“_Miserere, miserere_,”

Seemed the night-wind lowly sighing;

“Call thy erring sheep, O Saviour,

Dearest Lord of love undying!”

Soft then I saw advancing through the darkness’ mighty shade

A tall and stately figure in wide, trailing robes arrayed,

The fair, white arms in longing stretched, as if in woe to seek

The comfort of the broken heart, the strength of all the weak—

Christ’s blessèd cross with arms outspread, as if to mutely plead

For mercy for the sinner, from tender hearts love’s meed;

Of mightiest love the symbol true, the link ’twixt heaven and earth,

The sign by which earth’s frailest one is cleansed for heavenly

birth.

In vain! No craving hand can touch that sacred symbol now,

Its holy vision bring no rest to world-tossed, aching brow;

The modern Cæsar has no need to mark where martyrs fell:

“Unto Cæsar what is Cæsar’s”—that word they kept too well.

And murmuring monks but echo, their chaplets telling o’er,

The words these stones repeated in the Roman days of yore;

To earthly science dearer far the walls the pagans built

Than the precious blood of martyrs for love of Jesus spilt.

Perchance beneath these stones might lie rare treasures of old Rome—

The cross in Christian kingdom must not wander from its home!

“_Miserere, miserere_,”

Seemed the very stones outcrying;

“In thy mercy spare the nations.

Heed, O God! the prisoners’ sighing.”

A sound of low lamenting then filled all the silent place,

Whose darkness won unearthly light from out the stranger’s face—

A face so fair not Paphos’ queen could claim a grace so rare;

Ah! only she, the much-desired, such peerless mien could wear.

And low I heard her murmuring: “Ah! me, woe, woe is me!

So weary are my ears with sound of shouts that speak me free.

Free! Am I free? Upon my head rests weight of royal crown,

And Piedmont’s soldiers guard me, fearing lest I lay it down.

Italy! Am I Italy? That name indeed I bear;

And among the nations standing a nation’s crown I wear—

Proud empires that salute me fair, green lands beyond the sea,

Crying aloud: 'Shout, Italy! Thank Victor thou art free;

Thy peoples shall no longer 'neath the tyrant’s scourge bend low,

And, too, thy seemly garment no unseemly rent shall show;

Among thy peers come thou once more to take thy place and name,

Fair Southern queen, King Victor has ta’en away thy shame.’

“O gold-haired northern peoples! know ye not the sound of chains?

Ne’er heard ye clink of German spur along my Lombard plains?

O rosy-cheeked barbarians! do ye deem that I am free

Because my rulers speed you when ye prate of liberty!’

When ye the wide arms shorten of the world-redeeming cross

Since too far its shadow falls, and ye deem that shade your loss!

Far, far across the western seas I hear their poets sing,

While Freedom’s joy-bells pealing, loud, exulting anthems ring:

'Rise up, dear Italy unchained; thank Victor thou art free,

And bend, oppressed, at Peter’s throne no more thy trembling knee.

Thy sons shall waste in convent cell no more their manhood’s

strength;

See! open wide, their prison-doors: free men they are at length!

Dark tyranny and priestcraft prostrate fall before thy king;

Thy children freemen rise once more beneath his sheltering.’

“O strong-armed western people! in your home beyond the sea,

Bearing even as your birthright the grace of liberty,

List not the songs such poets sing: they know not me or mine;

Studded with cruel thorns for me each laurel wreath they twine.

A mournful queen I am, alas! crowned in another’s place—

The mighty One from whom my face hath won its look of grace.

I sit as a usurper where I fain would kneel and pray,

Crowned with Rome’s earthly circlet from her forehead stol’n away!

The world’s imperial mistress once, now queen of love and peace,

Holds she her life and liberty but as earth’s monarchs please?

Fain would they on her gracious brow my coronet have set,

Its lustre dimmed with Savoy’s loss, with Naples’ tears all wet!

The handmaid of her Maker, fair with lustre not of earth.

Should she to Piedmont’s Victor bend her brow of heavenly birth?

The mother of all peoples where the cross’s light is shed,

Was my dull, narrow diadem fit crown to grace her head?

In her old palace I sit throned, crowned with her earthly crown,

With jealous care watched ever, lest I cast the honor down.

I see my children wander wide in exile from their own,

And, when they ask for living bread, my masters give them stone.

I sit beside St. Peter’s chair; like his, my hands are bound;

My eyes weep bitter sorrow at your pæans’ wild, glad sound;

Beneath the heavy cuirass that is girded on my breast

I bear the wreath mysterious St. Peter’s hand hath blessed.

Upon the cannon rests my hand craving to lift the cross,

And 'neath Sardinian colors I bewail the blind world’s loss.

“_Miserere, miserere_,”

Seemed the weary voice outcrying,

“Spare thy heritage, O Saviour!

Hearken thou the prisoners’ sighing.

“O credulous Western people! cease shouting I am free.

My masters have no knowledge of the truth of liberty,

Who murmur with ignoble lips my old and honored name,

And seek to rebaptize me with unholy rites of shame.

Are ye drunk with Freedom’s dregs that ye have forgot her face,

And bend before th’ unworthy thing men show you in her place?

Stretch not your hands, God-fearing race, to welcome such as these:

God, who your shepherd is, and judge, gives not to such his peace.

“_Miserere, miserere_,

Mighty Lord of all the living,

In thy mercy spare the erring,

Sacred Heart of love forgiving!”

“The great arched walls sent echoing back the sad, indignant plaint,

The light from that fair, mournful face grew evermore more faint,

Till, fading in the darkness, light and shadow both were gone,

And I sat where crimson sunset with southern splendor shone,

Lighting the western city with a flood of harmless fire,

With a glory, quickly fading, enwreathing mast and spire;

Whence no mellow bells pealed earthward, sounding the angel’s call,

Nor _Miserere_ drifted from roof and tower tall;

The busy craft went sailing up and down the crowded stream—

Upon my lap the poet’s book, the conjurer of my dream.

Vision and sound had vanished, only still dim echoes fell

Of pleading voices rising on the night-wind’s scarce-felt swell:

“_Miserere, miserere_,

Hear, O God! the prisoners’ sighing;

Spare thy heritage, O Saviour!

Dearest Lord of love undying.”

THE DOOM OF THE BELL.

Two men were sitting in a garret at the very top of one of the craziest

old houses in Bruges—_not_ a house dating from the fifteenth century,

such as those we admire to this day, but a house that was already two

hundred years old when those were built. It stood on the brink of the

canal beyond which are now the public gardens that have displaced the

ramparts of the once turbulent and independent city. _Then_ the houses

crowded into the wide fosse of not too fragrant water, and leaned their

balconied gables over it. This was not in the busy or the splendid

quarter; it was far from the cathedral and the Guildhall. And in those

prosperous times of the Hanseatic League, of the Venetian and Genoese

merchant-princes visiting and marrying among their full peers of the

city of Bruges—the times of the grand palaces built by those royal and

learned traders—these two men I speak of were poor, obscure, and with

little prospect of ever being anything else. Yet one of them had it in

him to do as great things as the Van Eycks, and to take the art-loving

city by storm, if he could only get “a chance.” It was the same in the

year 1425 as it is now, and men in picturesque short-hose and flat caps

were marvellously like those we see in ugly chimney-pots and tight

trousers. The rivalry of other artists—none _very_ eminent—and the

ungetable patronage of rich men stood in this young painter’s way, and

he got disheartened and disgusted. This garret was his studio, his

bedroom, and his kitchen. It was cheap, and the light could be managed

easily and properly to suit his painting; but it was not one of those

elaborately artistic studios, a picture in itself, which we associate

with the idea of the “old masters.” The things that were there had

evidently drifted there and got heaped up by accident—homely things most

of them, and disposed with the carelessness natural to a man who had

little belief or hope in his future. There was an air about the whole

place as well as its owner that seemed to say as plainly as any words,

“What is the use?” But the other man was a contrast to him. He was much

older; a wiry form, and eager, small eyes, and an air of resistance to

outward circumstances, “as if he could not help it,” but not in the

sense of what is popularly called an “iron will,” were his chief

distinguishing marks. He was neither artist nor merchant, and he lived

“by his wits.” In those days, just the same as now, that meant something

bordering on dishonesty; and such men were known as useful, but scarcely

reputable. This individual was seated on a low trunk or chest of

polished wood, but not carved, nor even adorned with curious hinges or

iron-work; the other stood opposite, leaning on the high sill of a

window in the gable, looking down into the canal.

“Peter,” said the latter after a pause, “have you heard of any one dying

lately in the great houses, or, for that matter, in the rookeries?”

“No, not _dying_—at least, not lately,” said the other slowly.

“Not _dying?_” said the first, laying the same emphasis on the word as

his friend had done, and not showing any lack of understanding or sign

of surprise.

“Well, I mean she recovered; but she was pretty near death, and of

course will be again as soon as it is safe. It put some of his

lordship’s plans out a little when he heard how badly Simon had done his

work. But you know it was not at his house, but in a kind of prison, and

she was put there on a charge of stealing her mistress’ Genoese

pearl-embroidered robe, and _it was said_ the lady begged as a favor she

might not be publicly executed for the attempt, but allowed some time to

repent and prepare; and when she was ready, she was to be told that one

day, within the week, she would be poisoned by something in her food,

which she could not taste and which would give her no pain, but put her

to sleep—_for ever_. But no one believed that this was her mistress’

request, nor that she ever stole anything, of course. Every one knows

that poor Dame Margaret is a cipher in her husband’s house—a worse

victim of my Lord Conrad’s than any one there, many as they are; and he

is just now out of reach of punishment, being, by the Count of Flanders’

influence, a member of the government, a councillor, and I know not what

besides. But it seems Simon did not do his work aright, and the poor

girl is still there, and no doubt, in a week or two, the experiment will

be quietly tried again and with success. Jan, are you listening?”

“Yes,” said the artist as he turned round with absent look and a

gesture, as if he had unconsciously been picking off some buttons from

his sleeve and dropping them in the canal below.

“Well, what do you think of it?”

“Peter,” said the other abruptly, “is Simon your friend?”

“Well, we have had dealings together sometimes. He sells me clothes now

and then; you know he has a good deal of such stuff on his hands.”

“If I could pay him,” said the artist bitterly, “I should not need any

go-between; but I have nothing. I want something he could give me, and,

if I had it, I should not need any patron, and would take none, short of

the Count of Flanders himself.”

“Riddles again,” said Peter quietly; “poverty makes you mysterious.”

“I’ll tell you plainly what the riddle is, if you’ll help me.”

“For friendship’s sake?”

“Oh! no, indeed. Is there one in all Bruges would do it, or I expect it

of him?”

“Well, well, do not croak; but _you_ know by experience that it is hard

to live.”

“If you will get me what I want of Simon, you shall have one-fourth of

my future reward and Simon one-fourth.”

“Too mean terms, those, Jan,” said Peter quietly, but intently watching

his friend’s face.

“Very well, each a third, then; I knew you would want no less. But, look

you,” he added, brightening up, “no one can share the fame, and I shall

be known all over Flanders and Brabant, and France—ay, even Italy and

Germany; and who knows if the Greek merchants will not carry my name to

the court of Constantinople itself?—and you two poor wretches will have

nothing but a pitiful handful of gold.”

“Quite enough for me, at any rate,” said Peter composedly; “it will be

more than I ever had before. But do not let us 'count our chickens

before they are hatched.’ What is it, though, that you want to work this

miracle with?”

“Only a vial of her blood after the girl has been dead four hours.”

Peter betrayed no emotion.

“Rather an unusual request,” he said meditatively, “and one that savors

strongly of witchcraft, which you know is scarcely less dangerous than

heresy. You remember what happened at Constance scarcely more than ten

years ago?”

“Nonsense! What has heresy to do with the mixing of my colors? And who

but a leech will find out the mixture? And after all, if a fool were to

use this potion just mixed as I shall mix it, and paint a picture with

it, his picture would be only fit for a tavern-sign, and no one could

tell the difference. If you need the ingredients, you need the skill

more.”

“Why, Jan, you are getting enthusiastic—a miracle, that, in itself. I

thought you had made up your mind that you would never do anything that

would get known.”

“Well, I have a feeling, since you mentioned this case, that I _shall_

be known before I die, and known by _this_ means too. Can you get me

what I want?”

“I dare say I can. But shall I tell the old sinner Simon that I want it

for you, or say it is for a leech?”

“Why lie about it?” said the young man fiercely.

“Prudence, you know,” said the other, perfectly unabashed.

“No; tell him the bare truth, but swear him to secrecy. If he tells it,

he shall forfeit his share.”

“He could get twice as much for denouncing you.”

“Let him! Where is his interest to denounce me? He is not a fiend, and

_he_ knows it is hard to live.”

“He _did_, but may be he has forgotten it in his present position. All

the grandees know him now.”

“But you forget, Peter, that his own business is more dangerous than my

undertaking could be, even taking it for granted I should be suspected

of witchcraft, and he would scarcely like to draw attention on his own

delicate doings.”

“So far true,” said Peter. “I respect your shrewdness; you _can_ talk

sense sometimes. I will get that vial for you some time this week or

next.”

“Do not forget the _exact_ time after death—four hours. The perfection

of the mixture would be gone if you did not attend to that. I shall come

with you to the door, and wait for you and the vial, any night and any

hour you mention.”

“Very well,” said Peter, as he got up and stretched himself. “I suppose

your larder is empty?”

“Oh! I forgot. You can have what there is—cheese three days old, and

some fresh brown bread, and two eggs, new-laid yesterday morning, which

my friend the washerwoman gave me for sitting up at night with her sick

boy. She _would_ make me take them, and I am glad now _I_ need not eat

them myself. I should feel mean, if I did; and yet, if they stayed there

till to-morrow, hunger would drive me to it. You are welcome to them.”

Meanwhile, Peter had silently helped himself to all the articles

mentioned except one “hunch” of bread, and left the garret with a cool

“Thank you.” Jan turned back to the window, and stayed nearly an hour

looking down into the drowsy canal with its fringe of dark, huddled

houses, each, as he thought, a frame for a picture full of the same

agony of hopeless aspirations and submission to grim and sordid

circumstances as his own. But he saw through glasses of his own

staining; for many of those wretched, crazy, but beautiful houses held

pictures of a bright home life and love that looked no higher or farther

for happiness, and was, in truth, the outcome of a mind more

philosophical than the future glory of Flemish art, staring into the

flood from his garret window, could boast of possessing.

Three months went by, and no one saw the young artist, save the man who

sold him his meagre provisions, Peter, and his friend of the eggs. Five

days after the conversation we have recorded Peter and he were walking

home at two o’clock in the morning through the streets, where no one but

the watchman had leave and license to be, calling out the hour when the

chimes struck it. It was bright moonlight, and the two men would gladly

have dispensed with the beauty of the night, much as it enhanced the

charm of the great mansions they passed, the carved doorways, the

delicate balconies, the ponderous, magnificent iron bell-pulls, the

lions’ and griffins’ heads on the many bridges over the narrow canals.

Even Jan passed hurriedly by, standing nervously back in a doorway if he

heard the clear cry of a watchman, starting as a loose stone rattled

under his feet in the pavement, and even when his companion

ill-naturedly put his hand in a fountain and noisily disturbed the water

with a “swish” that made the other turn pale and look around in horror

of being pursued.

As the weeks went by and the young man worked on alone, feverishly and

battling with his own superstitions as well as the fear of being

denounced by his two associates, an odd change came over him. Peter

noticed it about one month after the day they had procured the vial of

blood. Jan was taken with a pious fit that day, and insisted on spending

some miserable pence he had on candles offered for the soul of the

poisoned girl, and which he, with genuine devoutness, put on the iron

spikes provided for the purpose in the church of Notre Dame. That day,

having spent all in this way, he fasted altogether and nearly fainted at

his easel; but when he left off work Peter saw that a startled,

expectant look was in his eyes, which he directed furtively every now

and then to one particular corner of his room. When questioned he

hurriedly turned the conversation; but the scared look grew more and

more intense as time went on. At last, one night, the young man asked

Peter seriously and with great trepidation to stay and sleep with him.

“I believe I am getting nervous,” he said, with a laugh that was

anything but genuine. Peter made no objection, but in the middle of the

night he was awakened by Jan. The poor fellow was in a violent cold

perspiration, and, pointing excitedly to the same corner, cried:

“There she is; and she never says a word, but only looks at me

reproachfully! She has been there every night since the first Month’s

Mind!”

“Pshaw!” said Peter, “I see nothing there, Jan; you should be bled—that

is all. You have been overworking yourself.”

But nothing would persuade the artist that the ghost of the poisoned

girl was not there, silent and reproachful; and there, day after day and

night after night, he saw her, and, though he longed to speak to her, he

never dared.

Three months were over and his picture was done; but he was only the

skeleton of his former self, and he looked, as Peter said, like what the

Florentine woman had said of Dante—“the man who had gone down to hell

and come back again.” His bitterness was gone, so was his hopelessness,

but there was no healthy joy or youthful enthusiasm in their place; he

seemed to have grown old all at once, except for the feverish, eager

haste to show his picture and win the name that should darken that of

the national pets and the popular favorites. Where to show it? was a

question Peter put more than once, but Jan waived it as not worth any

anxiety. He should write a notice, and post it on the church doors and

those of the Guildhall and the Exchange, to the effect that a new and

unknown painter had a picture for sale and exhibition at such and such a

place; and if the public did not care to come there to see it, they

might see it once on next market-day in the Grande Place, where the

artist would show it himself, free to all.

The subject was “Judith and Holofernes”—a common subject enough in those

days, but the artist thought that no one had ever treated it in the same

way before. When we see it in the market-place and hear the comments of

the people, we shall understand in what lay the difference.

The day appointed by the artist came. All the rich and learned men had

noticed the placard on the church doors, and the connoisseurs and

critics were on the alert. This unpatroned and self-confident painter

stung their curiosity, and the merchants, native and foreign, were also

eager to see and, if they liked it, “buy up” the new sensation. The

people, too, had heard of the exhibition, and many crowded earlier than

usual to the market-place to get a glimpse of the mysterious picture

being set up by the artist.

No one did see it, however. A good many stalls, booths, and awnings were

up long before daylight, and no one noticed the stand of the new-comer,

put up in a corner, and screened all round with the commonest

tent-cloth. As soon as dawn made it possible to see things a little, the

stand was found to be open, and a picture, unframed, was seen set up on

trestles, and some coarse crimson drapery skilfully arranged round it,

so as to take the place of the frame which the artist was too poor to

buy. A few loungers came up, and, fancying this was the screen to some

mystery-play to be acted later in the day, sauntered away again, like

uncritical creatures as they were. Presently a priest and a merchant

came up, evidently searching for some particular booth, and soon stopped

before the picture.

“Here it is,” shortly said one of them.

“So _that_ is the picture?” said the other; and for a while they both

stood in silence, examining it in detail.

“Wonderful!” said the merchant presently. “It beats the hospital 'St.

John.’”

“There _is_ a strange power about the drawing,” said the other.

“But the coloring!” retorted the merchant. “See the depth, the

life-likeness, the intensity; and yet there is nothing violent or merely

sense-appealing. It is horror, but rather mental than physical horror.”

“True,” said the priest. “I wonder if he had a model.”

“Most likely, but there is more than he ever saw in any common model;

the merit rests with himself alone, I should judge.”

“Well, do you think of buying it?”

“I am inclined to do so, but want to examine it more closely first.

Besides, I see no one here to represent the painter, or even guard the

picture.”

“Oh! I have no doubt there is some one hovering about—perhaps that

countryman who looks so vacant. You know the professional tricks of our

worthy artists!”

And with this he called the person in question, who surely looked vacant

enough to be in disguise.

“Can you tell me what you think of this picture, friend?” he asked.

“Very fine, messire.”

“You do not think it like one of Hendrick Corlaens, do you?”

“I never saw that, messire,” bashfully said the countryman.

“But you think _this_ is fine?”

“Very, very.”

“Why do you like it?”

“It seems like life.”

“Like death too?”

“Yes, messire.”

“How far did you come this morning?” asked the merchant, fancying his

companion’s shrewdness had overshot the mark this time.

“Forty-three miles. I started before midnight from Stundsen.”

“I think,” said the merchant to his brother-critic, “we shall make

nothing of this man. He must be one of my brother-in-law’s men at

Stundsen. He is quite genuine in his stupidity.”

And the pair moved nearer the picture, while others came up and stopped,

till there was soon a little knot of admirers talking in whispers. The

crowd grew as the day went on. In the side street leading into the Place

the doors of Notre Dame opened to let out the flood of worshippers that

had flowed in since dawn from the country, and who now rushed from their

devotions to their business. Noise was uppermost, trade was brisk; the

sun got hot and men got thirsty. It was soon a riotous as well as a

picturesque scene, and a spectator on that balcony of the

curiously-carved corner window on the same side of the Place as the

Guildhall could scarcely have told which stalls the hurrying masses most

besieged, so tangled was the web of human beings jostling and jolting

each other along the uneven pavement. A good many had stared and gazed

at the picture. It was the subject of many comments and disputes that

day; men quarrelled over its merits as they drank their sour wine, and

women talked of it in whispers over their bargains. Some children had

screamed and kicked at first sight of it; altogether it had not failed

to be known, seen, and talked about. Our two friends of early morning

had hung about it all day and overheard most of the remarks of the

crowd. Some people had been disappointed in finding that it was not the

sign of a play representing the slaying of Holofernes, but only a

picture; a Venetian and a Greek, daintily dressed and speaking some

soft, foreign tongue—a wonder to the sturdy Flemish peasants from the

dykes and canals by the sea—lounged near the unpainted railing that

protected the picture from the crowd. No one could see behind the

picture, but many thought the artist was hidden within the closely

_sewn_ curtains, that never flapped in the breeze like the rest of the

market awnings. These two and the first critics listened in eager

silence to the judgment of the crowd, put forth in short sentences at

long intervals. On coming up one woman said to her companion:

“Why, I thought they always painted Judith with black hair; this one has

hair the color of mine.”

“Perhaps it was his betrothed he painted,” said the other, “and in

compliment to her he made it a portrait.”

“Then I should not like to be he. A ghostly bride he would have.”

“But look at her eyes; they seem like a corpse’s just come back to

life.”

“Pshaw! how could a _corpse_ come back to life? You mean a ghost.”

“No—Lazarus, you know. I can fancy how frightened and reproachful he

might have looked when he woke up and found himself in his shroud.”

“_I_ think he would look glad and thankful. But come away. It seems as

if I should dream of that face.”

“Yes; it makes me feel very strange the more I look at it.”

And the two women moved off.

Presently another voice was heard in a muffled tone.

“See the blood in Holofernes’ throat. It looks as if it were moving.”

“Judith looks too weak and small to kill him,” said another.

“So she does,” said a third, and he added, in a lower tone: “I once had

a cousin very like that picture.”

“Is she dead?” asked a woman, a stranger to the speaker.

“Yes,” said the man, with some surprise.

“I thought no live person could remind you of _this_ face,” answered the

woman, as if in explanation.

The two couples of critics glanced appreciatively and with a smile at

each other, and the Greek said to his friend:

“Your _boors_ are no bad critics, after all. I think the barbarians

rather beat us in painting.”

“Beat _you_!” laughed the Venetian. “Speak for yourself. But it is your

religion that has fossilized your art; otherwise you would have been—”

“No,” said the other thoughtfully, “I think you mistake; I doubt if we

have the gift you, and the Flemings also, have for painting. Our

literature is as far above that of this northern people as heaven is

above the earth, and our sculpture, of course, is unrivalled; but they

have the gift of music, and of architecture, and of painting—the two

last marvellously developed. And in the first I think your people—I do

not mean Venetians, but some of your other Italian neighbors—have just

now reached a good climax. At Milan I heard some chanting that would put

us to shame, and even here I have heard something not unlike it. Yes, I

cede the palm to the barbarians in the arts of Euterpe and—”

“But in architecture yours is the peer of any northern style,” said the

Venetian.

“I doubt it,” said the Greek. “There is a strange impression comes over

me in these vast, sky-high, delicately-carved cathedrals, dim and

resonant, that comes nowhere else—not in our gold-colored, mosaic-paved,

dome-crowned churches, nor your St. Mark, the daughter of our St.

Sophia.”

“Every one knows how liberal are your views,” said the other, with a

smile.

“Yes?” asked the Greek, evidently in innocence. “But I am only fair to

others. I would rather be a Greek than a barbarian, as the adage of one

of our old heathen philosophers has it; but I can see that God has not

rained every blessing on one spot, and that my native land, as he did on

the Garden of Eden before Adam fell.”

“Hush!” said the Venetian, interrupting him. “Some girl has fainted.”

Some little stir was taking place in the crowd; it _was_ a girl who had

fainted, and an old woman, strong and powerful, was holding her.

Among the many questions tossed to and fro and never answered, our four

friends all managed to hear the words of the old woman to her nearest

neighbors.

“Yes, that is the portrait of her sister and my granddaughter, just as

if the poor lost girl had sat for it herself. But then this must have

been painted since she lost her rosy color. And I believe the painter

knows what became of her, and where she is, if she is alive; and, God

forgive me! I always accused the Lord Conrad of Schön of her ruin and

disappearance. I _will_ know, too, if this painter is to be found

anywhere in Flanders. Oh! yes, Agnes is very well; she will be herself

again directly, nervous little thing!” And the old woman, with a kind of

savage tenderness, shielded the face of her granddaughter in her bosom,

while the girl slowly revived.

Some people hinted that the painter was hidden in the closed tent behind

the picture, and others brought out shears to cut the curtains; but the

priest here interposed.

“I think, my friends,” he said in a clear, authoritative voice, “that

you had better leave this matter to the proper authorities. Messire Van

Simler and I will see that this good woman is heard, and, if need be,

helped to find her granddaughter, or any news of her death and fate. It

would be an unwarrantable act to cut these curtains open: if there is no

one there, you will feel like fools, the dupes of the childish trick of

an unknown painter; if you find the person you are looking for, you may

do him a mischief and come yourselves under the eye of the law. I advise

you to let the matter rest. And you, my good friend, here is an address

you may find useful whenever you wish to make further inquiries. It

would be best to take your charge home.”

The manner rather than the words of the speaker took effect at once, and

the group dissolved to make room for other sight-seers, all gaping, all

admiring, and all ending by feeling uncomfortable and leaving the stand

with muttered words of equal wonder and fear. But it is impossible to

follow each comment, and we have yet other scenes to look at before we

close the history of this picture.

Among the crowd that day had been Peter and Simon, and the former,

familiar as he was with the painting, had ceased to feel impressed by

the weird, indescribable beauty and awe that were its very essence. But

he had been, in a business-like way, alive to everything connected with

what was to him the instrument of future success, and the fainting scene

and its close were especially observed. He noticed the drift of all the

remarks made on the picture; he had foretold it himself—for he was

nothing if not worldly-wise—and he carefully scanned the faces of the

four critics who had so pertinaciously lingered round the stand all day.

He knew them all for enlightened men, above the nonsense of the age,

good art-critics, and men born to be masters of their kind. Even the

young Venetian had the making of a statesman in him; the Greek was as

simple-minded as he was generous, and, though his countrymen had a bad

name at Bruges for conventional sins of which not half of them were

really guilty, he was, even with the most ignorant, a signal exception.

The other two were trusted native citizens, bosom friends, patrons of

all that was good, learned, and improving, and, what was more, powerful

in the council and civic government. The first, by the way, was a canon

of the cathedral, by private inheritance a rich man, and, by dint of

charity to the starving and liberality to men of letters, raised above

the scandal that attended on rich ecclesiastics. These four were

representative men, and though each a representative of the best type of

his own class and nation, still no less entitled to be called

representative men.

Peter noted the way Messire Van Simler went that evening; the canon he

knew well by reputation. Then he came back to the Place and helped a

young peasant to lift and pack the picture, leaving on the planks in

front of the booth the address of the artist and a notice that

purchasers were asked to meet the painter at his own studio any time

each day before dark. The peasant seemed slim and tall for a Flemish

countryman, but his cap concealed his face, and his loose vest was well

calculated to increase his seeming bulk; still, when he got to the

studio in the old garret over the canal, and threw off his cap, he

proved to be the person you must have suspected—the painter himself. He

said nothing, and Peter did not offer to speak; but the former, as soon

as he came in, glanced hurriedly into one corner and then back at the

picture. Over their scanty supper the two exchanged a few monosyllables

as to the result of the show, but each was uneasy and spoke as if

compelled by the suspicion of the other. Next morning Peter went to Van

Simler’s house before the latter was out of bed, and was received during

the merchant’s ample breakfast. No one came to Jan’s garret the first

day, and he stayed at home alone with his work, now and then retouching

it, as if drawn to it by a spell he could not master; but each time he

worked at it he seemed more ill and nervous. Towards dusk he heard a

footstep on the stair, and opened the door to let in some light on the

break-neck place, full of corners and broken steps, where some stranger

was evidently groping his way. It was the Greek. He greeted the painter

with grave earnestness and more interest than is usual with a purchaser.

“I have come,” he said after the first civilities, “to buy both your

pictures and _you_, and pack both at once, as my ships will be in port

by the night after to-morrow night, and it needs time to meet them. They

cannot wait—at least, _that_ one cannot which happens to be most

convenient for you to go in. Have you any objection to go with me to

Greece?—any tie to detain you here?”

Jan looked into the corner before he answered, and shuddered. “I fear I

have,” he said unwillingly. The Greek looked fixedly at him.

“I will not keep you any longer than you like, and you probably like

travelling? There are scenes in Greece and the East that will delight

you, if you have a liking for Scriptural subjects; and the journey need

not be longer than the interval between this cargo _from_ here and the

next cargo back.”

Jan said nothing.

“You see I am bent on having _you_ as well as your picture,” the

merchant went on; “but if you insist on refusing me your company, I will

take the picture at once. I have men below ready to carry it away, and I

will give you your own price at once, in gold coin.”

And Jan still gazed into the furthest—and empty—corner.

“I have reasons for my haste,” said the Greek, slowly, at last. Jan

turned inquiringly.

“Good reasons,” said his visitor gravely and gently, “which I will tell

you when we are at sea, if you will trust me till then; if not, I will

even tell you now, though the proverb says that 'walls have ears.’”

Jan seemed to need no immediate explanation, but said:

“Take the picture, and welcome, and believe in my gratitude, though I

cannot put it into words; but I can take no gold for the picture.”

“Why, you invited purchasers to come here to you!”

“I have learned to-day that I cannot sell it.”

“Well,” said the Greek, with a look of intelligence, “I think you and I

understand each other, then, and I may as well take you and the picture

too.”

“No,” said Jan, “you do not understand _me_, but I understand you and am

grateful. If I am in danger, it matters little; I prefer meeting such a

danger as you fear for me to seeing what I should see always, on the

ship, in the East, as well as here—or at the stake.”

“Your mind is—preoccupied, my young friend,” said the merchant. “But let

me take the picture; at least, it is better to have the evidence put out

of the way in time. Let me call to my men.”

“Yes, but no gold for it,” said Jan without emotion, as he pushed away

the purse on the table. “Take the picture; there will be only _one_ face

then, and I shall not be torturing myself as to whether the likeness is

faithful enough or not.”

The Greek bent out of the window and whistled to two men sitting on the

narrow stone-work of the canal; one of them struck a flint, lit a pine

torch, and, beckoning the other to follow him, came up the winding

stairs. Jan said not a word, and the picture was packed and carried

away, while the merchant lingered yet, pressing gold, protection, and

future patronage upon the benumbed artist. Even the hint of fame could

not stir the young man.

“I have done my life’s work,” he said gloomily. “I shall never paint the

equal of that picture again, and I do not wish to,” he added with a

shudder; “and for the sake of my reputation I must not paint anything

below that standard.”

“But why should not you do even better?” said the Greek.

“I thought you knew,” said the young man, in puzzled uncertainty.

“I _know_ nothing, and my suspicions are too vague to shape my judgment

on the merits of this particular work of yours. I gathered all I _do_

know, or even suspect, from the remarks of the people to-day. I am used

to watching indications of men’s fancies, prejudices, passions, say even

superstitions, and I thought it a pity that such people as we heard

to-day should have it in their power to end or mar the career of an

artist of your genius. We want some young, rising painter—one who can

rival the Italians; one who can show that there is a future for art,

that it is progressive and improvable; one especially who will defy

conventionalities—for I own that your independent treatment of a

'Judith’ fascinated me. But if I cannot prevail upon you to accept my

services at present, you will not refuse to take this address; it will

find me, no matter where I may be, and it will be even a personal

safeguard for you in my absence and during the interval that may elapse

before I hear of your appeal.”

“Thank you a thousand times for your unprovoked and generous interest!”

said Jan more warmly than he had spoken before. “I shall never forget

it. God grant my life or death may be guided and determined by the

highest Power! I should not trust myself to decide wisely, if I had the

choice offered me; but if it is ordained that I should live long, I

prefer _your_ being the instrument of my salvation.”

The merchant left, and Jan stayed alone all night; he was stonily calm,

watching, thinking, waiting as if for an expected event, and never

breaking his fast through the long, dark hours. When early morning came,

two men in gray cloaks opened his door and respectfully _ordered_ him to

come with them to Van Simler’s house, which he did without surprise and

without remonstrance. Here he found the canon, who with Van Simler told

him briefly that they thought it for his good to be taken into the

country to the castle of Stundsen, belonging to the merchant’s

brother-in-law. They did not tell him why, and it did not even occur to

him to ask. As he passed from the large dining-hall where this short

interview took place to a room furnished with Spanish leather and carved

oak—_his_ room, he was told, for a few hours—he thought he recognized

the Greek anxiously and quickly open a door that led to the passage, as

if to assure himself of the presence of some expected person.

Van Simler and his friend, meanwhile, had a short and significant talk,

a few words of which are here set down to explain facts that may look to

the undiscerning reader like the conventional tricks of modern

mediævalists, to whom plots and kidnapping are “daily bread.” “Now,”

said the merchant, “if that scoundrel Peter goes no further, there is

every hope of getting this obstinate young genius out of the city in

safety; but he may try to get _two_ prices and hint the matter to Conrad

Schön.”

The canon shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, in that case,” he said,

“all would be in vain, for Count Conrad has the sovereign’s ear; and you

know the hobby the Count of Flanders has lately bestridden.”

“The youth ought to have gone with the Greek; but the latter says he

believes him half-mad, which accounts for his staying in the jaws of the

lion.”

“I have heard of Jan the painter before,” said the priest, “and, had he

been a different person, I should have gone to him myself; but, from my

general knowledge of his character, any one would do better than one of

us, and I am glad the Greek forestalled me. Why did not you keep Peter

under lock and key when he came here?”

“It was a mistake, I own,” said the other; “but still, if I had, there

was Simon in the secret.”

“Simon is a fool, and nothing of this would have occurred to him.”

“I doubt about his being a fool; at any rate, he is a dangerous one.

“He _is_ a fool in such matters as these, though dangerous enough in his

way, as you say. Now, our Greek friend has just left the house, I see,

and there is nothing to detain _me_ here just now. You take the

transport business in your hands? Well and good; while I attend to any

foolish charge made in the city. I expect I shall see old Mother Colette

before dark to-night.”

There is no need to go through the details of the few days that

followed. In one word, Peter was more powerful than Jan’s four

protectors put together, but only because he had Conrad Schön at his

back, and behind him a greater “presence” yet—no less a person than the

Count of Flanders, who had lately taken a mania about witchcraft. It was

easy to play upon his vanity and tickle his supposed superior sense of

discovery, and Conrad had reasons for diverting to the young artist the

opprobrium which even he, with all his power, could not fail to have

brought upon himself in such an independent and proud burgher-city as

Bruges for the wrong done to the orphan daughter of one of her citizens

and an attendant of his wife; for there was still a lingering in

Flanders of the old knightly feeling of the earlier days of chivalry,

which made it the duty of a knight to consider every house-maiden within

his walls as his own daughter or sister, and protect, and even defend,

her as such.

The dark accusations of Conrad and his informant against the defenceless

painter were but too readily listened to, and, before his friends could

conceal him, the sovereign had already sent to demand his person. We

will pass over the mock examination which the count held, more with a

view to satisfy his own curiosity than to assure himself of the

prisoner’s guilt; over the honest but bitter malignity with which old

Mother Colette, an unconscious tool sought out by Jan’s enemies,

testified against the man who, to make such a startling and mysterious

likeness of her lost granddaughter, must have been intimately acquainted

with her; and, lastly, over Jan’s strange apathy and silence, his

refusal to deny the charges brought against him, and his seeming relief

at being condemned to die.

He never told any one the reason of all this, and the secret would have

died with him, if Peter, years afterwards, when the picture again came

to light and became famous, had not made known the hallucination of the

painter, to which was really due the success others had stupidly

attributed to forbidden practices. The last thing that concerns us is

the strange sentence and fanciful doom pronounced by the Count of

Flanders, the carrying out of which will take us up into the belfry of

the Guildhall, just above the market-place where the unlucky picture had

first roused the ignorant suspicions of the mob.

Here, where swings the largest bell of the famous carillon, we find the

artist once more. The great dark mass hangs dumb beside him; very little

light is here, but enough to see by dimly, and make out some of the maze

of beams and iron-braced stays that uphold the old bell. Even some of

the inscription is visible; its gilt letters in relief gleam out of the

dimness and naturally fix the eye in that kind of magnetic gaze which

some say is favorable to sleep. Jan was half crouched in one corner,

wondering why he was there and how long it was intended he should stay;

the two men who had brought him had simply told him that the count had

sent him up there to see if he could rival the penance of St. Simeon

Stylites, for a few hours at least. Presently the bell began to stir and

sway softly, slowly; one dull, muffled tone came out as the tongue

touched the outbent lips of the mighty bell; the next stroke came

louder, the next swing was wider, and Jan’s head already throbbed with

the unwelcome noise. Now the monster was alive in earnest. Warming to

its work, it swung further and further; it tossed its base upwards, till

the beams groaned and creaked, and all kinds of hideous minor noises

seemed to be embroidered on the constant dull echo between each stroke.

A strange wind blew in Jan’s face; it was the breath of the bell, whose

relentless beat grew more and more regular, more and more monotonous, as

it went on. The artist dared not move; one hair’s breadth nearer the

terrific engine would be his death, one blow of its lips would be more

effectual than any stroke of axe or pile of faggots. He shrank close to

the wall, but, as his body just cleared the bell in its mad flingings

and tossings, his mind seemed to be struck by it at every toll, almost

absorbed in it, drawn to it with fatal curiosity. Was that the bell

whose sound had been so majestic, so solemn, so beautiful in his ears as

a child, so grand when it rang out above the others—eighty of them—that

chimed on the great church holidays and welcomed the victorious

sovereign when he came back from war? Was this the heart of the great

angel that poetry and popular belief had endowed the belfry with—this

terrible, maddening, brazen-tongued, relentless engine? It only just

missed touching him each time it flung itself on his side of the

beam-chamber; if it were to swing only a little more fiercely, as it

seemed easy for it to do, one blow would crush him. Already the air

seemed to suck him in under the bell, into some dark vault, no

doubt—some bottomless pit; had his conductors known, when they put him

there, that it was time for the bell to toll, or had they forgotten him?

How long would this go on? His brain could not stand it much longer, he

felt, but to scream was useless; the great, dread voice hushed all other

sound. It seemed presently as if the gilt lettering got brighter; it

took the shape of a glaring yellow eye; now redder, like fire, now

alive, now like the eyes in his “Judith,” that the woman had said were

the “eyes of a corpse just come back to life.” But had bells eyes as

well as tongues? he asked himself helplessly. He remembered learning

about the Cyclops and their single eyes in the middle of their

foreheads; now he really saw a worse monster, with an eye of flame set

in its huge, black, bulging lip. Was that the gold the Greek had offered

him? Surely it was that, and no eye. Of course his fancy had betrayed

him. But how could the gold have got there and got stuck to the rim of

the accursed bell? How long had he been there, and when were they coming

to fetch him? But they could not get in while that fiend was tossing and

bellowing in these narrow walls. What was that other noise now?—a

whirring of a thousand wheels! Where? It seemed all round; and now the

bell appeared to him in a network of wheels, all going round faster than

the eye could follow—a mass of moving air formed of many hazy circles

intertwined; he _knew_ they were wheels, but could not actually see

them. He dared not hold his ears and head with his hands, for between

each fling of the bell there was not time to lift his hands; and if they

were caught—Some one was there now—come to bring him away. How did he

get in? But it was not a man; it had long, fair hair and a misty sort of

covering. He knew the face. Was there an angel of the bell, after all,

who was going to stop the great tongue and deliver him? No; that face

was a dead face—Judith just as he had painted her, just as he saw her in

the corner of his room; and _this_ was his room, and he had been

dreaming of the bell. Scarcely—he could not dream of such a noise; then

the devil must have got into his room and changed everything. But the

clangor never stopped, and never spoke either louder or softer—one

eternal, dreary, vexing, maddening ring. He would go mad, no doubt, if

he stayed there another quarter of an hour; how long had he been there?

Now he was fascinated by the unerring accuracy of the strokes, and, in a

trance, expected feverishly the next dull boom, and mechanically counted

on his fingers till the next was due again, and so on for five minutes.

Suppose he should hang on to the tongue; would it make a feather’s

weight of difference in the time or the sound of the stroke? He wondered

how the bell sounded to those in the Place; they did not heed it at all,

most likely, or some thought it must be getting near their time for

dinner, while pious women were reminded to say a prayer, and some

gleeful child would clap its hands and count the strokes. He could count

the beats of his heart and the throbs in his head. He was not mad yet,

he hoped, and his thoughts came regularly, and he saw pictures burned

into the air one minute and gone the next; if he could have put them on

canvas, they would have made his name and fortune. He was sure he could

catch their shading; they looked as if fire had been made liquid and

colored. It was better than any of the windows in the cathedral, famous

as they were through the art-world for their undiscoverable secret of

vivid, jewel-like coloring. But one picture followed the other so soon

that, had he painted them all, it would have taken him twice the

threescore years and ten of an ordinary life, and they would have filled

every Church in Flanders fuller than twenty chapels in each could

require. What was the coloring of “Judith,” with the pitiful chemical

combination for which he had risked so much, to these rich, mellow,

miraculous tones, with a thousand new, unnamable shades, and shadows

that looked more like the depths of a dark-blue Italian lake than the

darkness of common air? But through all these meditations of a second’s

length, though they seemed like the reveries of hours, the boom of the

pitiless bell went on, crashing through the brain of the prisoner,

shattering each new picture which the last interval had stamped on his

fancy, sounding to him now like a roaring fall of water, now a ploughing

avalanche, now a thunder-clap, now the fall of a burning house, now the

thud of earth upon a coffin, now the blow of a massive cudgel on his own

head. Instinctively he cowered lower, and a beam struck him on the back

with a sudden violent blow that made him stand upright and remember that

the bell was there, but no cudgel; but as he rose he had stretched out

his hand, blindly feeling for support, and touched the great rocking

monster. A thrill went through his frame; he looked upward and vaguely

wondered if this was the end, and he saw his “Judith” again, a shadowy

form among the rafters. The next feeling of consciousness was that of

lying flat on his back and a strong, cold wind wafting across his feet;

he put up his hand to lift his head a little and press his left temple,

and then— The bell had only tolled for a quarter of an hour. As soon as

it stopped the same men who had taken Jan up came again and found him

dead, lying in a cramped position on his side, and one leg still

stretched out beneath the now silent bell.[51]

Footnote 51:

If any one cares to know what became of the picture, he may be

interested to hear that it hangs now over the altar of a private

oratory in the same city where it was painted. The Greek merchant took

it to Constantinople, where it remained in his family till the siege,

twenty-eight years later. It was then given by him for safe keeping to

his Venetian friend and transferred to Venice, whence the Greek

himself, having become a resident of that place, took it back to

Bruges and offered it to the canon, on condition of no further mention

being made of the circumstances connected with it. The offer was

gratefully accepted, and it remained till the priest’s death in his

private collection, the Greek having declared that, what with having

paid no price for it and its being a Scriptural subject, he preferred

that it should in some way belong to the church rather than to the

world. At the canon’s death it was sold to a dealer, who sold it again

for a high price to an Italian collector, whose descendants, in “hard

times,” parted with it to a rich Englishman. It happened, strangely

enough, that it returned to the native city of its unlucky author by

an intermarriage between the family of the English connoisseur and

that of a passionate lover of art in Bruges, and this time it was

transferred as a _gift_. It has been freely shown to any and every one

who asked to see it, and the story attached to it made it one of the

“sights” of the old city.

WILD ROSES BY THE SEA.

Untrimmed, uncared for, filling all the ways

That stretch between the shadow of the pine

And sea-washed rock where in the soft sunshine

The sea breaks white through all the long June days,

The fair wild roses, flushed like Eastern skies

When sinks the sun to rest in radiance calm,

Their pink bloom lift amid the sweet-bay’s balm

And shine a welcome true to loving eyes.

Sweet June’s rich gladness in the rosy flush,

As if rejoicing with our human souls,

While solemn melody from wave-beat rolls,

Whose endless anthem knows not any hush:

And ever answering from the pines sweep down

The wailing chords the wandering wind doth wake—

Sad undertones that through June’s singing break,

But cannot dim her roses’ radiant crown,

Beyond whose jewelled zone spreads on and on

The long, low level of the endless sea,

Blue with the shadow of infinity

From cloudless skies, in sparkling light, dropped down;

With here and there a sail, in shade and light,

Wind-seeking, bearing careless o’er the crest

Of summer waves the whiteness of its breast—

A moment’s dazzling vision on our sight:

Earth, air, and sea, with mirth unsullied filled,

With happy sunshine from June’s roses flushed.

We hold our rose-leaves all to-day uncrushed,

Our cup of spring-time joyousness unspilled.

But spring-time passes, rosy petals all

Drop down and mingle with earth’s earlier dead,

Though faithful sweet-bay still breathes balm o’erhead,

And ocean’s anthem e’er doth rise and fall.

Almost unfelt the summer hours die,

Green leaves grow russet on the salty shore,

The crimson vines droop rocky crevice o’er,

And wild ducks’ marshalled columns southward fly.

Low asters gleam with delicate light amid

The massive sunshine of the golden-rod;

A stray Houstonia shines above the sod

And lifts to gold-spun skies its pale blue lid.

The autumn’s glory lavishly is spread,

But summer dieth, loving sung to sleep

By western wind and murmur of the deep,

The softened sunshine on her gently shed.

Where are our roses?—that rare gift of June

That filled to perfectness our human life,

That hushed with silent touch all earthly strife,

That voiceless sang to keep our hearts in tune.

Lo! crowning each rich, sun-browned stem

Where once its rose the summer’s sunrise flushed,

Where shone our coronal of joy, now crushed,

Stands, round and firm, a deeper-tinted gem.

Rich summer faileth, and true-hearted June,

For whom birds sang, and perfect blessedness

Filled every grass-blade with a sense of bliss,

Tells o’er her beads for one to die so soon.

Her rosary strung around the rose-crowned shore,

Our pure June gladness, gathered into prayers,

The sweet-bay’s incense ever upward bears,

While we, 'mid loss, seem richer than before!

DIVORCE, AND DIVORCE LAWS.

Of the many evils now arrayed against society, none is greater than that

threatened by the frequency and facility with which divorces are

obtained. This bane of our day, if not plucked up by the roots, will

inevitably bring on the country disasters tenfold greater than the

bitterest political strifes. Already its incursions into our midst have

cast a blight on our morals, have infected all classes of society, have

rudely shaken our best institutions, and, if not checked, will prove a

greater scourge than in our apathy we dream of. Yet it continues to grow

among us day by day; it rears its head higher and higher each moment; it

strikes deeper root on all sides; its hideous mien is ever becoming more

familiar to us; some even smile over its attendant disclosures of

depravity as pleasant tidbits of scandal with which the morning papers

agreeably enliven the breakfast-table, while few reflect over the awful

magnitude of the danger with which it is fraught. So dulled, indeed, has

become the public conscience in this respect, so slow its apprehension

of the mighty evil pressing on us, that scarcely has a warning voice

been lifted against this social hydra, which goes on tightening its

coils more closely around us every moment. It is not alone our crowded

cities that are poisoned by its breath, but it has invaded the stillness

of hillside and hamlet, and no part of the land is a stranger to its

presence.

In olden times a special act of Parliament was required in England to

legalize a remarriage during the life-time of husbands and wives, but so

tedious and expensive was the proceeding that few cared to avail

themselves of the privilege; whereas of late days and in our land so

simple and easy has become the severance of the marriage-knot that the

mechanic as well as the millionaire figures before courts and referees,

and multitudes now throng this new high-road to social ruin.

Chief among the evils resulting from the laxity of our divorce laws is

their active warfare against society. The family, as known among us, is

a creation of the church wrought out through the indissolubility and

sacredness of marriage. It is the nursery of society, the hope of the

state, and the cradle of its destinies. While it remains pure and

intact, so long will our sound social institutions flourish, so long

will a healthy public sentiment live among us, ready to rebuke the

shortcomings of the powerful and to lighten the burdens of the poor, to

frown upon official corruption and to encourage disinterested public

action. Indeed, this is a point we need scarcely insist upon. All

moralists and sociologists allow that the family is the parent of

society, as the seed is of the crop and the acorn of the oak. They agree

that with its extinction we are at once driven on the breakers of

socialism, communism, and free-love—in a word, that society ceases to

exist. Now, divorce is the entering-wedge which the law supplies for the

ruin of the family; it is as the priming to a loaded gun. Once give the

world to understand that marriage is but a simple compact by which two

persons of opposite sexes agree to live together conditionally for a

time, and the permanency of the family is destroyed; the sacredness of

conjugal love is degraded before the law into mere sexual desire; that

institution which Christ blessed and declared to symbolize his own union

with the church becomes at the best a system of stirpiculture, and

nuptial altars are converted into shambles of licentiousness. Let the

cause be what it may bestowing on either party to the marriage contract

the right to annul it, and the cohesion of family ties is fatally

weakened. This fact our court records ominously demonstrate every day.

Applications for divorce, based on the special enactments of each State,

are constantly filed, in which release from marriage is sought in

accordance with the provisions of the law. In Indiana, for instance,

mere incompatibility of temper is made the ground of petition; and in

only very few cases do we find adultery or grossly cruel treatment

alleged as a reason. The easier conditions of the State law are

naturally enough invoked, whatever may be the true inner grounds of

disagreement. The law of the State offers a means of escape from an

onerous condition, and, either through the perverse temper of the

litigants or the legal skill of counsel, the circumstances of the case

are readily adapted to the requirements of the law. Thus the law in

reality supplies to those who are weary of wedlock the means of escaping

from it, while apparently striving to hedge in its interests. This fact

will for ever and essentially stultify divorce laws. No matter how

ingeniously framed they may be, how buttressed with conditions and

exactions of proof, such are the peculiar relations of married life

that, given on the side of the law the possibility, and on the side of

the husband or wife the desire of escaping from a yoke that has become

galling, and mere legal restrictions melt as wax before the sun.

As has just been said, the court records constantly prove this. Let us

examine the facts in New York State, where adultery is the only

recognized ground on which absolute divorce can be procured. A husband

desires to free himself from married thraldom. He consults a convenient

friend or an accommodating lawyer. (Happily, there are not many such,

but we all know that one can work an infinity of mischief.) A conspiracy

is entered into against the wife; detectives are set on her track; her

incomings and outgoings are narrowly watched; her innocent visits are

painted over with the color of criminality; her letters are intercepted;

she is lured into the paths of temptation; and such proof, devised with

devilish cunning, is soon obtained as brands that woman with the most

infamous of crimes. The picture is not of the imagination; the

revelations of the law attest its terrible reality every day, and so

defiant of public opinion have some discreditable practitioners become

that they take no pains to cover up the tracks of their infamy. Indeed,

it was with something like surprise that a short time ago a lawyer in

New York City listened to the scathing words which debarred him from

future practice in our courts, because of his participation in a

conspiracy to prove an innocent woman an adulteress.

Circumstantial evidence is all that the law requires in these cases. As

a rule, indeed, none other can be furnished. Now, this evidence,

proposing to establish what is after all but the semblance of crime,

since the facts necessarily elude ocular proof, is such that by asking

for it the law seems to invite those who are desirous of so doing to

weave around innocence itself a web of circumstances calculated to

immesh it in the appearance of guilt. Thus the law defeats its own

intent and places a premium on sin. It aggravates the evil it endeavors

to estop. Like the smitten eagle, it is forced to—

“View its own feathers on the fatal dart

Which winged the shaft that quivers in its heart.

Keen are its pangs, but keener far to feel

_It nursed the pinion that impelled the steel_.”

Two hundred divorces _a vinculo_, obtained in the State of New York in

the course of a single year, give point to these remarks. And in most of

these cases, it must be remembered, the defendants denied the charge and

were convicted only by such evidence as, though necessarily deemed

sufficient by the court or referee, is essentially and of its nature

such that it might have been manufactured. But if these attempts on the

part of husbands to take advantage of the laxity of our divorce laws by

blasting the character of their wives excite our honest indignation and

disgust, infinitely more heinous must appear the conduct of some wives

in their efforts to procure evidence against their husbands. Our readers

must here pardon a few details which the cause of truth compels us to

set down, but which we will couch in as few and modest words as

possible. What we are about to state proves the truth of the holy

proverb that when woman falls “her feet go down into death, and her

steps go in as far as hell” (Prov. v. 5). There is a fashionable

physiology which denies the physical possibility of absolute continence

without serious impairment of health. The easy votaries of sensuality do

not hesitate to uphold this odious doctrine in so-called scientific

treatises, and to proclaim with Dr. Draper that “public celibacy is

private wickedness.” We call this fashionable physiology; for the mass

of intelligent non-Catholics make open avowal of it. Indeed, the

doctrine is essentially non-Catholic, and has been acted upon by all

rebels against the church from Luther to Loyson. Swedenborg condemns

celibacy as a crime against nature. From being a purely religious

doctrine, however, it has recently come to be regarded as a scientific

tenet. Pseudo-science now shelters it under its ægis, and it is as much

the vogue to believe in it as it is to accept the other views of

so-called advanced modern scientists. It is this very notion which

supplies to many a recalcitrant wife the weapon with which she has

succeeded in breaking down the law and bringing irretrievable ruin on

her family. If, as the writer has taken pains to assure himself, the

inner history of our most notorious and disgraceful divorce cases could

be read in the light of broad day, the facts would appears as follows:

A faithless wife, impressed with the doctrine just stated, takes such

steps as will, in her belief, compel her husband to compromise himself.

He then is watched, snares are set about his feet, he is encompassed by

enemies, and, alas! sharing as he does the views entertained by his

wife, he soon furnishes such evidences of wrong-doing as justify a

recourse to legal proceedings. We have stated the case briefly, but at

sufficient length to indicate the lowness of the depths to which human

nature, deprived of grace, can sink, and how ingeniously the law has

constructed a pitfall for itself. One author says that “such stratagems

are of frequent occurrence,” and the mournful testimony of our tribunals

is overwhelming in proof of the appalling frequency with which this

repulsive drama is enacted. But to wade through the putrescent mass of

evidence were to make the cheek grow crimson and burn, so that a scant

allusion to it is all that decency can permit. What we especially desire

to impress upon our readers is the fact that the imagination is here

powerless to compete with the reality, and that human ingenuity has

exhausted itself in the contrivance of the most abominable devices in

its successful efforts to overreach a stupid law. But it is not alone in

thus inviting infraction of its provisions that the law of New York

State is weak and faulty; it is, in addition, guilty of contradicting

itself in a matter of vital importance. Marriage is either a contract

for life or can be limited by previous mutual consent. Now, the law

denounces such limitation as immoral and strictly forbids it. But does

it therefore recognize marriage as in reality a contract for life? We

emphatically answer in the negative, and for the following reason: It is

of the nature of a contract that all its essential terms and conditions

be such as to come within the jurisdiction of the authority appointed

for the purpose of directing its fulfilment. But if the authority be so

crippled as not to be able to take cognizance of conditions admitted to

be essential to the proper fulfilment of the contract, the latter must

be regarded as null and void, or binding only _in foro interno_. All

outside authority, all outside jurisdiction over it, is at an end. This

is precisely what happens in civil marriage. Ostensibly the law

recognizes it as a contract for life; indeed, openly proclaims it to be

so; even provides a penalty for its violation as such; and yet, by

admitting its dissolubility on certain conditions, leaves it in reality

as much the subject-matter of temporary stipulation as a lease or a

business copartnership, and, in addition, baits it with the temptation

to commit an enormous crime. What is there to prevent two persons from

entering into a civil marriage with the understanding that they should

live together for a certain time, be as other married persons before the

law, sharing its protection and enjoying its privileges, and then

separate by complying with the conditions on which the law allows a

separation? The case is entirely possible—has, indeed, occurred time and

again—so that we are forced to admit that among us the law virtually

treats marriage as a temporary partnership, however much it may insist

upon its being regarded as a life-long contract, and is thus guilty of

the inconsistency of declaring a certain thing to be what it in reality

treats as quite another.

Nor can it be contended, as against this argument, that the law will not

grant a divorce where connivance is attempted; for the case, typical of

thousands, supposes that neither party desires to reveal such

connivance. Nor is it of any avail to affirm that the party proved to be

guilty is debarred the right of contracting a new marriage. Technically

the law so reads, but practically it is powerless to enforce its

provision. In such a case, indeed, it may be said that love laughs law

to scorn. Its hope to punish a transgressor of the sort is as futile as

the

“Desire of the moth for the star.”

It is proper to assume that the purpose of the law is to punish the

criminal partner and to restore to the injured one privileges which

ought not to be forfeited because of another’s guilt. These two objects

represent the policy and expediency of the law; and in view of its

entire failure to work them out wisely and effectually, we will show

that the law is neither politic nor expedient. We will grant, indeed,

that the law is competent, in all cases coming under its notice, both to

punish the wrong-doer and partially to redress the wrong; but what is

the use, if, instead of effectually repressing the wrong, it tends

rather to encourage its commission? And such is indeed the anomalous

condition of the law, both as it reads and as it works. The easier and

more numerous the terms on which the marriage contract can be dissolved,

the greater, of course, will be the number of divorces sought; but

whether it be for one reason or many, once given a gateway from marriage

bonds, and none who are desirous of escape will find much trouble in

passing through the portals which the law has flung open. The facts, as

attested by the courts of Connecticut and Indiana, prove the truth of

the first part of this proposition; for nowhere are cases looking to the

absolute severance of the marriage tie more frequently argued, and in no

other States are so many divorces granted. The reason obviously is

because the conditions for obtaining such concessions are there easiest

of all. Where the conditions for procuring divorce are more onerous

fewer applications are made; and the facts, as occurring in New York

State, verify this sum in proportion and thus prove the second part of

our proposition.

In the State of New York adultery is the sole condition of divorce, and

just in proportion as such a crime is less frequent than mere family

jars and broils, so are divorces less frequently sought. The proposition

is therefore true that the permission to dissolve marriage begets a

demand to that effect in proportion to the ease with which it may be

obtained. The corollary of this proposition is that, the more easily

divorce may be obtained, the less regard is had to the obstacles which

may stand in the way of its coming at our beck. Should marriage be

declared to be absolutely indissoluble, and come to be viewed as such by

the masses, few would dream of assuming its responsibilities in the hope

that, should time render it irksome, they could slip the noose and again

soar “in maiden meditation fancy free.” On the other hand, they would be

disposed rather to approach the matter with deliberation, to take to

heart the conditions of the contract, and seriously to study the

surroundings of a state which is to endure till death. It is for this

reason that the church advises her children to ponder long and deeply

the consequences of the step they are about to take when proposing to

cross this moral Rubicon. If Cæsar felt that, the traditionary river

once crossed, fate had marked him for her own, or Cortez that, his ships

ablaze, all hope of return was gone, more still does the church insist

that sacramental marriage is a step that cannot be retraced. Divorce

laws ignore these considerations, and make light thereby of that social

institution on which all others depend for their perpetuity. They forget

that—

“Marriage is a matter of more worth

Than to be dealt in by attorneyship.”

With siren voice they lure the unwary and unreflecting to a fate fraught

with untold possibilities of unhappiness. The result is that persons

take less account of the solemn nature of the contract. It suits their

humor at the moment to get married, and little they reck of the future.

_Carpe diem._ The rosy present bounds the view, and there is no thought

of to-morrow. Time enough for the disillusioned groom to wail:

_Miseri quibus intentata nites_—

when “marriage vows have proved as false as dicers’ oaths,” and bitter

hate succeeded the short-lived joys of the honeymoon. And why should it

be otherwise? Is not the potent panacea of matrimonial ills ever within

ken and reach? What need is there to cloud the golden prospect with

thoughts of possible future wrangles and rancor, and in advance study to

avert or mitigate them, since, should they come along, a benignant law

is at hand to end them? We are convinced on the best of grounds that the

frequency of divorce suits has its root in the neglect of duly

considering the conditions essential to the happiness of married life.

Were Dante’s words written over marriage portals:

_Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’intrate,_

a deal of curious prying, at least, would precede the decisive steps and

few would rashly fly to a “bourn whence no traveller returns.” But when

the law points to an easy escape from the consequences of a heedless

step, what necessity can there be for heeding? Plenty of prior

deliberation and a close scrutiny of its obligations would not have

failed to render marriage tolerable, at least, for many who now fret and

fume 'neath its galling yoke because they had flown to it in a wanton

hour as to a flower to gather sweets from. _Festina lente_—or, as Sir

Thomas Browne quaintly translates it, “Celerity should be contempered

with cunctation”—would be a valuable maxim to hold up to the giddy gaze

of our modern youth who woo and wed with more sentimental sighs than

sober sense; better, by all means, than the cynical “Don’t” of Douglas

Jerrold. The knowledge that what God hath joined together no human

authority must put asunder, alone can stop those unhallowed unions which

curse society by the filthy disclosures they occasion, and blast the

happiness, both temporal and eternal, of so many.

At the time when this question was widely discussed in England, and so

many eminent authorities opposed the project of law which now rules in

the British realms, and which is in the main identical with our own

State law, Lord Stowell held the following language, which goes at once

to the kernel of the matter and shows a keen appreciation of the worst

results of easy divorce. He says: “The general happiness of the married

life is secured by its indissolubility. When people understand that they

must live together, except for a very few reasons known to the law, they

learn to soften, by mutual accommodation, that yoke which they know they

cannot shake off; they become good husbands and good wives; for

necessity is a powerful master in teaching the duties it imposes.” The

church in surrounding marriage with that solemnity which it possesses in

the eyes of Catholics, and thus giving greater prominence to its

indissoluble character, has thereby supplied to her children the means

of softening a union so binding, and from the crucible of suffering

offers to both husband and wife a purer gold. In the schedule of

conditions essential to the procurement of the best results from

marriage she holds to our gaze a larger and deeper culture than current

philosophy dreams of—a culture that appeals to the intellect through

moral sense, unlike that modern culture which is addressed to the

intellect alone. It has almost passed into an axiom in political economy

that self must sink out of sight where the interests of many are

concerned; and so the church teaches that men and women, having reached

that period when the duties of married life ought to be assumed, should

thenceforth devote to the service of society those labors they had

hitherto bestowed on the prosecution of their individual aims. The

culture proceeds from this. Tolerance of each other’s shortcomings on

the part of husband and wife is strongly inculcated. A gentle

forbearance of mutual peculiarities is enjoined, whereby the noble

disposition to forgive the countless trifles of manner, thought, and

action which might offend a morbid or fastidious idiosyncrasy is

fostered. Thus the Catholic wife or husband, in view of the indissoluble

nature of marriage, is taught to round off angularities, to tolerate

oddities, to adapt individual views and feelings to special

requirements, and to hold all subject to that higher and holier law

which tells us that self should not be consulted where duty is

concerned.

How many bickerings and misunderstandings, how many of the

heart-burnings, how much of all the unhappiness that now mars and

disfigures married life, might be avoided if these large and liberal

views more generally prevailed! Petty jealousies, the offspring of our

baser nature; furtive suspicions, exaggeration of faults, imputation of

wrong motives, misinterpretation of harmless actions—in a word, the

hundred-and-one incentives to disagreement which beset each day’s

path—could find no room in a household harboring this pure and

enlightened conception of marriage. We know that the will is as much the

subject of discipline as the intellect, and we likewise know that as it

is tried, as temptations beset it and are repelled, as suffering is

endured without repining, as petty torments, numerous in proportion to

their smallness, are patiently borne, the whole character comes forth

from the ordeal smoother, sweeter, more spiritual, and stronger, with a

life that is not likely to die. Marriage, rightly conceived, is a

training-school where many salutary lessons are taught. Its tendency is

to strengthen the will, to soften the heart, to remove asperities of

character, to evoke the tender and gentle in our nature, and to beget a

happiness all its own. Wrongly understood and blindly sought, it is full

of perils, not, indeed, imaginary, but real with that terrible reality

which court calendars daily reveal in sickening colors.

Thus the standard by which the Catholic Church measures marriage makes

it yield a higher culture, more generous, large, and abiding, than can

flow from the gross conception which represents it as a contract to be

rescinded at will. The Catholic view promotes among the married that

freedom of action which loves to borrow the consciousness of doing right

from the conviction that the right is freely courted and the wrong

freely spurned, and thus paves the way for a nobler plane of conduct.

That irritability which inheres so deeply in our nature is what unfits

most of us for companionship. It seeks to fasten on others the blame

which is our own, or holds them responsible for grievances which are the

necessary outcome of human life. If not controlled, it either causes

entire estrangement and forfeiture of affection, or leads those towards

whom it is manifested to deceptiveness and the employment of crooked

ways to reach legitimate ends. A narrow and illiberal life is the

result. Darkness and trickery prevail where all should be light and

freedom. Evil accumulates on evil, till both parties seek through

divorce to free themselves from a yoke that has become intolerable. The

shrew will nag and the tyrant husband domineer because a narrow

selfishness, bred of this unrestrained irritability, has usurped the

place of a large-hearted and gentle forbearance. The knowledge of these

possibilities is the most effective armor against their actual

occurrence; for it demonstrates in advance the necessity of patience and

a tolerant spirit; it hints at a delicate regard for the feelings of

others; it leads to a vivid introspection of self, and inclines to a

mezzotint view of actions not our own; it discriminates between true

love, which is self-sacrificing, gentle, and forgiving, and the

counterfeit presentment of love, which is lurid passion, fire without

light. And this knowledge is best guaranteed by the conviction that

marriage is indissoluble. Urging this view of marriage and the study of

these things, the church implicitly holds that a liberal toleration of

individual action is essential to the happiness of married life, and

that the ignorance which accompanies intolerance must be dispelled ere

the ideal picture of married bliss can meet the gaze. Thus Christian

freedom goes by the golden mean, on one side of which is domestic

tyranny and on the other the rampant license of immorality. Unlike the

generality of guides, however the church possesses the means of

enforcing her enlightened views, of imparting wise counsel, and offering

helpful advice in concrete cases through the Sacrament of Penance. Those

who have derived their notion of the confessional from the scurrilous

writings of Michelet, the senseless diatribes of Gavazzi, or the

eminently vulgar flings of some sensational preachers will be a little

startled by this proposition. But let those whose knowledge of the

tribunal of penance has been fashioned in the school of bigotry and

ignorance consult any intelligent Catholic, husband or wife, and they

will find that the web of falsehood in which they have been caught is

such that they should blush at their own simplicity for having become

entangled in it and held “faster than gnats in cobwebs.” They will find

that all those virtues which, even to the commonest understanding, shine

clearly forth as the basis of contentment in married life, are here

inculcated; that here on the heat and flame of distemper cool patience

is sprinkled; that chafes are healed and rankling barbs plucked out; and

that magnanimity, self-sacrifice, and love brighten afresh at the

latticed crate of the confessional.

But notwithstanding that the church has exhausted prudence and employed

every means which common sense could suggest in compassing the integrity

of marriage, she seeks not in these the _ultima ratio_ of her action. To

her marriage is a sacrament, bestowing grace on those who approach it

worthily, and sealing married life with a supernatural impress. This

sacramental notion of marriage it is which elevates, purifies, and

sanctifies the relation, enables the church to mitigate the evils with

which human perversity leavens it, and gives her control where the most

restless plotters for the regeneration of society have acknowledged

their utter powerlessness to act.

During the controversy which marked the adoption of the Divorce Bill in

England its opponents, when twitted with their inconsistency in

rejecting the Catholic notion of marriage as a sacrament and still

insisting upon its inherent indissolubility, fell, through their reply,

into an error which, in proportion to its prevalence, has led to a

wide-spread misconception of the grounds on which the Catholic Church

claims marriage to be indissoluble. A prominent writer at the time said:

“The opinion of the Roman Church itself does not found the

indissolubility of marriage on its character as a sacrament, but only

conceives the obligation to be enhanced by that circumstance”; and in

confirmation of the assertion he quotes the words of the Council of

Trent, which are to this effect: _Matrimonium, ut naturæ officium

consideratur et maxime ut sacramentum, dissolvi non potest._ Now, if the

words _ut maxime_ be allowed to bear their proper meaning, they

certainly prove that the Tridentine fathers intended that the

indissolubility of marriage should, before all and above all, rest upon

and grow out of the sacramental character of the contract. _Ut maxime_,

if meaning anything, means _as far as it is possible, pre-eminently_;

and so the church regards marriage as naturally indissoluble, but

especially so when viewed as a sacrament. The fact proves that the

opponents of the bill had little else to fall back on than the

falsely-advanced statement that the Catholic Church, the most strenuous

advocate of indissolubility, sought the reason of her opinion in the

nature of the contract rather than in the character of the sacrament.

But, apart from the declaration of the Council of Trent, the whole

history of the church exhibits beyond peradventure her higher estimate

of marriage as a sacrament rather than as a contract. She holds it to

be, in a mystical sense, the symbol of our Lord’s union with the church,

and surely no higher character could attach to it. But this symbolic

meaning of marriage rests altogether on its sacramental phase, so that

the church views it as a sacrament supernaturally, as a contract

naturally, her higher regard for it being in the former sense. The

English indissolubilists, therefore, could in no manner object to the

proposed Divorce Bill; for, denying marriage to be a sacrament, they

surrendered the strongest reason for proclaiming it to be indissoluble.

If, as even Gibbon admits, the church has lifted woman from the lowest

degradation into which she could be plunged, in which she was the mere

slave of man and the toy of his passions, to her present position of

respect and independence by investing matrimony with the holiness of a

sacrament; and if the church has by the same means purified home-life

and cemented its affections, is there not danger that, by dragging down

marriage from its high estate, woman may again come to be regarded “not

as a _person_,” as Gibbon says, “but as a _thing_, so that, if the

original title were deficient, she might be claimed, like other

valuables, by the use and possession of an entire year”? Such was the

law in pagan times, and such it may be again if we list too readily to

those modern renovators of society who call marriage tyranny and a

“system of legalized prostitution.” Not in vain did St. Simon, Fourier,

Le Roux, Fanny Wright, and their co-workers inveigh against Christian

marriage. We are now reaping the fruits of their unholy crusade against

it. Their labors are to-day blossoming in Oneida County as well as in

Utah, in the general rush all round to snap uncongenial ties, and in the

woful spread of an evil too base to be mentioned. These form the goal to

which such pestilent agitations tend; and if some well-meaning advocates

of innovation have not kept step with the leaders, it is not because

their principles restrained them, but rather because they have not quite

broken away from the influence of early teachings. Marriage, once

stripped of its supernatural character, and reduced to the level of a

contract, becomes as much the subject-matter of speculation as political

systems. Reformers object to this feature of it or to that, and suggest

endless modifications. Plato contended that there should be no such

thing as marriage proper, and that all children should be surrendered to

the state. To-day, in the light which the Gospel has shed on the

question, civilized states tolerate a condition akin to that which the

Athenian philosopher advocated. And just as Plato, by the sheer force of

his commanding intellect, imposed his views on many both in his own time

and subsequently, so, it is to be regretted, the skill and eloquence of

some modern opponents of marriage are such that they have succeeded in

winning hundreds to their standard.

It is a law of our nature that great intellectual force is never

unproductive; that it triumphs over many obstacles; and, no matter what

may be the cause on the side of which its influence is cast, it is

always attended with at least partial success in the achievement of its

aims. Now, we have witnessed the most strenuous efforts of powerful

minds enlisted in the attempt to abolish marriage. We have had eloquent

pleas for socialism, phalansterianism, etc., and it could not but be

that these labors were destined to bear issue of some sort. That issue

we are contemplating at the present moment; for these assaults on

marriage have lowered the general conception of its obligations, its

sanctity, and its importance to society. They have lured to a mere

mockery hundreds who, when scarce the marriage-kiss has impressed their

lips, besiege our courts with petitions for divorce. The influence of

pernicious doctrines is deeper and wider than their authors imagine. It

does not consist alone in the fact that they draw disciples and beget

neophytes; but they weaken faith in what they assail, and thus engender

the most pitiful lot of man—scepticism. This is precisely what we now

complain of. Our neighbors round about us emphatically eschew the

doctrines of the _illuminati_, of Heine and of Prudhomme, yet they more

or less admit that there is some reason in what has been so well said,

so forcibly and so eloquently urged. The consequence is that their faith

in the true order of things is shaken; they are dissatisfied; they

declare the doctrine of indissolubility to be rigoristic; and,

provocation given, qualms are brushed aside and they hesitate not to fly

to the ready remedy of the law. We may thus set down to the erratic

speculations of a few self-appointed social reconstructionists many of

the matrimonial miseries and scandals we now deplore. And the leaven is

working not alone in the United States, but in every country where the

same low estimate of marriage prevails, and where the law is the ready

tool of those who desire escape from shackles of their own forging.

In England, where law machinery is more cumbersome than among us and its

processes more tedious, not quite so many divorces are obtained, but

still the number is on the increase. The English law is much the same as

that which rules in New York State, and it is interesting to inquire

what reason there can be for the greater percentage of divorces in New

York than in England. We hinted that the administration of English law

is slower, but that fact is not sufficient to account for a difference

so marked. All the influences already enumerated as tending to favor the

multiplicity of divorces are as actively at work over there as among

ourselves, and hence we must strive to find the explanation of the

difference in the different character of the social systems of the two

countries. In England society is stratified with such extreme nicety

that seldom, if ever, a waif is borne from one stratum to another. Lines

are sharply drawn between classes, and the fact is well recognized; for

the lowly do not seek to soar, nor do the higher ever entirely lose

their social grade. Hence marriages are contracted only between those

whose tastes by birth and education agree, whose general views are more

apt to harmonize, and whose sympathies mainly run in the same channels.

They come to the altar (we employ the word in its current sense) with a

better understanding of what each expects from the other, with fewer

doubts to frighten them and stronger hopes to sustain them, and hence

subsequent collisions and estrangements are less frequent. In our

country society has not quite passed out of its formative stage, the

elements have not settled into their allotted planes. It still is like

an estuary in which the conflict of opposing tides brings to the surface

what had just lain at the bottom, and drives to the bottom the bead that

had glistened for a moment on the brimming top; in a word, social

stratification is not yet complete among us. The result is a tendency to

the intermingling of incongruous forces. In the social ferment which is

going on some rise suddenly from a lower depth and crystallize in their

new plane by marriage, some fall and remain below on the same condition.

Here wealth is a potent escort to lead its possessors higher up than

they could hope to reach without the aid of this glittering talisman. A

little veneer and a resolute lack of shamefacedness often enable those

whom suddenly-acquired riches have lifted above their former level to

hold their new station till marriage has assured it to them and given

them a title to their position. But rapidly as wealth lifts in the

social scale, more rapidly still does poverty drag down, and we have not

yet fully developed, though happily we are fast coming to it, that

public sentiment which refuses to behold loss of caste in loss of

wealth. Till then a lower social level is the certain bourn of those who

have fallen from opulence, just as a niche higher up in the social

temple awaits the _nouveau riche_.

We are not sticklers for the social classification of aristocratic

countries, but simply for that which is founded on cultivated taste,

refinement, and general intelligence; and we contend that where the

social condition is such as to permit the barriers between vulgarity and

refinement to be broken down, no matter though the former may vie with

Crœsus or the latter appear in the tattered garb of Lazarus, matrimonial

misalliances will be the result. December and May are no more fitly

mated than platinum and lead—_i.e._, sixteen and fifty make no more

suitable alliance than refinement and its opposite.

“For in companions

That do converse and waste the time together,

Whose lives do bear an equal yoke of love,

There must be needs a like proportion

Of lineaments, of manners and of spirit.”

—_Merchant of Venice._

Till, therefore, this social ferment has settled and all the elements

have reached their allotted planes, there to remain, misalliances will

continue to occur, and misalliances, we know, are a fruitful source of

separation. There may be more satisfactory and truthful explanations of

the fact we are endeavoring to account for, but of this we are

convinced: that, for whatever cause, antagonistic social conditions

operate more frequently against happiness in married life in this

country than in Europe.

Space will not allow us to pursue the discussion of this question much

farther, so we will devote the few remaining lines to the consideration

of the leading objection which is constantly urged against absolute

indissolubility, and which may consequently be taken as a strong

argument in favor of divorce. Divorce, it is contended, favors morality;

for, whether law intervenes or not, passion will assert its supremacy,

and it is better to let those depart in peace and with the sanction of

the law who cannot live together than have them burst their bonds

illegally and contract new relations in despite of the law. By so

permitting, the advocates of divorce hope to stem the torrent of evil

which they say deluges some European continental nations where the

proportion of illegitimate births is wofully excessive. The same thing,

they maintain, is especially true of Spain, Italy, and, in a word, of

all Catholic countries. Wherever divorce is not sanctioned by law

dissoluteness, they affirm, is far greater than where divorces are

granted. So the statistics seem to prove; and, in a spasm of virtue,

believers in mere statistical figures denounce indissolubility as a

stepping-stone to lust. We will grant the reliability of statistical

reports for the nonce, and prove by them that, so far from immorality

abounding in those countries where divorces are prohibited, a greater

amount of immorality really exists in divorce countries, with the added

immorality of a law which cloaks it. We know that passion, blind and

impetuous, is the reigning force which orders the actions of those who

contemplate emancipation from marriage bonds. Certainly they do not act

under the inspiration of grace. When, therefore, they break loose from

their unsuiting partners, it matters little to them whether the law

approves or disapproves of their action, provided they can act with

impunity. This impunity is guaranteed in most cases in countries where

divorce is permitted, and new marriages, having all the seemingness of

virtue, are contracted with the sanction of the law. In Catholic

countries this is not permitted; new post-marital relations are branded

as adulterous and their issue illegitimate. Is it any wonder, then, that

illegitimacy is more prevalent in those countries where divorce is

unknown than where caprice or crime can sever old bonds and weld new

ones, all with the countenance of the law?

The only difference is that adultery and its consequences are called by

their proper names in the former case, whereas in the latter an

anti-Scriptural law retrieves them from stigma. And as there is in the

human heart a disposition to do more frequently and more extensively

what the law allows than what it prohibits, we may be sure that there

are many more pseudo-marriages contracted in countries where divorce is

permitted than there are adulteries where it is prohibited. Were, then,

the mask of the law removed, we should find in the former more infamy

and crime than even in those Catholic countries where the record of

morality is lowest. There is one Catholic country in which divorce is a

thing known only in name, and yet where even the illegitimacy which

affects not to seek shelter behind the law is very much less than in the

adjoining country, where divorces are frequently obtained. In Ireland

the courts are most rarely troubled with such applications, and yet

illicit relations on the part of married persons are fewer than in any

country of Europe. Does not this fact evidently disprove the claim that

absolute indissolubility is unfavorable to morality? While the Catholic

Church holds to view on the one hand the indissolubility of marriage,

and on the other the precept of conjugal chastity, and while even in one

country she has established a higher rate of morality under those rigid

conditions, it is evident her wisdom in this trying matter has been

attested by the facts.

But the attempt to bolster up divorce morality by an appeal to

statistics is radically wrong. It is based on the supposition that the

end justifies the means; that it is better, for the sake of avoiding the

scandals incident to adulterous cohabitation, to legalize it, and thus

exhibit to the eyes of society a whitened sepulchre rather than hold to

view the rottenness of “an enseamed bed.” It is the duty of moralists

and teachers of religion rather to stem the torrent of vice and pluck

the brand from the burning than attempt to cloak over and extenuate by

legal devices what is essentially and for ever wrong. There are times,

indeed, when separation is the only hope for two unfortunates whom an

unlucky fate had thrown in each other’s way; but separation does not

imply remarriage, and theirs it is, while reaping the fruits of an

enforced singleness, to reflect that they are answerable for the

consequences of their own deliberate action, while their case may serve

as an example to others. Let the beautiful conception of Christian

marriage more abound; let men and women learn to view marriage as

something holy, in which the husband is the protector, the wife the

comforter, and we may meet with more marriages in which, while the

husband faithfully performs his allotted _rôle_, the wife embodies the

beautiful picture of her drawn by Washington Irving: “As the vine which

has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and has been lifted

by it in sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the

thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils and bind up its

shattered boughs, so it is beautifully ordered by Providence that woman,

who is the mere dependant and ornament of man in his happier hours,

should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity; winding

herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the

drooping head, and binding up the broken heart.”

FROM THE HECUBA OF EURIPIDES.

_A free translation._

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

[_The Chorus laments the Judgment of Paris._]

STROPHE.

My doom was sealed, my lot decided,

Not now, not now, but long ago,

When first the all-beauteous Dardan boy,

By that pernicious goddess guided,

Laid Ida’s stateliest pinewood low,

And built his ships, and sailed from Troy,

To seek her gift—the richest, rarest—

That wife most fatal; yet the fairest.

ANTISTROPHE.

A netted deer our country lies:

One sinned; and all partook his ruin!

O fatal, fatal was the hour,

Fatal the contest and the prize

How ill adjudged for my undoing,

When in green Ida’s mountain bower

That awful Three—my bane—contended:

Even then our golden reign was ended.

EPODE.

And haply some Achaian bride

Even now, by far Eurotas’ wave,

Widowed like me, like me is mourning!

Perhaps some mother by her side

Laments for those she could not save,

The early lost, and unreturning;

Raising her withered hand to tear

Her last thin locks of whitening hair.

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.