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NOTES ON THE NEW HEBRIDES.
There is a wide contrast between the Hebrides of Scotland and the New
Hebrides of the Western Pacific; but both have come into a good deal of
prominence of late—the one in connection with the crofters, the other
in connection with the French. It is of the New Hebrides we propose to
say something.
The group of islands forming part of Melanesia to which the name of
New Hebrides has been given extends for about seven hundred miles. The
most northern of the group is about one hundred miles from the Santa
Cruz Islands, and the most southern about two hundred miles from New
Caledonia. Espiritu Santo is the largest and most northerly of the
group, and is about seventy-five miles long by forty miles broad. The
next largest island is called Mallicolo, and is fifty-six miles long
by twenty miles broad. The entire land area of the group may be taken
as about five thousand square miles; and the population of the whole
group has been estimated variously from fifty thousand to two hundred
thousand. But whatever the total population, the peoples probably
sprung from one original stock, although they have drifted far apart
in the matter of language. There are said to be no fewer than thirty
different languages in the New Hebridean group—all having a certain
grammatical likeness, but quite unintelligible to the other islanders.
The difference is not merely such as exists between Scotch, Irish, and
Welsh Gaelic; it is a more marked division of tongues.
The inhabitants vary nearly as much as their languages. Although
distinctly Papuan, there are traits and traces of Polynesian
intermixture and even of separate Polynesian settlement. Thus, on
Vaté, the men are taller, fairer, and better-looking than those on
some of the other islands, the more generally prevailing type being
one of extreme ugliness and short stature. They all are, or have
been, cannibals; but on Aneityum they are now supposed to be all
Christianised.
Aneityum, or Anateum, or Anatom—for it is spelt in all three ways—is
within two hundred miles of the nearest point in New Caledonia, and
within five hundred miles of Fiji. It has a spacious, well-sheltered
harbour, which is easy of access, and is throughout well wooded and
watered. The general character of the island is mountainous; and there
is an agreeable diversity of hill and valley, the mountains being
intersected by deep ravines, and cultivated spots alternating with
barren tracts. The principal wealth of this island is in its timber,
of which the kauri pine appears to be the chief; but there is also a
good deal of valuable sandal-wood. Some years ago, an attempt was made
to establish a whale-fishery off the shores of Aneityum; but we have
not heard with what result. The length of this island is about fourteen
miles, and its breadth about eight. The climate, although damp, is not
disagreeable, and is not marked by great variations. The thermometer
seldom goes below sixty-two degrees, and never below fifty-eight
degrees; but, on the other hand, it never goes above ninety-four
degrees, and seldom above eighty-nine degrees in the shade.
Aneityum deserves especial mention because the whole population is
understood now to profess Christianity. That population in 1865 was
stated by Mr Brenchley to be two thousand two hundred, and it has not
probably increased much, if any, since then. Previous to 1850, the
natives of Aneityum were as degraded and savage as on any island of
the Pacific; but two missionaries who settled there about the date
mentioned began to work a steady and continuous change.
The Aneityum people do not live in villages, but separately in the
midst of their cultivated patches, which are divided into districts,
each containing about sixty. The government is in the hands of chiefs,
of whom there are three principal, each having a number of petty chiefs
under them. But their power appears limited.
Aneityum, like the other islands of the New Hebrides, is of volcanic
origin, and it is surrounded by coral reefs. No minerals have been
found; and in this connection it is worthy of remark that Australians
insist that there is a much closer natural affinity between the New
Hebrides and Fiji than there is between the New Hebrides and New
Caledonia, which is an island rich in minerals. Mr Brenchley enumerates
the principal indigenous products of Aneityum as bread-fruit, banana,
cocoa-nut, horse-chestnut, sago-palm, another species of palm bearing
small nuts, sugar-cane, taro—the staple article of food—yams in
small quantities, sweet-potatoes, and arrowroot. Of fruits, &c.,
introduced, the orange, lime, lemon, citron, pine-apple, custard-apple,
papaw-apple, melons, and pumpkins, have succeeded. The cotton plant
had also been introduced, and promised well; and French beans were
grown for the Sydney market. There are more than a hundred species of
ferns on the island, and more than a hundred species of fish in the
waters surrounding it. But the fish are not all edible, and besides
being different from, are inferior to those found in the northern
hemisphere. The birds are not very numerous; but butterflies and
insects abound, in the case of the latter the list being lengthened by
the importation of fleas by Europeans. Among themselves, the natives
barter fishing-baskets, nets, sleeping-mats, hand-baskets, pigs, fowls,
taro, and cocoa-nuts. With foreigners, they barter pigs, fowls, taro,
bananas, cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane, &c., for European clothing, hatchets,
knives, fish-hooks, and so forth. Their weapons are spears, clubs, bows
and arrows—the spears being rude and very crooked.
Of Tanna, another of the southern division of the group, many
interesting notes have been left by Mr Brenchley and Dr Turner. It is
about forty or fifty miles from Aneityum, and has a somewhat narrow
anchorage, called Port Resolution Bay. On the west side of this bay
there is a large and preternaturally active volcano, which pulsates
in a regular sequence of eruptions at intervals of five, seven, or
ten minutes, night and day, all the year round. The regularity of the
eruptions is supposed to be caused by the influx of water into the
volcano from a lake which lies at its base. Tanna is nearly circular,
and between thirty-five and forty miles across. It is covered with
lofty hills, bright with verdure.
Mr Brenchley stated the population at fifteen to twenty thousand; but
Dr Turner placed it at only ten or twelve thousand; and Turner, who
resided for some months on the island, is likely to be nearer the mark.
The people are of middle stature, and of a copper colour naturally,
although some of them are as black as New Hollanders, through
artificial dyeing of their skins. They are rather better-looking than
average Papuans, but make themselves hideous with red paint. The men
frizzle their hair, which is oftener light-brown than black in colour;
the women wear the hair short, but ‘laid out in a forest of little
erect curls about an inch and a half long.’ They pierce the septum of
the nose, and insert horizontally a small piece of wood; and in their
ears they wear huge ornaments of tortoise-shell. They do not tattoo.
The women wear long girdles, hanging to the knee, made of the dried
fibre of banana stalks; and the men wear an unsightly waistcloth of
matting. Their weapons are clubs, bows and arrows, and spears, with
which they are very expert, and they always work and sleep with their
weapons by their sides. They are, in fact—or were, when Dr Turner lived
among them—a race of warriors, for the tribes were incessantly at war
with each other. ‘We were never able,’ says Dr Turner, ‘to extend our
journeys above four miles from our dwelling at Port Resolution. At such
distances we came to boundaries which were never passed, and beyond
which the people spoke a different dialect. At one of these boundaries,
actual war would be going on; at another, kidnapping and cooking each
other; and at another, all might be peace, but, by mutual consent, they
had no dealings with each other.... When visiting the volcano one day,
the natives told us about a battle in which one party which was pursued
ran right into the crater, and there fought for a while on the downward
slope inside the cup!’
The climate of Tanna is damp for four months of the year, when fever
and ague are common; but it is agreeable during the remainder of the
year; and the average annual temperature is about eighty-six degrees.
The soil, on account of the volcanic origin, is extremely fertile, and
there are a number of boiling springs.
Erromango, to the north of Tanna, is celebrated for its massacres of
missionaries and white settlers, and it was here that Mr Williams was
murdered many years ago. This island is covered with dense vegetation
down to the very water’s edge. It contains a great deal of fine timber,
such as sandal-wood, kauri pine, &c. The population was estimated at
about five thousand by both Mr Brenchley and Dr Turner. The people
are very much like the Tannese, but are without any settled villages
or considerable chiefs. The Erromangan women tattoo the upper part of
their bodies, and wear leaf-girdles hanging from waist to heel; but the
men prefer nudity. Neither infanticide nor euthanasia seems to prevail
here, but the sick are not particularly well cared for. Dr Turner
traced a belief in witchcraft and some belief in a future state. The
spirits of the dead are supposed to go eastward, and some are thought
to roam about in the bush.
Vaté or Sandwich Island, still to the north, is another interesting
member of the group. It has attracted many Australians and others, who
have attempted settlements, but not, we believe, with success as yet.
Dr Turner calls it a ‘lovely island’—although, whether it compares with
the island of Aurora, one of the most northerly of the group, which Mr
Walter Coote says is a perfect earthly paradise, we cannot tell. Vaté,
at anyrate, is very lovely, and seems to be of coral formation. Its
size is about one hundred miles in circumference, and its population
perhaps, ten thousand—although Dr Turner said twelve thousand. There
is no general king, but a large number of petty chiefs. The people are
more fully clothed than those of the other islands we have referred
to; they do not tattoo—they only paint the face in war; they wear
trinkets and armlets; and they live in regular villages. There are
several dialects, but not such diversity as in Tanna. They do not
fight so much as the Tannese; but have clubs, spears, and poisoned
arrows. Infanticide, unfortunately, is prevalent, and seems to be
the consequence of the practice of the women having to do all the
plantation and other hard work.
In Vaté, they have no idols, and they say that the human race sprang
from stones and the earth. The men of the stones were _Natamoli
nefat_, and the men of the earth _Natamoli natana_. The native name
of the island is Efat or Stone—which has been corrupted into Vaté.
The principal god is Supu, who created Vaté and everything on it;
and when a person dies, he is supposed to be taken away by Supu.
Ancestor-worship is also practised, and the aged were often buried
alive at their own request.
The island of Vaté is high above the sea, of an irregular outline,
and distinguished by some fine bold features. ‘We could see,’ says Mr
Brenchley, ‘high mountains, whose summits seemed clad with verdure,
while the thick woods towards their base formed, as it were, a girdle
which spread downwards as far as the beach.’ Ashore, he saw high
reed-grass, wild sugar-canes ten feet high, and vast plantations of
banana and cocoa-nut. The soil is of remarkable fertility; but the
island is subject to frequent shocks of earthquake, sometimes very
violent. The climate is damp, but not unhealthy. Of the natives, we
have read differing accounts, one describing them as among the best,
and another as among the worst of New Hebridean aborigines, with a
remarkably developed and insatiable craving for human flesh. The happy
mean is probably near the truth, that is to say, they are neither
better nor worse than the rest of their race, and are very much as the
visitor makes them.
BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.
BY FRED. M. WHITE.
IN TWENTY CHAPTERS.—CHAP. XII.
Coolly, as if the whole transaction had been a little light recreation,
and untroubled in conscience, as if the fatal card had fallen to
Maxwell by pure chance, instead of base trickery, Le Gautier turned his
steps in the direction of Fitzroy Square. It was a matter of supreme
indifference to him now whether Maxwell obeyed the dictum of the League
or not; indeed, flat rebellion would have suited his purpose better,
for in that case he would be all the sooner rid of; and there was just
a chance that the affair with Visci might end favourably; whereas,
on the other hand, a refusal would end fatally for the rash man who
defied the League. Men can face open danger; it is the uncertainty, the
blind groping in the dark, that wears body and mind out, unstrings the
nerves, and sometimes unseats reason. Better fight with fearful odds,
than walk out with the shadow of the sword hanging over one night and
day. The inestimable Frenchman had seen what defiance to the League
generally came to; and as he reviewed his rosy prospects, his bright
thoughts lent additional flavour to his cigarette. Nevertheless, his
heart beat a trifle faster as he pulled the bell at the quiet house in
Ventnor Street. Adventures of this sort were nothing novel to him; but
he had something more at stake here than the fortunes of the little
blind boy and the light intrigue he looked for. Miss St Jean was in,
he found; and he was shown up to her room, where he sat noting the
apartment—the open piano, and the shaded waxlights, shining softly—just
the proper amount of light to note charms by, and just dim enough to
unite confidences. As he noted these things, he smiled, for Le Gautier
was a connoisseur in the graceful art of love-making, and boasted
that he could read women as scholars can expound abstruse passages of
the earlier classics, or think they can, which pleases them equally.
In such like case, the Frenchman was about to fall into a similar
error, never dreaming that the artistically arranged room with its
shaded lights was a trap to catch his soul. He waited impatiently for
the coming fair one, knowing full well that she wished to create an
impression. If such was her intention, she succeeded beyond expectation.
With her magnificent hair piled up upon her small shapely head, and its
glossy blackness relieved only by a single diamond star, shining like a
planet on the bosom of the midnight sky, with a radiant smile upon her
face, she came towards him. She was dressed in some light shimmering
material, cut low upon the shoulders; and round the corsage was a
wreath of deep red roses, a crimson ribbon round the neck, from which
depended a diamond cross. She came forward murmuring a few well-chosen
words, and sank into a chair, waiting for Le Gautier to recover.
He had need of time to recover his scattered senses, for, man of the
world as he was, and acquainted with beauty as he was, he had never
seen anything like this before. But he was not the sort to be long
taken aback; he raised his eyes to hers with a mute homage which was
more eloquent than words. He began to feel at home; the dazzling
loveliness threw a spell upon him, the delicious mystery was to his
liking; and he was tête-à-tête.
‘I began to think I had failed to interest you sufficiently last
night,’ Isodore commenced, waving her fan slowly before her face. ‘I
began to imagine you were not coming to take pity on my loneliness.’
‘How could you dream such a thing?’ Le Gautier replied in his most
languishing voice. His pulses began to beat at these last words. ‘Did
I not promise to come? I should have been here long since, but sordid
claims of business detained me from your side.’
‘It must have been pressing business,’ Isodore laughed archly. ‘And
pray, what throne are you going to rock to its foundations now?’
Had Le Gautier been a trifle less vain, he would have been on his guard
when the conversation took so personal a turn; but he was flattered;
the question betokened an interest in himself. ‘How would it interest
you?’ he asked.
‘How do you know that it would not? Remember, that though I am bound by
no oath, I am one of you. Anything connected with the League, anything
connected with yourself, cannot fail to interest me.’
The words ran through Le Gautier’s frame like quicksilver. He was
impulsive and passionate; these few minutes had almost sufficed to seal
his thraldom. He began to lose his head. ‘You flatter me,’ he said
joyously. ‘Our business to-night was short; we only had to choose an
avenging angel.’
‘For Visci, I suppose?’ Isodore observed with some faint show of
interest. ‘Poor man! And upon whom did the choice fall?’
‘A new member, curiously enough. I do not know if you are acquainted
with him: his name is Maxwell.’
‘May he prove as true to the cause as—as you are. I have never had the
fortune to be present on one of these occasions. How do you manage it?
Do you draw lots, or do you settle it with dice?’
‘On this occasion, no. We have a much fairer plan than that. We take
a pack of cards; they are counted, to see if they are correct; then
each man present shuffles them; a particular one represents the fatal
number, and the president of the assembly deals them out. Whoever the
chosen one falls to has to do the task in hand.’
‘That, I suppose, must be fair, unless there is a conjurer presiding,’
Isodore observed reflectively.—‘Who was the president to-night?’
‘I myself. I took my chance with the others, you must understand.’
Isodore did not reply, as she sat there waving her fan backwards and
forwards before her face. Le Gautier fancied that for a moment a smile
of bitter contempt flashed out from her eyes; but he dismissed the
idea, for, when she dropped the fan again, her face was clear and
smiling.
‘I am wearying you,’ she said, ‘by my silly questions. A woman who asks
questions should not be allowed in society; she should be shut away
from her fellow-creatures, as a thing to be avoided. I am no talker
myself, at least not in the sense men mean.—Shall I play to you?’
Le Gautier would have asked nothing better than to sit there feasting
his eyes upon her matchless beauty; but now he assented eagerly to
the suggestion. Music is an accomplishment which forces flirtation;
besides which, he could stand close to her side, turning over the
leaves with opportunities which a quiet conversation never furnishes.
Taking him at his word, she sat down at the instrument and commenced
to play. It might have been brilliant or despicably bad, opera or
oratorio, anything to the listener; he was far too deeply engrossed in
the player to have any sense alive to the music. Perfectly collected,
she did not fail to note this, and when she had finished, she looked
up in his passionate face with a glance melting and tender, yet wholly
womanly. It took all Le Gautier’s self-command to restrain himself
from snatching her to his heart in his madness and covering the dark
face with kisses. He was reckless now, too far gone to disguise his
admiration, and she knew it. With one final crash upon the keys she
rose from her seat, confronting him.
‘Do not leave off yet,’ he urged, and saying this, he laid his hand
upon her arm. She started, trembling, as if some deadly thing had stung
her. To her it was a sting; to him, the evidence of awaking passion,
and he, poor fool, felt his heart beat faster. She sat down again,
panting a little, as from some inward emotion. ‘As you please,’ she
said. ‘Shall I sing to you?’
‘Sweeter than the voice of the nightingales to me!’ he exclaimed
passionately. ‘Yes, do sing. I shall close my eyes, and fancy myself in
paradise.’
‘Your imagination must be a powerful one.—Do you know this?’
Isodore took a piece of music from the stand, a simple Italian air,
and placed it in his hands. He turned over the leaves carelessly,
and returned it to her with a gesture of denial. There was a curious
smile upon her lips as she sat down to sing, a smile that puzzled and
bewildered him.
‘Do you not know it?’ she asked, when the last chords died away.
‘Now you have sung it, I think I do. It is a sentimental sort of thing,
do you not think? A little girl I used to know near Rome sang it to me.
She, I remember, used to imagine it was my favourite song. She was one
of the romantic schoolgirls, Miss St Jean, and the eyes she used to
make at me when she sang it are something to be remembered.’
Isodore turned her back sharply and searched among the music. If he
could only have seen the bitter scorn in the face then—scorn partly for
him, and wholly for herself. But again she steeled herself.
‘I daresay you gave her some cause, Monsieur Le Gautier,’ she said.
‘You men of the world, flitting from place to place, think nothing of
breaking a country heart or two. You may not mean it, perhaps, but so
it is.’
‘Hearts do not break so easily,’ Le Gautier replied lightly. ‘Perhaps I
did give the child some cause, as you say. _Pardieu!_ a man tied down
in a country village must amuse himself, and a little unsophisticated
human nature is a pleasant chance. She was a little spitfire, I
remember, and when I left, could not see the matter in a reasonable
light. There is still some bitter vengeance awaiting me, if I am to
believe her words.’
‘Then you had best beware. A woman’s heart is a dangerous plaything,’
Isodore replied. ‘Do you never feel sorry, never experience a pang
of conscience after such a thing as that? Surely, at times you must
regret?’
‘I have heard of such a thing as conscience,’ Le Gautier put in airily;
‘but I must have been born before they came into fashion. No, Miss St
Jean, I cannot afford to indulge in luxuries.’
‘And the League takes up so much of your time. And that reminds me. We
have said nothing yet about your insignia. I may tell you now that it
is not yet in my hands; but I shall obtain it for you. How bold, how
reckless you were that night, and yet I do not wonder! At times, the
sense of restraint must bear heavy upon a man of spirit.’
‘Thank you, from the bottom of my heart,’ Le Gautier fervently
exclaimed. ‘You are too good to me.—Yes,’ he continued, ‘there are
times when I feel the burden sorely—times like the present, let us say,
when I have a foretaste of happier things. If I had you by my side, I
could defy the world.’
Isodore looked at him and laughed, her wonderful magnetic smile making
her eyes aglow and full of dazzling tints.
‘That could not be,’ she said. ‘I would have no divided attentions; I
would have a man’s whole heart, or nothing. I have too long been alone
in the world not to realise what a full meed of affection means.’
‘You should have all mine!’ Le Gautier cried, carried away by the
torrent of his passions. ‘No longer should the League bind me. I would
be free, if it cost ten thousand lives! No chains should hold me then,
for, by heaven, I would not hesitate to betray it!’
‘Hush, hush!’ Isodore exclaimed in a startled whisper. ‘You do not
understand what you are saying. You do not comprehend the meaning of
your words. Would you betray the Brotherhood?’
‘Ay, if you but say the word—ten thousand Brotherhoods.’
‘I am not bound by solemn oath like you,’ Isodore replied sadly; ‘and
at times I think it could never do good. It is too dark and mysterious
and too violent to my taste; but you are bound in honour.’
‘But suppose I was to come to you and say I was free?’ Le Gautier asked
hoarsely. ‘To tell you that my hands were no longer fettered—what words
would you have to say to me then—Marie?’ He hesitated before he uttered
the last word, dwelling upon it in an accent of the deepest tenderness.
Apparently, Isodore did not notice, for her eyes were sad, her thoughts
evidently far away.
‘I do not know what I should say to you—in time.’
‘Your words are like new life to me,’ Le Gautier exclaimed; ‘they give
me hope and strength, and in my undertaking I shall succeed.’
‘You will do nothing rash, nothing headstrong, without telling me.
Let me know when you are coming to see me again, and we will talk the
matter over; but I fear, without treachery, you never can be free.’
‘Anything to be my own master!’ he retorted fervently.—‘Good-night,
and remember that any step I may take will be for you.’ With a long
lingering pressure of the hand and many burning glances, he was gone.
Isodore heard his retreating footsteps echoing down the stairs, and
thence along the silent street. The mask fell from her face; she
clenched her hands, and her countenance was crossed with a hundred
angry passions. Valerie entering at that moment, looked at her with
something like fear.
‘Sit down, Valerie,’ Isodore whispered hoarsely, in a voice like the
tones of one in great pain, as she walked impatiently about the room,
her hands twisted together convulsively. ‘Do not be afraid; I shall be
better presently. I feel as if I want to scream, or do some desperate
thing to-night. He has been here, Valerie; how I sustained myself, I
cannot tell.’
‘Did he recognise you?’ Valerie asked timidly.
‘Recognise me? No, indeed! He spoke about the old days by the Mattio
woods, the old times when we were together, and laughed at me for a
romantic schoolgirl. I nearly stabbed him then. There is treachery
afloat; his plan is prospering. As I told you it would be, Maxwell is
chosen for the Roman mission; but he will never do the deed, for I
shall warn Visci myself. And he was my bro——Visci’s friend!’
‘But what are you going to do now?’ Valerie asked.
‘He is a traitor. He is going to betray the League, and I am going
to be his confidant. I saw it in his face. I wonder how I bear it—I
wonder I do not die! What would they say if they saw Isodore now?—Come,
Valerie, come and hold me tightly in your arms—tighter still. If I do
not have a little pity, my poor heart will break.’
* * * * *
Long and earnestly did Salvarini and Maxwell sit in the latter’s studio
discussing the events of the evening, till the fire had burnt down
to ashes and the clock in the neighbouring steeple struck three. It
was settled that Maxwell should go to Rome, though with what ulterior
object they did not decide. Time was in his favour, the lapse of a
month or so in the commission being a matter of little object to the
League. They preferred that vengeance should be deferred for a time,
and that the blow might be struck when it was least expected, when
the victim was just beginning to imagine himself safe and the matter
forgotten.
‘I suppose I had better lose no time in going?’ Maxwell observed, when
they had discussed the matter thoroughly. ‘Time and distance are no
objects to me, or money either.’
‘As to your time of departure, I should say as soon as possible,’
Salvarini replied; ‘and as to money, the League finds that.’
‘I would not touch a penny of it, Luigi—no, not if I was starving. I
could not soil my fingers with their blood-money.—What do you say to my
starting on Monday night? I could get to Rome by Thursday morning at
the latest.—And yet, to what good? I almost feel inclined to refuse,
and bid them do their worst.’
‘For heaven’s sake, do not!’ Salvarini implored. ‘Such a thing is worse
than folly. If you assume a readiness to fulfil your undertaking,
something may turn up in your favour.’ Maxwell gazed moodily in the
dead ashes, and cursed the hot-headed haste which had placed him in
that awful position. Like every right-minded man, he shrank with horror
from such a cowardly crime.
‘You will never attain your ends,’ he said. ‘Your cause is a noble one;
but true liberty, perfect freedom, turns against cold-blooded murder;
for call it what you will, it is nothing else.’
‘You are right, my friend,’ Salvarini mournfully replied. ‘No good can
come of it; and when reprisals come, as they must, they shall be swift
and terrible.—But Frederick,’ he continued, laying his hand on the
other’s shoulder, ‘do not blame me too deeply, for I will lay down my
own life cheerfully before harm shall come to you.’
Maxwell was not aware that Sir Geoffrey Charteris was a member of the
League, as Le Gautier had taken care to keep them apart, so far as
business matters were concerned, only allowing the baronet to attend
such meetings as were perfectly harmless in their general character,
and calculated to inspire him with admiration of the philanthropic
schemes and self-denying usefulness of the Brotherhood; nor was it the
Frenchman’s intention to admit him any deeper into its secrets; indeed,
his admission only formed part of the scheme by which the baronet, and
through him his daughter, should be entirely in the Frenchman’s power.
The cards were sorted, and, once Maxwell was out of the way, the game
was ready to be played. All this the artist did not know.
With a heavy heart and a foreboding of coming evil, he made the simple
preparations for his journey. He had delayed to the last the task of
informing Enid of his departure, partly from a distaste of alarming
her, and partly out of fear. It would look more natural, he thought,
to break it suddenly, merely saying he had been called to Rome on
pressing business, and that his absence would not be a prolonged one.
Till Saturday, he put this off, and then, bracing up his nerves, he
got into his cab, and was driven off rapidly in the direction of
Grosvenor Square. He was roused from his meditations by a shock and a
crash, the sound of broken glass, the sight of two plunging horses on
the ground—roused by being shot forward violently, by the shouts of
the crowd, and above all, by the piercing scream of a woman’s voice.
Scrambling out as best he could, he rose to his feet and looked around.
His cab had come violently in collision with another in the centre of
Piccadilly. A woman had attempted to cross hurriedly; and the two cabs
had swerved suddenly, coming together sharply, but not too late to save
the woman, who was lying there, in the centre of an eager, excited
crowd, perfectly unconscious, the blood streaming down her white face,
and staining her light summer dress. A doctor had raised her a little,
and was trying to force some brandy between the clenched teeth, as
Maxwell pushed his way through the crowd.
‘Nothing very serious,’ he said, in answer to Maxwell’s question.
‘She is simply stunned by the blow, and has sustained, I should say,
a simple fracture of the right arm. She must be moved from here at
once.—If you will call a cab, I will take her to a hospital.’
‘No, no!’ Maxwell cried, moved to pity by the pale fair face and slight
girlish figure. ‘I am mainly responsible for the accident, and you must
allow me to be the best judge. My cab, you see, is almost uninjured;
put her in there, and I will tell you where to drive.’
They lifted the unconscious girl and placed her tenderly on the seat.
There were warm hearts and sympathetic hands there, as you may notice
on such occasions as these, and there was a look of feeling in every
face as the cab drove slowly away.
‘Go on to Grosvenor Square,’ Maxwell instructed his man. ‘Drive slowly
up New Bond Street. We shall be there as soon as you.’
They arrived at Sir Geoffrey’s house together, considerably astonishing
the footman, as, without ceremony, they carried the sufferer in.
Alarmed by strange voices and the shrieks of the servants, who had come
up at the first alarm, Enid made her appearance to demand the meaning
of this unseemly noise; but directly she heard the cause, as coherently
as Maxwell could tell her, her face changed, and she became at once all
tenderness and womanly sympathy.
‘I knew you would not mind, darling,’ he whispered gratefully. ‘I
hardly knew what to do, and it was partly my fault.’
‘You did quite right. Of course I do not mind. Fred, what do you take
me for?’ She knelt down beside the injured woman there in the hall, in
the presence of all the servants, and helped to carry her up the stairs.
Lucrece looked on for a moment, and then a startled look came in her
face. ‘Ah!’ she exclaimed, ‘I know that face—it is Linda Despard.’
Enid heard these words, but did not heed them at the time. They carried
the girl into one of the rooms and laid her on the bed. At a sign
from the doctor, the room was cleared, with the exception of Enid and
Lucrece, and the medical man proceeded to look to the broken limb. It
was only a very simple fracture, he said. The gravest danger was from
the shock to the system and the wound upon the forehead. Presently,
they got her comfortably in bed, breathing regularly, and apparently
asleep. The good-natured doctor, waving aside all thanks, left the
room, promising to call again later in the day.
FOUNDLING QUOTATIONS.
Quotations play no small part in conversation and general literature.
There are some which we know must inevitably be made under certain
circumstances. It is almost impossible, for instance, for the
conventional novelist, when he wants to convey to his readers the fact
that his heroine’s nose is of a particular order—which, formerly,
through our lack of invention, we could only describe by a somewhat
ungraceful term—to avoid quoting Lord Tennyson’s description of the
feature as it graced Lynette’s fair face—‘Tip-tilted like the petal of
a flower.’ We feel sure that it must come; and there is now, happily,
no occasion for a young lady in the position of one of Miss Braddon’s
earlier heroines, when listening to a detailed description of her
appearance, to interrupt the speaker, as he is about to mention the
characteristics of her nose, with a beseeching, ‘Please, don’t say
_pug_!’
And then, does anybody ever expect to read a description of a certain
celebrated Scotch ruin, without being told that
If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight?
or to get through an account of the ancient gladiatorial games at Rome
without coming across the line,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday?
You know, perhaps, what praise Mark Twain took to himself because he
did _not_ quote this line. ‘If any man has a right,’ he says, ‘to feel
proud of himself and satisfied, surely it is I; for I have written
about the Coliseum, and the gladiators, the martyrs, and the lions, and
yet have never used the phrase, “Butchered to make a Roman holiday.”
I am the only free white man of mature age who has accomplished
this since Byron originated the expression.’ This little piece of
self-congratulation rather reminds one of the lady who was accused of
never being able to write a letter without adding a P.S. At last, she
managed to write one without the usual addition; but when she saw what
she had succeeded in doing, she wrote: ‘P.S.—At last, you see, I have
written a letter without a P.S.’ And so, though Mark Twain managed to
steer clear of the hackneyed quotation in the body of his account, he
could not help running against it in a P.S.
Then we have all the multitude of Shaksperean quotations which are
sure to be heard in their accustomed places, many of which, indeed,
have become—to quote again—such ‘household words,’ that to very many
people they do not appear to be quotations at all, but merely every-day
expressions, of the same order as ‘A fine day’ or ‘A biting wind.’
Again, when we read of some cheerful fireside scene, when the curtains
are drawn closely against the winter wind that is roaring round the
house, and the logs are crackling and spitting in the grate, and the
urn is hissing and steaming upon the table, don’t we know that a
reference to the ‘cup which cheers but not inebriates’ is certainly
coming? This, by the way, is a line that is almost invariably
incorrectly quoted, and it is the usual and incorrect form that we have
given. We shall leave our readers to turn up the line for themselves,
and see what the correct form is, and then, perhaps, the trouble they
will thereby have had will serve to impress it upon their minds, and
prevent them again quoting it incorrectly.
But it was not with the intention of talking about these well-known
and every-day quotations from Tennyson, Scott, Byron, Shakspeare, and
Cowper that we thought of writing this paper. We want to talk about a
few quotations, quite as well known as those to which we have already
alluded, which have been so bandied about that all trace, or nearly
all trace, of their original parish and paternity has been lost; and,
though they are as familiar to us as the most hackneyed phrases from
our best known poets, no one can say with certainty by whom they were
first spoken or written.
A good many wagers have been made as to the source of the well-known
and much-quoted couplet:
He that fights and runs away,
May live to fight another day.
The popular belief is that they are to be found in Butler’s _Hudibras_.
But the pages of that poem may be turned over and over again, and the
lines will not be found in them. We may as well say at once that they
cannot be found anywhere in the exact form in which they are usually
quoted. The late Mr James Yeowell, formerly sub-editor of _Notes
and Queries_, once thought that he had discovered their author in
Oliver Goldsmith, as a couplet, varying very slightly from the form
we have given, occurs in _The Art of Poetry on a New Plan_, which was
compiled by Newbery—the children’s publisher—more than a century ago,
and revised and enlarged by Goldsmith. But the lines are to be found
in a book that was published some thirteen years before _The Art of
Poetry_, namely, Ray’s _History of the Rebellion_. There they appear as
a quotation, and no hint is given as to the source from which they are
taken. Ray gives them as follows (first edition, 1749, page 54):
He that fights and runs away,
May turn and fight another day.
Though this is the earliest appearance in print of the exact words, or
almost the exact words, in which the quotation is now usually given,
it is by no means the earliest appearance of a similar thought. Even
as far back as Demosthenes we find it. It appears, too, in Scarron, in
his _Virgile Travesti_, if we remember rightly. And now we must confess
that the still prevailing belief that the lines occur in _Hudibras_
is not entirely without a _raison d’être_, and it is not impossible
that Ray may have thought he was quoting Butler, preserving some hazy
and indistinct recollection of lines read long ago, and putting their
meaning, perhaps quite unwittingly and unconsciously, into a new and
unauthorised form. This, however, is mere conjecture. The lines, as
they appear in _Hudibras_ (part iii. canto iii., lines 243, 244), are
as follows:
For those that fly, may fight again,
Which he can never do that’s slain.
We may just add that Collet, in his _Relics of Literature_, says that
the couplet occurs in a small volume of miscellaneous poems by Sir John
Mennis, written in the reign of Charles II. With this book, however, we
are unacquainted, and cannot, therefore, discuss the appearance of the
foundling lines in it, or what claims its author may have to be their
legitimate parent.
All readers of Tennyson—and who that reads at all is not numbered
amongst them?—know well the opening stanza of _In Memoriam_:
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
These lines contain another quotation of the order we have designated
as ‘Foundling Quotations.’ Who is the singer, ‘to one clear harp in
divers tones,’ to whom Lord Tennyson refers? Passages from Seneca and
from St Augustine (Bishop of Hippo) have been suggested as inspiring
the poet when he penned the lines; but neither Seneca nor St Augustine
can be said to _sing_ ‘to one clear harp in divers tones.’ Perhaps
the most reasonable hypothesis is that Lord Tennyson had in his mind
Longfellow’s beautiful poem of _St Augustine’s Ladder_, the opening
lines of which are:
Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!
and the closing ones:
Nor deem the irrevocable Past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.
The question, however, though Lord Tennyson is still alive, is one
that is not likely ever to be clearly solved; for we have very good
authority for saying that he has himself quite forgotten of what poet
or verses he was thinking when he composed the first stanza of _In
Memoriam_.
The equally well-known
This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things,
in _Locksley Hall_, refers, of course, to the line in Dante’s _Inferno_.
The trite ‘Not lost, but gone before,’ might alone provide
subject-matter for a fairly long essay. Like the other quotations
which we are discussing, it can be definitely assigned to no author.
The thought can be traced back as far as the time of Antiphanes, a
portion of whose eleventh ‘fragment,’ Cumberland has translated, fairly
literally, as follows:
Your lost friends are not dead, but gone before,
Advanced a stage or two upon that road
Which you must travel, in the steps they trod.
Seneca, in his ninety-ninth Epistle, says: ‘Quem putas periisse,
præmissus est’ (He whom you think dead has been sent on before); and he
also has: ‘Non amittuntur, sed præmittuntur’ (They are not lost, but
are sent on before), which corresponds very closely with the popular
form of the quotation. Cicero has the remark that ‘Friends, though
absent, are still present;’ and it is very probable that it is to this
phrase of Cicero that we are really indebted for the modern, ‘Not lost,
but gone before.’ We may note that Rogers, in his _Human Life_, has,
‘Not dead, but gone before.’
Then there is the somewhat similar, ‘Though lost to sight, to memory
dear,’ which no one has succeeded in satisfactorily tracing to its
original source. It was said, some years ago, that the line was to be
found in a poem published in a journal whose name was given as _The
Greenwich Magazine_, in 1701, and written by one Ruthven Jenkyns. The
words formed the refrain of each stanza of the poem. We give one of
them as a sample:
Sweetheart, good-bye! the fluttering sail
Is spread to waft me far from thee;
And soon before the fav’ring gale
My ship shall bound upon the sea.
Perchance all desolate and forlorn,
These eyes shall miss thee many a year,
But unforgotten every charm—
Though lost to sight, to memory dear.
Mr Bartlett, however, in the last edition of his _Dictionary of
Quotations_, has demolished this story of Mr Ruthven Jenkyns; and the
line is still unclaimed and fatherless. Probably, as in the case of the
last mentioned, ‘Not lost, but gone before,’ its germ is to be found in
an expression of Cicero.
There is a Latin line familiar to all of us, ‘Tempora mutantur, nos et
mutamur in illis’ (The times change, and we change with them), which
we are frequently hearing and seeing. This is a much-abused line;
probably there is none more so; and we do not think we shall be guilty
of exaggeration if we say that it is misquoted ten times for every time
it is correctly cited. The positions of the _nos_ and the _et_ are
usually interchanged; the result being, of course, a false quantity;
for the line is a hexameter. Now, who first wrote this line? The answer
must be, as in the cases of all our other ‘Foundling Quotations,’ that
we do not know. But in this particular instance we may venture to be
a little more certain and definite in our remarks concerning its
pedigree than we have dared to be in previous ones. There can be little
doubt that the line is a corruption of one to be found in the _Delitiæ
Poetarum Germanorum_ (vol. i. page 685), amongst the poems of Matthias
Borbonius, who considers it a saying of Lotharius I., who flourished,
as the phrase goes, about 830 A.D. We give the correct form of the line
in question, and the one which follows it:
Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis;
Illa vices quasdem res habet, illa suas.
There is another foundling Latin line, almost as frequently quoted as
the one we have just been discussing, namely, ‘Quos Deus vult perdere,
prius dementat’ (Whom the gods would destroy, they first madden).
Concerning this there is a note in the fifth chapter of the eighth
volume of Mr Croker’s edition of Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_, in which
it is said to be a translation from a Greek iambic of Euripides, which
is quoted; but no such line is to be found amongst the writings of
Euripides. Words, however, expressing the same sentiment are to be
found in a fragment of Athenagoras; and it is most likely that the
Latin phrase now so commonly quoted is merely a translation from this
writer’s Greek, though by whom it was first made we cannot say. The
same sentiment has been expressed more than once in English poetry.
Dryden, in the third part of _The Hind and the Panther_, has:
For those whom God to ruin has designed,
He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.
And Butler writes in _Hudibras_ (part iii. canto ii., lines 565, 566):
Like men condemned to thunder-bolts,
Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts.
Further consideration will probably bring to the reader’s mind other
examples of these ‘Foundling Quotations’ which have won for themselves
an imperishable existence; though their authors, whose names these
few-syllabled sentences might have kept alive for ever, if they were
only linked the one with the other, are now utterly unknown and
forgotten. Any one who can succeed in discovering the real authorship
of the quotations we have been considering will win for himself the
credit of having solved problems which have long and persistently
baffled the most curious and diligent research.
MISS MASTERMAN’S DISCOVERY.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.
Miss Phœbe Masterman was a spinster over whose head some fifty summers
had flown—with, it may be presumed, incredible swiftness to herself.
She was very comfortably situated with regard to this world’s goods,
having inherited ample means from her father, a native of Durham, who
had made a considerable fortune as a coal-merchant. At the time of her
father’s death, she was thirty-five; and as she had no near relative
in whom to interest herself, she established an Orphanage for twelve
girls at Bradborough, a market-town in the north of England, within two
miles of the coast. Brought up in the strictest conformity with Miss
Masterman’s peculiar views, dressed with the most rigid simplicity,
fed on the plainest fare, taught to look upon the mildest forms of
recreation as vanity and vexation of spirit, these fortunate orphans,
one would think, could hardly fail to become virtuous and happy; yet,
inconceivable as it may appear, there were legends that orphans had
been seen with red eyes and countenances expressive of anything but
content; there was even a dark rumour to the effect that one of them
had been heard to declare that if she only had the opportunity she
would gladly commit a crime, that she might be sent to prison, and so
escape from the thraldom of Miss Masterman!
But even this ingratitude and depravity paled before that of the Rev.
Shanghan Lambe, incumbent of the little church of St Mary’s. Now, Miss
Masterman had built that church for the good of the district, and the
living was in her own gift. Yet Mr Lambe, entirely ignoring the latter
fact, had had the hardihood to baptise an orphan in Miss Masterman’s
absence without previously obtaining the permission of that lady;
upon which the indignant lady declared that unless he promised not to
interfere with her orphans, she would withdraw all her subscriptions
and leave him to find his own income. Nor was this all. There were
other reasons to make Mr Lambe pause before quarrelling with Miss
Masterman. Before he was appointed to St Mary’s, he had been only a
poor curate with a stipend of fifty pounds a year, which munificent
income he had found totally inadequate to his wants and those of an
aged mother who was dependent on him; consequently, he had entered upon
his duties at Bradborough shackled with small debts to the amount of a
hundred pounds.