Such a sorrow is to-day profound and universal; there where vice

abounds, sorrow superabounds. It is no longer that melancholy born of

the insufficiency of external reality, once for all recognized, that

felt by Obermann and proud romanticists; but a humble, narrow, ragged

rancor, mixed with disdain, with disgust, born of our insufficiency to

ourselves, perceived thoroughly. Never, I believe, have we been more

generally sad than in these times. And it is that which saves us; I find

here our greatness. He alone is lost who feels himself at ease and

healthful in evil; consciences without anxiety are the only hopeless

ones. Let us hope then, for it cannot be denied that we feel we are very

ill. It is apparent that we are in labor with something which shall be

our cure. The symptoms of this painful labor are not lacking. The works

which are appearing now, pre-eminent in form, but obscure and hesitating

in principles, bear signs of the stress in which they were conceived;

soon they will seem merely specious. In the poetry, romance, painting,

music, of to-day, how many exquisite works are born, not of energy

guided by love, but only of a dream of energy, a dream of love, on the

shores of inconsolable exile! The truth is, we no longer know what to

become; when any one of the antique misfortunes strikes us,--death,

abandonment, ruin,--we no longer bear it as our fathers did. We no

longer know the dignified, peaceful mournings of old; but under an

unexpected stroke, the torment, the complicated rending in the heart,

show that it has been secretly undermined. We feel indeed divided within

ourselves, and we need to be unified; but the inward unification is

possible only for the absolutely debauched or the absolutely good man;

there is no _via media_; half-virtue rends us....

Our spiritual life being in truth miracle and mystery, I do not know how

to explain what each one knows so well; I do not know how there is

developed within us that sublime state known and described under

different names by Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, Epictetus, Marcus

Aurelius, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Tauler, the author of the

'Imitation,' Shelley, Emerson, Tolstoy: but I know that such a state,

which we all know by experience, merits alone the name of positive

morality.... Well then, history shows that what is true of each one of

us personally, is true of society.

THE CONVERSION OF THE CHURCH

While a purer spirit is visibly awakening in ailing humanity and turning

it again to Christ, the religion of Christ is rejuvenating. His church

is no longer motionless. Thus, in the midst of a great confusion, two

religious movements which correspond with one another are defining

themselves with sufficient clearness.

On the one side, men without any precise faith, and who thought

themselves without any faith, have perceived that they carry within

themselves that which they sought: an explanation of themselves, say a

principle of salvation. At whatever point these thinking men arrive, it

is apparent at the present that they are progressing in the way of the

Evangel, and following the path of the cross.... On the other side, the

Roman Catholic Church, governed by a vigilant Pope, has declared

herself. She has spoken of love, at the moment when all were thirsty for

love and self-forgetfulness; she intercedes for the suffering masses, at

the moment when others were going to do it outside of her, perhaps

against her. And more, she is resolutely to-day accenting spirituality,

after having so long accented ritual or policy. The new spiritualists

and the renewed Christians are thus pushed forward to a meeting with one

another by the need of their practical co-operation, and also perhaps by

the consciousness of their intimate kinship. They are marching from both

sides, with the same rallying cry, Fraternity and sacrifice! Here they

are flying from the city of the plain, where a material civilization

reigns, and claiming to suffice all; they are emigrating, they know not

whither, if it be only towards the heights; there they are descending

from their high, narrow, clerical, shut-in fastness.

The conversion that the Church should make is a conversion of the heart.

It must become again a school of true liberty and love. Herein lies all

the anxiety of the moment; and the great Catholic question lies not

between the Church and the Republic, but between the Church and the

People, or rather between the Church and the pure Spirit. By loving the

people in truth, and by making itself the people, it is clear that the

Catholic Church would simply be returning to its original source. Now,

returning to its original source is, in a word, all that the Church

should do; and that which, following her example, all old institutions

should do so as to live and to make us live. To last, means to be

re-born perpetually. In truth, each one of these institutions was born

in former times, from a definite need of the soul. And at first they

responded exactly to it, and that is why they prevailed; all their

strength came from the fact that they were necessary; their weakness

comes from the fact that they are no longer so. At first the religious

community was formed of the imperious necessity of a deliverance from

evil; it was not for ornament, not for the charm of burning incense

under arches; ... neither was it formed to do what kings, warriors, and

judges are sufficient to do; these last would have absorbed it, but they

cannot,--although they try to do so every day; but they can never do so,

unless the Church abandons her own functions to usurp theirs. She would

then, by forgetting her destination, commit suicide. But even then,

another church would form in response to the spiritual hunger and thirst

which never ceases. Thus the whole problem of the existence of an

institution is to remain forever necessary, and therefore faithful to

its original source.

Let us add that civil society cannot maintain itself without also

constant rejuvenation,--becoming young again; it also exists only by the

active consent of willing minds. It is essential for the harmony of the

whole that each person should be an individual and not an automaton. As

men, divided by the external accidents of habit, condition, fortune, and

united by that which is fundamental within them, the weakening of that

which is within them disintegrates them; and thence the principal cause

of our divisions comes from hardly any one to-day being in his heart

that which he appears to be. Therefore, to bring back diverse

conditions to their original source and to the reason of their being, to

re-establish the principle in the centre of the life of each, is to do

the work of unification. To say to the priests, "Be primitive

Christians, imitate the chosen Master," is, socially speaking, a good

action which all Christians and non-Christians should applaud, for the

salvation of all depends upon it. The remedy of our malady, without

doubt, lies not in having all France to mass, but first that all should

make their faith the rule of their actions. That which lies at the

bottom of our consciences is the thing by which we are brothers.

TWO IMPRESSIONS

From 'Notes Contemporaines'

Two impressions have remained with me. They date from a month's

wandering in Switzerland, at a time when there are no tourists to be

met. The first is of the exquisite scenes of wintry Nature, as she shows

herself at this season, when none come to visit her--still, reposeful,

silent, veiled--how much more touching and impressive than when profaned

by the summer crowd! This is the moment when the Jura should be seen!

The pine woods on the hills are but faintly powdered with snow, and the

patches of dry rusty vegetation beneath lie on the gray stones like the

broad red stains of blood. Seeds hang here and there on the bare

branches, mixed with the tendrils of the wild vine, or with ghostly

clusters of what were the flowers of the clematis. The falling leaves

are golden; those already fallen are of an ashen gray. The delicate

tracery overhead is of infinite complexity, exquisite in its endless

detail; and the whole of this disrobed Nature, in its unadorned

simplicity, has an impress of sincerity that reminds you of the drawings

of Holbein. Flat pools of shallow water lie about, carpeted with mosses

and mirroring the sky; the smoke of the huts rises upward gaunt and

straight. No one is near; there are no passers-by; and there is no

sound, except that of a waterfall, fuller in its rush than at any other

season. Silence--a silence so fragile that the step of a single wayfarer

on the road would be enough to break it--reigns undisturbed, and covers

everything like a winding-sheet.

My second impression is of another kind, though almost as comforting, at

least by the contrast; it was given me by the conversation of the

peasant folk, plain humble mountaineers. The speech and thought of

these men is plain and direct, devoid of artifice, clear and fathomable;

they furnish you an unvarnished tale of their own simple experience--the

life experience of a man, no more! They neither invent nor disguise, and

are totally incapable of presenting either fact or circumstances in a

way that shall suggest to the hearer another or a different sense. Our

woeful habit of ridiculing what lies indeed at the bottom of our hearts

they have never learned; they copy, line by line and stroke by stroke,

the meaning that is in them, the intentions of their inner mind. In our

Parisian haunts, it seems to me that their success would be a problem;

but they are heedless of "success"; and to us, when we escape from our

vitiated centres, from an atmosphere poisoned by that perpetual

straining after effect, the pure undressed simplicity of these

"primitives" is as refreshing as to our over-excited and exhausted

nerves are the green, quiet, hidden nooks of their Alpine solitudes.

With them there is no need of imaginative expression; the trouble of

thought is useless; their words are the transparent revelation of their

beliefs. The calm brought to the hyper-civilized spirit by this

plainness and directness of Nature is absolutely indescribable; and when

I came to reflect on the profoundness of mental quietude--I might say of

consolation--that I had attained to during my wanderings, I could not

help recognizing what a cruel, fatal part is played in the lives of all

of us by irony. It is, with Frenchmen, a kind of veneer, worn even by

the most unpretentious in place of whatever may be real in them; and

where this outward seeming is absent, they are completely at a loss.

Well-bred Frenchmen rarely if ever have or pronounce an opinion, or pass

a judgment--unless with a playful obliquity of judgment, and on things

in general. They assume an air of knowing what they are talking about,

and of having probed the vanity of all human effort before they have

ever attempted or approached it; and even this indifference, this

disdain, this apparent dislike to the responsibility of so much as an

opinion,--even this is not natural, not innate; its formula is not of

its own creation; it is but the repetition of what was originated by

some one else. The truth is, that in our atmosphere all affirmative

action is difficult; it is hard either to be or to do. This habit of

irony has destroyed all healthful activity here. It is a mere instrument

of evil; if you grasp it, it turns to mischief in your hands, and either

slips from and eludes them, or wounds you, as often as not, mortally.

SIR AUBREY DE VERE

(1788-1846)

[Illustration: SIR AUBREY DE VERE]

At Curragh Chase, in the picturesque county of Limerick, Ireland, Aubrey

Hunt was born in 1788. On the death of his father he succeeded to the

baronetcy and took the name of De Vere. Though his deep love of nature

prompted him while very young to write descriptive verses, it was the

drama that first seriously attracted him. This form he chose for his

first painstaking work, 'Julian the Apostate.' The play opens at the

time when Julian, having renounced the faith of his household

oppressors, is allowed as a pagan worshiper to participate in the

Eleusinian mysteries; when, it is said, he consented to the

assassination of his uncle the Emperor Constantius. It found an admiring

and enthusiastic audience and received unstinted praise from the

critics. One wrote, "Lord Byron has produced nothing equal to it;" and

another, "Scott has nothing so intellectual or so elevated among his

exquisite sketches."

'Mary Tudor,' a drama written two years before his death in 1846, is his

"most considerable work," says his son, and "an expression of his

sympathy with great qualities obscured by great errors and great

calamities." The sonnet was however the form of composition he

preferred, and as a sonneteer he will be remembered. His sonnets are

mainly historical, though he wrote also some religious and descriptive

ones which Wordsworth considered "the most perfect of our age." His

earlier ones, modeled after those of Petrarch and Filicaja, are inferior

in imagery, phraseology, and nobility of thought to those produced under

the influence of Wordsworth, a poet whose genius De Vere was among the

first to acknowledge, and whose friendship he regarded as one of the

chief honors of his life.

Like his friend, De Vere was a patriot, and in his historical sonnets he

has recorded his love for the land of his remoter ancestors, whereas in

the 'Lamentations of Ireland' he has expressed with great ardor his love

for the land of his birth. In 1842 he published 'The Song of Faith,'

which with the exception of a few translations was all he gave the world

in twenty years. Devoted to his occupations as a country gentleman, and

being of a singularly modest disposition, he neither loved nor courted

fame, nor found in it any incentive to action.

Sir Aubrey De Vere was not in the modern acceptance of the term a

national poet, nor was he, as so many of his contemporaries, anti-Irish.

He modeled his poems on the great English writers, but all he wrote is

pervaded with a deep sympathy for Ireland, and that at a time when such

sympathy was rare.

THE CRUSADERS

The flattering crowd wreathe laurels for the brow

Of blood-stained chief or regal conqueror;

To Caesar or the Macedonian bow;

Meteors of earth that set to rise no more:

A hero-worship, as of old? Not now

Should chieftain bend with servile reverence o'er

The fading pageantry of Paynim lore.

True heroes they whose consecrated vow

Led them to Jewry, fighting for the Cross;

While not by Avarice lured, or lust of power

Inspired, they combated that Christ should reign,

And life laid down for him counted no loss.

On Dorylaeum's plain, by Antioch's tower,

And Ascalon, sleep well the martyred slain.

THE CHILDREN BAND

From 'The Crusaders'

All holy influences dwell within

The breast of childhood; instincts fresh from God

Inspire it, ere the heart beneath the rod

Of grief hath bled, or caught the plague of sin.

How mighty was this fervor which could win

Its way to infant souls!--and was the sod

Of Palestine by infant Croises trod?

Like Joseph went they forth, or Benjamin,

In all their touching beauty to redeem?

And did their soft lips kiss the Sepulchre?

Alas! the lovely pageant, as a dream,

Faded! They sank not through ignoble fear;

They felt not Moslem steel. By mountain stream,

In sands, in fens, they died--no mother near!

THE ROCK OF CASHEL

Royal and saintly Cashel! I would gaze

Upon the wreck of thy departed powers

Not in the dewy light of matin hours,

Nor in the meridian pomp of summer blaze,

But at the close of dim autumnal days,

When the sun's parting glance, through slanting showers,

Sheds o'er thy rock-throned battlements and towers

Such awful gleams as brighten o'er decay's

Prophetic cheek. At such a time, methinks,

There breathes from thy lone courts and voiceless aisles

A melancholy moral; such as sinks

On the lone traveler's heart amid the piles

Of vast Persepolis on her mountain stand,

Or Thebes half buried in the desert sand.

THE RIGHT USE OF PRAYER

Therefore when thou wouldst pray, or dost thine alms,

Blow not a trump before thee; hypocrites

Do thus, vaingloriously; the common streets

Boast of their largess, echoing their psalms.

On such the laud of man, like unctuous balms,

Falls with sweet savor. Impious counterfeits!

Prating of heaven, for earth their bosom beats!

Grasping at weeds, they lose immortal palms!

God needs not iteration nor vain cries:

That man communion with his God might share

Below, Christ gave the ordinance of prayer:

Vague ambages and witless ecstasies

Avail not: ere a voice to prayer be given,

The heart should rise on wings of love to heaven.

THE CHURCH

Ay, wisely do we call her Mother--she

Who from her liberal breath breathes sustenance

To nations; a majestic charity!

No marble symbol cold, in suppliant glance

Deceitful smiling; strenuous her advance,

Yet calm; while holy ardors, fancy-free,

Direct her measured steps: in every chance

Sedate--as Una 'neath the forest tree

Encompassed by the lions. Why, alas!

Must her perverse and thoughtless children turn

From her example? Why must the sulky breath

Of Bigotry stain Charity's pure glass?

Poison the springs of Art and Science--burn

The brain through life, and sear the heart in death?

SONNET

Sad is our youth, for it is ever going,

Crumbling away beneath our very feet;

Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing

In currents unperceived, because so fleet;

Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing--

But tares, self-sown, have overtopped the wheat;

Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing--

And still, oh still, their dying breath is sweet;

And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us

Of that which made our childhood sweeter still;

And sweet is middle life, for it hath left us

A nearer good to cure an older ill;

And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them

Not for their sake, but His who grants them, or denies them!

BERNAL DIAZ DEL CASTILLO

(1498-1593)

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, one of the chief chroniclers of the conquest

of Mexico by the Spaniards, was born at Medina del Campo in Old Castile,

about the year 1498. Concerning the date of his death, authorities

differ widely. He died in Guatemala, perhaps not long after 1570, but

some say not until 1593.

Of humble origin, he determined while still a youth to seek his fortune

in the New World. In 1514 he went with Pedrarias to Darien and Cuba. He

was a common soldier with Cordoba in the first expedition to Yucatan in

1517. He accompanied Grijalva to Mexico in the following year, and

finally enlisted under the banner of Cortes. In every event that marked

the career of that brilliant commander in Mexico, Diaz had a part; he

was engaged in one hundred and nineteen battles, and was present at the

siege and surrender of the capital in 1521. Of unswerving loyalty and

bravery, according to his own naive statement, he was frequently

appointed by Cortes to highly important missions. When Cortes set out to

subdue the defection under Cristoval de Olid at Honduras, Diaz followed

his old chief in the terrible journey through the forests and swamps.

On his return he presumably adopted the life of a planter, although he

had complained loudly of the meagre allotment of land and laborers which

the conqueror gave him. In 1568, however, after the lapse of half a

century, when Cortes had been dead twenty-one years, we find the veteran

comfortably established as _regidor_ (a civic officer) of the city of

Guatemala, and busily engaged on the narrative of the heroic deeds of

his youth. In his introduction to the 'Historia' Diaz frankly admits

that his principal motive in taking up his pen was to vindicate the

valor of himself and others, who had been completely overshadowed by the

exaggerated reputation of Cortes.

When fairly started, he happened to run across the 'Cronica de la Nueva

Espana' (Saragossa, 1554) of Gomara, secretary and chaplain to Cortes,

1540-47. At first the rough old soldier threw down his pen in despair,

on noting the polished style of the scholar; but when he became aware of

the gross inaccuracies of his predecessor, who had never even set foot

in America, he determined, so he declares, to write above all things a

faithful narrative of the stirring events in which he had participated.

Thus was completed his 'Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva

Espana.' For some reason this valuable manuscript lay neglected in a

private library for about sixty years. Finally it fell into the hands of

Father Alonso Remor, a sagacious priest, who published it at Madrid in

1632.

The narrative of this soldier historian, although clumsy, full of

digressions and repetitions, and laying bare his ignorance, simplicity,

and vanity, will nevertheless always be read with far more interest than

the weightier works of Las Casas, Gomara, or Herrera. Prescott explained

the secret of its fascination when he said:--

"Bernal Diaz, the untutored child of nature, is a most true and

literal copyist of nature. He transfers the scenes of real life by

a sort of _daguerreotype_ process, if I may so say, to his pages.

He is among chroniclers what Defoe is among novelists.... All the

picturesque scenes and romantic incidents of the campaign are

reflected in his pages as in a mirror. The lapse of fifty years has

had no power over the spirit of the veteran. The fire of youth

glows in every line of his rude history, and as he calls up the

scenes of the past, the remembrance of the brave companions who are

gone gives, it may be, a warmer coloring to the picture than if it

had been made at an earlier period."

A fairly good English translation of the work of Bernal Diaz appeared in

London in 1800, under the title of 'True History of the Conquest of

Mexico.'

FROM THE 'TRUE HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO'

Translation of Maurice Keatinge: London, 1800

THE CAPTURE OF GUATIMOTZIN

Sandoval at this moment made a signal for the flotilla to close up to

him, and perceived that Guatimotzin was prisoner to Holguin, who was

taking him to Cortes. Upon this he ordered his rowers to exert their

utmost to bring him up to Holguin's vessel, and having arrived by the

side of it, he demanded Guatimotzin to be delivered to him as general of

the whole force; but Holguin refused, alleging that he had no claim

whatever.

A vessel which went to carry the intelligence of the great event,

brought also to Cortes, who was then on the summit of the great temple

in the Taltelulco, very near the part of the lake where Guatimotzin was

captured, an account of the dispute between his officers. Cortes

immediately dispatched Luis Marin and Francisco de Lugo to bring the

whole party together to his quarters, and thus to stop all litigation;

but he enjoined them not to omit treating Guatimotzin and his queen with

the greatest respect. During the interval he employed himself in

arranging a state, as well as he could, with cloths and mantles. He also

prepared a table with refreshments, to receive his prisoners. As soon as

they appeared he went forward to meet them, and embracing Guatimotzin,

treated him and all his attendants with every mark of respect.

The unfortunate monarch, with tears in his eyes, and sinking under

affliction, then addressed him in the following words:--"Malintzin! I

have done that which was my duty in the defense of my kingdom and

people; my efforts have failed, and being now brought by force a

prisoner in your hands, draw that poniard from your side and stab me to

the heart."

Cortes embraced and used every expression to comfort him, by assurances

that he held him in high estimation for the valor and firmness he had

shown, and that he had required a submission from him and the people at

the time that they could no longer reasonably hope for success, in order

to prevent further destruction; but that was all past, and no more to be

thought of it; he should continue to reign over the people as he had

done before. Cortes then inquired after his queen, to which Guatimotzin

replied that in consequence of the compliance of Sandoval with his

request, she and her women remained in the _piraguas_ until Cortes

should decide as to their fate. The general then caused them to be sent

for, and treated them in the best manner his situation afforded. The

evening was drawing on, and it appeared likely to rain; he therefore

sent the whole royal family to Cuyoacan, under the care of Sandoval. The

rest of the troops then returned to their former quarters; we to ours of

Tacuba, and Cortes, proceeding to Cuyoacan, took the command there,

sending Sandoval to resume his station at Tepeaquilla. Thus was the

siege of Mexico brought to a conclusion by the capture of Guatimotzin

and his chiefs, on the thirteenth of August, at the hour of vespers,

being the day of St. Hyppolitus, in the year of our Lord one thousand

five hundred and twenty-one. Glorified by our Lord Jesus Christ, and Our

Lady the Holy Virgin Mary his blessed mother, Amen!

Guatimotzin was of a noble appearance both in person and countenance;

his features were rather large and cheerful, with lively eyes. His age

was about twenty-three or four years, and his complexion very fair for

an Indian. His queen, the niece of Montezuma, was young and very

handsome.

THE MORTALITY AT THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO

What I am going to mention is truth, and I swear and say amen to it. I

have read of the destruction of Jerusalem, but I cannot conceive that

the mortality there exceeded this of Mexico; for all the people from the

distant provinces which belonged to this empire had concentrated

themselves here, where they mostly died. The streets, the squares, the

houses, and the courts of the Taltelulco were covered with dead bodies;

we could not step without treading on them; the lake and canals were

filled with them, and the stench was intolerable. For this reason, our

troops, immediately after the capture of the royal family, retired to

their former quarters. Cortes himself was for some time ill from the

effect of it.

CORTES

I will now proceed to describe the person and disposition of the Marquis

[Cortes]. He was of good stature and strongly built, of a rather pale

complexion and serious countenance. His features were, if faulty, rather

too small; his eyes mild and grave. His beard was black, thin, and

scanty; his hair in the same manner. His breast and shoulders were

broad, and his body very thin. He was very well limbed, and his legs

rather bowed; an excellent horseman, and dexterous in the use of arms.

He also possessed the heart and mind which is the principal part of the

business. I have heard that when he was a lad in Hispaniola he was very

wild about women, and that he had several duels with able swordsmen, in

which he always came off with victory. He had the scar of a sword wound

near his under lip, which appeared through his beard if closely

examined, and which he received in some of those affairs. In his

appearance, manners, transactions, conversation, table, and dress,

everything bore the appearance of a great lord. His clothes were

according to the fashion of the time; he was not fond of silks, damasks,

or velvets, but everything plain, and very handsome; nor did he wear

large chains of gold, but a small one of fine workmanship bearing the

image of Our Lady the Blessed Virgin with her precious Son in her arms,

and a Latin motto; and on the reverse, St. John the Baptist with another

motto. He wore on his finger a ring with a very fine diamond, and in his

cap, which according to the fashion of that day was of velvet, he bore a

medal, the head and motto of which I do not recollect; but latterly he

wore a plain cloth cap without any ornament.

His table was always magnificently attended and served, with four

major-domos or principal officers, a number of pages, and a great

quantity of plate, both gold and silver. He dined heartily at midday,

and drank a glass of wine mixed with water, of about half a pint. He was

not nice in his food, nor expensive, except on particular occasions

where he saw the propriety of it. He was very affable with all his

captains and soldiers, especially those who accompanied him in his first

expedition from Cuba. He was a Latinist, and as I have been told, a

bachelor of laws. He was also something of a poet, and a very good

rhetorician; very devout to Our Holy Virgin and to St. Peter, St. Jago,

and St. John the Baptist, and charitable to the poor. When he swore he

used to say, "By my conscience!" and when he was angry with any of us

his friends, he would say, "Oh! may you repent it." When he was very

angry, the veins in his throat and forehead used to swell, and when in

great wrath he would not utter a syllable to any one. He was very

patient under insults or injuries; for some of the soldiers were at

times very rude and abusive to him; but he never resented their conduct,

although he had often great reason to do so. In such cases he used only

to say "Be silent!" or "Go away, in God's name, and take care not to

repeat this conduct or I will have you punished." He was very determined

and headstrong in all business of war, not attending to any

remonstrances on account of danger; an instance of which he showed in

the attack of those fortresses called the Rocks of the Marquis, which he

forced us to scale, contrary to our opinions, and when neither courage,

council, nor wisdom could give any rational hope of success....

Where we had to erect a fortress, Cortes was the hardest laborer in the

trenches; when we were going into battle, he was as forward as any.

Cortes was very fond of play, both at cards and dice, and while playing

he was very affable and good-humored. He used frequently at such times

those cant expressions which are customary amongst persons who game. In

military service he practiced the most strict attention to discipline,

constantly going the rounds in person during the night, visiting the

quarters of the soldiers and severely reprehending those whom he found

without their armor and appointments and not ready to turn out;

repeating to them the proverb that "It is a bad sheep which cannot carry

its own wool."

On our expedition to Higueras I perceived that he had acquired a habit

which I had never before observed in him, and it was this: after eating,

if he did not get his siesta or sleep, his stomach was affected and he

fell sick. For this reason, when on the journey, let the rain be ever so

heavy or the sun ever so hot, he always reposed for a short time after

his repast, a carpet or cloak being spread under a tree, on which he lay

down; and having slept a short time, he mounted his horse and proceeded

on his journey. When we were engaged in the wars during the conquest of

New Spain, he was very thin and slender; but after his return from

Higueras he grew fat, and acquired a belly. He at this time trimmed his

beard, which had now begun to grow white, in the short fashion. In his

early life he was very liberal, but grew close latterly, some of his

servants complaining that he did not pay them as he ought; and I have

also to observe that in his latter undertakings he never succeeded.

Perhaps such was the will of Heaven, his reward being reserved for

another place; for he was a good cavalier, and very devout to the Holy

Virgin, and also to St. Paul and other Holy Saints. God pardon him his

sins, and me mine; and give me a good end, which is better than all

conquests and victories over Indians.

OF DIVINE AID IN THE BATTLE OF SANTA MARIA DE LA VITORIA

In his account of this action, Gomara says that previous to the arrival

of the main body of the cavalry under Cortes, Francisco de Morla

appeared in the field upon a gray dappled horse, and that it was one of

the holy Apostles, St. Peter or St. Jago, disguised under his person. I

say that all our works and victories are guided by the hand of our Lord

Jesus Christ, and that in this battle there were so many enemies to

every one of us, that they could have buried us under the dust they

could have held in their hands, but that the great mercy of God aided us

throughout. What Gomara asserts might be the case, and I, sinner as I

am, was not worthy to be permitted to see it. What I did see was

Francisco de Morla, riding in company with Cortes and the rest upon a

chestnut horse; and that circumstance and all the others of that day

appear to me, at this moment that I am writing, as if actually passing

in view of these sinful eyes. But although I, unworthy sinner that I

am, was unfit to behold either of those holy Apostles, upwards of four

hundred of us were present: let their testimony be taken. Let inquiry

also be made how it happened that when the town was founded on that

spot, it was not named after one or other of those holy Apostles, and

called St. Jago de la Vitoria, or St. Pedro de la Vitoria, as it was

Santa Maria, and a church erected and dedicated to one of those holy

saints. Very bad Christians were we indeed, according to the account of

Gomara, who, when God sent us his Apostles to fight at our head, did not

every day after acknowledge and return thanks for so great a mercy!

Would to heaven that it were so; but until I read the chronicle of

Gomara I never heard of it, nor was it ever mentioned amongst the

conquerors who were then present.

CORTES DESTROYS CERTAIN IDOLS

There was on the island of Cozumel a temple, and some hideous idols, to

which all the Indians of the neighboring districts used to go frequently

in solemn procession.... Cortes summoned all the caciques and chief

persons to come to him, and as well as he could, by signs and

interpretations, explained to them that the idols which they worshiped

were not gods, but evil things which would draw their souls down to

hell, and that if they wished to remain in a brotherly connection with

us, they must pull them down and place in their stead the crucifix of

our Lord, by whose assistance they would obtain good harvests and the

salvation of their souls; with many other good and holy reasons, which

he expressed very well. The priests and chiefs replied that they

worshiped these gods as their ancestors had done, because they were kind

to them; and that if we attempted to molest them, the gods would

convince us of their power by destroying us in the sea. Cortes then

ordered them to be prostrated, which we immediately did, rolling them

down some steps. He next sent for lime, of which there was abundance in

the place, and Indian masons, by whom under our direction a very

handsome altar was constructed, whereon we placed an image of the Holy

Virgin; and the carpenters having made a crucifix, which was erected in

a small chapel close to the altar, mass was said by the Reverend Father

Juan Diaz, and listened to by the priests, chiefs, and the rest of the

natives, with great attention.

CHARLES DIBDIN

(1745-1814)

[Illustration: CHARLES DIBDIN]

The saying, "Let me make the songs of a nation and I care not who makes

its laws," receives an interesting illustration in the sea songs of

Charles Dibdin. They were written at a momentous period in English

history. The splendid gallantry and skill of England's sailors, and the

genius of her naval commanders, had made her mistress of the seas, and

the key of all combinations against the French Caesar. The sterling

qualities of the British seaman are the inspiration of Dibdin's songs.

Many of these were first given at Dibdin's monodramatic entertainments

at the Sans Souci Theatre in London, or as parts of his musical dramas.

They appealed at once to Englishmen, and were sung by every ship's crew;

they fired the national spirit, and played so important a part in the

quickening of English patriotism that the government, recognizing their

stirring force in animating the naval enthusiasm during the Napoleonic

wars, granted a pension of L200 a year to the "Ocean Bard of England."

Charles Dibdin was born in 1745, in a small village near the great

seaport of Southampton. His love of the salt air drew him often to the

ocean's shores, where he saw the ships of all lands pass and repass, and

heard the merry sailors' songs. And yet his own songs, upon which his

title to a place in literature rests, were incidental products of his

active mind. He was an actor, a dramatist, and a composer as well. He

wrote some thirty minor plays and the once popular operettas of 'The

Shepherd's Artifice,' 'The Padlock,' 'The Quaker,' and 'The Waterman.'

He wrote also a 'History of the Stage,' 'Musical Tour through England,'

and an autobiography which bore the title 'Professional Life.' His two

novels are now forgotten, but it is interesting to recall that for the

Stratford Jubilee in honor of Shakespeare, the words of which were by

Garrick, Dibdin composed the much admired songs, dances, and serenades.

He wrote more than thirteen hundred songs, most of which had of course

only a brief existence; but there were enough of them, burning with

genuine lyric fire, to entitle him to grateful remembrance among

England's poets.

In all of these songs, whether the theme be his native land or the

wind-swept seas that close it round, love is the poet's real

inspiration; love of old England and her sovereign, love of the

wealth-bringing ocean, love of the good ship that sails its waves. This

fundamental affection for the things of which he sings has endeared the

songs of Dibdin to the heart of the British sailor; and in this lies the

proof of their genuineness. His songs are simple and melodious; there is

a manly ring in their word and rhythm; they have the swagger and the

fearlessness of the typical tar; they have, too, the beat of his true

heart, his kindly waggery, his sturdy fidelity to his country and his

king. There is nothing quite like them in any other literature.

SEA SONG

I sailed in the good ship the Kitty,

With a smart blowing gale and rough sea;

Left my Polly, the lads call so pretty,

Safe at her anchor. Yo, Yea!

She blubbered salt tears when we parted,

And cried "Now be constant to me!"

I told her not to be down-hearted,

So up went the anchor. Yo, Yea!

And from that time, no worse nor no better,

I've thought on just nothing but she,

Nor could grog nor flip make me forget her,--

She's my best bower-anchor. Yo, Yea!

When the wind whistled larboard and starboard,

And the storm came on weather and lee,

The hope I with her should be harbored

Was my cable and anchor. Yo, Yea!

And yet, my boys, would you believe me?

I returned with no rhino from sea;

Mistress Polly would never receive me,

So again I heav'd anchor. Yo, Yea!

SONG: THE HEART OF A TAR

Yet though I've no fortune to offer,

I've something to put on a par;

Come, then, and accept of my proffer,--

'Tis the kind honest heart of a tar.

Ne'er let such a trifle as this is,

Girls, be to my pleasure a bar;

You'll be rich though 'tis only in kisses,

With the kind honest heart of a tar.

Besides, I am none of your ninnies;

The next time I come from afar,

I'll give you a lapful of guineas,

With the kind honest heart of a tar.

Your lords, with such fine baby faces,

That strut in a garter and star,--

Have they, under their tambour and laces,

The kind honest heart of a tar?

POOR JACK

Go patter to lubbers and swabs, do you see,

'Bout danger, and fear, and the like;

A tight-water boat and good sea-room give me,

And it ain't to a little I'll strike.

Though the tempest topgallant-mast smack smooth should smite

And shiver each splinter of wood,

Clear the deck, stow the yards, and house everything tight,

And under reef foresail we'll scud:

Avast! nor don't think me a milksop so soft,

To be taken for trifles aback;

For they say there's a Providence sits up aloft,

To keep watch for the life of poor Jack!

I heard our good chaplain palaver one day

About souls, heaven, mercy, and such;

And, my timbers! what lingo he'd coil and belay;

Why, 'twas just all as one as High Dutch;

For he said how a sparrow can't founder, d'ye see,

Without orders that come down below;

And a many fine things that proved clearly to me oft

That Providence takes us in tow:

For, says he, do you mind me, let storms ne'er so oft

Take the topsails of sailors aback,

There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,

To keep watch for the life of poor Jack!

I said to our Poll (for d'ye see, she would cry

When last we weighed anchor for sea),

What argufies sniveling and piping your eye?

Why, what a young fool you must be!

Can't you see the world's wide, and there's room for us all,

Both for seamen and lubbers ashore?

And so if to old Davy I go, my dear Poll,

Why, you never will hear of me more.

What then? all's a hazard: come, don't be so soft;

Perhaps I may, laughing, come back;

For d'ye see? there's a cherub sits smiling aloft,

To keep watch for the life of poor Jack.

D'ye mind me? a sailor should be every inch

All as one as a piece of the ship,

And with her brave the world, without offering to flinch,

From the moment the anchor's a-trip.

As for me, in all weathers, all times, sides, and ends,

Naught's a trouble from duty that springs;

For my heart is my Poll's, and my rhino's my friend's,

And as for my life, 'tis the King's.

Even when my time comes, ne'er believe me so soft;

As for grief to be taken aback;

For the same little cherub that sits up aloft

Will look out a good berth for poor Jack.

TOM BOWLING

Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling,

The darling of our crew;

No more he'll hear the tempest howling,

For Death has broached him to.

His form was of the manliest beauty,

His heart was kind and soft;

Faithful below he did his duty,

But now he's gone aloft.

Tom never from his word departed

His virtues were so rare;

His friends were many and true-hearted,

His Poll was kind and fair:

And then he'd sing so blithe and jolly;

Ah, many's the time and oft!

But mirth is turned to melancholy,

For Tom is gone aloft.

Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather,

When He who all commands

Shall give, to call life's crew together,

The word to pipe all hands.

Thus Death, who kings and tars dispatches,

In vain Tom's life has doffed;

For though his body's under hatches,

His soul is gone aloft.

CHARLES DICKENS

(1812-1870)

When a great genius arises he makes his place in the world and explains

himself. Criticism does not make him and cannot unmake him. He may have

great defects and great faults. By exposing them and dwelling upon them,

the critics may apparently nibble him all away. When the critics get

through, however, he remains pretty much the force he was originally.

For real genius is a sort of elemental force that enters the human

world, both for good and evil, and leaves its lasting impression. It is

like a new river, of waters sweet and bitter, clear and muddy, bearing

on its bosom ships and wrecks, the lovely and the ugly, the incongruous

elements of human life and human contrivance. When it floods and

overflows, the critics run away; when it subsides the critics come back

and begin to analyze it, and say, "It wasn't much of a shower."

Charles Dickens is to be judged, like any other genius, by what he

created, what he brought into the world. We are not called on to say

whether he was as great as Homer, as Shakespeare, as Cervantes, as

Fielding, as Manzoni, as Thackeray. He was always quite himself, and

followed no model, though thousands of writers have attempted to follow

him and acquire the title of being Dickens-y. For over half a century he

had the ear of the English-reading public the world over. It laughed

with him, it cried with him, it hungered after him. Whatever he wrote,

it must read; whenever he read, it crowded to hear his masterly

interpretations; when he acted, it was delighted with his histrionic

cleverness. In all these manifestations there was the attraction of a

most winning personality.

He invented a new kind of irresistible humor, he told stories that went

to the heart of humanity, he amused, he warmed, he cheered the world. We

almost think that modern Christmas was his invention, such an apostle

was he of kindliness and brotherly love, of sympathy with the poor and

the struggling, of charity which is not condescension. He made pictures

of low life, and perhaps unreal shadows of high life, and vivid scenes

that lighted up great periods of history. For producing effects and

holding the reader he was a wizard with his pen. And so the world hung

on him, read him and re-read him, recited him, declaimed him, put him

into reading-books, diffused him in common speech and in all literature.

In all English literature his characters are familiar, stand for types,

and need no explanation. And now, having filled itself up with him,

been saturated with him, made him in some ways as common as the air,

does the world tire of him, turn on him, say that it cannot read him any

more, that he is commonplace? If so, the world has made him commonplace.

But the publishers' and booksellers' accounts show no diminution in his

popularity with the new generation.

At a dinner where Dickens was discussed, a gentleman won distinction by

this sole contribution to the conversation:--"There is no evidence in

Dickens's works that he ever read a book." It is true that Dickens drew

most of his material from his own observation of life, and from his

fertile imagination, which was often fantastic. It is true that he could

not be called in the narrow sense a literary writer, that he made no

literary mosaic, and few allusions to the literature of the world. Is it

not probable that he had the art to assimilate his material? For it is

impossible that any writer could pour out such a great flood about the

world and human nature without refreshing his own mind at the great

fountains of literature. And when we turn to such a tale as 'The Tale of

Two Cities,' we are conscious of the vast amount of reading and study he

must have done in order to give us such a true and vivid picture of the

Revolutionary period.

It has been said that Dickens did not write good English, that he could

not draw a lady or a gentleman, that he often makes ear-marks and

personal peculiarities stand for character, that he is sometimes turgid

when he would be impressive, sometimes stilted when he would be fine,

that his sentiment is often false and worked up, that his attempts at

tragedy are melodramatic, and that sometimes his comedy comes near being

farcical. His whole literary attitude has been compared to his boyish

fondness for striking apparel.

There is some truth in all these criticisms, though they do not occur

spontaneously to a fresh reader while he is under the spell of Dickens,

nor were they much brought forward when he was creating a new school and

setting a fashion for an admiring world. His style, which is quite a

part of this singular man, can easily be pulled in pieces and condemned,

and it is not a safe one to imitate. No doubt he wrought for effects,

for he was a magician, and used exaggeration in high lights and low

lights on his crowded canvas. Say what you will of all these defects, of

his lack of classic literary training, of his tendency to melodrama, of

his tricks of style, even of a ray of lime-light here and there, it

remains that he is a great power, a tremendous force in modern life;

half an hour of him is worth a lifetime of his self-conscious analyzers,

and the world is a more cheerful and sympathetic world because of the

loving and lovable presence in it of Charles Dickens.

A sketch of his life and writings, necessarily much condensed for use

here, has been furnished by Mr. Laurence Hutton.

[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS.]

THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DICKENS

BY LAURENCE HUTTON

Charles Dickens was born at Landport in Portsea, on the 7th of February,

1812. His childhood was a very unhappy one. He describes himself in one

of his essays as "a very queer, small boy," and his biographer tells us

that he was very sickly as well as very small. He had little schooling,

and numberless hard knocks, and rough and toilsome was the first quarter

of his journey through life. Many of the passages in 'David Copperfield'

are literally true pictures of his own early experiences, and much of

that work may be accepted as autobiographical. He was fond of putting

himself and his own people into his books, and of drawing his scenes and

his characters from real life, sometimes only slightly disguised.

Tradition says that he built both Mr. Micawber and Mr. Turveydrop out of

his own father; that Mrs. Nickleby was based upon his own mother; and

that his wife, who was the Dora of 'Copperfield' in the beginning of

their married life, became in later years the Flora of 'Little Dorrit.'

The elder Dickens had unquestionably some of the traits ascribed to the

unpractical friend of Copperfield's youth, and something of the cruel

self-indulgence and pompous deportment of the dancing-master in 'Bleak

House.' And it was during his father's imprisonment for debt when the

son was but a youth, that Dickens got his intimate knowledge of the

Marshalsea, and of the heart-breaking existence of its inmates. Some

years before 'Copperfield' was written, he described in a fragment of

actual autobiography, quoted by Forster, the following scene:--

"My father was waiting for me in the lodge [of the Debtor's

Prison]; and we went up to his room, on the top story but one, and

cried very much. And he told me, I remember, to take warning by the

Marshalsea, and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year,

and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would

be happy; but that a shilling spent the other way would make him

wretched."

In these chambers Dickens afterwards put Mr. Dorrit. And while the

father remained in confinement, the son lived for a time in a back attic

in Lant Street, Borough, which was to become the home of the eccentric

Robert Sawyer, and the scene of a famous supper party given to do honor

to Mr. Pickwick "and the other chaps." "If a man wishes to abstract

himself from the world, to remove himself from the reach of temptation,

to place himself beyond the possibility of any inducement to look out of

the window, he should by all means go to Lant Street." Lant Street still

exists, as Mr. Pickwick found it, and as Dickens knew it between 1822

and 1824. He had numerous lodgings, alone and with his family, during

those hard times; all of them of the same miserable, wretched character;

and it is interesting to know that the original of Mrs. Pipchin was his

landlady in Camden Town, and that the original of the Marchioness waited

on the elder Dickens during his stay in the Marshalsea.

The story of the unhappy drudgery of the young Copperfield is the story

of the young Dickens without exaggeration.

"No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into

this companionship," he wrote in 1845 or 1846,--"compared these

every-day associates with those of my happier childhood, and felt

my early hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man

crushed in my breast. The deep remembrance of the sense I had of

being utterly neglected and hopeless; of the shame I felt in my

position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that,

day by day, what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and

raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing away from me,

never to be brought back any more, cannot be written. My whole

nature was so penetrated with the grief and humiliation of such

considerations, that even now, famous and caressed and happy, I

often forget, in my dreams, that I have a dear wife and children;

even that I am a man; and I wander desolately back to that time of

my life."

In the course of a few years, happily, the cloud lifted; and in 1831,

when Dickens was a youth of nineteen, we find him beginning life as a

reporting journalist. He wrote occasional "pieces" for the magazines,

and some faint hope of growing up to be a distinguished and learned man

rose again, no doubt, in his breast. N. P. Willis met him one day in

1835, when, as Willis expresses it, Dickens was a "paragraphist" for the

London Morning Chronicle. The "paragraphist," according to Willis, was

lodging in the most crowded part of Holborn, in an uncarpeted and

bleak-looking room, with a deal table, two or three chairs, and a few

books. It was up a long flight of stairs, this room; and its occupant

"was dressed very much as he has since described Dick Swiveller--minus

the swell look. His hair was cropped close to his head, his clothes were

scant, though jauntily cut; and after exchanging a ragged office coat

for a shabby blue, he stood by the door collarless and buttoned up, the

very personification, I thought, of a close sailer to the wind.... Not

long after this Macrone sent me the sheets of 'Sketches by Boz,' with a

note saying they were by the gentleman [Dickens] who went with us to

Newgate. I read the book with amazement at the genius displayed in it;

and in my note of reply assured Macrone that I thought his fortune was

made, as a publisher, if he could monopolize the author." This picture

is very graphic. But it must be accepted with a grain of salt.

The 'Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day

People,' Dickens's first printed book, appeared in 1835. A further

series of papers, bearing the same title, was published the next year.

"Boz" was the nickname he had bestowed upon his younger brother

Augustus, in honor of the Moses of the 'Vicar of Wakefield.' The word,

pronounced through the nose, became "Boses," afterwards shortened to

"Boz," which, said Dickens, "was a very familiar household word to me

long before I was an author. And so I came to adopt it." The sketches,

the character of which is explained in their sub-title, were regarded as

unusually clever things of their kind. They attracted at once great

attention in England, and established the fact that a new star had risen

in the firmament of British letters.

Dickens was married on the 2d of April, 1836, to Miss Catherine Hogarth,

just a week after he had published the first shilling number of 'The

Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club: Edited by Boz.' The work

appeared in book form the next year. Its success was phenomenal, and it

brought to its author not only fame but a fixed sum per annum, which is

better. It assured his comfort in the present and in the future, and it

wiped out all the care and troubles of his past. It was in itself the

result of an accident. Messrs. Chapman and Hall, attracted by the

popularity of the Sketches, proposed to their author a series of monthly

articles to illustrate certain pictures of a comic character by Robert

Seymour, an artist in their employment. Dickens assented, upon the

condition that "the plates were to be so modified that they would arise

naturally out of the text." And so between them Mr. Pickwick was born,

although under the saddest of circumstances; for only a single number

had appeared when Seymour died by his own hand. Hablot K. Browne

succeeded him, signing the name of "Phiz"; and with "Boz" was "Phiz"

long associated in other prosperous ventures. Mr. Pickwick is a

benevolent, tender-hearted elderly gentleman, who, as the president of a

club organized "for the purpose of investigating the source of the

Hampstead ponds," journeys about England in all directions with three

companions, to whom he acts as guide, philosopher, and friend. He is an

amiable old goose, and his companions are equally verdant and

unsophisticated; but since 1837 they have been as famous as any men in

fiction. The story is a long one, the pages are crowded with incidents

and with characters. It is disconnected, often exaggerated, much of it

is as improbable as it is impossible, but it has made the world laugh

for sixty years now; and it still holds its own unique place in the

hearts of men.

From this period the pen of Dickens was never idle for thirty-three

years. 'Pickwick' was succeeded by 'Oliver Twist,' begun in Bentley's

Magazine in January, 1837, and printed in book form in 1838. It is the

story of the progress of a parish boy, and it is sad and serious in its

character. The hero was born and brought up in a workhouse. He was

starved and ill-treated; but he always retained his innocence and his

purity of mind. He fell among thieves,--Bill and Nancy Sykes, Fagin and

the Artful Dodger, to whom much powerful description is devoted,--but he

triumphed in the end. The life of the very poor and of the very degraded

among the people of England during the latter end of the first half of

the nineteenth century is admirably portrayed; and for the first time in

their existence the British blackguards of both sexes were exhibited in

fiction, clad in all their instincts of low brutality, and without that

glamour of attractive romance which the earlier writers had given to

Jack Sheppard, to Jonathan Wild, or to Moll Flanders.

Two dramatic compositions by Dickens, neither of them adding very much

to his reputation, appeared in 1836, to wit:--'The Stranger Gentleman, A

Comic Burletta in Three Acts'; and 'The Village Coquette,' a comic opera

in two acts. They were presented upon the stage towards the close of

that year, with fair success.

In 1838 Dickens edited the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, a celebrated

clown. His share in the composition of this work was comparatively

small, and consisted of a Preface, dated February of that year. It was

followed by 'Sketches of Young Gentlemen,' and by 'The Life and

Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,' both published in 1839. To this latter

he signed his name, Charles Dickens, dropping from that period the

pseudonym of "Boz." The titular hero is the son of a poor country

gentleman. He makes his own way in the world as the usher of a Yorkshire

school, as an actor in a traveling troupe, and as the clerk and finally

the partner in a prosperous mercantile house in London. Smike, his

pupil; Crummles, his theatrical manager; Ninetta Crummles, the Infant

Phenomenon of the company, Newman Noggs, the clerk of his uncle Ralph

Nickleby, the Cheeryble Brothers, his employers, are among the most

successful and charming of Dickens's earlier creations. "Mr. Squeers and

his school," he says, "were faint and feeble pictures of an existing

reality, purposely subdued and kept down lest they should be deemed

impossible." That such establishments ceased to exist in reality in

England after the appearance of 'Nickleby,' is proof enough of the good

his pictures did in this and in many other ways.

In 1840-1841 appeared 'Master Humphrey's Clock,' comprising the two

stories of 'The Old Curiosity Shop' and 'Barnaby Rudge,' which were

subsequently printed separately. The story of Little Nell, the gentle,

lovable inmate of the Curiosity Shop, is one of the most sad and tender

tales in fiction, and Dickens himself confessed that he was almost

heart-broken when she died. Her path was crossed by Quilp, a cunning and

malicious dwarf of hideous appearance, who consumed hard-boiled eggs,

shells and all, for his breakfast; ate his prawns with their heads and

their tails on, drank scalding hot tea, and performed so many horrifying

acts that one almost doubted that he was human; and by Christopher

Nubbles, a shock-headed, shambling, awkward, devoted lad, the only

element of cheerfulness that ever came into her life. In this book

appear Richard Swiveller and his Marchioness, Sampson and Sarah Brass

and Mrs. Jarley, who to be appreciated must be seen and known, as

Dickens has drawn them, at full length.

Barnaby Rudge was a half-witted lad, who, not knowing what he did,

joined the Gordon rioters--the scenes are laid in the "No Popery" times

of 1779--because he was permitted to carry a flag and to wear a blue

ribbon. The history of that exciting period of English semi-political,

semi-religious excitement is graphically set down. Prominent figures in

the book are Grip the raven, whose cry was "I'm a devil," "Never say

die"; and Miss Dolly Varden, the blooming daughter of the Clerkenwell

locksmith, who has given her name to the modern feminine costume of the

Watteauesque style.

The literary results of Dickens's first visit to the United States, in

1842, when he was thirty years of age, were 'American Notes, for General

Circulation'; published in that year, and containing portions of 'Martin

Chuzzlewit,' which appeared in 1844. His observations in the 'Notes'

upon the new country and its inhabitants gave great offense to the

American people, and were perhaps not in the best taste. He saw the

crude and ridiculous side of his hosts, he emphasized their faults,

while he paid little attention to their virtues; and his criticisms and

strictures rankled in the sensitive American mind for many years.

Martin Chuzzlewit, the hero of the novel bearing his name, spent some

time in the western half-settled portion of America, with Mark Tapley,

his light-hearted, optimistic friend and companion. The pictures of the

morals and the manners of the men and women with whom the emigrants were

brought into contact were anything but flattering, and they served to

widen the temporary breach between Dickens and his many admirers in the

United States. The English scenes of 'Chuzzlewit' are very powerfully

drawn. Tom and Ruth Pinch, Pecksniff, Sarah Gamp, and Betsey Prig are

among the leading characters in the work.

In 1843 appeared the 'Christmas Carol,' the first and perhaps the best

of that series of tales of peace and good-will, with which, at the

Christmas time, the name of Dickens is so pleasantly and familiarly

associated. It was followed by 'The Chimes' in 1844, by 'The Cricket on

the Hearth' in 1845, by 'The Haunted Man' in 1848, all the work of

Dickens himself; and by other productions written by Dickens in

collaboration with other men. Concerning these holiday stories, some

unknown writer said in the public press at the time of Dickens's death:

"He has not only pleased us--he has softened the hearts of a whole

generation. He made charity fashionable; he awakened pity in the hearts

of sixty millions of people. He made a whole generation keep Christmas

with acts of helpfulness to the poor; and every barefooted boy and girl

in the streets of England and America to-day fares a little better, gets

fewer cuffs and more pudding, because Charles Dickens wrote."

In 1846 he produced his 'Pictures from Italy'; 'The Battle of Life, A

Love Story,' and began in periodical form his 'Dealings with the Firm of

Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation,' published in

book form in 1847. Here we have the pathetic story of Little Paul, the

tragic fate of Carker, the amusing episode of Jack Bunsby with his

designing widow, and the devotion of Susan Nipper, Mr. Toots, Captain

Cuttle, and Sol Gills to the gentle, patient, lovable Florence.

On the 'Personal History of David Copperfield,' published in 1850, and

of Dickens's share in its plot, something has already been said here. It

is perhaps the most popular of all his productions, containing as it

does Mr. Dick, the Peggottys, the Micawbers, the Heeps, Betsey Trotwood,

Steerforth, Tommy Traddles, Dora, Agnes, and Little Emily, in all of

whom the world has been so deeply interested for so many years.

'A Child's History of England' and 'Bleak House' saw the light in 1853.

The romance was written as a protest and a warning against the law's

delays, as exhibited in the Court of Chancery; and it contains the

tragedy of Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, and the short but touching

story of Poor Jo.

'Hard Times,' a tale in one volume, was printed in 1854. It introduces

the Gradgrind family.

'Little Dorrit' appeared in 1857. In this book he returns to the

Debtor's Prison of Micawber and of his own father. Little Dorrit herself

was "the child of the Marshalsea," in which she was born and brought up;

and the whole story is an appeal against the injustice of depriving of

personal liberty those who cannot pay their bills, or meet their notes,

however small. Its prominent characters are the Clennams, mother and

son, the Meagleses, Flintwinch, Sir Decimus Tite Barnacle, Rigaud and

Little Cavalletto.

'A Tale of Two Cities,' a remarkable departure for Dickens, and unlike

any of his other works, was the book of the year 1859. It is conceded,

even by those who are not counted among the admirers of its author, to

be a most vivid and correct picture of Paris during the time of the

Revolution, when the guillotine was the king of France. Its central

figure, Sydney Carton, one of the most heroic characters in romance,

gives his life to restore his friend to the girl whom they both love.

'The Uncommercial Traveller,' a number of sketches and stories

originally published in his weekly journal All the Year Round, appeared

in 1860. They were supplemented in 1868 by another volume bearing the

same title, and containing eleven other papers collected from the same

periodical.

'Great Expectations,' 1861, like 'Copperfield,' is the story of a boy's

childhood told by the boy himself, but by a boy with feelings,

sentiments, and experiences very different from those of the earlier

work. The plot is not altogether a cheerful one, but many of the

characters are original and charming; notably Joe Gargery, Jaggles,

Wemmick, the exceedingly eccentric Miss Havisham, and the very amiable

and simple Biddy.

'Somebody's Luggage,' 1862; 'Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings' 1863; 'Mrs.

Lirriper's Legacy,' 1864; 'Dr. Marigold's Prescription,' 1865, 'Mugby

Junction,' 1866; and 'No Thoroughfare,' 1867,--Christmas stories, all of

them,--were written by Dickens in collaboration with other writers.

'Our Mutual Friend,' the last completed work of Dickens, was printed in

1865. Mr. Boffin, the Golden Dustman with the great heart, Silas Wegg,

Mr. Venus, the Riderhoods, Jenny Wren, the Podsnaps, the Veneerings,

Betty Higden, Mrs. Wilfer, and the "Boofer Lady," are as fresh and as

original as are any of his creations, and show no trace of the coming

disaster.

Before the completion of 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' Dickens died at

his home, Gadshill Place, literally in harness, and without warning, on

the 9th of June, 1870.

But six numbers of this last work appeared, in periodical form. Its

author left no notes of what was to follow, and the Mystery has never

been solved. Mr. Charles Collins, Dickens's son-in-law, however, in a

private letter to Mr. Augustin Daly of New York, who had proposed to

dramatize the tale, gave some general outline of the scheme for 'Edwin

Drood.' "The titular character," he said, "was never to reappear, he

having been murdered by Jasper. The girl Rosa, not having been really

attached to Edwin, was not to lament his loss very long, and was, I

believe, to admit the sailor, Mr. Tartar, to supply his place. It was

intended that Jasper should urge on the search after Edwin, and the

pursuit of the murderer, thus endeavoring to divert suspicion from

himself, the real murderer. As to anything further, it would be purely

conjectural."

Besides this immense amount of admirable work, Dickens founded,

conducted, and edited two successful periodicals, Household Words,

established in March 1850, and followed by All the Year Round,

beginning in April 1859. To these he contributed many sketches and

stories. He began public readings in London in 1858; and continued them

with great profit to himself, and with great satisfaction to immense

audiences, for upwards of twelve years. He appeared in all the leading

cities of Great Britain; and he was enormously popular as a reader in

America during his second and last visit in 1868.

As an after-dinner and occasional speaker Dickens was rarely equaled;

and as an actor upon the amateur stage, in plays of his own composition,

he was inimitable.

Of his attempts at verse, 'The Ivy Green' is the only one that is held

in remembrance.

A strong argument in favor of what may be called "the staying qualities"

of Dickens is the fact that his characters, even in a mutilated,

unsatisfactory form, have held the stage for half a century or more, and

still have power to attract and move great audiences, wherever is spoken

the language in which he wrote. The dramatization of the novel is

universally and justly regarded as the most ephemeral and worthless of

dramatic production; and the novels of Dickens, on account of their

length, of the great number of figures he introduces, of the variety and

occasional exaggeration of his dialogues and his situations, have been

peculiarly difficult of adaptation to theatrical purposes. Nevertheless

the world laughed and cried over Micawber, Captain Cuttle, Dan'l

Peggotty, and Caleb Plummer, behind the footlights, years after Dolly

Spanker, Aminadab Sleek, Timothy Toodles, Alfred Evelyn, and Geoffrey

Dalk, their contemporaries in the standard and legitimate drama, created

solely and particularly for dramatic representation, were absolutely

forgotten. And Sir Henry Irving, sixty years after the production of

'Pickwick,' drew great crowds to see his Alfred Jingle, while that

picturesque and ingenious swindler Robert Macaire, Jingle's once famous

and familiar confrere in plausible rascality, was never seen on the

boards, except as he was burlesqued and caricatured in comic opera.

It is pretty safe to say--and not in a Pickwickian sense--that Pecksniff

will live almost as long as hypocrisy lasts; that Heep will not be

forgotten while mock humility exists; that Mr. Dick will go down to

posterity arm-in-arm with Charles the First, whom he could not avoid in

his memorial; that Barkis will be quoted until men cease to be willin'.

And so long as cheap, rough coats cover faith, charity, and honest

hearts, the world will remember that Captain Cuttle and the Peggottys

were so clad.

[Illustration: Signature]

[Illustration: _GADSHILL, THE RESIDENCE OF CHARLES DICKENS._ Photogravure

from a Photograph.]

THE ONE THING NEEDFUL

From 'Hard Times'

"Now what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts.

Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out

everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon

Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the

principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle

on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!"

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a schoolroom, and the

speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring

every sentence with a line on the school-master's sleeve. The emphasis

was helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had his

eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two

dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the

speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was

helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, and

dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's hair, which

bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep

the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the

crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the

hard facts stored inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat,

square legs, square shoulders,--nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take

him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp like a stubborn fact, as

it was,--all helped the emphasis.

"In this life we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!"

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present,

all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of

little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial

gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.

* * * * *

Thomas Gradgrind, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and

calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are

four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for

anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir,--peremptorily Thomas,--Thomas

Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication

table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel

of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere

question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get

some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or

Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all

supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of Thomas

Gradgrind--no, sir!

In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether

to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general. In

such terms, no doubt, substituting the words "boys and girls," for

"sir," Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little

pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts.

Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before

mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts,

and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one

discharge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim

mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be

stormed away.

"Girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his

square forefinger; "I don't know that girl. Who is that girl?"

"Sissy Jupe, sir," explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and

courtesying.

"Sissy is not a name," said Mr. Gradgrind. "Don't call yourself Sissy.

Call yourself Cecilia."

"It's father as calls me Sissy, sir," returned the young girl in a

trembling voice, and with another courtesy.

"Then he has no business to do it," said Mr. Gradgrind. "Tell him he

mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?"

"He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir."

Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his

hand.

"We don't want to know anything about that here. You mustn't tell us

about that here. Your father breaks horses, don't he?"

"If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break

horses in the ring, sir."

"You mustn't tell us about the ring here. Very well, then. Describe your

father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?"

"Oh yes, sir."

"Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and

horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse."

(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.)

"Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!" said Mr. Gradgrind, for

the general behoof of all the little pitchers. "Girl number twenty

possessed of no facts in reference to one of the commonest of animals!

Some boy's definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours."

The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer,

perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight which,

darting in at one of the bare windows of the intensely whitewashed room,

irradiated Sissy. For the boys and girls sat on the face of the inclined

plane in two compact bodies, divided up the centre by a narrow interval;

and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for

the beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner of a

row on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But

whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired that she seemed to

receive a deeper and more lustrous color from the sun when it shone upon

her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that the selfsame rays

appeared to draw out of him what little color he ever possessed. His

cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes

which, by bringing them into immediate contrast with something paler

than themselves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair might have

been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead and face.

His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, that he

looked as though if he were cut he would bleed white.

"Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind. "Your definition of a horse."

"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth; namely, twenty-four grinders,

four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy

countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with

iron. Age known by marks in mouth." Thus (and much more) Bitzer.

"Now, girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, "you know what a horse

is."

She courtesied again, and would have blushed deeper, if she could have

blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time. Bitzer, after rapidly

blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both eyes at once, and so catching the

light upon his quivering ends of lashes that they looked like the

antennae of busy insects, put his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and

sat down again.

The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at cutting and

drying, he was; a government officer; in his way (and in most other

people's too), a professed pugilist; always in training, always with a

system to force down the general throat like a bolus, always to be heard

of at the bar of his little Public-office, ready to fight all England.

To continue in fistic phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to the

scratch, wherever and whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly

customer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever with his right,

follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore his opponent (he

always fought All England) to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly. He

was certain to knock the wind out of common-sense, and render that

unlucky adversary deaf to the call of time. And he had it in charge from

high authority to bring about the great public-office Millennium, when

Commissioners should reign upon earth.

"Very well," said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and folding his arms.

"That's a horse. Now, let me ask you girls and boys, Would you paper a

room with representations of horses?"

After a pause one-half of the children cried in chorus, "Yes, sir!" Upon

which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face that Yes was wrong,

cried out in chorus, "No, sir!"--as the custom is in these examinations.

"Of course, No. Why wouldn't you?"

A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing,

ventured the answer, Because he wouldn't paper a room at all, but would

paint it.

"You _must_ paper it," said the gentleman, rather warmly.

"You must paper it," said Thomas Gradgrind, "whether you like it or not.

Don't tell _us_ you wouldn't paper it. What do you mean, boy?"

"I'll explain to you, then," said the gentleman, after another and

dismal pause, "why you wouldn't paper a room with representations of

horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in

reality--in fact? Do you?"

"Yes, sir!" from one-half. "No, sir!" from the other.

"Of course no," said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the wrong

half. "Why, then, you are not to see anywhere what you don't see in

fact; you are not to have anywhere what you don't have in fact. What is

called Taste is only another name for Fact."

Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.

"This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery," said the

gentleman. "Now, I'll try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet a

room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon

it?"

There being a general conviction by this time that "No, sir!" was always

the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of No was very strong.

Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes; among them Sissy Jupe.

"Girl number twenty," said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength

of knowledge.

Sissy blushed, and stood up.

"So you would carpet your room--or your husband's room, if you were a

grown woman, and had a husband--with representations of flowers, would

you?" said the gentleman. "Why would you?"

"If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers," returned the girl.

"And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have

people walking over them with heavy boots?"

"It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither, if you

please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and

pleasant, and I would fancy--"

"Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman, quite elated

by coming so happily to his point. "That's it! You are never to fancy."

"You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, "to do

anything of that kind."

"Fact, fact, fact!" said the gentleman. And "Fact, fact, fact!" repeated

Thomas Gradgrind.

"You are to be in all things regulated and governed," said the

gentleman, "by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact,

composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a

people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy

altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have in any

object of use or ornament what would be a contradiction in fact. You

don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon

flowers in carpets. You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies

come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint

foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with

quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds

represented upon walls. You must use," said the gentleman, "for all

these purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colors) of

mathematical figures, which are susceptible of proof and demonstration.

This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste."

The girl courtesied, and sat down. She was very young, and she looked as

if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact prospect the world

afforded.

"Now, if Mr. M'Choakumchild," said the gentleman, "will proceed to give

his first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind, I shall be happy, at your request,

to observe his mode of procedure."

Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. "Mr. M'Choakumchild, we only wait for

you."

So Mr. M'Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and some one hundred

and forty other schoolmasters had been lately turned at the same time,

in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte

legs. He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had

answered volumes of head-breaking questions. Orthography, etymology,

syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and general

cosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra,

land-surveying and leveling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were

all at the ends of his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his stony way

into her Majesty's most Honorable Privy Council's Schedule B, and had

taken the bloom off the higher branches of mathematics and physical

science, French, German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all about all the

Water Sheds of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories

of all the peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains,

and all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and

all their boundaries and bearings on the two-and-thirty points of the

compass. Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild. If he had only learned a

little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!

He went to work in this preparatory lesson not unlike Morgiana in the

'Forty Thieves': looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one

after another, to see what they contained. Say, good M'Choakumchild.

When from thy boiling store thou shalt fill each jar brim-full,

by-and-by, dost thou think that then wilt always kill outright the

robber Fancy lurking within--or sometimes only maim him and distort him!

THE BOY AT MUGBY

From 'Mugby Junction'

I am the boy at Mugby. That's about what _I_ am.

You don't know what I mean? What a pity! But I think you do. I think you

must. Look here. I am the Boy at what is called The Refreshment Room at

Mugby Junction, and what's proudest boast is, that it never yet

refreshed a mortal being.

Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, in the

height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often counted 'em while they

brush the First Class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among

the glasses, bounded on the nor'west by the beer, stood pretty far to

the right of a metallic object that's at times the tea-urn and at times

the soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to

its contents, which are the same groundwork, fended off from the

traveler by a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter,

and lastly exposed sideways to the glare of Our Missis's eye--you ask a

Boy so sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything

to drink; you take particular notice that he'll try to seem not to hear

you, that he'll appear in a absent manner to survey the Line through a

transparent medium composed of your head and body, and that he won't

serve you as long as you can possibly bear it. That's me.

What a lark it is! We are the Model Establishment, we are, at Mugby.

Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young ladies up to be

finished off by our Missis. For some of the young ladies, when they're

new to the business, come into it mild! Ah! Our Missis, she soon takes

that out of 'em. Why, I originally come into the business meek myself.

But Our Missis, she soon took that out of _me_.

What a delightful lark it is! I look upon us Refreshmenters as ockipying

the only proudly independent footing on the Line. There's Papers, for

instance,--my honorable friend, if he will allow me to call him so,--him

as belongs to Smith's bookstall. Why, he no more dares to be up to our

Refreshmenting games than he dares to jump atop of a locomotive with her

steam at full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at

limited-mail speed. Papers, he'd get his head punched at every

compartment, first, second, and third, the whole length of a train, if

he was to ventur' to imitate my demeanor. It's the same with the

porters, the same with the guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the

same the whole way up to the secretary, traffic manager, or very

chairman. There ain't a one among 'em on the nobly independent footing

we are. Did you ever catch one of _them_, when you wanted anything of

him, making a system of surveying the Line through a transparent medium

composed of your head and body? I should hope not.

You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction. It's led to by

the door behind the counter, which you'll notice usually stands ajar,

and it's the room where Our Missis and our young ladies Bandolines their

hair. You should see 'em at it, betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if

they was anointing themselves for the combat. When you're telegraphed

you should see their noses all a-going up with scorn, as if it was a

part of the working of the same Cooke and Wheatstone electrical

machinery. You should hear Our Missis give the word, "Here comes the

Beast to be Fed!" and then you should see 'em indignantly skipping

across the Line, from the Up to the Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and begin to

pitch the stale pastry into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches

under the glass covers, and get out the--ha, ha, ha!--the Sherry,--O my

eye, my eye!--for your Refreshment.

It's only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which of

course I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting is so effective, so

'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the public. There was a

foreigner, which having politely, with his hat off, beseeched our young

ladies and Our Missis for "a leetel gloss hoff prarndee," and having had

the Line surveyed through him by all, and no other acknowledgment, was

a-proceeding at last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his

own country, when Our Missis, with her hair almost a-coming

un-Bandolined with rage, and her eyes omitting sparks, flew at him,

cotched the decanter out of his hand, and said, "Put it down! I won't

allow that!" The foreigner turned pale, stepped back with his arms

stretched out in front of him, his hands clasped, and his shoulders riz,

and exclaimed:--"Ah! Is it possible, this! That these disdaineous

females and this ferocious old woman are placed here by the

administration, not only to empoison the voyagers, but to affront them!

Great Heaven! How arrives it? The English people. Or is he then a slave?

Or idiot?" Another time a merry, wide-awake American gent had tried the

sawdust and spit it out, and had tried the Sherry and spit that out, and

had tried in vain to sustain exhausted natur' upon Butter-Scotch, and

had been rather extra Bandolined and Line-surveyed through, when as the

bell was ringing and he paid Our Missis, he says, very loud and

good-tempered:--"I tell Yew what 'tis, ma'arm. I la'af. Theer! I la'af.

I Dew. I oughter ha' seen most things, for I hail from the Onlimited

side of the Atlantic Ocean, and I haive traveled right slick over the

Limited, head on through Jeerusalemm and the East, and likeways France

and Italy Europe Old World, and am now upon the track to the Chief

Europian Village; but such an Institution as Yew, and Yewer young

ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, afore the glorious Tarnal I

never did see yet! And if I hain't found the eighth wonder of

monarchical Creation, in finding Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer

fixin's solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country

where the people air not absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned

with a Nip and Frizzle to the innermostest grit! Wheerfur--Theer!--I

la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!" And so he went, stamping and shaking his

sides, along the platform all the way to his own compartment.

I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner as give Our Missis the

idea of going over to France, and droring a comparison betwixt

Refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters and Refreshmenting as

triumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which of

course I mean to say agin, Britannia). Our young ladies, Miss Whiff,

Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going: for, as

they says to Our Missis one and all, it is well beknown to the hends of

the herth as no other nation except Britain has a idea of anythink, but

above all of business. Why then should you tire yourself to prove what

is a'ready proved? Our Missis, however (being a teazer at all pints),

stood out grim obstinate, and got a return pass by Southeastern Tidal,

to go right through, if such should be her dispositions, to Marseilles.

Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. He

looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes,

when we are very hard put to it, let behind the counter with a

corkscrew; but never when it can be helped, his demeanor towards the

public being disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to

lower herself as to marry him, I don't know; but I suppose _he_ does,

and I should think he wished he didn't, for he leads a awful life. Mrs.

Sniff couldn't be much harder with him if he was public. Similarly, Miss

Whiff and Miss Piff, taking the tone of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff

about when he _is_ let in with a corkscrew, and they whisk things out of

his hands when in his servility he is a-going to let the public have

'em, and they snap him up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he

is a-going to answer a public question, and they drore more tears into

his eyes than ever the mustard does, which he all day long lays on to

the sawdust. (But it ain't strong.) Once when Sniff had the

repulsiveness to reach across to get the milkpot to hand over for a

baby, I see Our Missis in her rage catch him by both his shoulders, and

spin him out into the Bandolining Room.

But Mrs. Sniff--how different! She's the one! She's the one as you'll

notice to be always looking another away from you when you look at her.

She's the one with the small waist buckled in tight in front, and with

the lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on the edge of the counter

before her, and stands a-smoothing while the public foams. This

smoothing the cuffs and looking another way while the public foams is

the last accomplishment taught to the young ladies as come to Mugby to

be finished by Our Missis; and it's always taught by Mrs. Sniff.

When Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff was left in

charge. She did hold the public in check most beautiful! In all my time,

I never see half so many cups of tea given without milk to people as

wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with milk given to people

as wanted it without. When foaming ensued, Mrs. Sniff would say, "Then

you'd better settle it among yourselves, and change with one another."

It was a most highly delicious lark. I enjoyed the Refreshmenting

business more than ever, and was so glad I had took to it when young.

Our Missis returned. It got circulated among the young ladies, and it,

as it might be, penetrated to me through the crevices of the Bandolining

Room, that she had Orrors to reveal, if revelations so contemptible

could be dignified with the name. Agitation become weakened. Excitement

was up in the stirrups. Expectation stood a-tiptoe. At length it was put

forth that on our slackest evening in the week, and at our slackest time

of that evening betwixt trains, Our Missis would give her views of

foreign Refreshmenting, in the Bandolining Room.

It was arranged tasteful for the purpose. The Bandolining table and

glass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated on a packing-case

for Our Missis's ockypation, a table and a tumbler of water (no sherry

in it, thankee) was placed beside it. Two of the pupils, the season

being autumn, and hollyhocks and daliahs being in, ornamented the wall

with three devices in those flowers. On one might be read, "KEEP THE

PUBLIC DOWN"; on another, "KEEP THE PUBLIC DOWN"; on another, "OUR

REFRESHMENTING CHARTER." The whole had a beautiful appearance, with

which the beauty of the sentiments corresponded.

On Our Missis's brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended the fatal

platform. (Not that that was anythink new.) Miss Whiff and Miss Piff sat

at her feet. Three chairs from the Waiting Room might have been

perceived by a average eye, in front of her, on which the pupils was

accommodated. Behind them a very close observer might have discerned a

Boy. Myself.

"Where," said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, "is Sniff?"

"I thought it better," answered Mrs. Sniff, "that he should not be let

come in. He is such an Ass."

"No doubt," assented Our Missis. "But for that reason is it not

desirable to improve his mind?"

"Oh, nothing will ever improve _him_," said Mrs. Sniff.

"However," pursued Our Missis, "call him in, Ezekiel."

I called him in. The appearance of the low-minded cove was hailed with

disapprobation from all sides, on account of his having brought his

corkscrew with him. He pleaded "the force of habit."

"The force!" said Mrs. Sniff. "Don't let us have you talking about

force, for Gracious's sake. There! Do stand still where you are, with

your back against the wall."

He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way in which

he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (language can say

no meaner of him), and he stood upright near the door, with the back of

his head agin the wall, as if he was a waiting for somebody to come and

measure his heighth for the Army.

"I should not enter, ladies," says Our Missis, "on the revolting

disclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hope that they will

cause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of the power you

wield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted to the

constitutional motto which I see before me,"--it was behind her, but the

words sounded better so,--"'May Albion never learn!'"

Here the pupils as had made the motto admired it, and cried, "Hear!

Hear! Hear!" Sniff, showing an inclination to join in chorus, got

himself frowned down by every brow.

"The baseness of the French," pursued Our Missis, "as displayed in the

fawning nature of their Refreshmenting, equals, if not surpasses,

anythink as was ever heard of the baseness of the celebrated Bonaparte."

Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and me, we drored a heavy breath, equal to

saying, "We thought as much!" Miss Whiff and Miss Piff seeming to object

to my droring mine along with theirs, I drored another to aggravate 'em.

"Shall I be believed," says Our Missis, with flashing eyes, "when I tell

you that no sooner had I set my foot upon that treacherous shore--"

Here Sniff, either busting out mad, or thinking aloud, says, in a low

voice, "Feet. Plural, you know."

The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all eyes, added

to his being beneath contempt, was sufficient punishment for a cove so

groveling. In the midst of a silence rendered more impressive by the

turned-up female noses with which it was pervaded, Our Missis went on:--

"Shall I be believed when I tell you, that no sooner had I landed," this

word with a killing look at Sniff, "on that treacherous shore, then I

was ushered into a Refreshment Room where there were--I do not

exaggerate--actually eatable things to eat?"

A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the honor of

jining, but also of lengthening it out.

"Where there were," Our Missis added, "not only eatable things to eat,

but also drinkable things to drink?"

A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. Miss Piff, trembling with

indignation, called out, "Name!"

"I _will_ name," said Our Missis. "There was roast fowls, hot and cold;

there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes; there was

hot soup with (again I ask, shall I be credited?) nothing bitter in it,

and no flour to choke off the consumer; there was a variety of cold

dishes set off with jelly; there was salad; there was--mark me!--_fresh_

pastry, and that of a light construction; there was a luscious show of

fruit; there was bottles and decanters of sound small wine, of every

size, and adapted to every pocket; the same odious statement will apply

to brandy; and these were set out upon the counter so that all could

help themselves."

Our Missis's lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely less

convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them.

"This," proceeds Our Missis, "was my first unconstitutional experience.

Well would it have been if it had been my last and worst. But no. As I

proceeded farther into that enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect

became more hideous. I need not explain to this assembly the ingredients

and formation of the British Refreshment sangwich?"

Universal laughter,--except from Sniff, who as sangwich-cutter, shook

his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with it agin the

wall.

"Well!" said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. "Take a fresh, crisp,

long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour. Cut it

longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of

ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind

it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by

which to hold it. And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on

your disgusted vision."

A cry of "Shame!" from all--except Sniff, which rubbed his stomach with

a soothing hand.

"I need not," said Our Missis, "explain to this assembly the usual

formation and fitting of the British Refreshment room?"

No, no, and laughter; Sniff agin shaking his head in low spirits agin

the wall.

"Well," said Our Missis, "what would you say to a general decoration of

everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet furniture,

to abundance of little tables, to abundance of little seats, to brisk

bright waiters, to great convenience, to a prevailing cleanliness and

tastefulness, postively addressing the public, and making the Beast

thinking itself worth the pains?"

Contemptous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs. Sniff looking as if

she wanted somebody to hold her, and everybody else looking as if they'd

rayther not.

"Three times," said Our Missis, working herself into a truly

terrimenjious state,--"three times did I see these shameful things, only

between the coast and Paris, and not counting either: at Hazebroucke, at

Arras, at Amiens. But worse remains. Tell me, what would you call a

person who should propose in England that there should be kept, say at

our own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets, each holding an assorted

cold lunch and dessert for one, each at a certain fixed price, and each

within a passenger's power to take away, to empty in the carriage at

perfect leisure, and to return at another station fifty or a hundred

miles farther on?"

There was disagreement what such a person should be called. Whether

revolutionist, atheist, Bright (_I_ said him), or Un-English. Miss Piff

screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words, "A malignant maniac!"