made his head throb,

and then bled him, with almost instant relief. He affected an interest

in the amulets which hung at his neck, and besought him to give him one

to wear. He committed to his care, with expressions of the greatest

solicitude, a strong box, brass bound and carefully locked, which he

told him contained his god, a most potent and cruel deity, who would,

however, when it pleased him, give back the life of a dead man for

_blood_. This box contained a silver cup, with a thermometer fixed in

its side; a glass syringe holding about a third of a pint; a large

curved needle perforated in its length like a tube, sharp at one end, at

the other expanded to fit accurately the nozzle of the syringe; a

little strainer also fitting the syringe; and last, a small bundle of

wires with a handle like an egg-beater.

For the rest, this savage was crooked, ill-shapen and hideous. His skin

was as black as night; his head small, the face immensely

disproportionate to the cranium; his jaws massive and armed with

glittering white teeth filed to points; his cheeks full, his nose flat,

his eyes little, deep-set, restless, wicked. The usage he received from

his new master was so different from his former experience with white

men, and so in accord with his own undisciplined nature, that it called

forth all the sympathies of his character. He soon loved the Frenchman

with an intensity of affection almost incomprehensible. It is no

exaggeration to say that he would have willingly laid down his life to

gratify his master's slightest wish. The latter's knowledge was to him

so comprehensive, his power so boundless and his will so imperious and

inflexible, that he feared and worshiped him as a god.

Fournier looked upon his monster with satisfaction, and longed for a

battle. His wish was at last gratified. On the Fourth of July, 1864, an

engagement took place three miles north-west of Legaréville, near the

North Edisto River. A force of Union soldiery had been assembled from

the Sea Islands and from Florida, massed on Seabrook Island, and pushed

thence up into South Carolina. The object of this expedition was

unknown; indeed, as nothing whatever was accomplished, the strategy of

it remains to this day unexplained. However, forewarned is forearmed.

Every movement was watched and reported by the rebel scouts; all the

troops that could be spared from Charleston were sent out to oppose the

invaders; roads were obstructed; bridges were destroyed, batteries

erected in strong positions, everything prepared to impede their

progress. Our story needs not that we should dwell upon the sufferings

of the Union soldiers on that futile expedition, from the narrow, dusty

roads, the frequent scarcity of water, the intense heat. With infinite

fatigue and peril they advanced only five or six miles in a day's

march. Many died of sunstroke, and many fell by the way utterly

exhausted. There was occasional skirmishing; but one actual battle. To

that the troops gave the name of "the battle of Bloody Bridge." Picture

a slightly undulating country covered with thick low forest; a narrow

road that by an open plank bridge crosses a wide, sluggish stream with

marshy banks, and curves beyond abruptly to the right to avoid a low,

steep hill facing the bridge; crowning this hill an earth-work, rude to

be sure, but steep, sodded, almost impregnable to men without artillery

to play upon it; within, two cannon, for which there is plenty of

ammunition, and six hundred Confederate soldiers, fresh, eager,

determined; on the road in front of the battery, but just out of range

of its guns, the Union forces halting under arms, the leaders anxious

and discouraged, the men exhausted, careworn, wondering what is to be

done next, heartily sick of it all, yet willing to do their best; in the

thicket on both sides the road, not sheltered, only covered, within

pistol-shot of the enemy, six hundred United States soldiers, a

Massachusetts colored regiment, one of the first recruited, without

cannon, over-marched, overheated, a forlorn hope, _sent forward to take

the battery_! These men, stealthily assembling there among the trees and

bushes, are ready. Not one of them carries a pound of superfluous

weight. Their rifles with fixed bayonets, a handful of cartridges, a

canteen of water, are enough. They wear flannel shirts and blue

trowsers; numbers are bareheaded, some have cut off the sleeves of their

shirts: they know there is work before them. Many kneel in prayer;

comrades exchange messages to loved ones at home, and give each other

little keepsakes--the rings they wore or brier pipes carved over with

the names of coast battles; others--perhaps they have no loved

ones--look to the locks of their pieces and await impatiently the signal

to advance. The officers--white men, most of them Boston society

fellows, old Harvard boys who once thought a six-mile pull or a long

innings at cricket on a hot day hard work, and knew no more of military

tactics than the Lancers--move about among them, speaking to this one

and to that one, calling each by name, jesting quietly with one,

encouraging another, praising a third, endeavoring to inspire in all a

hope which they dare not feel themselves.

But hark! The signal to move. Quickly they form in the road, and with a

shout advance at a run, their dusky faces glistening in that summer sun

and their manly hearts beating bravely in the very jaws of death. Now

the bridge trembles beneath their steady tread: the foremost are at the

hill, yet no sign of life in the battery. Only the smooth green bank,

the wretched flag in the distance, and those guns charged with death

looking grimly down upon them and waiting. On they come, nearer and

nearer, and now some are on the hill and begin to climb the steep that

forms the defence, slowly and with difficulty, using at times their

rifles as aids like alpenstocks. Not a word is spoken. It is hard to

understand how so many men can move with so little noise. The silence is

that which precedes all dreadful noises. It is ominous, terrible.

Scarcely twenty feet more, and the foremost will reach the rampart.

Haste! haste! The day is won!

Suddenly a figure in gray leaps upon the breastwork: he waves his sword,

utters a short quick word of command, and disappears. It is enough. The

sleeping battery awakes. The silence becomes hideous uproar. The smooth

green line of the sod against the sky is lined with marksmen, and in an

instant fringed with fire. Then the cannon bellow and the breezeless air

is dense with smoke. The attacking column hesitates, trembles, makes a

useless effort to advance, and then falls back beyond the bridge. The

officers endeavor to rally their men and renew the attack at once, but

in vain: flesh and blood cannot stand in such a storm. Nevertheless, the

brave fellows--God bless their memory!--halt at length, and form and

charge once more. And so again and again and again; every time in vain

and with new losses, until at last they cannot rally, but retreat,

broken and bleeding, to the main body of the expedition, carrying with

them such of the wounded and dead as they can snatch from under the fire

of the rebel riflemen. Such was the battle of Bloody Bridge, and well

was it named. Five times that gallant regiment charged the battery, and

when the smoke of battle cleared away the sun shone down upon a piteous

sight--blood dyeing the green of that sodded escarp--blood in great

clots upon the rocks and stumps of the rugged hill below--blood poured

plenteously upon the dusty road, making it horrible with purple

mire--blood staining the bridge and gathering in little pools upon the

planks, and dripping slowly down through the cracks between them into

the sluggish stream, where it floated with the water in great red

clouds, toward which creatures dwelling in slimy depths below came up

lazily, but when they tasted it became furious and fought among

themselves like demons--blood drying in hideous networks and arabesques

upon the railing of the bridge--blood upon the fences, blood upon the

trembling leaves of the bushes by the wayside--blood everywhere! And

everywhere the upturned faces and torn bodies of men who had dared to do

their duty and to die: side by side the white, who led and the black who

followed--all set and motionless, but all wearing the same expression of

brave but hopeless determination. That was a brave charge at Balaklava,

but, trust me, there have been Balaklavas that are yet unsung.

So the expedition went back, and its brigades were redistributed to the

Sea Islands and to Florida; but why it was ever sent out, and why that

regiment was sent forward to take the battery without artillery and

without reinforcements, God, who knoweth all things, only knows. And God

alone knows why there must be wars and rumors of wars, and why men made

in his image must tear each other like maddened beasts.

In this battle, heavy as the losses were, the Confederates took but one

prisoner. At the third charge a tall, broad-shouldered captain, who

seemed, like another son of Thetis, almost invulnerable, darted

impetuously ahead of his men and reached the summit of the defence.

Useless bravery! In an instant a volley point blank swept away the

charging men behind him, and a gunner's sabrethrust bore him to the

ground within the works, where he lay stunned and bleeding beside the

gun he had striven so hard to take. The man who had captured him, wild

with excitement and maddened with the powder that blackened him and the

hot blood which jetted upon him, sprang down, spat upon him, spurned him

with his foot, and would have dashed out his brains with the heavy hilt

of his clubbed sword had not a strong hand grasped his uplifted wrist.

It was Fournier, who had watched the battle with an interest as intense

as that of the most ardent Southerner in the battery, though widely

different in character. His interest was that of the naturalist who

stands by eager and curious to see a rustic entrap some _rara avis_ that

he desires to study, to use for his experiment. Better for the bird: it

can suffer and die. Afterward what matter whether it stand neatly

stuffed and mounted, a voiceless worshiper, in some glass mausoleum, or

slowly moulder in a fence corner until its feathers are wafted far and

wide, and only a little tuft of greener grass remains to its memory? As

our naturalist's game was nobler and destined for more important study,

so it was capable of lifelong suffering more subtle and intense. Perhaps

Fournier had not fully considered, in his eagerness to prove his

hypothesis, the dangers to the subjects of his experiment. Perhaps his

mind was so intent upon the physical aspect of the questions that he had

overlooked some of the intellectual and moral elements involved in the

problem, and did not realize the enormities that would result should he

succeed. On the other hand, perhaps he saw them, realized them fully,

and was the more deeply fascinated with the research because of its

leading into such gloomy and mysterious regions of speculation. Let us

do him justice. Science was his god, and this idolater was willing to

endure any labor and privation and to assume any responsibility in her

service. Would that more who worship a greater God were as devoted!

He was a physiologist, and was simply engaged in an experimental

investigation, yet in its progress he had already uncivilized a man

whose eyes were beginning dimly to see the truth, had poisoned his mind

with lies, and had hurled him into depths of Plutonian ignorance

inconceivably more profound than his original estate; and now he was

about to debase another fellow-creature of his own race, to tamper with

his manhood, to confuse his identity, to render him among his own

kindred and people perhaps tabooed, ostracised, despised--perhaps an

object of pity. If he should succeed? Surely he had not come thus near

success to suffer his splendid Yankee captain to be brained there before

his eyes. Like a hawk he had watched every incident of the fight, and

was on the alert to act the part of surgeon toward any who might be

either wounded in the battery or taken prisoner. He had even resolved,

in case of the capture of the place, to represent his peculiar position

to the United States officer in command, and to beg of him permission to

make his experiment upon a wounded rebel.

The gunner turned fiercely upon him, but dropped his arm and sheathed

his sabre at his question, and then walked back to his gun abashed, for

he was, after all, a brave and chivalrous man.

Fournier simply asked: "Do Confederate soldiers _murder_ prisoners of

war?" And added, "He is a wounded man--leave him to me."

Then he knelt down beside him and examined his wound, and though he

strove to be calm he trembled with excitement as he tore open the blue

blouse and felt the warm blood welling over his fingers. It was a simple

wound through the fleshy part of the shoulder: a strand of saddler's

silk and a few strips of sticking-plaster would have sufficed to dress

it, but the Frenchman smiled when he wiped away the clots and saw the

blood spurting from two or three small divided arteries.

Then he called his African, and they carried the wounded man back to a

tent, and laid him on a bed of moss and cypress boughs, and left him

there to bleed, while he went out into the air, and walked about, and

tossed his hat and shouted with excitement like a madman. But the battle

raged, and the gunners charged their guns and fired, and charged and

fired again, and the men along the breastwork grew furious with the

slaughter and the fiery draughts they took from their canteens through

lips blackened with powder and defiled with grease and shreds of

cartridge-paper; and no one noticed the doctor's mad conduct nor the

savage standing guard before the tent; nor did any other save those two

in the whole battery--no, not even the gunner who had captured him--give

a thought to the prisoner who lay bleeding there, until the battle was

over.

And this prisoner, what of him? Any one, looking upon him as he lay upon

the cypress boughs, would have known him to be thoroughbred. Everything

about him proclaimed it. His face, manly but gentle, his figure, great

in stature and strength, yet graceful in outline like a Grecian god, the

very dress and accoutrements he wore, which were neat, strong,

expensive, but without ornament, showed him to be a gentleman. And

Robert Shirley was a gentleman. Probably no man in all the States could

have been found who would have presented a greater contrast to the man

standing guard outside the tent than this man who lay within it; and for

that reason none who would have been so welcome to Fournier. As the one

was a pure savage, the other was the realization of the most illustrious

enlightenment; the one fierce, cunning, undisciplined, the other gentle,

frank, considerate; as the one was hideous, ill-formed and black as

night, so the other was radiant with manly beauty and fair as the

morning. Each among his own people sprang from noble stock; the one a

prince, the other the descendant of the purest Puritan race, which knew

among its own divines and judges brave captains, and farther back a

governor of the colony. But the guard and his people were at the foot of

the scale, the guarded at the top. The blood flowing out upon the

cypress bed was the best blood of America. It was blue blood and brave

blood. Generation after generation it had flowed in the veins of fair

women and noble men, and had never known dishonor. Yet Fournier let it

flow. More, he was delighted that it continued to flow.

Presently, however, he sobered down, and began to prepare for his work.

He placed a large caldron of water over a fire; he brought basins,

towels and his case of surgical instruments, and placed them in the,

tent, and with them the case which he had taught the African to believe

contained his god. While thus busied he did not neglect the subject of

his experiment. His watchful eye noted everything--the mass, of clots

growing like a great crimson fungus under the wounded shoulder, the

deadly pallor, the dark circles forming around the sunken eyes, the

blanched lips, the transparent nostrils, the slow, deep respiration.

From time to time he felt the wounded man's pulse and counted it

carefully. _Ninety_--he went out again into the open air; _one

hundred_--"The loss of blood tells," he muttered, and began to rearrange

his appliances and busy himself uneasily with them; _one hundred and

thirty beats to the minute _--"He is failing too fast: I must stop this

bleeding" said the experimenter. Then he cleansed the wound, and tied

the arteries, and bound it up. But the loss of blood had been so great

that the heart fluttered wildly and feebly in its efforts to contract

upon its diminished contents, and Fournier, anxious, and pale himself

almost as his victim, trembled when his finger felt in vain for the

bleeding artery and caught only a faint tremulous thrill, so feeble that

he scarcely knew whether the heart was beating at all or not. In terror

he threw the ends of the little tent and fanned him, and moistened his

lips, and gave him brandy, and hastened to begin the experiment for

which he had waited so long and for which both subjects were at last

ready.

He told his savage that the Yankee was dying, but that he had communed

with his god, who would let him live if blood was given in return. Then

he reminded him of the time when he lost blood, and that it had done him

no harm. The African, trained for this duty with so much care, did not

fail him, but bared his arm and gave the blood. The god was brought

forth and caught it, and the sacrifice began. As the silver, bowl

floated in a basin of water so warm that the thermometer in its side

marked ninety-eight degrees of Fahrenheit, Fournier stirred the blood

flowing into it quickly with the bundle of wires, to collect the fibrine

and prevent the formation of clots; he then drew it into the syringe

through the strainer, and forced it through the perforated needle, which

he had previously thrust into a large vein in Shirley's arm, carefully

avoiding the introduction of the slightest bubble of air. Time after

time he filled his syringe and emptied it into the veins of the wounded

man, until at length he saw signs of reaction. The color came, the

breathing became more natural, the pulse became slower, fuller, regular.

By and by he moved, sighed, opened his eyes and spoke.

He asked a question: "What has happened?"

While he had been lying there much had happened. Life and death had

battled over him, and life had triumphed. When he recovered from the

effects of his fall and found himself bleeding, he tried to rise and

stanch the flow, but, already exhausted, he fell back almost fainting

from the effort. He called repeatedly for help, but his only reply was

the hideous face of his guard, silently leering at him for a moment,

then disappearing without a word, At last it occurred to him that he had

been left there to die, and he roused all his energies to his aid. How

we strive for our lives! But Shirley accomplished nothing, he could not

even raise his hand to the bleeding shoulder, with every effort the

blood flowed more copiously. His mind was rapidly becoming benumbed like

his body, which shivered as though it were mid winter. Darkness came

over his eyes, and as he listened to the din of the battle he fell into

a dreamy state that soon passed into seeming unconsciousness again.

Nevertheless, while the doctor came and went and did his work, and the

savage scowled at him, yet gave his life's blood to save him, though he

lay like a dead man and saw them not, nor heard them, nor even felt the

needle in his flesh, his mind was not idle. Strange doubts and fears,

wild longings and regrets, sweet thoughts of long-forgotten happiness,

and fair visions of the future, busied his brain. Memory unrolled her

scroll and breathed upon the letters of his story that lapse of time and

press of circumstance had made dim, till they grew clear, and with

himself he lived his life again, and nothing was lost out of it or

forgotten. There was his mother's face again, with the old, old loving

smile upon her lips and the tender mother-love in the depths of her

beautiful blue eyes--lips that had so oven kissed away his childish

tears, and had taught him to say at evening, "Our Father" and "Now I lay

me down to sleep," eyes that had never looked upon him without something

of the heavenly light of which they were now so full. There before him,

bright and clear as ever, were the scenes of his boyhood--the

school-forms defaced with many a rude cutting of names and dates, the

master knitting his shaggy brows and tapping meaningly with his ruler

upon the awful desk while some white haired urchin floundered through an

ill-learned task and his classmates tittered at his blunders. Dear old

classmates! How their faces shone and gladdened as they chased the

bounding football! How merrily they flushed and glowed when the clear

frosty air of the Northern winter quivered with the ring of their skates

upon the hard ice! How soberly side by side they solved problems and

looked up _sesquipedalia verba_ in big lexicons! And how happily the

late evening hours wore away as they read _Ivanhoe_ and the _Leather

Stocking Tales_ by the fireside with shellbarks and pippins!