sunny and smiling little personage, and hovered about the room, throwing
a light wherever she went. Have you never made the sunshine dance into
dark corners, by reflecting it from a bit of looking-glass? Well, so
looked the winged cheerfulness of this fairy-like stranger, amid the
gloom of the cottage. She flew to Epimetheus, and laid the least touch
of her finger on the inflamed spot where the Trouble had stung him, and
immediately the anguish of it was gone. Then she kissed Pandora on the
forehead, and her hurt was cured likewise.
After performing these good offices, the bright stranger fluttered
sportively over the children’s heads, and looked so sweetly at them, that
they both began to think it not so very much amiss to have opened the
box, since, otherwise, their cheery guest must have been kept a prisoner
among those naughty imps with stings in their tails.
“Pray, who are you, beautiful creature?” inquired Pandora.
“I am to be called Hope!” answered the sunshiny figure. “And because I
am such a cheery little body, I was packed into the box, to make amends
to the human race for that swarm of ugly Troubles, which was destined to
be let loose among them. Never fear! we shall do pretty well in spite of
them all.”
“Your wings are colored like the rainbow!” exclaimed Pandora. “How very
beautiful!”
“Yes, they are like the rainbow,” said Hope, “because, glad as my nature
is, I am partly made of tears as well as smiles.”
“And will you stay with us,” asked Epimetheus, “forever and ever?”
“As long as you need me,” said Hope, with her pleasant smile—“and that
will be as long as you live in the world—I promise never to desert you.
There may come times and seasons, now and then, when you will think that
I have utterly vanished. But again, and again, and again, when perhaps
you least dream of it, you shall see the glimmer of my wings on the
ceiling of your cottage. Yes, my dear children, and I know something very
good and beautiful that is to be given you hereafter!”
“Oh tell us,” they exclaimed—“tell us what it is!”
“Do not ask me,” replied Hope, putting her finger on her rosy mouth. “But
do not despair, even if it should never happen while you live on this
earth. Trust in my promise, for it is true.”
“We do trust you!” cried Epimetheus and Pandora, both in one breath.
And so they did; and not only they, but so has everybody trusted Hope,
that has since been alive. And to tell you the truth, I cannot help being
glad—(though, to be sure, it was an uncommonly naughty thing for her to
do)—but I cannot help being glad that our foolish Pandora peeped into the
box. No doubt—no doubt—the Troubles are still flying about the world, and
have increased in multitude, rather than lessened, and are a very ugly
set of imps, and carry most venomous stings in their tails. I have felt
them already, and expect to feel them more, as I grow older. But then
that lovely and lightsome little figure of Hope! What in the world could
we do without her? Hope spiritualizes the earth; Hope makes it always
new; and, even in the earth’s best and brightest aspect, Hope shows it to
be only the shadow of an infinite bliss hereafter!
[3] Hawthorne’s name for Mercury.
RIP VAN WINKLE
By Washington Irving
Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill
mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family,
and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble
height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of
season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces
some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they
are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers.
When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and
purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but,
sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather
a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the
setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.
At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the
light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among
the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the
fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great
antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the
early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government
of the good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were some
of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built
of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and
gable fronts, surmounted with weather-cocks.
In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell
the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived
many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain,
a simple good-natured fellow of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a
descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous
days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort
Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of
his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple, good-natured man;
he was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient, hen-pecked husband.
Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit
which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt
to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline
of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and
malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation; and a curtain
lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues
of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some
respects, be considered a tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van Winkle
was thrice blessed.
Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of
the village, who, as usual, with the amiable sex, took his part in all
family squabbles; and never failed, whenever they talked those matters
over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van
Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever
he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught
them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of
ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village,
he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering
on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity; and not
a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood.
The great error in Rip’s composition was an insuperable aversion to all
kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity
or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long
and heavy as a Tartar’s lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even
though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a
fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods
and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild
pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest
toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian
corn, or building stone fences; the women of the village, too, used to
employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their
less obliging husbands would not do for them. In a word Rip was ready to
attend to anybody’s business but his own; but as to doing family duty,
and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible.
In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm, it was the
most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything
about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences were
continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray, or get
among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than
anywhere else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he
had some out-door work to do; so that though his patrimonial estate had
dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, until there was little
more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the
worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood.
His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody.
His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit
the habits, with the old clothes of his father. He was generally seen
trooping like a colt at his mother’s heels, equipped in a pair of his
father’s cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one
hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather.
Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish,
well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or
brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would
rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he
would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept
continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness,
and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her
tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to
produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of replying
to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown into
a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes,
but said nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh volley from his
wife; so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside
of the house—the only side which, in truth, belongs to a hen-pecked
husband.
Rip’s sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much hen-pecked
as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in
idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of
his master’s going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit
befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever
scoured the woods—but what courage can withstand the ever-during and
all-besetting terrors of a woman’s tongue? The moment Wolf entered the
house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between
his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong
glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or
ladle, he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.
Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony
rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is
the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while
he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind
of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages
of the village, which held its sessions on a bench before a small inn,
designated by a rubicund portrait of his Majesty George the Third. Here
they used to sit in the shade through a long lazy summer’s day, talking
listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about
nothing. But it would have been worth any statesman’s money to have heard
the profound discussions that sometimes took place, when by chance an old
newspaper fell into their hands from some passing traveller. How solemnly
they would listen to the contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel,
the schoolmaster, a dapper, learned little man, who was not to be daunted
by the most gigantic word in the dictionary; and how sagely they would
deliberate upon the public events some months after they had taken place.
The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas
Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the
door of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving
sufficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a large tree; so
that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately
as by a sun-dial. It is true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked
his pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has
his adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his
opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was
observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent
and angry puffs; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and
tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds; and sometimes, taking
the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapor curl about his
nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect approbation.
From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his
termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of
the assemblage and call the members all to naught; nor was that august
personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this
terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in
habits of idleness.
Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative,
to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take
gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat
himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with
Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. “Poor
Wolf,” he would say, “thy mistress leads thee a dog’s life of it; but
never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand
by thee!” Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully in his master’s face,
and if dogs can feel pity I verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment
with all his heart.
[Illustration: AS HE ENTERED THE VILLAGE, HE MET A NUMBER OF PEOPLE, NONE
OF WHOM HE KNEW—page 376
_From the painting by Arthur Rackham_]
In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had
unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill
mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and
the still solitudes had echoed and re-echoed with the reports of his
gun. Panting and fatigued he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a
green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a
precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the
lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the
lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic
course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging
bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing
itself in the blue highlands.
On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild, lonely,
and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments from the impending cliffs,
and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some
time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the
mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he
saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village, and he
heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame
Van Winkle.
As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing,
“Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!” He looked round, but could see nothing
but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He thought
his fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he
heard the same cry ring through the still evening air: “Rip Van Winkle!
Rip Van Winkle!”—at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving
a low growl, skulked to his master’s side, looking fearfully down into
the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked
anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly
toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he
carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being in this
lonely and unfrequented place, but supposing it to be some one of the
neighborhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it.
On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the singularity of
the stranger’s appearance. He was a short square-built old fellow, with
thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique
Dutch fashion—a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist—several pair of
breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons
down the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a stout
keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and
assist him with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this
new acquaintance, Rip complied with his usual alacrity; and mutually
relieving one another, they clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the
dry bed of a mountain torrent. As they ascended, Rip every now and then
heard long rolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed to issue out
of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which
their rugged path conducted. He paused for an instant, but supposing
it to be the muttering of one of those transient thunder-showers which
often take place in mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through the
ravine, they came to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, surrounded by
perpendicular precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees shot
their branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the
bright evening cloud. During the whole time Rip and his companion had
labored on in silence; for though the former marvelled greatly what could
be the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet
there was something strange and incomprehensible about the unknown, that
inspired awe and checked familiarity.
On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder presented themselves.
On a level spot in the center was a company of odd-looking personages
playing at ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion;
some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their
belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with that
of the guide’s. Their visages, too, were peculiar: one had a large beard,
broad face, and small piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to consist
entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat set off
with a little red cock’s tail. They all had beards, of various shapes and
colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout old
gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a laced doublet,
broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and
high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group reminded Rio of
the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie Van
Shaick, the village parson, and which had been brought over from Holland
at the time of the settlement.
What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though these folks were
evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the
most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of
pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of
the scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled,
echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder.
As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly desisted from
their play, and stared at him with such fixed statue-like gaze, and such
strange, uncouth, lack-luster countenances, that his heart turned within
him, and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the contents
of the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the
company. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the liquor in
profound silence, and then returned to their game.
By degrees Rip’s awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when no
eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage, which he found had much of
the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and
was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked another; and
he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often that at length his senses
were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined,
and he fell into a deep sleep.
On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first
seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes—it was a bright sunny
morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and
the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze.
“Surely,” thought Rip, “I have not slept here all night.” He recalled
the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of
liquor—the mountain ravine—the wild retreat among the rocks—the woebegone
party at ninepins—the flagon—“Oh! that flagon! that wicked flagon!”
thought Rip—“what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle!”
He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean well-oiled
fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel
incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He
now suspected that the grave roysters of the mountain had put a trick
upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun.
Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a
squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him and shouted his name, but
all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to
be seen.
He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening’s gambol, and if
he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to
walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual
activity. “These mountain beds do not agree with me,” thought Rip, “and
if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of rheumatism, I shall have
a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle.” With some difficulty he got down
into the glen: he found the gully up which he and his companion had
ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain stream
was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling the
glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its
sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and
witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grapevines
that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind
of network in his path.
At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs
to the amphitheatre; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks
presented a high impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling
in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad deep basin, black
from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was
brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was
only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in
air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure
in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man’s
perplexities. What was to be done? The morning was passing away, and Rip
felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog
and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve among
the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and,
with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward.
As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he
knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted
with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of a different
fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him with
equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes upon him,
invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this gesture
induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his astonishment, he
found his beard had grown a foot long!