trying to trace out the history of the house before it came into his
possession. He learned that it had originally been occupied by the
person who built it, a man of low origin, who, being looked upon as
a pillar of the Church by the congregation to which he belonged,
had been entrusted with the task of collecting certain sums due to
it--whether actual income or subscriptions I do not now recollect. At
all events, he never paid over the money, but launched out into sundry
extravagances rather unusual for a man in his station of life, amongst
which was the erection of this large and handsome house. But from the
time the house was finished a blight seemed to fall upon his life. He
gave up all his religious and regular habits, frequented evil company,
took to drinking, and finally, in a fit of delirium tremens, hanged
himself in the very garret room of which I have before spoken. The
scenes at his funeral were said to baffle description. The corpse
was laid out in the kitchen, and thither all his late boon-companions
repaired and turned the sad ceremonial into a hideous orgy. Among
other horrible deeds, they took the corpse from the coffin, propped it
up in a chair and poured whisky down its throat.
The incidents which I have related happened when Mrs. X---- was a
child, and she is now in the prime of womanhood. When she finished
her story I recollected that scarce a year ago I had read in a
Philadelphia paper an extract from one of the journals of the town
near which this house stood, giving an account of an investigation
which was then taking place of the cause of sundry strange
disturbances occurring in this very house. The extract closed with the
history of its builder and first occupant, tallying exactly with what
she related to me, though with fewer details. So, after all these
years, the perturbed spirit still refuses to rest.
The narrative with which I shall conclude this chapter of ghostly
experiences is one for the truth of which I am not prepared to vouch,
as I was neither an actor in its scenes nor was it related to me by
one who was. Yet were the incidents of any other than a supernatural
nature I should consider the authority from which I learned them as
unquestionable.
A few years ago a lady in quest of summer lodgings for herself, her
sister and her children (her husband being absent) was offered a
large, old-fashioned house in the vicinity of one of our seashore
resorts on highly advantageous terms. Having inspected the house and
found it, though old, in good repair, she engaged it joyfully, and
a few weeks after the date of her first negotiations she was settled
there with her family. For some time nothing occurred to mar the peace
of the household. The children enjoyed the fresh sea-breezes, their
pleasant sports on the beach and the large airy rooms, while the
ladies sewed and read and looked after household matters and took long
walks after the fashion of most people during the summer season by the
seaside. One night, when the mother was about to retire to rest, one
of her younger children, a bright little boy, called to her from his
sleeping-room. Fearing that he was ill, she hastened to him.
"Mamma," he said very earnestly, "I wish you would tell that strange
woman to keep out of my room."
"What woman, dear?" asked his mother, convinced that he had been
dreaming.
"I don't know her name, and I can't see her face because she wears a
big sun-bonnet, but she comes and stands at the foot of my bed, and
she frightens me."
"Well, never mind, dear. Go to sleep, and if ever she troubles you
again, come into my room and sleep with me," answered the mother,
still thinking that the child had been wakened by an uneasy dream. The
little fellow, thus soothed and consoled, soon fell asleep, and
slept soundly till morning. But a few nights afterward the child
came running into his mother's room at dead of night, panting and
terrified, and exclaiming, "Mamma! mamma! she has come again!" His
mother took him into her arms, and soon caressed away his fears, but
thinking that the child's uneasiness was caused by his sleeping alone,
she had his bed moved into her own chamber, and fitted up the vacant
apartment as a guest-chamber. Soon after this the servants began
to complain of strange sights and sounds for which they could not
account, and one burning July day the sister, who was seated by the
parlor window, happened to say, "Oh, I am so warm!" when a voice,
seemingly from the cellar, made answer, "And _I_ am so cold!" Struck
with amazement, she called, but no one replied, and subsequent
investigation proved that there was no one in the cellar at that
moment, nor could there have been, as its only door was always kept
locked.
I cannot now recall the details of various strange occurrences which
afterward took place, but will pass on to the final one, which may be
considered as the dénoûment of the whole story. The lady of the house,
a strong-minded, practical woman, had always sternly rejected the
theory that the odd incidents that annoyed her had any supernatural
origin; so, disregarding them wholly, she sent an invitation to an
old friend of hers, a clergyman, to pay her a visit of some weeks'
duration. Her invitation was accepted, and in due time her guest
arrived and was put in possession of the spare bed-room. Night coming
on, the whole household retired to rest. Early in the morning the
active hostess rose to see that all was in order for the further
entertainment of her guest, when, on going into the parlor to unfasten
the shutters, what was her amazement to find him there extended on the
sofa, and looking very ill, as though he had passed a wretched night!
In answer to her anxious questioning he stated that on retiring to
rest he had fallen into a profound slumber, from which he suddenly
woke, and saw a woman wearing a large sun-bonnet, which completely
concealed her face, standing beside his bed, the moonlight which shone
into the room rendering every detail of her figure distinctly visible.
Supposing that she was one of the servants who had come to his room to
see that he was perfectly comfortable and wanted nothing, he spoke to
her. What she replied, or how he first became convinced that the Thing
before him was no form of flesh and blood, I cannot now remember; but
I recollect two particulars of the interview: one was, that she told
him to look for her in the cellar; the other, that he asked her why
she wore a sun-bonnet, and she answered, "Because the lime has
spoilt my face." At this his failing senses forsook him, and when
consciousness returned his ghostly visitor had disappeared.
His hostess heard him in silence. As soon as breakfast was over she
requested him to accompany her to the cellar. Careful examination soon
revealed a spot where some of the stones with which it was paved had
been removed and afterward replaced. Assistants with proper tools were
procured, the stones were lifted, and after a few minutes of vigorous
digging a mass of lime was disclosed, in which was found imbedded
a quantity of calcined fragments of bone, which medical authority
afterward pronounced to be portions of a human skeleton. These poor
remains were carefully removed, placed in a box and interred in a
neighboring cemetery, and the "woman in a sun-bonnet" was seen no
more.
Subsequent investigation into the history of the old house revealed
the following facts. It had originally been occupied by a retired
sea-captain and his only son, the latter a wild, reckless youth of
evil character and confirmed bad habits. A young girl went to live
there as a servant, and for some months seemed well contented with her
place, but afterward she became gloomy and unhappy, and was frequently
seen in tears by the neighbors. At last she disappeared, and it was
given out by her employers that she had gone to visit some friends at
a distance, but she did not return, and suspicion was already directed
toward the old man and his son, when one morning the house was found
to be shut up, its inhabitants having found it expedient to remove
as silently and secretly as possible. The girl was never heard of
afterward. The discovery of the bones led to the supposition that the
younger man had seduced her, had afterward murdered her to conceal his
original crime, and that he had then buried the body in the cellar,
taking the precaution to cover it with quicklime.
As I said at the beginning of this article, I neither wish to propound
any theories nor to deduce any conclusions from the relations I have
given. I can only reiterate my statement that they came to me from
sources the reliability of which I cannot question. I have carefully
excluded everything relating to the supernatural which I ever heard
from the lips of ignorant and superstitious persons, and have only
recorded such incidents as bore an added weight of evidence in the
shape of the sense, intelligence and unquestionable veracity of their
relators.
LUCY H. HOOPER.
AFTERNOON.
Small, shapeless drifts of cloud
Sail slowly northward in the soft-hued sky,
With blue half-tints and rolling summits bright,
By the late sun caressed; slight hazes shroud
All things afar; shineth each leaf anigh
With its own warmth and light.
O'erblown by Southland airs,
The summer landscape basks in utter peace:
In lazy streams the lazy clouds are seen;
Low hills, broad meadows, and large, clear-cut squares
Of ripening corn-fields, rippled by the breeze,
With shifting shade and sheen.
Hark! and you may not hear
A sound less soothing than the rustle cool
Of swaying leaves, the steady wiry drone
Of unseen crickets, sudden chirpings clear
Of happy birds, the tinkle of the pool,
Chafed by a single stone.
What vague, delicious dreams,
Born of this golden hour of afternoon,
And air balm-freighted, fill the soul with bliss,
Transpierced like yonder clouds with lustrous gleams,
Fantastic, brief as they, and, like them, spun
Of gilded nothingness!
All things are well with her.
'Tis good to be alive, to see the light
That plays upon the grass, to feel (and sigh
With perfect pleasure) the mild breezes stir
Among the garden roses, red and white,
With whiffs of fragrancy.
There is no troublous thought,
No painful memory, no grave regret,
To mar the sweet suggestions of the hour:
The soul, at peace, reflects the peace without,
Forgetting grief as sunset skies forget
The morning's transient shower.
EMMA LAZARUS.
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
WASHINGTON'S BIRTHPLACE IN 1873.
Was George Washington born in Great Britain or America? Absurd as
this question must sound to an American, it has been gravely discussed
within the last few months by a writer in the London _Notes and
Queries_, who has the effrontery to say that Washington's own brief
assertion in a letter to the effect that he was born in Virginia
cannot be conclusive. "No man's unsupported testimony," he adds, "as
to the place of his birth would be taken in evidence in a court of
justice, for his knowledge of the event must necessarily be from
hearsay or from records." This is silly enough. I did not see the
whole article, or learn by what arguments the writer endeavored
to substantiate his doubts, if he really had any, as to the true
birthplace of the _Pater Patriae_, but, feeling some interest in the
matter, I cut out the slip containing the quotation just given,
and enclosed it in a letter to a prominent gentleman living in
Westmoreland not far from Wakefield, the estate on which the
birthplace--or rather the site of it--is situated, with a request that
he would reply to it. He did so promptly and almost indignantly.
"I am amazed," says he, "at the contents of the printed slip you send
me. That any man of ordinary intelligence, living within the bounds
of civilization, could be ignorant of or doubt the fact that General
Washington was born in America, I did not for a moment suppose." He
goes on to say that if Washington's biography, written by so many
competent hands, and founded upon sources the most authentic, and
particularly the Lives of Marshall, Sparks and Irving, were not
sufficient to convince incredulity itself, he is at a loss to know
what would. Certainly, he would not attempt the task himself. In
addition to the well-known biographies, traditions and memoranda
attest the fact beyond the possibility of enlightened doubt.
Other credible and corroborative records are not wanting. "Had the
question," he concludes, "been asked of Dr. Livingstone by some
savage in the depths of the African jungles, it would not have been
surprising; but to come from a writer in _London_, it is inexpressibly
marvelous, and looks like a relapse into barbarism."
Among the memoranda alluded to is a fac-simile of the entry of the
birth of Washington in the Bible of his mother, which is given in
Howe's _Historical Collections of Virginia_, as follows:
"_George Washington son to Augustine and Mary his Wife was Born 11'th
Day of February_ 173-1/2 _about_ 10 _in the Morning and was Baptized
the_ 3'th (sic) _of April following M'r Beverley Whiting and Cap'n
Christopher Brooks godfathers and M'rs Mildred Gregory God-mother."_
There are no marks of punctuation, and Howe states that the original
entry is supposed to have been made by Washington's mother. If so, the
handwriting, not very unlike Washington's own, is unusually masculine,
compact, even and clear for a woman's. Howe's book was published in
1836. At that time the old family Bible, a much dilapidated quarto
with the title-page missing, and covered with the striped Virginia
cloth so common in old days, was in the possession of George
W. Bassett, Esq., of Farmington, Hanover county, who married a
grand-niece of Washington. At that time, too, the birthplace, which
had been destroyed previous to the Revolution, was much more plainly
marked than it is now. From its associations, and from its natural
beauties as well, the place was doubly interesting. Standing half
a mile from the junction of Pope's Creek with the Potomac River,
it commanded a view of the Maryland shore and of the course of the
Potomac for many miles. The house was a low-pitched, single-storied
frame dwelling, with four rooms on the first floor, and a huge chimney
at each end on the outside--the style of the better class of houses of
those days. A stone, placed there to mark its site by G.W.P. Custis,
bore the simple inscription:
"HERE, ON THE 11TH OF FEBRUARY (O.S.), 1732, GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS
BORN."
Such was its appearance in 1834 or '35, when Howe visited it. Its
present condition may be gathered from what the writer of the letter
in response to the London querist has to say about the site itself,
that being all that is left of a place so memorable and so deserving
of perpetuation:
"I have had no opportunity to obtain the sketch I promised you.
Indeed, there is virtually no material to make a sketch of. The
birthplace is now simply an old field lying waste, with indistinct
vestiges of a human habitation. An old chimney stands which belonged
to an outhouse (kitchen or laundry), some remains of a cellar, and the
foundations of a house in which tradition states Washington was born.
There was a stone slab, with a simple inscription, placed on the spot
some sixty years ago by G. W: P. Custis, to denote the place, but it
was long ago removed from its original position, mutilated and broken,
so that only a fragment remains."
That a place of such interest--one might call it sacred--should be
left to decay and obliteration is no new thing in Virginia. Enemies
might well declare that neglect of her mighty dead is characteristic
of the old commonwealth. The truth is, she has a great many dead to
care for, and of late years all her time has been absorbed in the care
of her living. But something has been done, or attempted to be done,
to rescue Washington's birthplace from oblivion. As far back as 1858
an act was passed by the General Assembly of Virginia, accepting from
Lewis Washington a grant of the "site of the birthplace of George
Washington, and the home and graves of his progenitors in America,"
and appropriating five thousand dollars "to enclose the same in an
iron fence," etc. Hon. Henry A. Wise, governor of Virginia at the time
this act was passed, entered with zeal and alacrity upon the work, the
execution of which was entrusted to him by the Legislature--went in
person to Westmoreland, examined carefully the sites, negotiated with
the owner of the adjacent farm for right of way, adopted a plan for
the enclosures and tablets, and began a correspondence with mechanics
and artisans at the North with a view to the speedy completion of the
work, and--just then his term expired, the war soon followed, and the
matter was of course dropped.
The money appropriated, together with the accrued interest, is now
in the treasury of Virginia, and although Governor Walker in his late
message did not bring the subject to the attention of the Legislature,
the long-delayed work will be consummated sooner or later, and "a neat
iron fence" with a few plain slabs will be erected on the hallowed
spot. But it strikes the present writer that five thousand dollars, or
even ten thousand dollars, form rather a small sum for such an object,
and that "a neat iron fence" is not exactly the thing that the place
and its memories demand. But not a dollar more may be expected of
Virginia at this time. She owes too much, and has too little. If one
of the many Northern gentlemen who are lavishing their hundreds of
thousands on colleges and other charities would come to Westmoreland
and put something a little better than a "neat iron fence" around the
birthplace of Washington, he would do a noble deed for himself and for
both sections of his lately estranged country.
R.B.E.
VICISSITUDES IN HIGH LIFE.
The London papers lately recorded the death of a lady who was the
representative and last descendant, save one sister, of a house famous
in English history. This was Lady Langdale, widow of Bickersteth,
first and last Lord Langdale, and sister of Harley, last earl of
Oxford. Lady Langdale had but one child, who married Count Teleki, a
Hungarian nobleman, and pre-deceased her mother, dying childless. Lord
Langdale was the son of Mr. Bickersteth, surgeon, of Kirby-Lonsdale,
Westmoreland. He was brought up to his father's vocation, and
traveled, as physician, with the earl of Oxford.
Impressed, no doubt, with Mr. Bickersteth's extraordinary abilities,
Lord Oxford advised him to go to college and read for the law, which
offered greater prizes than the medical profession. Accordingly,
he entered at Cambridge, and in 1808 graduated as senior wrangler.
Twenty-seven years later, in 1835, he married the daughter and heiress
of his friend and patron, and the year following was created a peer.
His brother Edward was the celebrated evangelical leader in the Church
of England. Bred to the law, he abandoned that profession for holy
orders. Their nephew, son of their brother John, is the present bishop
of Ripon.
The Harleys have been seated for six or seven centuries in
Herefordshire, at Brampton-Bryan and Egwood, properties which in part
remained in Lady Langdale's possession. By marriage! with the heiress
of the Vaughans in the fifteenth century, they became possessed of
Wigmore Castle, the ancient heritage of the extinct earls of Mortimer,
and great estates which added to their consequence.
When Charles II. made a batch of peers on his restoration, the
Harley of that day displayed a rare modesty. The king offered him a
viscounty, but he declined the honor, "lest his zeal and services
for the restoration of the ancient government should be reproached as
proceeding from ambition, and not conscience;" and so scrupulous was
he that his being made a knight of the Bath even was done without his
knowledge, he being then at Dunkirk, and Charles inserting with his
own hand his name in the list. But his son was destined for a higher
dignity, for he it was who became in the tenth year of the reign of
Charles II.'s niece, Queen Anne, earl of Oxford and Mortimer, being
the famous Harley of that reign, linked in our memories with St. John
Lord Bolingbroke, the Mashams, Marlboroughs, Swift, Addison, Pope, and
the host of brilliant men which makes the reign of one of the feeblest
women who ever sat on a throne a period of almost pre-eminent interest
in English annals to men of cultivated mind subject to the influence
of association. By Elizabeth Foley, daughter of the first Lord Foley,
of Witley Court (sold, about thirty-five years ago, with the bulk
of the Foley estates, for £990,000 to Lord Dudley, who married Lady
Mordaunt's sister), the famous lord treasurer, Oxford, had one
son, the second earl. He was the friend of Swift, to whom the dean
addressed so many letters. A man of literary tastes, he spent a
portion of his immense fortune in forming the finest library of the
period, and it is to him the student is indebted for the magnificent
collection known as the "Harleian," which subsequently became, by
purchase, the property of the nation, and is deposited in the British
Museum. He married the greatest heiress of the day, Lady Henrietta
Cavendish-Holies, only daughter and heir of the duke of Newcastle (of
the Holies creation--the present duke, a Pelham-Clinton, derives from
a different descent). He left but one daughter. She married the second
duke of Portland, grandson of Dutch William's pet page Bentinck, whom
he imported into England, and loaded with honors and emolument until
even the House of Commons of _that_ day cried out loudly, "Enough!
stop!" Through this lady the Bentincks got Welbeck, the duke of
Portland's chief seat to-day.
Meanwhile, the Oxford honors and patrimonial estates in Herefordshire
passed to the second earl's first cousin, and so on, in regular
succession, until the earldom became extinct by the death of Lady
Langdale's brother a few years ago. One of Lady Langdale's sisters
married a General Bacon. At the time of the marriage he was but a poor
captain, and his wealth did not much increase, whilst his family did,
and his wife, the once beautiful Lady Charlotte, Byron's "Ianthe"--to
whom he addressed the famous lines which form the prelude of _Childe
Harold_, beginning,
Not in those climes where I have late been straying--
had to see her daughter a governess in the family of a Cornishman,
once a common miner! One of her daughters is now married to the son
of Lord Mount Edgecumbe's agent. It seems that the sisters could not
forgive the mesalliance, as they deemed it, for Lady Langdale's will
shows no bequest to the Bacons.
Lady Langdale had another sister, who married a son of Doctor
Vernon-Harcourt, long archbishop of York, grandfather of "Historicus,"
the well-known political letter-writer of the London _Times_. This
lady died about the same time as Lady Langdale. One sister only, the
wife of a foreign nobleman, survives. She is the last of the Harleys
of the great minister's line.
A GLASS OF OLD MADEIRA.
We had met in Europe some dozen years ago--I from Massachusetts,
he from Carolina. We both looked grave for an instant as a friend
presented us to each other, naming our respective residences, and then
both laughed cheerily, and were good friends ever after. We enjoyed
_Tartuffe_ and the _Mariage de Figaro_ in company with each other at
the Theatre Francois, heard Mario, Grisi, Gratiano and Borghi Mamo in
Verdi's _Trovatore_ at the Opéra Italien, danced with _les filles
de l'Opéra_ at Cellarius's saloons, and had many a midnight
carouse afterward at the Maison Doré. Nor had our time always been
unprofitably spent. Toward Easter we journeyed together to Rome, and
stood side by side before the masterpieces of Raphael and Domenichino
in the Vatican, strolled by moonlight amid the ruins of the Coliseum,
and drank out of the same cup from the Fountain of Trevi; often
visited Crawford's studio, where then stood the famous group which
now adorns the frieze of the Capitol at Washington, and by actual
observation agreed in thinking his Indian not unworthy of comparison
with the famous statue of the Dying Gladiator. We stood together on
the Tarpeian Rock, and, looking down upon the mutilated Column of
Trajan and all the ruins of ancient Rome, read out of the same copy of
Horace the famous ode beginning, "Exegi monumentum aere perennius."
We were both passionately fond of sculpture and of painting, and often
sat for hours before the glorious Descent from the Cross of Daniel da
Volterra in the Chiesa della Trinità dei Monti, the principal figure
in which is said to have been sketched by Michael Angelo, and which,
although less widely known, appeared to our minds equal in execution
and superior in grandeur to any other painting in the world.
After our return to this country I happened to go South one winter,
and spent a month with my friend on his plantation in the low country
of Carolina. It seemed to be our fate to meet amid the ruins of
the past. But the war had not then occurred, and we had many a hunt
together, in which, after a glorious burst of the hounds through the
open savannas, I brought down more than one noble buck. On other days
we would drive with the ladies along the broad beach upon which stood
the summer residences of the neighboring planters. And sometimes we
would stroll lazily about the lanes of his estate, basking in the
mellow sunshine in the midst of February, and chatting of Capri and
Sorrento in a climate equal to that of Italy.
And we met again the other day in the streets of a Northern city. He
looked older certainly, and very careworn, but his eye was as bright
as ever and his voice as cheery.
"Come and dine with me," he said after we had given each other a
hurried account of our present abodes and occupations. "You will find
me in rather modest and decidedly airy lodgings, and I cannot offer
you either wild-ducks or venison. A rasher of bacon and a glass of
madeira as we chat over old times: what say you to the bill-of fare?
You remember the old French adage, 'Quand on n'a pas ce que l'on aime,
faut bien aimer ce que l'on a.'"
"A quelle heure, mon ami?"
"Four o'clock."
And at five that afternoon we were seated together, the remnants
of our frugal repast removed, and on the scrupulously polished old
mahogany table which separated us stood a cut-glass decanter of
old Carolina madeira, the bouquet of which filled the room with its
fragrance.
"Fill your glass, Harry: 'tis not the fragrance of the wine, but the
sentiment connected with it, which prevents me from offering you a
pipe. The odor of the best Virginia would seem to me a desecration.
There are only a dozen bottles left in that cupboard. I never uncork
one except for a near friend. 'Tis out of fashion now: hock and
champagne have taken its place; but, do you know, I like it the better
on that account. It reminds me of the past, and, though still a young
man, it is one of my greatest pleasures to dwell on the picture which
a glass of it never fails to recall to my imagination. You remember
Woodlawn? For five-and-twenty years, during the whole of a long
minority and subsequent travels abroad, those old bottles stood
wreathed with cobwebs in the garret of the old mansion. You drank one
with me in 1859. The rest were buried at the commencement of the war,
and this is one of the few which survived it. There are not many of
your compatriots to whom I would tell the story of its preservation,
for it illustrates a feature of feudal attachment which they
persistently refuse to believe possible.
"You remember the stately old negro who occupied the porter's lodge at
Woodlawn, and who told you with such pride that he and his ancestors
had always occupied a favored post near the great house? You remember,
too, his grand air, fashioned after the gentlemen of the olden time,
the contemporaries of Washington, Rutledge and Pinckney? And in what
awe and reverence his fellow-servants stood of him! Well, when the war
fairly began, and all hope of amicable adjustment was exhausted, I did
what every true man on either side was bound to do--raised a company
for the service, removed my family to an up-country farm, and left Old
John in charge of my residence and interests in the low country. The
Federal gunboats soon appeared upon the coast, entered the bay and
ran up the rivers. Many of the younger people went off with them, but
during the long and dreary four years which ensued Old John remained
staunch at his post, cultivating the land as best he might, and
sending constantly supplies of money and provisions to his mistress.
At last the whole thing broke down: Lee surrendered, Johnston
surrendered. Troops as well as gunboats swarmed in all directions. Not
only regular soldiers, but raw negro levies, occupied the towns and
were posted through the country. Stories were circulated that I was
killed, that I was captured; and the latter statement was true. There
were rumors that the land was to be divided among the negroes, and one
dark night in the early summer of 1865 some drunken sailors, escaped
from the gunboats lying in the bay, raised a mob of negroes from the
various plantations and gutted nearly every house in the parish. Among
others they came to mine eager for wine, and John was pointed out by
some of the neighboring negroes as knowing where it was concealed. The
sailors threatened his life: he refused to tell. They held a pistol to
his head, but the old man remained staunch in his refusal. Provoked by
his fidelity, at length they brutally beat him with the butts of their
pistols until his gray hairs were dabbled in gore, and went off to
other plunder, telling their followers to take what they wanted from
my residence. But, bruised, bleeding and crippled though he was, Old
John still defended his master's property, and sitting on the front
steps of the house kept the whole crowd at bay by the firmness and
dignity of his attitude. I heard of the affair first from a white man
who lived in the neighborhood, and it was not until I asked him about
it that he told me himself. The next day he gave to my own people
the furniture remaining in the house to keep until I came back, but
positively refused to allow them to take of the crops that had been
gathered any more than was required for their subsistence, and this
he regularly shared out to them at stated intervals. And when, after
a long imprisonment and much enfeebled myself, I landed one evening at
the wharf which leads up to the house, the first figure which met my
sight was the old man faithfully guarding the barns. His eyesight was
too dim for him to see me, but as soon as he heard my voice he seized
my hand with passionate fervor, pressing it repeatedly to his lips and
bedewing it with tears. Can you wonder if he has shared my fortunes
ever since? But not at Woodlawn. The negroes generally were wild with
the notion of freedom, and utterly ignorant of the practical meaning
of the term. To me they were always civil and affectionate, but I
preferred that some other than myself should teach them its rugged
lesson, and immediately leased the place for a term of years to one
better fitted than I to derive profit from it under the new system.
The gentlemen and the negroes are the two classes upon whom the first
results of the fearful revolution in society caused by the war fell
with heaviest weight. Both were totally unprepared for it, and both
have so far suffered cruelly. A year ago Old John died, faithful
and cared for to the last. A few months ago the lease I had executed
expired, and I visited the estate again. All the glamour of the past
had disappeared. The home of my fathers knew me no more, and I have
sold it. Cuffee, whom you remember as my body-servant, who followed
me through the war, and bore me on his back from the battlefield upon
which I was severely wounded, and who would have come with me here
had circumstances permitted of my retaining his services,--Cuffee has
taken to politics, and now represents the county in the Legislature
of the State; and the last figure that I remember seeing as I left
the place was that of old Sary, the sick nurse, her long black hair
streaming in the wind (you remember she was an Indian half-breed), her
feet bare, her petticoat ragged and limp, standing in the lane
which leads from the house--her arms akimbo, a sort of miniature Meg
Merrilies--screaming out to me, 'You left you own plantashun.' Yes,
I have left my own plantation, and am grubbing out a modest and
sometimes a rather precarious existence elsewhere. But for all that,
it is more wholesome than mouldering among the ruins of a past that
can never return. The fight has been fairly fought, and New England
has won the day. Germany is up, France is down; Italy united, the pope
existing on sufferance in the palace where erstwhile emperors did him
homage. I don't quarrel with Fortune. Nay, in many things I dare say
the world has benefited by the change. And so, when I take my children
sometimes to look at Crawford's famous group, I even enjoy the spirit
of pride with which they look upon the figure of America, and the zest
with which they enjoy the vigorous onslaught of the pioneer on the
forest tree; but my own eyes seek the Indian chieftain reclining in
mute despair on the right of the group, and I have a strange sympathy
with the fortune which his very attitude so forcibly indicates. Our
battle of Dorking has been fought, and, whatever may be the fate of
the next generation, all that is left to me of home or of country are
the golden drops which sparkle in this tiny glass."
RAMBLER.
AT A MATINÉE: A MONOLOGUE.
Oh Dear! I meant to be very early, people do look so cross when you
squeeze by them. I don't think it is exactly proper, either, when
they are men. Here is my seat, No. 10: that girl has piled all her
waterproofs on it. Why don't she take them away quicker? and I wish
she wouldn't grope about my feet for her overshoes.
I never sat right next to the orchestra before. What a convenient
railing to hang my umbrella on! Provoking it should rain so to-day.
There now! my waterproof is all disposed of, and I know my dress is
all right, so I shall enjoy myself.
What a ridiculous girl beside me! _Such_ a bunch of curls! The two
young men on the other side look like gentlemen: the one this way
especially nice--lovely eyes and moustache. I'll look round the house
as far as I can without moving. Can't see much, though, for I'm so
near the front. Why on earth didn't brother Bob put me where I could
see the people?
Why, there's Lucy Morris! I can't bear that girl: her hair is almost
the color of mine. A vacant seat beside her, too; so she came with
some one. Wonder who it is? I hope she won't see me.
Oh, how funny! The musicians come up out of a hole just like the tame
rats at the Museum, nasty things!--the rats, I mean. The man right
in front of me has a trombone. I know what it is, because the name
is written on his music. I'm so glad, for I never knew exactly what a
trombone was until now. And what a funny instrument! He doesn't blow
at all for ever so long, and then suddenly comes in with two or three
toots.
But, good gracious! there's Dick Livingstone! I saw him come in at
that door. I'm so glad I came! He asked me night before last at Mrs.
Harris's if I was coming to the matinée, and of course I said "Yes,"
though I didn't have the slightest idea of doing so until he spoke.
But what--! He has taken the seat by that Lucy Morris, and has given
her a programme. I hate that girl!
There goes the curtain. What a stupid play! Why did I come? The damp
will ruin my dress. Oh, that horrid girl! Well, of all the ridiculous
acting I ever saw, this is the worst! I should think they would be
ashamed to put such people on the stage. He is opening her fan. A fan
to-day! absurd! I _won't_ look again. How that man rants! I'm sure I
don't know why I came: I might have known how poor it would be.
Even _I_ can see that Leicester and Mortimer have dresses at least
a hundred years apart. I wonder if their legs are stuffed? Oh dear!
that's hardly proper. What Dick can see to admire in that girl is
beyond my comprehension. Such airs and graces!--all put on; and how
she makes eyes at him! I can feel it behind my back.
How absurdly Queen Elizabeth is dressed! and what a fright she is! And
I wore my new hat, too: he said he liked blue so much. I could just
cry, I am so provoked. It's all her fault, I know. Oh! the play! Yes,
Dudley is making love. Ridiculous! There, the curtain's down at
last, and--what--! Dick is getting up: he looks as if he were saying
good-bye. There's Lucy's uncle: he sits down beside her--he must have
brought her. Oh, what a relief! After all, it was very natural for
Dick to take the vacant seat, he is so thoughtful always. Lucy can
talk pretty well sometimes, too. If she only had some idea of dress!
There! I'm sure Dick saw me, but of course I shall take no notice.
Upon my word, the young man next me is admiring the girl's hair on the
other side of me. It's hideous--red as a carrot, and stuck on at that.
Thank Goodness! my hair hasn't a tinge of red in it--pure _blonde
cendré_--but I have to pay awfully to match it. Wish I could tell that
young fellow her hair is all stuck on. Hark! the nice one says,
"Why, it is all her own--I see it growing" "S-s-s-h!" says the other:
"she'll hear you." "Loveliest hair I ever saw," continues No. 1: "pure
gold, not a tinge of red--" It's _my_ hair they are discussing. What a
nice fellow he is! I'll just turn a little away, so he can study
that curl which really does grow out of my head. It is worth all
the trouble it gives me, for it makes the others seem so natural. I
declare, he is looking right at me: suppose he should speak? I should
_die_! Nonsense! he is bowing to a lady in the dress-circle. I know
he'd like to do something for me. Brother Bob says girls can't be too
careful. I might drop something. Not my handkerchief--that _would_ be
improper--but my opera-glass case: nothing could be said against that.
Oh my! I haven't used my glasses yet, I'm so near the stage. I'll
look round the house; so here goes. "Thank you, sir," with my sweetest
smile and such a nice flutter. I saw him nudge his friend.
There goes the curtain again. Mary queen of Scots: I thought she was
prettier. Oh, the act is really over; I actually forgot everything but
the stage. My eyes are all wet. But it won't do to cry: they would be
red. I don't quite like some of the words they use, though--they make
one feel queer. Now, why couldn't they say "illegitimate child"? It
means just the same; besides, it's longer.
I wonder how Dick Livingstone liked it? _Mr_. Livingstone, I should
say. Brother Bob doesn't think it nice for girls to speak of young men
by their first names. But then brothers are so particular about their
own sisters, though, Goodness knows, they flirt enough with other
people's. Bob and Kate Harris, for example, and yet he preaches at
_me_!
Oh, the young men are going out. They push by as well as they can,
but still they crowd unpleasantly. I am sure I've seen that nice one
somewhere. They are going to stay away, too, I think, for they have
taken their over-coats. If only Dick--Mr. Livingstone, I mean--
Oh, there's the curtain again. It's really quite interesting. I was
mistaken about the actors: they do very well indeed. Queen Elizabeth
is excellent, and so are they all. It shows how careful one ought to
be not to judge too hastily. That's what mother always says. I won't
do so again.
Well, that play is over--now for the comedy. Some one says it is still
raining. I hate a waterproof, my figure looks so well in this suit.
I might carry my cloak over my arm, but then I'm afraid the rain will
ruin my dress. I _must_ wear the waterproof and be a dowdy. I don't
believe, after all, that it would hurt the underskirt, and then, with
the umbrella up, I should have to take his arm. I shouldn't like
to get this dress spoiled, either. I know mother wouldn't give me
another. Brother Bob says men don't care so much about women's dress:
they like to see a sensible girl. I don't believe that; besides, I
have thick boots, and I'm sure that's sensible. I don't care: I won't
wear the waterproof unless it is a perfect deluge. My goodness! I
don't see Dick anywhere! Suppose, after all, he didn't come to meet
me? and I gave him that flower at Mrs. Leslie's, too! I wish the thing
was over.
But oh, what a pretty dress! and how sweet she is! I had no idea she
could be so cunning, after being such a tragedy queen. The man on the
stage actually kissed her. Bob says they don't really kiss, though.
I'm sorry it's over. Oh dear! I don't like being alone in such a
crowd. Brother Bob wouldn't have let me come, I know, only he thought
I should meet the Davidsons. No matter: I'll never tell him. I do
believe Dick hasn't stayed, after all. I'll just put on my waterproof
and thick veil, and go home and have a good cry.
Oh, Mr. Livingstone, how you startled me! I had no idea you were here.
Yes, I am by myself: certainly you may escort me home. Take a walk in
this pouring rain? Why, it's all sunshine!
C.A.D.
NOTES.
Wellnigh half a century has elapsed since the discovery of the
beautiful Venus of Milo (the exact year was 1825), and yet now, for
the first time, the endless discussions regarding two doubtful and
interesting points in its history have been set at rest. These two
points are--first, the original pose of the statue; and, secondly, the
reason of its being armless. After so many years of dispute over
these questions, it occurred at length to M. Jules Ferry to do what of
course ought to have been done long ago--namely, go to the very spot
whence the statue was exhumed, and there talk with all the surviving
witnesses of the exhumation. M. Ferry not long since put his idea into
execution, went to Milo, took into consultation with him M. Brest,
son of the consul who procured the statue for France, and found and
cross-questioned two Greeks who were present at the unearthing of
the statue. M. Ferry has collected the details of his labors in an
elaborate communication to the Académie des Beaux Arts, but a brief
indication of the results obtained may be made as follows:
First, then, the Venus was found in 1825 at the foot of a little hill,
where it had been covered up by successive crumblings of the earth
above. The proprietor of the ground, wishing to clear a little more
of the soil for his planting, chanced to strike the statue with his
shovel. "It was on its base, erect," said the two Greek peasants to
the French minister. "With one hand she held together her draperies,
and in the other an apple"--the same, doubtless, that Paris had just
given her. Such, very briefly, is the clear, short, definite, decisive
story which puts an end to ten thousand disquisitions and hypotheses
about the pose. The evidence thus given is that of people who actually
saw what they describe. But, secondly, what of those "long-lost arms"?
and how came they to be lost? The body of the Venus was formed of
two blocks, and the arms were afterward fastened upon the trunk. When
discovered, it was intact. M. Brest, the French consul, instantly
bought the Venus for five hundred dollars, while the Turkish
government on its part hurried off a small vessel to bring it away,
offering the owner of the farm fivefold the French price, or something
like two thousand five hundred dollars. A French _aviso_, sent by M.
de Rivière, the ambassador at Constantinople, arrived on the scene at
the very moment when the Turks had got possession of the statue, and
were embarking it on their vessel. A dispute arose at once, and in the
material as well as legal confusion the arms of the Venus, which had
been detached for safer transportation, were missed. The people of
the neighborhood got up a story that the arms were carried off by the
Turkish vessel out of chagrin and spite, but this seems to be mere
surmise where all else is clear.
* * * * *
The story of Demosthenes and the pebbles is familiar. Less familiar,
we venture to say, is the theory that declamation is sometimes the
cause of stammering; or, rather, that stuttering impels a man to
talkativeness, and the yielding to this tendency fixes the habit of
stammering and makes it worse. Hence it might plausibly be argued that
it is the rostrum, or the very emotion of speaking in public, which
makes some orators become stammerers. At all events, in Paris an
institution has been founded expressly to remedy stuttering; and M.
Chervin, its director, not long ago presented before a meeting of the
learned societies at the Sorbonne some interesting statistics on his
specialty. These statistics seem to show that stuttering is in direct
proportion with the habit of speaking, and that the more one speaks
the more one stutters. This is certainly an unexpected result of the
restoration of freedom of speech in France. M. Chervin mentions a
village of eighteen hundred souls where everybody, without exception,
undeniably stutters. What strange dialogues, says Jules Claretie (who
cites these points in _l'Indépendance Belge_), must take place there!
A very curious fact is, that stammering is less frequent in the north
of France than in the south. In the north-east it is least known, and
most in the south-east. For example, all things being equal, for six
stammerers in Paris there would be twenty-five in Lyons and seventy in
Marseilles. The admitted garrulity or fluency of southern speaking
is often the cause or the preface to stammering. Thus, comically
concludes M. Claretie, oratorical habits threaten to make stammering
become the order of the day, and for one Vergniaud there will be ten
stutterers, and ten more stutterers for one General Foy. Nevertheless,
in earlier days, Camille Desmoulins stammered, and yet spoke but
little at the Convention. It does not appear that Charles Lamb was
a garrulous person, and in the familiar experience of daily life we
rarely find stutterers to be rapid talkers. Still, this latter
fact really helps M. Chervin's theory, since we may conclude it
is precisely because stammerers find that a very rapid utterance
increases their defect that they force themselves to speak
deliberately, and also not to tire the vocal muscles. Hence, apart
from the jesting inference which M. Claretie, in French journalist's
fashion, is bent son twisting out of the scientific statistics, there
would appear to be a mutual influence, perfectly comprehensible,
of rapidity in utterance and a tendency to stammering. We could not
safely go on to generalize that only voluble people become stutterers,
or that all stutterers are unusually garrulous and unusually eager in
enunciation; but we may conclude that if they are thus careless and
rattling in delivery, their peculiarity will be likely to grow more
marked, and that accordingly a natural tendency to the same defect is
developed by the same habits or necessities of much and rapid talking.
* * * * *
Two illustrations of nineteenth-century precocity, rather superior
to the generality of anecdotes regarding the wisdom of the rising
generation, we find in recent French papers. One of them is originated
by the _Moulin-à-Parole_. Madame de B. was visiting, with her baby,
her friend Madame X. After chattering three-quarters of an hour,
without giving anybody else a chance to put in a word, Madame X.
pauses, when Baby immediately takes up the burden of conversation.
Madame X., getting tired at last, says, "Why do you talk so much,
mignonne? It isn't nice for a little girl like you to do so." "Oh,"
replies Baby very graciously, "it is only so that mamma may rest!" A
little lad furnishes the other instance of the premature sagacity of
modern childhood. A famous merchant has four children, three daughters
and a boy named Arthur. Two of the former die successively of
consumption, and at the funeral of the second a friend of the family
comes to offer his compliments of condolence, and, patting little
Arthur's head, tells the poor lad the house must seem lonely to him
now. "Yes," briskly replies Arthur, whom his father has brought up
to accurate ideas, "here we children are reduced _fifty per cent_."
Worthy to take charge of these children would have been the prudent
bonne of whom _Charivari_ speaks. The morning after engaging herself
to Madame R. she hastened to that lady with her finger wrapped in a
handkerchief, and in an agitated voice asked if the _converts_ were
real silver. "Why so, Nannette?" "Because, I just pricked my finger
with a fork, and I know that if it is plated copper I ought to take
the precaution of having the place bled." "Don't be alarmed," replies
the lady, smiling despite herself at the young girl's innocence, "my
plate is all solid." "Ah," says the bonne with a sigh of relief, "I
am so glad!" The day after, the simple young lady disappeared with all
the silver. It is not every bonne that would take such precautions.
* * * * *
Paris has always been famous among modern cities for its genius and
industry in adding variety to its cuisine, either by the audacious
invention of new dishes or the felicitous combination of old
ones--either by discovering new sources of food or new methods of
preparing it. It was a curious incident in the late history of
the city that what had been a fashionable whim became a hard
necessity--that after Saint-Hilaire and the hippophagists had
struggled to introduce horseflesh as regular provender, the siege of
Paris made horseflesh a prized rarity. But the zest resulting from
the enforced diet of dogs, cats, rats and monkeys in bombardment days
appears to have been so great that we now hear of an enterprise worthy
to have a Brillat-Savarin to celebrate it--namely, the formation of
a society under the presidency of the naturalist Lespars, designed to
bring into vogue as eatable a great class of living creatures whose
presence now inspires ordinary persons only with disgust. A naturalist
who devotes himself to eating such creatures with a motive so
philanthropic deserves our praise, though we may not be able to
personally imitate his heroic example. Among the choice dishes
mentioned by one paper as selected to figure at the first public
banquet of M. Lespars are a plate of white worms, a bushel of
grasshoppers, and a broil of magpies seasoned with the slugs that
infest certain green berries. One regards this announcement with more
or less incredulity; but little doubt seems to hang over the assertion
that the dormouse has just been introduced into the list of French
game-dishes. The puzzle for the cooks seems to be with regard to the
proper sauce for the new delicacy; but this matter does not trouble
the little chimney-sweeps, who find the animal so long associated in
poetry and in fact chiefly with their own humble career, now rising
to the dignity of game, and commanding a price for the table. Piedmont
has thus far furnished the larger part of the displays of _marmottes_
in Paris stalls. The chief trouble in making rats, magpies and other
delicacies of that sort really popular amongst the poorer classes is
that the latter do not possess adroit cooks to disguise the original
flavor under aromatic adjuncts, nor yet the money to buy the necessary
spices and side-dishes, nor the high grade of champagne wines with
which the wealthy and noble patrons of "food reform" commonly wash
down unpalatable viands.
LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
Rousseau. By John Morley. 2 vols. London: Chapman & Hall.
It was in the natural course of things that modern criticism,
ever aiming at a wider comprehension, a keener analysis, a greater
independence of judgment and expression, should test itself anew on a
subject affording so full a scope and so sure a touchstone as the life
and writings of Rousseau. The character of Rousseau, with its strange
blending of delicate beauty and repulsive infirmity, requires to be
handled with the firm but tender and sympathetic touch which the nurse
or the physician lays upon a child afflicted with sores. His career,
with its alternations of obscurity and conspicuousness, of tumult and
torpidity, of wretchedness and rapture, must be followed with an
eye keen to detect the springs and alive to the subtle play of
circumstance and impulse. His influence, if not more profound, more
varied, extensive and direct than that of any thinker and writer since
Luther, is to be traced in the whole history of his own and of later
times, under manifold aspects and amid momentous changes of spirit and
of form. In the case of most men who have helped to mould the
ideas and direct the tendencies of an age, it would be difficult to
determine what each has contributed to the general result, or to say
with certainty that the work performed by one would not, if he had
been wanting, have been equally accomplished by others. On the other
hand, there are a few master-spirits--men not of an age but for
all time--whose power has been so deeply infused, so generally
and silently absorbed, that it would be vain to inquire how it has
operated in detail. We cannot indicate the course or fix the limits
of its action: we perceive only that without it our intellectual life
must have been dormant or extinct. Rousseau belongs to neither of
these classes. His power was not general but specific, not creative
but stimulative, not a source of perennial light but the torch of
a conflagration; yet it was original and independent, it did not
co-operate but clashed with that of his contemporaries, and while it
acted upon minds far higher and broader than his own, it received no
aid except from disciples and imitators. Of the French Revolution
we may say with precision and confidence that it owed primarily its
peculiar character--its austere ideals and wild distortions, its
illimitable aspirations and chaotic endeavors--to the extent to which
the nation had become imbued with his spirit and theories. In regard
to literature, it is not sufficient to point to a long list of
celebrated writers, from Chateaubriand and De Staël to Lamartine and
George Sand, whose works have reflected the characteristic hues of
his sentiment and style; or to adduce particular instances of his
influence upon writers of higher and more contrasted genius, such
as Goethe and Byron, Schiller and Richter: what is to be noted, as
underlying all such examples and illustrations, is the fact that a
literature distinguished from that which had immediately preceded
it by earnestness, simplicity and depth, by spontaneous and vivid
conceptions and freedom from conventional restraints, had its
beginning with him, appealing to emotions and ideas which he was the
first to call into renewed and general activity. In education, in art,
in modifications of religious opinion and of social life, the same
force, if less measurable and distinct, is everywhere apparent either
as an active participant or a strong original impulse.
It need hardly be said that, as productions of genius, the writings of
Rousseau cannot hold any rank proportionate to the effect which they
thus produced. They are not among the treasures that constitute our
intellectual capital, the possessions which we could not lose without
becoming bankrupt. They are rather among the instruments which,
having served their purpose, may be laid aside, however interesting as
mementoes or admirable as curiosities. Their highest qualities--their
fervor, simplicity and grace--do not of themselves disclose the secret
of their power. From the point of view of mere literary criticism we
are apt to be more observant of their defects than their beauties. By
the side of earlier and later models they are seen to be deficient in
the very qualities--force of passion and depth of thought--by which
they startled or enthralled contemporary readers.
If we turn to the man himself, we might imagine at the first glance
that none could have been less fitted for the position of a leader of
thought, a founder of systems and schools, the apostle of a new era.
The career for which Nature seemed to have destined him, and which, in
truth, he may almost be said to have followed, was that of a vagabond,
or at the best a recluse. Of all the advantages we desire and
anxiously seek for our children, Rousseau enjoyed none. Poverty,
degradation and neglect weighed upon him from his birth. The evil
in him was unchecked, the good unfostered, by any training hand. The
opportunity and the faculty of acquiring any substantial nutriment
from books seemed alike denied him. His intercourse with mankind
through all his earlier and the greater part of his later life was
confined to the ignorant, and with these alone was he ever able
to hold any harmonious relations or any grateful interchange of
sentiment. Physically, mentally and morally diseased, weak yet stern,
sensitive but unpliant, equally devoid of courage and of tact, he
could not come in contact with the world without suffering a shock
and swift recoil that drove him back to the refuge of solitude--to the
mute companionship of external Nature or the brooding contemplation of
himself. Even the ideals which, despite his practical aberrations
from them, he yet intensely worshiped, had, in his conception of them,
little connection with the activities of life: truth, simplicity,
order, purity and peace were ideas that occupied his soul only to fill
it with a horror of reality, with yearnings for an idyllic repose,
with dreams of a state which he persuaded himself had been the
original condition of the race, in which virtue and right must prevail
through the mere absence of occasion for wrong or temptation to evil.
Yet it is not in some radiance breaking through this cloudy
environment, it is not in this or that faculty overcoming all
obstacles, it is in the entirety of his nature as originally formed,
and as moulded or marred by circumstance and fate, that we shall find
the secret of that spell which he exercised over men of all classes
and characters. The culture which might have sweetened and perhaps
ennobled his life would have unfitted him for his mission. It would
have brought him more or less into harmony with his age; and it was by
his utter and vehement opposition to its habits and opinions that
he turned the stream into a different channel. Not only his finer
intuitions and purer tastes, but his unsatisfied desires, his errors,
his remorse, urged him to make war upon it, as the step-mother that
had sought to enervate or brutalize his mind while defrauding him of
his inheritance. He held up the image of its corruption, shallowness
and false refinement, and that of a life of simple manners and
unperverted instincts. That he depicted this as the real life of
a primitive epoch only gave greater pungency to the contrast.
The eighteenth century, aroused to the consciousness of its own
degeneracy, its false and artificial existence, readily accepted an
idealized Geneva, an idealized Sparta, as the type of a primitive
community, the model on which society was to be refashioned. What the
"pure word of God" had been to the Reformers, that "Nature" became to
the revolutionists in all departments of thought and action, in poetry
and music as in philosophy and politics--a shibboleth to rally and
unite all the elements of discontent and aspirations for change, a
universal test by which to try all doctrines and systems. In either
case, as was soon discovered, the test would itself admit of diverse
interpretations; but in the mean while the solvent had taken effect,
the authority of custom and tradition had been overthrown, old
organizations had crumbled into dust.
That the agitation thus evoked should have produced many grotesque,
many frightful results, cannot seem strange. Long before the lower
strata had been reached the surface was in a state of ebullition.
Polite society was delightfully thrilled with a feeling of its own
depravity, and found in the novel sensation the zest that had been
wanting to its jaded powers of enjoyment. Nor was it awakened from its
illusions by the first eruption from below. In a transport of delirium
it threw away, as if they had been idle gems, of use only when cast
into the public treasury, the privileges and prerogatives that had
formed the basis of the monarchy. Thenceforth the only effort was to
secure a _tabula rasa_ on which to rear that new and perfect state
of which the model was at hand, if only the proper materials could be
found and the foundations be laid. Of the men who acquired a temporary
mastery, three only, by the massive force of practical genius, were
able to free themselves from the fascination of the common ideal. But
Mirabeau and Danton were overborne by the full tide, and Napoleon,
when he arrested it in its languor, turned it into depths from
which it emerged the other day to sweep away his column in the Place
Vendôme.
In thus glancing at the vast proportions of the subject, we have
wandered far from the range of Mr. Morley's work, which has a special
purpose with well-defined limits. It is not a complete biography of
Rousseau, much less a history of his times. It gives no full or vivid
portraiture of character, no adequate narrative of events, no summary
even of results. It is an analytical study, an examination of the life
and works of Rousseau with a view to determine their precise nature
and quality, rather than their relative value or bearings. Within
these limits it exhibits ample knowledge and skill, combined with
a searching but tolerant judgment. Without labored discussion or
passionate apology, it clears away entangling prejudices and current
misconceptions, to assume a position from which undistorted views may
be obtained. At times, indeed, Mr. Morley carries his impartiality
to the verge of indifference. His certificate of Grimm's "integrity"
rests on very slender grounds, and the Memoirs of Madame d'Épinay
are subjected to no such scrutiny as the circumstances of their
composition and preservation call for, before their statements can be
accepted as authority. But whatever minor defects may be found in the
book, the general spirit and execution are admirable. It is full of
interest and suggestiveness both for readers to whom the subject may
not be unfamiliar, and for those who may hitherto have neglected to
explore it. Above all, it is valuable as marking the line to which
English criticism has advanced, its capacity for treating complicated
and delicate questions with clearness, frankness and entire fairness.
* * * * *
Pascarel: Only a Story. By "Ouida," author of "Tricotrin,"
"Folle-Farine," "Under Two Flags," etc. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott
& Co.
The genius of "Ouida" is _sui generis_, and must in part create the
standards by which it is to be judged. Her works are so different from
the common type of modern novels that they demand to be looked at from
a different point of view. The present standard of excellence in prose
fiction seems to be the conformity of character and incident to what
is actually seen in life. It is a good test for all mere stories, but
is manifestly _not_ the test by which to gauge the recent works of
"Ouida." She does not aim at this pre-Raphaelite delineation of men
and things as they are. Her characters are idealizations: her later
books are prose-poems, not only in the affluence and rhythm of their
style, but in the allegoric form and purpose which, pervade them. This
characteristic is plain enough in _Tricotrin_ and _Folle-Farine_, but
finds its most marked expression in _Pascarel_. "Only an Allegory"
would be a more expressive sub-title for the book than "Only a Story,"
for the story is the mere thread which sustains and binds together a
series of parables and crystallized truths. Most of these, indeed,
she has embodied in former works, but nowhere as in _Pascarel_ is the
author's design to teach them made so manifest.
The book is almost wholly free from that extravagance of expression
and recklessness of all established codes of taste which have diverted
attention from her purpose, and led to a false estimate of the
character and tendency of her writings. It has none of the hindrances,
for instance, which prevent many from seeing the magnificence of the
conception in _Folle-Farine_. Its object is to enforce the lesson that
the only true greatness is that which loses sight of self--that Love,
and Love alone, is, both in its insight and its purpose, divine.
"Love sees as God sees, and with infinite wisdom has infinite pardon."
"Laughter and love are all that are really worth having in the world,"
but to gain them "one must seek them first for others, with a wish
pure from the greed of self." "The world owes nothing to so personal
a passion as ambition." "The first fruits of a man's genius are always
pure of greed." What makes a great artist is the "vital, absolute
absorption of personality in his love of art." The experience of the
donzella (which constitutes what there is of the story), a nobler,
and, we think, a _truer_, type of womanhood than Viva, yet with a like
over-estimate of the advantages of wealth and position, brings her
to the conviction that Pascarel is right. These truths, however, find
their most effective illustration in the wealth of Italian tradition
and history with which the pages abound. "Here is the secret of
Florence, sublime aspiration--the aspiration which gave her citizens
force to live in poverty and clothe themselves in simplicity, so as
to give up their millions of florins to bequeath miracles in stone
and metal and color to the future." "In her throes of agony she kept
always within her that love of the ideal, impersonal, consecrate, void
of greed, which is the purification of the individual life and
the regeneration of the body politic." "Her great men drew their
inspiration from the very air they breathed, and the men who knew they
were not great had the patience and unselfishness to do their minor
work for her zealously and perfectly." The workmen who chiseled the
stones and the boys who ground the colors "did their part mightily
and with reverence." The unrivaled works of art which are the true
greatness of Italy owe their existence to the self-forgetfulness of
their makers. So the love of Italy is in its essence a love for that
which is best and noblest in human nature--"the consecration of self
to an object higher than self." This love, however, to be true, must
be more than perception or sentiment--it must bear fruit in _likeness_
to that which it admires. "Each gift which men receive imposes a
corresponding duty." "We are Italians," says Pascarel after recounting
the glories of Italian achievement: "great as the heritage is, so
great the duty likewise." As a companion-book of Italian travel,
_Pascarel_ has a special value, suffused as it is throughout with
the blended charm of picturesque beauty and magical associations that
belongs to the country and the people.
* * * * *
_Books Received_.
The Great Events of History, from the Creation of Man till the Present
Time. By William Francis Collier, LL.D., Trinity College, Dublin.
Edited by an experienced American Teacher, New York: J.W. Schermerhorn
& Co.
Words and their Uses, Past and Present: A Study of the English
Language. By Richard Grant White. New edition, revised and corrected.
New York: Sheldon & Co.
Manual of Land Surveying, with Tables. By David Murray, A.M.,
Ph.D., Professor of Mathematics in Rutgers College. New York: J.W.
Schermerhorn & Co.
The Greatest Plague of Life; or, The Adventures of a Lady in Search of
a Good Servant. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson & Brothers.
Snatches of Song. By Jeanie Morison (Mrs. Campbell of Ballochyle).
London: Longmans, Green & Co.
The Life and Times of Philip Schuyler. By Benson J. Lossing, LL.D. New
York: Sheldon & Co.
Lewis Arundel: A Novel. By Frank E. Smedley. Philadelphia: T.B.
Peterson & Brothers.
Our Forest Home. By the author of "Robert Joy's Victory." Illustrated.
Boston: Henry Hoyt.
Philip Earnscliffe: A Novel. By Mrs. Annie Edwards. New York: Sheldon
& Co.
Heart's Delight. By Mrs. Caroline E.K. Davis. Illustrated. Boston:
Henry Hoyt.