AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
December 20, 1906.
_My dear Saint-Gaudens_:
Those models are simply immense--if such a slang way of talking is
permissible in reference to giving a modern nation one coinage at least
which shall be as good as that of the ancient Greeks. I have instructed
the Director of the Mint that these dies are to be reproduced just as
quickly as possible and just as they are. It is simply splendid. I
suppose I shall be impeached for it in Congress; but I shall regard
that as a very cheap payment!
With heartiest regards,
Faithfully yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
Mr. Augustus Saint-Gaudens,
Windsor, Vermont.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS
1. Why should a great statue have in it something of the
allegorical?
2. Describe Mr. Saint-Gaudens' statue of General Sherman.
3. What does the first letter show concerning Mr. Roosevelt's
opinion of the art of sculpture?
4. In what ways are the old Greek coins beautiful?
5. Point out essay-like freedom in the use of English.
6. Point out passages that are notably personal.
7. What were Mr. Roosevelt's plans for the making of United States
coins?
8. What were Mr. Saint-Gaudens' plans?
9. Draw from the letters material for an essay on coinage.
10. Show in what respects the letters have something of the spirit
of the essay.
SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION
1. A letter suggesting an inter-school debate.
2. A letter inviting a graduate of the school to act as judge at a
debate.
3. A letter inviting a prominent citizen to address a society of
which you are a member.
4. A letter telling of your experiences in a place that you are
visiting for the first time.
5. A letter giving your opinion of a book that you have read
recently.
6. A letter telling your plans for the coming vacation.
7. A letter concerning the use of an athletic field.
8. A letter inviting the graduates of your school to come to a
school festival or entertainment.
9. A letter concerning music in your school.
10. A letter giving an excuse for absence.
11. A letter concerning work in photography.
12. A letter concerning the work of prominent athletes.
13. A letter concerning arrangements for class day exercises.
14. A letter concerning graduation week.
15. A letter to a teacher who has left the school.
16. A letter to a person much older than you.
17. A letter to a school in a foreign country.
18. A letter to a school in another State.
19. A letter written, in the name of your class, for publication in
the school annual.
20. A letter of congratulation.
DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING
Write your letter so that it will express a definite and practical
proposal. Express your own individual opinion modestly and tactfully.
Use language that will thoroughly represent yourself. Try, in all
ways possible, to avoid making your letter heavy, “cut-and-dried,”
conventional, and purely formal.
THE SYMBOLIC STORY
HI-BRASIL
By RALPH DURAND
_An English traveller, soldier and author, who is still young and
who has “followed the Sea Maid” over every ocean. Like the English
poet, John Masefield, he served for a time as a sailor before
the mast. He has seen life intimately in various out-of-the-way
places, such as the South Sea Islands, Central Africa, and the
Arctic Regions. In the World War he performed patriotic duty in the
trenches and on Intelligence Staffs._
=_Hi-Brasil_ is a charming and fascinating story, a symbolic
narrative that most artistically combines realism and fancy, and
appeals to the unfulfilled longings that every reader possesses.=
=What is Hi-Brasil? It is the “Never-Never-Land,” the land of
dreams, the land of longings. In this story it is specifically
the land where the lost ships go. Who is the Sea Maid? She is the
Spirit of Adventure, the love of whom calls men ever restlessly
on. In this story she is the Spirit of the Sea. How skilfully
Mr. Durand describes her in sea-words: “With sea-blue eyes” and
“Wind-blown” hair; her laugh “Like the ripple of a stream that runs
over a pebbly beach”; her song “Like the surge of breakers on a
distant reef”; herself “As old as the sea, and a little older than
the hills.”=
=No one but a lover of the sea, and a lover also of bold enterprise
and high deeds, could have written such a story, emphasizing as it
does somewhat of the theme of Longfellow's _Excelsior_ and Poe's
_Eldorado_--=
=“Over the mountains
Of the moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride! Boldly ride!...
If you seek for Eldorado!”=
=“I've never sailed the Amazon,
I've never reached Brazil;
But the _Don_ and _Magdalena_,
They can go there when they will!”=
Peter Luscombe was the dullest man that ever audited an account.
Once when his neighbor at a dinner-party, having heard that he was
an authority on marine insurance, quoted Longfellow about “the
beauty and the mystery of the ships and the magic of the sea,” Peter
looked embarrassed and turned the conversation to the subject of
charter-parties.
His life was as carefully regulated as Big Ben. He caught the same
train every morning, dined at the same hour every evening, indexed his
private correspondence, and for recreation read Price's “Calculations.”
On Saturday afternoons he played golf.
One Summer a business matter took Peter to St. Mawes, and on his way
there he met the Sea Maid. To get to St. Mawes he had to cross Falmouth
Harbor by the public ferry.
Though till then he had had no more direct personal experience of the
sea than can be obtained from the Promenade at Hove, Peter was so
little interested in his surroundings that he spent the first part
of the ferry journey making notes of his personal expenditure since
leaving London, including tips, on the last page of his pocket-diary.
Midway across the harbor he chanced to look up and saw a yawl-rigged
fishing-boat--subconsciously he noticed the name _Maeldune_ painted on
her bows--running before the wind in the direction of Falmouth Quay.
An old, white-haired man, whose cheeks were the color of an Autumn
leaf, was sitting amidships tending the sheets, and at the tiller sat a
girl--a girl with sea-blue eyes and untidy, wind-blown, dark-brown hair.
She was bending forward, peering under the arched foot of the mainsail,
when Peter first caught sight of her. Their eyes met; the girl
smiled--and Peter dropped his pocket-diary into the dirty water that
washed about the ferryman's boots and stared after the _Maeldune_ till
he could no longer distinguish her among the other small craft in the
harbor.
When the ferry-boat reached St. Mawes and discharged her other
passengers Peter remained in her, and on the return journey sat in the
bows straining his eyes to pick out the _Maeldune_ among the other
fishing-boats. Falmouth Harbor is two and a half miles wide, and the
ferryman refused to be hurried; but at last the quay came in sight, and
Peter's heart leaped, for the _Maeldune_ was lying at the steps, and
the girl was still on board of her. As soon as the ferry-boat reached
the steps Peter jumped ashore and faced the girl. Then he hesitated,
embarrassed. He had nothing to say to her, or, rather, no excuse for
speaking to her. “I--I--I saw you--as you came up the harbor,” he
faltered.
But the girl showed no sign of embarrassment. She smiled at him again,
and her smile was brighter than sunlight shining through the curl of a
breaking wave.
“I'm just going out for a sail again,” she said, “and I've room for a
passenger. Old John has just gone to have a yarn with the sailmaker.
Would you care to come?”
Peter jumped onto the _Maeldune's_ thwart, and the girl cast off and
hoisted the sail. “I'm afraid I don't know anything about sailing,”
said Peter.
The girl laughed, and her laugh sounded like the ripple of a stream
that runs over a pebbly beach.
“That doesn't matter,” she said; “I can manage the old _Maeldune_
single-handed.”
They beat down the harbor, rounded the Loze, and stood out in the
direction of mid-channel. Peter was entirely happy. The wind was
blowing fresh from the southwest, and the _Maeldune_ danced lightly
over the waves like a thing alive, her thwarts aslant and her lee-rail
just clear of the water.
“This is glorious,” said Peter. “Do you know, this is the first time I
have ever been on the sea.”
“It won't be the last,” said the girl.
For a long while neither spoke again. Peter did not want to talk. He
was content to watch the Sea Maid as she sat at the tiller, looking
toward the horizon with dreamy eyes and crooning to herself a wordless
song that sounded like the surge of breakers on a distant reef.
“What song is that?” he asked after a long silence.
“That is the song that Orpheus sang to the _Argo_ when she lay on the
stocks and all the strength of the heroes could not launch her. Then
Orpheus struck his lyre and sang of the open sea and all the wonders
that are beyond the farthest horizon, till the _Argo_ so yearned to be
afloat with a fair wind behind her that she spread her sails of her own
accord and glided down the beach into the water.”
“I hadn't heard about it,” said Peter. The story was so fantastically
impossible that he supposed that the girl was chaffing him.
“You are young, surely, to handle a boat by yourself,” he said. “Don't
think me rude. How old are you?”
“As old as the sea, and a little older than the hills.”
Now Peter was sure that the girl was chaffing him.
Neither spoke again. Occasionally the girl looked at him and smiled,
and her smile was the most beautiful thing that Peter had ever known.
Toward evening they turned and sailed back, right in the golden path of
the sinking sun. Slowly the old town of Falmouth took shape; the houses
became distinct, then the people on the quay. Peter sighed because he
was coming back to the shore again, and because for the first time in
his life he had tasted absolute happiness.
Close to the quay the girl threw the boat up in the wind, ran forward
and lowered the head-sails, and then ran back to the tiller. The
_Maeldune_ came gently up to the landing-stage. Peter jumped ashore and
turned, expecting that the girl would follow, but she pushed off and
began to hoist the head-sails again.
“May I--may I see you again?” said Peter, as the gap widened between
the boat and the shore.
The Sea Maid laughed.
“If you come to Hi-Brasil,” she said.
Peter walked slowly in the direction of Fore Street, then realized
that he needed some more definite address if he were to see the girl
again. He hurried back to the landing-stage and looked eagerly for the
_Maeldune_. She was nowhere in sight.
“Did you see a little sailing-boat leave the steps about five minutes
ago?” he asked a man who was lounging on the quay. “Which way did she
go?”
“What rig?”
“I don't know what you call it--one big mast and one little one.”
“A yawl. There's been no yawls in here this afternoon.”
Peter inwardly cursed the man's stupidity and walked dejectedly
away. He dreamed of the Sea Maid that night, and in the morning told
himself that he was a fool. He had had an hour or so of happiness with
a jolly girl who evidently did not wish to continue the acquaintance.
Obviously, the sensible thing to do was to forget all about her. But
he could not forget. Work became impossible. When he tried to write
the laughing face of the Sea Maid danced before his eyes, and when
clients talked to him he could not listen, for the song she had sung
rang in his ears. He went back to Falmouth determined to see her again,
and not till he reached the Cornish port did he realize the futility
of his search. How was he to make inquiries as to the whereabouts of
two people of whom he knew nothing more definite than that the man was
white-haired and bronzed, and that the girl, when last seen, had worn a
white jersey and a blue-serge skirt?
* * * * *
A month later he was an unwilling guest at a reception given by a
famous London hostess. The rooms were packed with a well-dressed crowd
who walked about rather aimlessly, talking on the stairs or listening
to music in one or other of the reception-rooms. Suddenly Peter's heart
stood still for a moment. Clear above the chatter he heard the Sea
Girl's voice. He was standing at the head of the stairs and she was
singing in one of the adjoining rooms,
I've never sailed the Amazon,
I've never reached Brazil;
But the _Don_ and _Magdalena_,
They can go there when they will!
Yes, weekly from Southampton,
Great steamers, white and gold,
Go rolling down to Rio
(Roll down--roll down to Rio!),
And I'd like to roll to Rio
Some day before I'm old!
The doorway into the room from which he could hear the Sea Maid's voice
was so crowded with people that it was some minutes before Peter could
edge his way into the room. By that time the song was over and the
singer had gone. Peter made inquiries from a man standing near, and
was told that she had left the room by another door. He sought out
his hostess and asked her to introduce him to the lady who had sung
“Rolling down to Rio.” But his hostess could not help him. She admitted
reluctantly that she knew no more of the singer than that she was a
professional entertainer engaged through the medium of a concert agent
and that she had probably already left the house. Peter followed up the
clue. Next morning, after inquiry from the agent, he rang the bell of
a tiny flat in Maida Vale and stood with beating heart waiting for the
door to open.
Five minutes later he was out in the street again, bitterly
disappointed. The lady he had seen was able to prove indisputably that
it was she who had sung “Rolling down to Rio,” but she bore not the
slightest resemblance to the Sea Maiden. To cover his confusion and
excuse his visit, Peter had engaged her to sing at a charity concert
that he had invented on the spur of the moment, had insisted on paying
her fee in advance, and had left the flat, promising to send details of
the place and date of the engagement by post.
* * * * *
That evening, brooding in his lonely chambers, Peter, who till
then had prided himself on believing nothing that is not based on
the fundamental fact that two and two make four, became obsessed
by the idea that the Sea Maid had sent him a spirit-message, using
the unconscious professional entertainer as her medium. He tried
to shake off the idea, telling himself that it was fantastic and
ridiculous, but gradually it overmastered him. At eleven o'clock he
rose from his chair, picked up the _Times_, and consulted the shipping
advertisements. Five minutes later he rang for his man servant.
“Buck up and pack, Higgins,” he said. “I'm off to Brazil. You haven't
too much time. Boat-train leaves Waterloo at midday to-morrow.”
“To Brazil, sir? Isn't that one of those foreign places?”
“Yes. Why? What are you staring at? Why shouldn't I go to Brazil?”
“Shall you want me, sir?”
“You can come if you like.”
“If it's all the same to you, sir, I'd rather----”
“Man alive! I thought you'd have jumped at the chance. Don't you want
to go rolling down to Rio? Can't you feel the magic of it--even in the
mere words? Wouldn't you like to see the armadillo dilloing in his
armor----?”
“I'd better get on with the packing, sir.”
Higgins was convinced that his master had suddenly “gone balmy.”
Before sunset next evening Peter again saw the Sea Maid.
The _R. M. S. Maranhão_, outward bound for Rio de Janeiro, had just
left St. Alban's Head abeam when she passed a full-rigged ship bound
down-channel so closely that Peter could see the men on board of her.
Her tug had just left her and she was setting all sails. One by one the
sails fluttered free and swelled to the soft breeze. Men were lying out
on the upper topsail-yards casting loose the gaskets, and others on
deck were running up the royals to the tune of a chantey,
Sing a song of Ranzo, boys,
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo.
A crisp wave curled from her bows, a long wake of gleaming foam
streamed astern of her, and she curtsied gracefully on the swell as if
gravely saluting the larger, newer vessel. The _Maranhão_ passed under
her stern, and as she passed Peter, looking down on her poop, saw the
Sea Maid. And the Sea Maid saw him and waved her hand as the great
mail-steamer surged past.
“D'you know that vessel?” asked Peter eagerly of a ship's officer who
was standing near him.
“She's the _Sea Sprite_. Cleared from Southampton early this morning.
Bound for Rio in ballast for hides.”
“Bound for Rio? Splendid!” said Peter. “How long will it take her to
get there? I know some one on board.”
“A month--more or less. Who's your pal?”
“That girl that waved her hand to me.”
The ship's officer focused his binoculars on the _Sea Sprite_.
“There's no girl on her deck. Girls very seldom travel on wind-jammers
nowadays. Look for yourself.”
Peter took the glasses, and again saw the Sea Maid quite
distinctly--but he did not care to argue about it.
While waiting at Rio de Janeiro Peter took care to make friends with
the port authorities, and arranged with them to let him have the first
news that they had of the _Sea Sprite_.
At last one morning found him in the customs launch, steaming out to
the roadstead where the _Sea Sprite_, her anchor down, was stowing
her canvas. As soon as the quarantine doctor gave permission Peter
scrambled up the ship's side and looked eagerly round her deck. The Sea
Maid was not there. He could hardly contain himself until he could find
an opportunity to ask for her.
“I passed you in the Channel, Captain,” he said, “and I saw a lady
on your deck who is an old friend of mine. May I speak to her?” The
captain shook his head.
“Must have been some other ship,” he said. “We've got no ladies aboard.”
Peter's heart sank.
“I suppose you dropped her at some port on the way.”
“We haven't smelled harbor mud since we left Southampton Water,” said
the skipper. “You're making a mistake, mister. Why, you look as if you
thought I was lying. Take a look at the ship's articles, then, if you
don't believe me. Stands to reason, doesn't it, that if I had a woman
aboard her name would be on the articles?”
Peter returned to the shore, bitterly disappointed and hardly
convinced that he had been mistaken. He booked a passage on the next
homeward-bound steamer. On the homeward voyage he fell in love with an
old lady, one of those women whose personality is so magnetic that they
can draw the innermost secrets out of a young man's heart. One evening,
when the sea was ablaze with splendor under the moon, he told her of
the Sea Maid, and found it eased his longing to talk of her. The old
lady understood.
“You'll see your Sea Maid again,” she said. “I'm sure of it. But
perhaps not in this life.”
But Peter refused to give up hope of seeing the Sea Maid in the flesh.
When he got back to London he sought an interview with one of the most
eminent members of the Royal Geographical Society.
“I want you to tell me where Hi-Brasil is,” he said. “I want to go
there.”
“Then you'll have to wait till you die,” said the geographer with a
laugh.
“What do you mean?”
* * * * *
“Hi-Brasil is a purely mythical island, like St. Brendan's, The
Fortunate Islands, Avalon, and Lyonnesse, that ancient and medieval
geographers supposed to be somewhere out in the Atlantic. They've
served their purpose. If nobody had ever believed in them it is
probable that America would not have been discovered yet. The myth of
Hi-Brasil's existence took a long time to die. Venetian geographers
of the Middle Ages supposed it to be somewhere near the Azores, and
until 1830 Purdy's chart of the Atlantic marked 'Brasil Rock (High)'
in latitude fifty-one degrees ten minutes north, and longitude fifteen
degrees fifty minutes west--that is, about two hundred miles westward
of the Irish coast.”
“But isn't it possible that there really is such an island?” persisted
Peter. “The sea is a big place, you know.”
“Absolutely impossible,” said the geographer. “Why, the spot indicated
by Purdy is right in the track of steamers going from England to
Newfoundland. If you want to read about Hi-Brasil you must read old
books, published before geography was an exact science.”
Though he knew it was useless Peter followed the advice given him and
eagerly read every book he could find that had any bearing on the
subject--Rubruquis, Hakluyt, Linschoten, and many others--and to his
delight he found that his reading brought him nearer to his Sea Maiden.
After an evening spent in imagination exploring the coast of Vinland
with Leif Ericsson, or rounding North Cape with Othere, or groping
blindly in the unknown Atlantic with Malacello, he almost invariably
dreamed that he and the Sea Maiden were once more sailing together in
the little _Maeldune_.
It was after reading, first in Longfellow and afterward in Hakluyt,
about Othere's voyage to the Northern Seas, that Peter saw an
advertisement of a holiday cruise through the Norwegian fiords to
Spitzbergen. He booked a passage, saw the bleak, storm-harried point
that Othere was the first to round, and, on his way home, saw the Sea
Girl again. Just south of the Dogger Bank the tourist-steamer passed
a disreputable-looking tramp steamer. Half of her plates were painted
a crude red; others were brown with rust; the awning stanchions on
her bridge were twisted and bent; she had a heavy list to starboard,
and she was staggering southward under a heavy deck-cargo of timber.
On the bridge, leaning against the tattered starboard-dodger, the Sea
Maid stood and waved her hand to him. Peter eagerly sought out a ship's
officer.
“Where's that steamer bound for?” he asked.
“Goodness knows!” was the answer. “South Wales, most likely, as she's
carrying pit-props.”
Hope of seeing the Sea Girl in the flesh again returned, and Peter
wasted the next few weeks vainly searching all the South Wales
coal ports. He had given up the search, and was returning to his
much-neglected business when the South Wales-London express stopped for
a moment on the bridge over the Wye near Newport. Peter looked idly
out of the window at the dirty river flowing sluggishly between banks
of greasy mud. Then his heart leaped again. Lying embedded in the mud
far below were the rotting remains of a derelict barge, and on her deck
were some ragged children hauling lustily on a scrap of rope that they
had fastened to one of the barge's bollards and singing what, no doubt,
they supposed to be a chantey. Standing on the barge's rotting deck was
the Sea Maid. This time she not only waved her hand but called to him,
“We are bound for the Spanish Main.” Peter leaned far out of the window
of the railway-carriage.
“Where can I find you?” he shouted.
“In Hi-Brasil,” was the answer, and the train moved on.
Peter was now convinced that the eminent geographer whom he had
consulted as to the whereabouts of Hi-Brasil had not known what he
was talking about. It must, he decided, be some little Cornish fishing
village, too insignificant to be worth the great man's notice.
In pursuit of this idea he went at once to Falmouth and began to
make inquiries, first at the police stations and post-offices, and
afterward among the fishermen. At Falmouth no one could answer his
questions, till at last an old gray-beard told him that he'd heard of
the place and believed it was somewhere farther west. At Penzance and
Newlyn Peter could hear nothing, and he walked westward to Mousehole,
determined that if he heard nothing there he would go on to the Scilly
Islands. At Mousehole people laughed at him. One man to whom he spoke
was so amused that he called out to a group of fishermen standing on
the quay waiting for the tide to float their boats.
“Gen'elman wants to know where Hi-Brasil is.”
“Then he'll have to go farther west,” said one.
“To the Scillies?” asked Peter.
“Aye, and farther than that.”
“A long way farther than that,” said another. “It's an old wives' tale,
mister. Stout ships that sail westward and never come back to port
again have their last moorings at Hi-Brasil, so the saying goes. You
ask Old John there. He's the only man that talks about Hi-Brasil, and
he's daft.”
An old man whose broad back was bent with the weight of many years was
hobbling toward him, and Peter knew that at last he was on the right
track. The old fisherman who was coming down the quay was none other
than the man he had seen sailing in the _Maeldune_ with the Sea Girl.
“Hi-Brasil?” asked Old John. “What d'you want with Hi-Brasil?”
“I want to go there.”
“Then I'm the man to take 'ee. But mark 'ee, mister, I can't bring 'ee
back.”