Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net
MODERN PROSE AND POETRY FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS
EDITED
WITH NOTES, STUDY HELPS, AND READING LISTS
BY
MARGARET ASHMUN, M.A.
_Formerly Instructor in English in the University of Wisconsin_
_Editor of Prose Literature for Secondary Schools_
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_All selections in this book are used by special permission of, and
arrangement with, the owners of the copyrights._
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
U.S.A
* * * * *
Transcribers Note: There are several areas where a pronunciation guide
is given with diacritical marks that cannot be reproduced in a text
file. The following symbols are used:
Symbols for Diacritical Marks:
DIACRITICAL MARK SAMPLE ABOVE BELOW
macron (straight line) ¯ [=x] [x=]
2 dots (diaresis, umlaut) ¨ [:x] [x:]
1 dot • [.x] [x.]
grave accent ` [`x] or [\x] [x`] or [x\]
acute accent (aigu) ´ ['x] or [/x] [x'] or [x/]
circumflex ^ [^x] [x^]
caron (v-shaped symbol) [vx] [xv]
breve (u-shaped symbol) [)x] [x)]
tilde ~ [~x] [x~]
cedilla ¸ [,x] [x,]
Also words italicized will have undescores _ before and after them and
bold words will have = before and after them.
Footnotes have been moved to the end of the text. Minor typos have
been corrected.
* * * * *
PREFACE
It is pleasant to note, among teachers of literature in the high school,
a growing (or perhaps one should say an established) conviction that the
pupil's enjoyment of what he reads ought to be the chief consideration
in the work. From such enjoyment, it is conceded, come the knowledge and
the power that are the end of study. All profitable literature work in
the secondary grades must be based upon the unforced attention and
activity of the student.
An inevitable phase of this liberal attitude is a readiness to promote
the study of modern authors. It is now the generally accepted view that
many pieces of recent literature are more suitable for young people's
reading than the old and conventionally approved classics. This is not
to say that the really readable classics should be discarded, since they
have their own place and their own value. Yet it is everywhere admitted
that modern literature should be given its opportunity to appeal to high
school students, and that at some stage in their course it should
receive its due share of recognition. The mere fact that modern writers
are, in point of material and style, less remote than the classic
authors from the immediate interests of the students is sufficient to
recommend them. Then, too, since young people are, in the nature of
things, constantly brought into contact with some form of modern
literature, they need to be provided with a standard of criticism and
choice.
The present volume is an attempt to assemble, in a convenient manner, a
number of selections from recent literature, such as high school
students of average taste and ability may understand and enjoy. These
selections are not all equally difficult. Some need to be read rapidly
for their intrinsic interest; others deserve more analysis of form and
content; still others demand careful intensive study. This diversity of
method is almost a necessity in a full year's course in reading, in
which rigidity and monotony ought above all things to be avoided.
Although convinced that the larger part of the reading work in the high
school years should be devoted to the study of prose, the editor has
here included what she believes to be a just proportion of poetry. The
poems have been chosen with a view to the fact that they are varied in
form and sentiment; and that they exhibit in no small degree the
tendencies of modern poetic thought, with its love of nature and its
humanitarian impulses.
An attempt has been made to present examples of the most usual and
readable forms of prose composition--narration, the account of travel,
the personal essay, and serious exposition. The authors of these
selections possess without exception that distinction of style which
entitles them to a high rank in literature and makes them inspiring
models for the unskilled writer.
A word may be said as to the intention of the study helps and lists of
readings. The object of this equipment is to conserve the energies of
the teacher and direct the activities of the student. It is by no means
expected that any one class will be able to make use of all the material
provided; yet it is hoped that a considerable amount may prove
available to every group that has access to the text.
The study questions serve to concentrate the reading of the students, in
order to prevent that aimless wandering of eye and mind, which with many
pupils passes for study. Doubtless something would in most instances be
gained if these questions were supplemented by specific directions from
the teacher.
Lists of theme subjects accompany the selections, so that the work in
composition may be to a large extent correlated with that in
literature.[1] The plan of utilizing the newly stimulated interests of
the pupils for training in composition is not a new one; its value has
been proved. _Modern Prose and Poetry_ aims to make the most of such
correlation, at the same time drawing upon the personal experience of
the students, to the elimination of all that is perfunctory and formal.
Typical outlines (suggestions for theme writing) are provided; these,
however, cannot serve in all cases, and the teacher must help the pupils
in planning their themes, or give them such training as will enable them
to make outlines for themselves.
It will be noted that some suggestions are presented for the
dramatization of simple passages of narration, and for original
composition of dramatic fragments. In an age when the trend of popular
interest is unquestionably toward the drama, such suggestions need no
defense. The study of dramatic composition may be granted as much or as
little attention as the teacher thinks wise. In any event, it will
afford an opportunity for a discussion of the drama and will serve, in
an elementary way, to train the pupil's judgment as to the difference
between good and bad plays. Especially can this end be accomplished if
some of the plays mentioned in the lists be read by the class or by
individual students.
A few simple exercises in the writing of poetry have been inserted, in
order to give the pupils encouragement and assistance in trying their
skill in verse. It is not intended that this work shall be done for the
excellence of its results, but rather for the development of the pupil's
ingenuity and the increasing of his respect for the poet and the poetic
art.
The collateral readings are appended for the use of those teachers who
wish to carry on a course of outside reading in connection with the
regular work of the class. These lists have been made somewhat extensive
and varied, in order that they may fit the tastes and opportunities of
many teachers and pupils. In some cases, the collateral work may be
presented by the teacher, to elaborate a subject in which the class has
become interested; or individual pupils may prepare themselves and speak
to the class about what they have read; or all the pupils may read for
pleasure alone, merely reporting the extent of their reading, for the
teacher's approval. The outside reading should, it is needless to say,
be treated as a privilege and not as a mechanical task. The
possibilities of this work will be increased if the teacher familiarizes
herself with the material in the collateral lists, so that she can adapt
the home readings to the tastes of the class and of specific pupils. The
miscellaneous lists given at the close of the book are intended to
supplement the lists accompanying the selections, and to offer some
assistance in the choice of books for a high school library.
M.A.
NEW YORK, February, 1914.
CONTENTS
A DAY AT LAGUERRE'S _F. Hopkinson Smith_
QUITE SO _Thomas Bailey Aldrich_
(In _Marjorie Daw, and Other Stories_)
PAN IN WALL STREET _Edmund Clarence Stedman_
THE HAND OF LINCOLN _Edmund Clarence Stedman_
JEAN VALJEAN _Augusta Stevenson_
(In _A Dramatic Reader_, Book Five)
A COMBAT ON THE SANDS _Mary Johnston_
(From _To Have and to Hold_, Chapters XXI and XXII)
THE GRASSHOPPER _Edith M. Thomas_
MOLY _Edith M. Thomas_
THE PROMISED LAND _Mary Antin_
(From Chapter IX of _The Promised Land_)
WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME _Walt Whitman_
WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER _Walt Whitman_
VIGIL STRANGE I KEPT ON THE FIELD ONE NIGHT _Walt Whitman_
ODYSSEUS IN PHAEACIA _Translated by George Herbert Palmer_
ODYSSEUS _George Cabot Lodge_
A ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE _William Dean Howells_
(In _Suburban Sketches_)
THE WILD RIDE _Louise Imogen Guiney_
CHRISTMAS IN THE WOODS _Dallas Lore Sharp_
(In _The Lay of the Land_)
GLOUCESTER MOORS _William Vaughn Moody_
ROAD-HYMN FOR THE START _William Vaughn Moody_
ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILLIPINES _William Vaughn Moody_
THE COON DOG _Sarah Orne Jewett_
(In _The Queen's Twin, and Other Stories_)
ON THE LIFE-MASK OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN _Richard Watson Gilder_
A FIRE AMONG THE GIANTS _John Muir_
(From _Our National Parks_)
WAITING _John Burroughs_
THE PONT DU GARD _Henry James_
(Chapter XXVI of _A Little Tour in France_)
THE YOUNGEST SON OF HIS FATHER'S HOUSE _Anna Hempstead Branch_
TENNESSEE'S PARTNER _Bret Harte_
THE COURSE OF AMERICAN HISTORY _Woodrow Wilson_
(In _Mere Literature_)
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING _Charles Dudley Warner_
(From _My Summer in a Garden_)
THE SINGING MAN _Josephine Preston Peabody_
THE DANCE OF THE BON-ODORI _Lafcadio Hearn_
(From _Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan_, Volume I, Chapter VI)
LETTERS:
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TO WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
(From _The Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich_ by Ferris Greenslet)
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TO E.S. MORSE
(By permission of Professor Morse)
WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY TO JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY
(From _Some Letters of William Vaughn Moody_)
BRET HARTE TO HIS WIFE
(From _The Life of Bret Harte_ by Henry C. Merwin)
LAFCADIO HEARN TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN
(From _Japanese Letters of Lafcadio Hearn_)
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON TO WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
(From _Letters of Charles Eliot Norton_)
EXERCISES IN DRAMATIC COMPOSITION
MODERN BOOKS FOR HOME READING
MODERN PROSE AND POETRY FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS
A DAY AT LAGUERRE'S
F. HOPKINSON SMITH
It is the most delightful of French inns, in the quaintest of French
settlements. As you rush by in one of the innumerable trains that pass
it daily, you may catch glimpses of tall trees trailing their branches
in the still stream,--hardly a dozen yards wide,--of flocks of white
ducks paddling together, and of queer punts drawn up on the shelving
shore or tied to soggy, patched-up landing-stairs.
If the sun shines, you can see, now and then, between the trees, a
figure kneeling at the water's edge, bending over a pile of clothes,
washing,--her head bound with a red handkerchief.
If you are quick, the miniature river will open just before you round
the curve, disclosing in the distance groups of willows, and a rickety
foot-bridge perched up on poles to keep it dry. All this you see in a
flash.
But you must stop at the old-fashioned station, within ten minutes of
the Harlem River, cross the road, skirt an old garden bound with a fence
and bursting with flowers, and so pass on through a bare field to the
water's edge, before you catch sight of the cosy little houses lining
the banks, with garden fences cutting into the water, the arbors
covered with tangled vines, and the boats crossing back and forth.
I have a love for the out-of-the-way places of the earth when they
bristle all over with the quaint and the old and the odd, and are mouldy
with the picturesque. But here is an in-the-way place, all sunshine and
shimmer, with never a fringe of mould upon it, and yet you lose your
heart at a glance. It is as charming in its boat life as an old Holland
canal; it is as delightful in its shore life as the Seine; and it is as
picturesque and entrancing in its sylvan beauty as the most exquisite of
English streams.
The thousands of workaday souls who pass this spot daily in their whirl
out and in the great city may catch all these glimpses of shade and
sunlight over the edges of their journals, and any one of them living
near the city's centre, with a stout pair of legs in his knickerbockers
and the breath of the morning in his heart, can reach it afoot any day
before breakfast; and yet not one in a hundred knows that this ideal
nook exists.
Even this small percentage would be apt to tell of the delights of
Devonshire and of the charm of the upper Thames, with its tall rushes
and low-thatched houses and quaint bridges, as if the picturesque ended
there; forgetting that right here at home there wanders many a stream
with its breast all silver that the trees courtesy to as it sings
through meadows waist-high in lush grass,--as exquisite a picture as can
be found this beautiful land over.
So, this being an old tramping-ground of mine, I have left the station
with its noise and dust behind me this lovely morning in June, have
stopped long enough to twist a bunch of sweet peas through the garden
fence, and am standing on the bank waiting for some sign of life at
Madame Laguerre's. I discover that there is no boat on my side of the
stream. But that is of no moment. On the other side, within a biscuit's
toss, so narrow is it, there are two boats; and on the landing-wharf,
which is only a few planks wide, supporting a tumble-down flight of
steps leading to a vine-covered terrace above, rest the oars.
I lay my traps down on the bank and begin at the top of my voice:--
"Madame Laguerre! Madame Laguerre! Send Lucette with the boat."
For a long time there is no response. A young girl drawing water a short
distance below, hearing my cries, says she will come; and some children
above, who know me, begin paddling over. I decline them all. Experience
tells me it is better to wait for madame.
In a few minutes she pushes aside the leaves, peers through, and calls
out:--
"Ah! it is that horrible painter. Go away! I have nothing for you. You
are hungry again that you come?"
"Very, madame. Where is Lucette?"
"Lucette! Lucette! It is always Lucette. Lu-c-e-t-t-e!" This in a shrill
key. "It is the painter. Come quick."
I have known Lucette for years, even when she was a barefooted little
tangle-hair, peeping at me with her great brown eyes from beneath her
ragged straw hat. She wears high-heeled slippers now, and sometimes on
Sundays dainty silk stockings, and her hair is braided down her back,
little French Marguérite that she is, and her hat is never ragged any
more, nor her hair tangled. Her eyes, though, are still the same
velvety, half-drooping eyes, always opening and shutting and never
still.
As she springs into the boat and pulls towards me I note how round and
trim she is, and before we have landed at Madame Laguerre's feet I have
counted up Lucette's birthdays,--those that I know myself,--and find to
my surprise that she must be eighteen. We have always been the best of
friends, Lucette and I, ever since she looked over my shoulder years ago
and watched me dot in the outlines of her boat, with her dog Mustif
sitting demurely in the bow.
Madame, her mother, begins again:--
"Do you know that it is Saturday that you come again to bother? Now it
will be a _filet_, of course, with mushrooms and tomato salad; and there
are no mushrooms, and no tomatoes, and nothing. You are horrible. Then,
when I get it ready, you say you will come at three. 'Yes, madame; at
three,'--mimicking me,--'sure, very sure.' But it is four, five,
o'clock--and then everything is burned up waiting. Ah! I know you."
This goes on always, and has for years. Presently she softens, for she
is the most tender-hearted of women, and would do anything in the world
to please me.
"But, then, you will be tired, and of course you must have something. I
remember now there is a chicken. How will the chicken do? Oh, the
chicken it is lovely, _charmant_. And some pease--fresh. Monsieur picked
them himself this morning. And some Roquefort, with an olive. Ah! You
leave it to me; but at three--no later--not one minute. _Sacré! Vous
êtes le diable!_"
As we walk under the arbor and by the great trees, towards the cottage,
Lucette following with the oars, I inquire after monsieur, and find that
he is in the city, and very well and very busy, and will return at
sundown. He has a shop of his own in the upper part where he makes
_passe-partouts_. Here, at his home, madame maintains a simple
restaurant for tramps like me.
These delightful people are old friends of mine, François Laguerre and
his wife and their only child Lucette. They have lived here for nearly a
quarter of a century. He is a straight, silver-haired old Frenchman of
sixty, who left Paris, between two suns, nearly forty years ago, with a
gendarme close at his heels, a red cockade under his coat, and an
intense hatred in his heart for that "little nobody," Napoleon III.
If you met him on the boulevard you would look for the decoration on his
lapel, remarking to yourself, "Some retired officer on half pay." If you
met him at the railway station opposite, you would say, "A French
professor returning to his school." Both of these surmises are partly
wrong, and both partly right. Monsieur Laguerre has had a history. One
can see by the deep lines in his forehead and by the firm set of his
eyes and mouth that it has been an eventful one.
His wife is a few years his junior, short and stout, and thoroughly
French down to the very toes of her felt slippers. She is devoted to
François and Lucette, the best of cooks, and, in spite of her scoldings,
good-nature itself. As soon as she hears me calling, there arise before
her the visions of many delightful dinners prepared for me by her own
hand and ready to the minute--all spoiled by my belated sketches. So
she begins to scold before I am out of the boat or in it, for that
matter.
Across the fence next to Laguerre's lives a _confrère_, a brother exile,
Monsieur Marmosette, who also has a shop in the city, where he carves
fine ivories. Monsieur Marmosette has only one son. He too is named
François, after his father's old friend. Farther down on both sides of
the narrow stream front the cottages of other friends, all Frenchmen;
and near the propped-up bridge an Italian who knew Garibaldi burrows in
a low, slanting cabin, which is covered with vines. I remember a dish of
_spaghetti_ under those vines, and a flask of Chianti from its cellar,
all cobwebs and plaited straw, that left a taste of Venice in my mouth
for days.
As there is only the great bridge above, which helps the country road
across the little stream, and the little foot-bridge below, and as there
is no path or road,--all the houses fronting the water,--the Bronx here
is really the only highway, and so everybody must needs keep a boat.
This is why the stream is crowded in the warm afternoons with all sorts
of water craft loaded with whole families, even to the babies, taking
the air, or crossing from bank to bank in their daily pursuits.
There is a quality which one never sees in Nature until she has been
rough-handled by man and has outlived the usage. It is the picturesque.
In the deep recesses of the primeval forest, along the mountain-slope,
and away up the tumbling brook, Nature may be majestic, beautiful, and
even sublime; but she is never picturesque. This quality comes only
after the axe and the saw have let the sunlight into the dense tangle
and have scattered the falling timber, or the round of the water-wheel
has divided the rush of the brook. It is so here. Some hundred years
ago, along this quiet, silvery stream were encamped the troops of the
struggling colonies, and, later, the great estates of the survivors
stretched on each side for miles. The willows that now fringe these
banks were saplings then; and they and the great butternuts were only
spared because their arching limbs shaded the cattle knee-deep along the
shelving banks.
Then came the long interval that succeeds that deadly conversion of the
once sweet farming lands, redolent with clover, into that barren
waste--suburban property. The conflict that had lasted since the days
when the pioneer's axe first rang through the stillness of the forest
was nearly over; Nature saw her chance, took courage, and began that
regeneration which is exclusively her own. The weeds ran riot; tall
grasses shot up into the sunlight, concealing the once well-trimmed
banks; and great tangles of underbrush and alders made lusty efforts to
hide the traces of man's unceasing cruelty. Lastly came this little
group of poor people from the Seine and the Marne and lent a helping
hand, bringing with them something of their old life at home,--their
boats, rude landings, patched-up water-stairs, fences, arbors, and
vine-covered cottages,--unconsciously completing the picture and adding
the one thing needful--a human touch. So Nature, having outlived the
wrongs of a hundred years, has here with busy fingers so woven a web of
weed, moss, trailing vine, and low-branching tree that there is seen a
newer and more entrancing quality in her beauty, which, for want of a
better term, we call the picturesque.
But madame is calling that the big boat must be bailed out; that if I
am ever coming back to dinner it is absolutely necessary that I should
go away. This boat is not of extraordinary size. It is called the big
boat from the fact that it has one more seat than the one in which
Lucette rowed me over; and not being much in use except on Sunday, is
generally half full of water. Lucette insists on doing the bailing. She
has very often performed this service, and I have always considered it
as included in the curious scrawl of a bill which madame gravely
presents at the end of each of my days here, beginning in small printed
type with "François Laguerre, Restaurant Français," and ending with
"Coffee 10 cents."
But this time I resist, remarking that she will hurt her hands and soil
her shoes, and that it is all right as it is.
To this François the younger, who is leaning over the fence, agrees,
telling Lucette to wait until he gets a pail.
Lucette catches his eye, colors a little, and says she will fetch it.
There is a break in the palings through which they both disappear, but I
am half-way out on the stream, with my traps and umbrella on the seat in
front and my coat and waistcoat tucked under the bow, before they
return.
For half a mile down-stream there is barely a current. Then comes a
break of a dozen yards just below the perched-up bridge, and the stream
divides, one part rushing like a mill-race, and the other spreading
itself softly around the roots of leaning willows, oozing through beds
of water-plants, and creeping under masses of wild grapes and
underbrush. Below this is a broad pasture fringed with another and
larger growth of willows. Here the weeds are breast-high, and in early
autumn they burst into purple asters, and white immortelles, and
goldenrod, and flaming sumac.
If a painter had a lifetime to spare, and loved this sort of
material,--the willows, hillsides, and winding stream,--he would grow
old and weary before he could paint it all; and yet no two of his
compositions need be alike. I have tied my boat under these same willows
for ten years back, and I have not yet exhausted one corner of this
neglected pasture.
There may be those who go a-fishing and enjoy it. The arranging and
selecting of flies, the joining of rods, the prospective comfort in high
water-boots, the creel with the leather strap,--every crease in it a
reminder of some day without care or fret,--all this may bring the flush
to the cheek and the eager kindling of the eye, and a certain sort of
rest and happiness may come with it; but--they have never gone
a-sketching! Hauled up on the wet bank in the long grass is your boat,
with the frayed end of the painter tied around some willow that offers a
helping root. Within a stone's throw, under a great branching of gnarled
trees, is a nook where the curious sun, peeping at you through the
interlaced leaves, will stencil Japanese shadows on your white umbrella.
Then the trap is unstrapped, the stool opened, the easel put up, and you
set your palette. The critical eye with which you look over your
brush-case and the care with which you try each feather point upon your
thumb-nail are but an index of your enjoyment.
Now you are ready. You loosen your cravat, hang your coat to some rustic
peg in the creviced bark of the tree behind you, seize a bit of charcoal
from your bag, sweep your eye around, and dash in a few guiding
strokes. Above is a turquoise sky filled with soft white clouds; behind
you the great trunks of the many-branched willows; and away off, under
the hot sun, the yellow-green of the wasted pasture, dotted with patches
of rock and weeds, and hemmed in by the low hills that slope to the
curving stream.
It is high noon. There is a stillness in the air that impresses you,
broken only by the low murmur of the brook behind and the ceaseless song
of the grasshopper among the weeds in front. A tired bumblebee hums
past, rolls lazily over a clover blossom at your feet, and has his
midday luncheon. Under the maples near the river's bend stands a group
of horses, their heads touching. In the brook below are the patient
cattle, with patches of sunlight gilding and bronzing their backs and
sides. Every now and then a breath of cool air starts out from some
shaded retreat, plays around your forehead, and passes on. All nature
rests. It is her noontime.
But you work on: an enthusiasm has taken possession of you; the paints
mix too slowly; you use your thumb, smearing and blending with a bit of
rag--anything for the effect. One moment you are glued to your seat,
your eye riveted on your canvas, the next, you are up and backing away,
taking it in as a whole, then pouncing down upon it quickly, belaboring
it with your brush. Soon the trees take shape; the sky forms become
definite; the meadow lies flat and loses itself in the fringe of
willows.
When all of this begins to grow upon your once blank canvas, and some
lucky pat matches the exact tone of blue-gray haze or shimmer of leaf,
or some accidental blending of color delights you with its truth, a
tingling goes down your backbone, and a rush surges through your veins
that stirs you as nothing else in your whole life will ever do. The
reaction comes the next day when, in the cold light of your studio, you
see how far short you have come and how crude and false is your best
touch compared with the glory of the landscape in your mind and heart.
But the thrill that it gave you will linger forever.
But I hear a voice behind me calling out:--
"Monsieur, mamma says that dinner will be ready in half an hour. Please
do not be late."
It is Lucette. She and François have come down in the other boat--the
one with the little seat. They have moved so noiselessly that I have not
even heard them. The sketch is nearly finished; and so, remembering the
good madame, and the Roquefort, and the olives, and the many times I
have kept her waiting, I wash my brushes at once, throw my traps into
the boat, and pull back through the winding turn, François taking the
mill-race, and in the swiftest part springing to the bank and towing
Lucette, who sits in the stern, her white skirts tucked around her
dainty feet.
"_Sacré!_ He is here. _C'est merveilleux!_ Why did you come?"
"Because you sent for me, madame, and I am hungry."
"_Mon Dieu!_ He is hungry, and no chicken!"
It is true. The chicken was served that morning to another tramp for
breakfast, and madame had forgotten all about it, and had ransacked the
settlement for its mate. She was too honest a cook to chase another into
the frying-pan.
But there was a _filet_ with mushrooms, and a most surprising salad of
chicory fresh from the garden, and the pease were certain, and the
Roquefort and the olives beyond question. All this she tells me as I
walk past the table covered with a snow-white cloth and spread under the
grape-vines overlooking the stream, with the trees standing against the
sky, their long shadows wrinkling down into the water.
I enter the summer kitchen built out into the garden, which also covers
the old well, let down the bucket, and then, taking the clean crash
towel from its hook, place the basin on the bench in the sunlight, and
plunge my head into the cool water. Madame regards me curiously, her
arms akimbo, re-hangs the towel, and asks:--
"Well, what about the wine? The same?"
"Yes; but I will get it myself."
The cellar is underneath the larger house. Outside is an old-fashioned,
sloping double door. These doors are always open, and a cool smell of
damp straw flavored with vinegar greets you from a leaky keg as you
descend into its recesses. On the hard earthen floor rest eight or ten
great casks. The walls are lined with bottles large and small, loaded on
shelves to which little white cards are tacked giving the vintage and
brand. In one corner, under the small window, you will find dozens of
boxes of French delicacies--truffles, pease, mushrooms, pâté de foie
gras, mustard, and the like, and behind them rows of olive oil and
olives. I carefully draw out a bottle from the row on the last shelf
nearest the corner, mount the steps, and place it on the table. Madame
examines the cork, and puts down the bottle, remarking sententiously:--
"Château Lamonte, '62! Monsieur has told you."
There may be ways of dining more delicious than out in the open air
under the vines in the cool of the afternoon, with Lucette, in her
whitest of aprons, flitting about, and madame garnishing the dishes each
in turn, and there may be better bottles of honest red wine to be found
up and down this world of care than "Château Lamonte, '62," but I have
not yet discovered them.
Lucette serves the coffee in a little cup, and leaves the Roquefort and
the cigarettes on the table just as the sun is sinking behind the hill
skirting the railroad. While I am blowing rings through the grape leaves
over my head a quick noise is heard across the stream. Lucette runs past
me through the garden, picking up her oars as she goes.
"_Oui, mon père._ I am coming."
It is monsieur from his day's work in the city.
"Who is here?" I hear him say as he mounts the terrace steps. "Oh, the
painter--good!"
"Ah, _mon ami_. So you must see the willows once more. Have you not
tired of them yet?" Then, seating himself, "I hope madame has taken good
care of you. What, the '62? Ah, I remember I told you."
When it is quite dark he joins me under the leaves, bringing a second
bottle a little better corked he thinks, and the talk drifts into his
early life.
"What year was that, monsieur?" I asked.
"In 1849. I was a young fellow just grown. I had learned my trade in
Rheims, and I had come down to Paris to make my bread. Two years later
came the little affair of December 2. That 'nobody,' Louis, had
dissolved the National Assembly and the Council of State, and had issued
his address to the army. Paris was in a ferment. By the help of his
soldiers and police he had silenced every voice in Paris except his own.
He had suppressed all the journals, and locked up everybody who had
opposed him. Victor Hugo was in exile, Louis Blanc in London,
Changarnier and Cavaignac in prison. At the moment I was working in a
little shop near the Porte St. Martin decorating lacquerwork. We workmen
all belonged to a secret society which met nightly in a back room over a
wine-shop near the Rue Royale. We had but one thought--how to upset the
little devil at the Élysée. Among my comrades was a big fellow from my
own city, one Cambier. He was the leader. On the ground floor of the
shop was built a huge oven where the lacquer was baked. At night this
was made hot with charcoal and allowed to cool off in the morning ready
for the finished work of the previous day. It was Cambier's duty to
attend to this oven.
"One night just after all but he and two others had left the shop a
strange man was discovered in a closet where the men kept their working
clothes. He was seized, brought to the light, and instantly recognized
as a member of the secret police.
"At daylight the next morning I was aroused from my bed, and, looking
up, saw Chapot, an inspector of police, standing over me. He had known
me from a boy, and was a friend of my father's.
"'François, there is trouble at the shop. A police agent has been
murdered. His body was found in the oven. Cambier is under arrest. I
know what you have been doing, but I also know that in this you have had
no hand. Here are one hundred francs. Leave Paris in an hour.'
"I put the money in my pocket, tied my clothes in a bundle, and that
night was on my way to Havre, and the next week set sail for here."
"And what became of Cambier?" I asked.
"I have never heard from that day to this, so I think they must have
snuffed him out."
Then he drifted into his early life here--the weary tramping of the
streets day after day, the half-starving result, the language and people
unknown. Suddenly, somewhere in the lower part of the city, he espied a
card tacked outside of a window bearing this inscription, "Decorator
wanted." A man inside was painting one of the old-fashioned iron
tea-trays common in those days. Monsieur took off his hat, pointed to
the card, then to himself, seized the brush, and before the man could
protest had covered the bottom with morning-glories so pink and fresh
that his troubles ended on the spot. The first week he earned six
dollars; but then this was to be paid at the end of it. For these six
days he subsisted on one meal a day. This he ate at a restaurant where
at night he washed dishes and blacked the head waiter's boots. When
Saturday came, and the money was counted out in his hand, he thrust it
into his pocket, left the shop, and sat down on a doorstep outside to
think.
"And, _mon ami_, what did I do first?"
"Got something to eat?"
"Never. I paid for a bath, had my hair cut and my face shaved, bought a
shirt and collar, and then went back to the restaurant where I had
washed dishes the night before, and the head waiter _served me_. After
that it was easy; the next week it was ten dollars; then in a few years
I had a place of my own; then came madame and Lucette--and here we are."
The twilight had faded into a velvet blue, sprinkled with stars. The
lantern which madame had hung against the arbor shed a yellow light,
throwing into clear relief the sharply cut features of monsieur. Up and
down the silent stream drifted here and there a phantom boat, the gleam
of its light following like a firefly. From some came no sound but the
muffled plash of the oars. From others floated stray bits of song and
laughter. Far up the stream I heard the distant whistle of the down
train.
"It is mine, monsieur. Will you cross with me, and bring back the boat?"
Monsieur unhooked the lantern, and I followed through the garden and
down the terrace steps.
At the water's edge was a bench holding two figures.
Monsieur turned his lantern, and the light fell upon the face of young
François.
When the bow grated on the opposite bank I shook his hand, and said, in
parting, pointing to the lovers,--
"The same old story, Monsieur?"
"Yes; and always new. You must come to the church."
NOTES
=Harlem River=:--Note that this river is in New York City, not in France
as one might suppose from the name of the selection.
=Devonshire=:--A very attractive county of southwestern England.
=filet=:--A thick slice of meat or fish.
=charmant=:--The French word for _charming_.
=Roquefort=:--A kind of cheese.
=Sacré! Vous êtes le diable=:--Curses! You are the very deuce.
=passe-partouts=:--Engraved ornamental borders for pictures.
=gendarme=:--A policeman of France.
=Napoleon III=:--Emperor of the French, 1852-1870. He was elected
president of the Republic in 1848; he seized full power in 1851; in
1852, he was proclaimed emperor. He was a nephew of the great Napoleon.
=confrère=:--A close associate.
=Garibaldi=:--Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian patriot (1807-1882).
=Chianti=:--A kind of Italian wine.
=Bronx=:--A small river in the northern part of New York City.
=Restaurant Français=:--French restaurant.
=the painter=:--A rope at the bow of a boat.
=C'est merveilleux=:--It's wonderful.
=Mon Dieu=:--Good heavens!
=pâté de fois gras=:--A delicacy made of fat goose livers.
=Château Lamonte, '62=:--A kind of wine; the date refers to the year in
which it was bottled.
=Oui, mon père=:--Yes, father.
=mon ami=:--My friend.
=the little affair of December 2=:--On December 2, 1851, Louis Napoleon
overawed the French legislature and assumed absolute power. Just a year
later he had himself proclaimed Emperor.
=Louis=:--Napoleon III.
=Victor Hugo=:--French poet and novelist (1802-1885).
=Louis Blanc=:--French author and politician (1812-1882).
=Changarnier=:--Pronounced _shan gär ny[=a]'_; Nicholas Changarnier, a
French general (1793-1877).
=Cavaignac=:--Pronounced _ka vay nyak'_; Louis Eugene Cavaignac, a
French general (1803-1857). He ran for the Presidency against Louis
Napoleon.
=Porte St. Martin=:--The beginning of the Boulevard St. Martin, in
Paris.
=Rue Royale=:--_Rue_ is the French word for _street_.
=Élysée=:--A palace in Paris used as a residence by Napoleon III.
=one hundred francs=:--About twenty dollars.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
What does the title suggest to you? At what point do you change your
idea as to the location of Laguerre's? Do you know of any picturesque
places that are somewhat like the one described here? Could you
describe one of them for the class? Why do people usually not appreciate
the scenery near at hand? What do you think of the plan of "seeing
America first"? What is meant here by "my traps"? Why is it better to
wait for Madame? Why does Madame talk so crossly? What sort of person is
she? See if you can tell accurately, from what follows in later pages,
why Monsieur left Paris so hastily. How does the author give you an idea
of François Laguerre's appearance? Why does the author stop to give us
the two paragraphs beginning, "There is a quality," and "Then came a
long interval"? How does he get back to his subject? Why does he not let
Lucette bail the boat? Who does bail it at last? Why? Do you think that
every artist enjoys his work as the writer seems to enjoy his? How does
he make you feel the pleasure of it? Why is there more enjoyment in
eating out of doors than in eating in the house? Why does the author
sprinkle little French phrases through the piece? Is it a good plan to
use foreign phrases in this way? What kind of man is Monsieur Laguerre?
Review his story carefully. Why was the police agent murdered? Who
killed him? Why has Monsieur Laguerre never found out what became of
Cambier?
This selection deals with a number of different subjects: Why does it
not seem "choppy"? How does the author manage to link the different
parts together? How would you describe this piece to some one who had
not read it? Mr. Smith is an artist who paints in water-colors: do you
see how his painting influences his writing?
THEME SUBJECTS
Madame Laguerre
Old-fashioned Garden
The Ferry
Sketching
An Old Pasture
The Stream
Good Places to Sketch
Learning to Paint
An Old Man with a History
An Incident in French History
Getting Dinner under Difficulties
A Scene in the Kitchen
Washing at the Pump
The Flight of the Suspect
Crossing the Ocean
penniless
The Foreigner
Looking for Work
A Dinner out of Doors
The French Family at Home
The Cellar
Some Pictures that I Like
A Restaurant
A Country Inn
What my Foreign Neighbors Eat
Landscapes
The Artist
SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING
=The Stream=:--Plan a description of some stream that you know well.
Imagine yourself taking a trip up the stream in a boat. Tell something
of the weather and the time of day. Speak briefly of the boat and its
occupants. Describe the first picturesque spot: the trees and flowers;
the buildings, if there are any; the reflections in the water; the
people that you see. Go on from point to point, describing the
particularly interesting places. Do not try to do too much. Vary your
account by telling of the boats you meet. Perhaps there will be some
brief dialogues that you can report, or some little adventures that you
can relate. Close your theme by telling of your arrival at your
destination, or of your turning about to go back down the stream.
=An Old Man with a History=:--Perhaps you can take this from real life;
or perhaps you know some interesting old man whose early adventures you
can imagine. Tell briefly how you happened to know the old man. Describe
him. Speak of his manners, his way of speaking; his character as it
appeared when you knew him. How did you learn his story? Imagine him
relating it. Where was he when he told it? How did he act? Was he
willing to tell the story, or did he have to be persuaded? Tell the
story simply and directly, in his words, breaking it now and then by a
comment or a question from the listener (or listeners). It might be well
to explain occasionally how the old man seemed to feel, what expressions
his face assumed, and what gestures he made. Go on thus to the end of
the story. Is it necessary for you to make any remarks at the last,
after the man has finished?
=A Country Inn=:--See the outline for a similar subject on page 229.
COLLATERAL READINGS
A Day at Laguerre's and Other Days F. Hopkinson Smith
Gondola Days " " "
The Under Dog " " "
Caleb West, Master Diver " " "
Tom Grogan " " "
The Other Fellow " " "
Colonel Carter of Cartersville " " "
Colonel Carter's Christmas " " "
The Fortunes of Oliver Horn " " "
Forty Minutes Late " " "
At Close Range " " "
A White Umbrella in Mexico " " "
A Gentleman Vagabond " " "
(Note especially in this, _Along the Bronx_.)
Fisherman's Luck Henry van Dyke
A Lazy Idle Brook (in _Fisherman's Luck_) " "
Little Rivers " "
The Friendly Road David Grayson
Adventures in Contentment " "
For information concerning Mr. Smith, consult:--
A History of Southern Literature, p. 375., Carl Holliday
American Authors and their Homes, pp. 187-194 F.W. Halsey
Bookman, 17:16 (Portrait); 24:9, September, 1906 (Portrait); 28:9,
September, 1908 (Portrait). Arena, 38:678, December, 1907. Outlook,
93:689, November 27, 1909. Bookbuyer, 25:17-20, August, 1902.
QUITE SO
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
(In _Marjorie Daw, and Other Stories_)
I
Of course that was not his name. Even in the State of Maine, where it is
still a custom to maim a child for life by christening him Arioch or
Shadrach or Ephraim, nobody would dream of calling a boy "Quite So." It
was merely a nickname which we gave him in camp; but it stuck to him
with such bur-like tenacity, and is so inseparable from my memory of
him, that I do not think I could write definitely of John Bladburn if I
were to call him anything but "Quite So."
It was one night shortly after the first battle of Bull Run. The Army of
the Potomac, shattered, stunned, and forlorn, was back in its old
quarters behind the earth-works. The melancholy line of ambulances
bearing our wounded to Washington was not done creeping over Long
Bridge; the blue smocks and the gray still lay in windrows on the field
of Manassas; and the gloom that weighed down our hearts was like the fog
that stretched along the bosom of the Potomac, and infolded the valley
of the Shenandoah. A drizzling rain had set in at twilight, and, growing
bolder with the darkness, was beating a dismal tattoo on the tent,--the
tent of Mess 6, Company A, --th Regiment, N.Y. Volunteers. Our mess,
consisting originally of eight men, was reduced to four. Little Billy,
as one of the boys grimly remarked, had concluded to remain at
Manassas; Corporal Steele we had to leave at Fairfax Court-House, shot
through the hip; Hunter and Suydam we had said good-by to that
afternoon. "Tell Johnny Reb," says Hunter, lifting up the leather
sidepiece of the ambulance, "that I'll be back again as soon as I get a
new leg." But Suydam said nothing; he only unclosed his eyes languidly
and smiled farewell to us.
The four of us who were left alive and unhurt that shameful July day sat
gloomily smoking our brier-wood pipes, thinking our thoughts, and
listening to the rain pattering against the canvas. That, and the
occasional whine of a hungry cur, foraging on the outskirts of the camp
for a stray bone, alone broke the silence, save when a vicious drop of
rain detached itself meditatively from the ridge-pole of the tent, and
fell upon the wick of our tallow candle, making it "cuss," as Ned Strong
described it. The candle was in the midst of one of its most profane
fits when Blakely, knocking the ashes from his pipe and addressing no
one in particular, but giving breath, unconsciously as it were, to the
result of his cogitations, observed that "it was considerable of a
fizzle."
"The 'on to Richmond' business?"
"Yes."
"I wonder what they'll do about it over yonder," said Curtis, pointing
over his right shoulder. By "over yonder" he meant the North in general
and Massachusetts especially. Curtis was a Boston boy, and his sense of
locality was so strong that, during all his wanderings in Virginia, I do
not believe there was a moment, day or night, when he could not have
made a bee-line for Faneuil Hall.
"Do about it?" cried Strong. "They'll make about two hundred thousand
blue flannel trousers and send them along, each pair with a man in
it,--all the short men in the long trousers, and all the tall men in the
short ones," he added, ruefully contemplating his own leg-gear, which
scarcely reached to his ankles.
"That's so," said Blakely. "Just now, when I was tackling the commissary
for an extra candle, I saw a crowd of new fellows drawing blankets."
"I say there, drop that!" cried Strong. "All right, sir, didn't know it
was you," he added hastily, seeing it was Lieutenant Haines who had
thrown back the flap of the tent, and let in a gust of wind and rain
that threatened the most serious bronchial consequences to our
discontented tallow dip.
"You're to bunk in here," said the lieutenant, speaking to some one
outside. The some one stepped in, and Haines vanished in the darkness.
When Strong had succeeded in restoring the candle to consciousness, the
light fell upon a tall, shy-looking man of about thirty-five, with long,
hay-colored beard and mustache, upon which the rain-drops stood in
clusters, like the night-dew on patches of cobweb in a meadow. It was an
honest face, with unworldly sort of blue eyes, that looked out from
under the broad visor of the infantry cap. With a deferential glance
towards us, the new-comer unstrapped his knapsack, spread his blanket
over it, and sat down unobtrusively.
"Rather damp night out," remarked Blakely, whose strong hand was
supposed to be conversation.
"Quite so," replied the stranger, not curtly, but pleasantly, and with
an air as if he had said all there was to be said about it.
"Come from the North recently?" inquired Blakely, after a pause.
"Yes."
"From any place in particular?"
"Maine."
"People considerably stirred up down there?" continued Blakely,
determined not to give up.
"Quite so."
Blakely threw a puzzled look over the tent, and seeing Ned Strong on the
broad grin, frowned severely. Strong instantly assumed an abstracted
air, and began humming softly,
"I wish I was in Dixie."
"The State of Maine," observed Blakely, with a certain defiance of
manner not at all necessary in discussing a geographical question, "is a
pleasant State."
"In summer," suggested the stranger.
"In summer, I mean," returned Blakely with animation, thinking he had
broken the ice. "Cold as blazes in winter, though,--isn't it?"
The new recruit merely nodded.
Blakely eyed the man homicidally for a moment, and then, smiling one of
those smiles of simulated gayety which the novelists inform us are more
tragic than tears, turned upon him with withering irony.
"Trust you left the old folks pretty comfortable?"
"Dead."
"The old folks dead!"
"Quite so."
Blakely made a sudden dive for his blanket, tucked it around him with
painful precision, and was heard no more.
Just then the bugle sounded "lights out,"--bugle answering bugle in
far-off camps. When our not elaborate night-toilets were complete,
Strong threw somebody else's old boot at the candle with infallible aim,
and darkness took possession of the tent. Ned, who lay on my left,
presently reached over to me, and whispered, "I say, our friend 'quite
so' is a garrulous old boy! He'll talk himself to death some of these
odd times, if he isn't careful. How he _did_ run on!"
The next morning, when I opened my eyes, the new member of Mess 6 was
sitting on his knapsack, combing his blond beard with a horn comb. He
nodded pleasantly to me, and to each of the boys as they woke up, one by
one. Blakely did not appear disposed to renew the animated conversation
of the previous night; but while he was gone to make a requisition for
what was in pure sarcasm called coffee, Curtis ventured to ask the man
his name.
"Bladburn, John," was the reply.
"That's rather an unwieldy name for everyday use," put in Strong. "If it
wouldn't hurt your feelings, I'd like to call you Quite So,--for short.
Don't say no, if you don't like it. Is it agreeable?"
Bladburn gave a little laugh, all to himself, seemingly, and was about
to say, "Quite so," when he caught at the words, blushed like a girl,
and nodded a sunny assent to Strong. From that day until the end, the
sobriquet clung to him.
The disaster at Bull Run was followed, as the reader knows, by a long
period of masterly inactivity, so far as the Army of the Potomac was
concerned. McDowell, a good soldier but unlucky, retired to Arlington
Heights, and McClellan, who had distinguished himself in Western
Virginia, took command of the forces in front of Washington, and bent
his energies to reorganizing the demoralized troops. It was a dreary
time to the people of the North, who looked fatuously from week to week
for "the fall of Richmond"; and it was a dreary time to the denizens of
that vast city of tents and forts which stretched in a semicircle before
the beleaguered Capitol,--so tedious and soul-wearing a time that the
hardships of forced marches and the horrors of battle became desirable
things to them.
Roll-call morning and evening, guard-duty, dress-parades, an occasional
reconnaissance, dominoes, wrestling-matches, and such rude games as
could be carried on in camp made up the sum of our lives. The arrival of
the mail with letters and papers from home was the event of the day. We
noticed that Bladburn neither wrote nor received any letters. When the
rest of the boys were scribbling away for dear life, with drumheads and
knapsacks and cracker-boxes for writing-desks, he would sit serenely
smoking his pipe, but looking out on us through rings of smoke with a
face expressive of the tenderest interest.
"Look here, Quite So," Strong would say, "the mail-bag closes in half an
hour. Ain't you going to write?"
"I believe not to-day," Bladburn would reply, as if he had written
yesterday, or would write to-morrow: but he never wrote.
He had become a great favorite with us, and with all the officers of the
regiment. He talked less than any man I ever knew, but there was nothing
sinister or sullen in his reticence. It was sunshine,--warmth and
brightness, but no voice. Unassuming and modest to the verge of
shyness, he impressed every one as a man of singular pluck and nerve.
"Do you know," said Curtis to me one day, "that that fellow Quite So is
clear grit, and when we come to close quarters with our Palmetto
brethren over yonder, he'll do something devilish?"
"What makes you think so?"
"Well, nothing quite explainable; the exasperating coolness of the man,
as much as anything. This morning the boys were teasing Muffin Fan" [a
small mulatto girl who used to bring muffins into camp three times a
week,--at the peril of her life!] "and Jemmy Blunt of Company K--you
know him--was rather rough on the girl, when Quite So, who had been
reading under a tree, shut one finger in his book, walked over to where
the boys were skylarking, and with the smile of a juvenile angel on his
face lifted Jemmy out of that and set him down gently in front of his
own tent. There Blunt sat speechless, staring at Quite So, who was back
again under the tree, pegging away at his little Latin grammar."
That Latin grammar! He always had it about him, reading it or turning
over its dog's-eared pages at odd intervals and in out-of-the-way
places. Half a dozen times a day he would draw it out from the bosom of
his blouse, which had taken the shape of the book just over the left
breast, look at it as if to assure himself it was all right, and then
put the thing back. At night the volume lay beneath his pillow. The
first thing in the morning, before he was well awake, his hand would go
groping instinctively under his knapsack in search of it.
A devastating curiosity seized upon us boys concerning that Latin
grammar, for we had discovered the nature of the book. Strong wanted to
steal it one night, but concluded not to. "In the first place,"
reflected Strong, "I haven't the heart to do it, and in the next place I
haven't the moral courage. Quite So would placidly break every bone in
my body." And I believe Strong was not far out of the way.
Sometimes I was vexed with myself for allowing this tall, simple-hearted
country fellow to puzzle me so much. And yet, was he a simple-hearted
country fellow? City bred he certainly was not; but his manner, in spite
of his awkwardness, had an indescribable air of refinement. Now and
then, too, he dropped a word or a phrase that showed his familiarity
with unexpected lines of reading. "The other day," said Curtis, with the
slightest elevation of eyebrow, "he had the cheek to correct my Latin
for me." In short, Quite So was a daily problem to the members of Mess
6. Whenever he was absent, and Blakely and Curtis and Strong and I got
together in the tent, we discussed him, evolving various theories to
explain why he never wrote to anybody and why nobody ever wrote to him.
Had the man committed some terrible crime, and fled to the army to hide
his guilt? Blakely suggested that he must have murdered "the old folks."
What did he mean by eternally conning that tattered Latin grammar? And
was his name Bladburn, anyhow? Even his imperturbable amiability became
suspicious. And then his frightful reticence! If he was the victim of
any deep grief or crushing calamity, why didn't he seem unhappy? What
business had he to be cheerful?
"It's my opinion," said Strong, "that he's a rival Wandering Jew; the
original Jacobs, you know, was a dark fellow."
Blakely inferred from something Bladburn had said, or something he had
not said,--which was more likely,--that he had been a schoolmaster at
some period of his life.
"Schoolmaster be hanged!" was Strong's comment. "Can you fancy a
schoolmaster going about conjugating baby verbs out of a dratted little
spelling-book? No, Quite So has evidently been a--a--Blest if I can
imagine _what_ he's been!"
Whatever John Bladburn had been, he was a lonely man. Whenever I want a
type of perfect human isolation, I shall think of him, as he was in
those days, moving remote, self-contained, and alone in the midst of two
hundred thousand men.
II
The Indian summer, with its infinite beauty and tenderness, came like a
reproach that year to Virginia. The foliage, touched here and there with
prismatic tints, drooped motionless in the golden haze. The delicate
Virginia creeper was almost minded to put forth its scarlet buds again.
No wonder the lovely phantom--this dusky Southern sister of the pale
Northern June--lingered not long with us, but, filling the once peaceful
glens and valleys with her pathos, stole away rebukefully before the
savage enginery of man.
The preparations that had been going on for months in arsenals and
foundries at the North were nearly completed. For weeks past the air had
been filled with rumors of an advance; but the rumor of to-day refuted
the rumor of yesterday, and the Grand Army did not move. Heintzelman's
corps was constantly folding its tents, like the Arabs, and as silently
stealing away; but somehow it was always in the same place the next
morning. One day, at length, orders came down for our brigade to move.
"We're going to Richmond, boys!" shouted Strong, thrusting his head in
at the tent; and we all cheered and waved our caps like mad. You see,
Big Bethel and Bull Run and Ball's Bluff (the Bloody B's, as we used to
call them,) hadn't taught us any better sense.
Rising abruptly from the plateau, to the left of our encampment, was a
tall hill covered with a stunted growth of red-oak, persimmon, and
chestnut. The night before we struck tents I climbed up to the crest to
take a parting look at a spectacle which custom had not been able to rob
of its enchantment. There, at my feet, and extending miles and miles
away, lay the camps of the Grand Army, with its camp-fires reflected
luridly against the sky. Thousands of lights were twinkling in every
direction, some nestling in the valley, some like fire-flies beating
their wings and palpitating among the trees, and others stretching in
parallel lines and curves, like the street-lamps of a city. Somewhere,
far off, a band was playing, at intervals it seemed; and now and then,
nearer to, a silvery strain from a bugle shot sharply up through the
night, and seemed to lose itself like a rocket among the stars,--the
patient, untroubled stars. Suddenly a hand was laid upon my arm.
"I'd like to say a word to you," said Bladburn.
With a little start of surprise, I made room for him on the fallen tree
where I was seated.
"I mayn't get another chance," he said. "You and the boys have been very
kind to me, kinder than I deserve; but sometimes I've fancied that my
not saying anything about myself had given you the idea that all was
not right in my past. I want to say that I came down to Virginia with a
clean record."
"We never really doubted it, Bladburn."
"If I didn't write home," he continued, "it was because I hadn't any
home, neither kith nor kin. When I said the old folks were dead, I said
it. Am I boring you? If I thought I was--"
"No, Bladburn. I have often wanted you to talk to me about yourself, not
from idle curiosity, I trust, but because I liked you that rainy night
when you came to camp, and have gone on liking you ever since. This
isn't too much to say, when Heaven only knows how soon I may be past
saying it or you listening to it."
"That's it," said Bladburn, hurriedly, "that's why I want to talk with
you. I've a fancy that I shan't come out of our first battle."
The words gave me a queer start, for I had been trying several days to
throw off a similar presentiment concerning him,--a foolish presentiment
that grew out of a dream.
"In case anything of that kind turns up," he continued, "I'd like you to
have my Latin grammar here,--you've seen me reading it. You might stick
it away in a bookcase, for the sake of old times. It goes against me to
think of it falling into rough hands or being kicked about camp and
trampled under foot."
He was drumming softly with his fingers on the volume in the bosom of
his blouse.
"I didn't intend to speak of this to a living soul," he went on,
motioning me not to answer him; "but something took hold of me to-night
and made me follow you up here. Perhaps, if I told you all, you would be
the more willing to look after the little book in case it goes ill with
me. When the war broke out I was teaching school down in Maine, in the
same village where my father was schoolmaster before me. The old man
when he died left me quite alone. I lived pretty much by myself, having
no interests outside of the district school, which seemed in a manner my
personal property. Eight years ago last spring a new pupil was brought
to the school, a slight slip of a girl, with a sad kind of face and
quiet ways. Perhaps it was because she wasn't very strong, and perhaps
because she wasn't used over well by those who had charge of her, or
perhaps it was because my life was lonely, that my heart warmed to the
child. It all seems like a dream now, since that April morning when
little Mary stood in front of my desk with her pretty eyes looking down
bashfully and her soft hair falling over her face. One day I look up,
and six years have gone by,--as they go by in dreams,--and among the
scholars is a tall girl of sixteen, with serious, womanly eyes which I
cannot trust myself to look upon. The old life has come to an end. The
child has become a woman and can teach the master now. So help me
Heaven, I didn't know that I loved her until that day!
"Long after the children had gone home I sat in the schoolroom with my
face resting on my hands. There was her desk, the afternoon shadows
falling across it. It never looked empty and cheerless before. I went
and stood by the low chair, as I had stood hundreds of times. On the
desk was a pile of books, ready to be taken away, and among the rest a
small Latin grammar which we had studied together. What little despairs
and triumphs and happy hours were associated with it! I took it up
curiously, as if it were some gentle dead thing, and turned over the
pages, and could hardly see them. Turning the pages, idly so, I came to
a leaf on which something was written with ink, in the familiar girlish
hand. It was only the words 'Dear John,' through which she had drawn two
hasty pencil lines--I wish she hadn't drawn those lines!" added
Bladburn, under his breath.
He was silent for a minute or two, looking off towards the camps, where
the lights were fading out one by one.
"I had no right to go and love Mary. I was twice her age, an awkward,
unsocial man, that would have blighted her youth. I was as wrong as
wrong can be. But I never meant to tell her. I locked the grammar in my
desk and the secret in my heart for a year. I couldn't bear to meet her
in the village, and kept away from every place where she was likely to
be. Then she came to me, and sat down at my feet penitently, just as she
used to do when she was a child, and asked what she had done to anger
me; and then, Heaven forgive me! I told her all, and asked her if she
could say with her lips the words she had written, and she nestled in my
arms all a-trembling like a bird, and said them over and over again.
"When Mary's family heard of our engagement, there was trouble. They
looked higher for Mary than a middle-aged schoolmaster. No blame to
them. They forbade me the house, her uncles; but we met in the village
and at the neighbors' houses, and I was happy, knowing she loved me.
Matters were in this state when the war came on. I had a strong call to
look after the old flag, and I hung my head that day when the company
raised in our village marched by the schoolhouse to the railroad
station; but I couldn't tear myself away. About this time the minister's
son, who had been away to college, came to the village. He met Mary here
and there, and they became great friends. He was a likely fellow, near
her own age, and it was natural they should like one another. Sometimes
I winced at seeing him made free of the home from which I was shut out;
then I would open the grammar at the leaf where 'Dear John' was written
up in the corner, and my trouble was gone. Mary was sorrowful and pale
these days, and I think her people were worrying her.
"It was one evening two or three days before we got the news of Bull
Run. I had gone down to the burying-ground to trim the spruce hedge set
round the old man's lot, and was just stepping into the enclosure, when
I heard voices from the opposite side. One was Mary's, and the other I
knew to be young Marston's, the minister's son. I didn't mean to listen,
but what Mary was saying struck me dumb. _We must never meet again_, she
was saying in a wild way. _We must say good-by here, forever,--good-by,
good-by!_ And I could hear her sobbing. Then, presently, she said,
hurriedly, _No, no; my hand, not my lips_! Then it seemed he kissed her
hands, and the two parted, one going towards the parsonage, and the
other out by the gate near where I stood.
"I don't know how long I stood there, but the night-dews had wet me to
the bone when I stole out of the graveyard and across the road to the
schoolhouse. I unlocked the door, and took the Latin grammar from the
desk and hid it in my bosom. There was not a sound or a light anywhere
as I walked out of the village. And now," said Bladburn, rising suddenly
from the tree-trunk, "if the little book ever falls in your way, won't
you see that it comes to no harm, for my sake, and for the sake of the
little woman who was true to me and didn't love me? Wherever she is
to-night, God bless her!"
* * * * *
As we descended to camp with our arms resting on each other's shoulder,
the watch-fires were burning low in the valleys and along the hillsides,
and as far as the eye could reach, the silent tents lay bleaching in the
moonlight.
III
We imagined that the throwing forward of our brigade was the initial
movement of a general advance of the army: but that, as the reader will
remember, did not take place until the following March. The Confederates
had fallen back to Centreville without firing a shot, and the National
troops were in possession of Lewinsville, Vienna, and Fairfax
Court-House. Our new position was nearly identical with that which we
had occupied on the night previous to the battle of Bull Run,--on the
old turnpike road to Manassas, where the enemy was supposed to be in
great force. With a field-glass we could see the Rebel pickets moving in
a belt of woodland on our right, and morning and evening we heard the
spiteful roll of their snare-drums.
Those pickets soon became a nuisance to us. Hardly a night passed but
they fired upon our outposts, so far with no harmful result; but after a
while it grew to be a serious matter. The Rebels would crawl out on
all-fours from the wood into a field covered with underbrush, and lie
there in the dark for hours, waiting for a shot. Then our men took to
the rifle-pits,--pits ten or twelve feet long by four or five feet deep,
with the loose earth banked up a few inches high on the exposed sides.
All the pits bore names, more or less felicitous, by which they were
known to their transient tenants. One was called "The Pepper-Box,"
another "Uncle Sam's Well," another "The Reb-Trap," and another, I am
constrained to say, was named after a not to be mentioned tropical
locality. Though this rude sort of nomenclature predominated, there was
no lack of softer titles, such as "Fortress Matilda" and "Castle Mary,"
and one had, though unintentionally, a literary flavor to it, "Blair's
Grave," which was not popularly considered as reflecting unpleasantly on
Nat Blair, who had assisted in making the excavation.
Some of the regiment had discovered a field of late corn in the
neighborhood, and used to boil a few ears every day, while it lasted,
for the boys detailed on the night-picket. The corn-cobs were always
scrupulously preserved and mounted on the parapets of the pits. Whenever
a Rebel shot carried away one of these _barbette_ guns, there was
swearing in that particular trench. Strong, who was very sensitive to
this kind of disaster, was complaining bitterly one morning, because he
had lost three "pieces" the night before.
"There's Quite So, now," said Strong, "when a Minie-ball comes _ping_!
and knocks one of his guns to flinders, he merely smiles, and doesn't at
all see the degradation of the thing."
Poor Bladburn! As I watched him day by day going about his duties, in
his shy, cheery way, with a smile for every one and not an extra word
for anybody, it was hard to believe he was the same man who, that night
before we broke camp by the Potomac, had poured out to me the story of
his love and sorrow in words that burned in my memory.
While Strong was speaking, Blakely lifted aside the flap of the tent and
looked in on us.
"Boys, Quite So was hurt last night," he said, with a white tremor to
his lip.
"What!"
"Shot on picket."
"Why, he was in the pit next to mine," cried Strong.
"Badly hurt?"
"Badly hurt."
I knew he was; I need not have asked the question. He never meant to go
back to New England!
* * * * *
Bladburn was lying on the stretcher in the hospital-tent. The surgeon
had knelt down by him, and was carefully cutting away the bosom of his
blouse. The Latin grammar, stained and torn, slipped, and fell to the
floor. Bladburn gave me a quick glance. I picked up the book, and as I
placed it in his hand, the icy fingers closed softly over mine. He was
sinking fast. In a few minutes the surgeon finished his examination.
When he rose to his feet there were tears on the weather-beaten cheeks.
He was a rough outside, but a tender heart.
"My poor lad," he blurted out, "it's no use. If you've anything to say,
say it now, for you've nearly done with this world."
Then Bladburn lifted his eyes slowly to the surgeon, and the old smile
flitted over his face as he murmured,--
"Quite so."
NOTES
=the first battle of Bull Run=:--Fought July 21, 1861; known in the
South as Manassas.
=Long Bridge=:--A bridge over which the Union soldiers crossed in
fleeing to Washington after the battle of Bull Run.
=Shenandoah=:--A river and a valley in Virginia--the scene of many
events in the Civil War.
=Fairfax Court House=:--Near Manassas Junction.
=On to Richmond=:--In 1861 the newspapers of the North were violently
demanding an attack on Richmond.
=Faneuil Hall=:--An historic hall in Boston, in which important meetings
were held before the Revolution.
=McDowell=:--Irving McDowell, who commanded the Union troops at Bull
Run.
=McClellan=:--George B. McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac.
=Wandering Jew=:--A legendary person said to have been condemned to
wander over the earth, undying, till the Day of Judgment. The legend is
probably founded on a passage in the Bible--John 21:20-23.
=folding its tents=:--A quotation from _The Day is Done_, by Longfellow.
The lines are:--
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
=Big Bethel=:--The Union troops were defeated here on June 10, 1861.
=Ball's Bluff=:--A place on the Potomac where the Union soldiers were
beaten, October 21, 1861.
=Centreville=:--A small town, the Union base in the first Battle of Bull
Run.
=Lewinsville=:--A small town, north of Centreville.
=Vienna=:--A village in the Bull Run district.
=Blair's Grave=:--Robert Blair, a Scotch writer, published (1743) a poem
in blank verse called "The Grave."
=barbette guns=:--Guns elevated to fire over the top of a turret or
parapet.
=minie-ball=:--A conical ball plugged with iron, named after its
inventor, Captain Minié, of France.
QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
Read the piece through without stopping, so that you can get the story.
Then go back to the beginning and study with the help of the following
questions:--
Compare the first sentence with the first sentence of _Tennessee's
Partner_. What do you think of the method? What is the use of the first
paragraph in _Quite So_? Why the long paragraph giving the setting? Is
this a good method in writing a story? What had become of "Little
Billy"? Who was "Johnny Reb"? What do you think of bringing in humorous
touches when one is dealing with things so serious as war and battles?
What does "Drop that!" refer to? Why does Strong change his tone? Note
what details the author has selected in order to give a clear picture of
"Quite So" in a few words. How does the conversation reveal the
stranger's character? What is shown by the fact that "Quite So" does not
write any letters? What is the purpose of the episode of "Muffin Fan"?
What devices does the author use, in order to bring out the mystery and
the loneliness of "Quite So"? Note how the author emphasizes the passage
of time. Why does Bladburn finally tell his story? How does it reveal
his character? Was Mary right in what she did? Why are some sentences in
the text printed in italics? Was Bladburn right in leaving his home
village without explanation? Why did he do so? What do you get from the
sentence, "He never meant to go back to New England"? What is the
impression made by the last sentence? Do you like the story?
THEME SUBJECTS
A Mysterious Person
The New Girl at School
The Schoolmaster's Romance
A Sudden Departure
A Camp Scene
The G.A.R. on Memorial Day
The Militia in our Town
An Old Soldier
A Story of the Civil War
Some Relics of the Civil War
Watching the Cadets Drill
My Uncle's Experiences in the War
A Sham Battle
A Visit to an Old Battlefield
On Picket Duty
A Daughter of the Confederacy
"Stonewall" Jackson
Modern Ways of Preventing War
The Soldiers' Home
An Escape from a Military Prison
The Women's Relief Corps
Women in the Civil War
SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING
=An Old Soldier=:--Tell how you happen to know this old soldier. Where
does he live? Do you see him often? What is he doing when you see him?
Describe him as vividly as you can:--his general appearance; his
clothes; his way of walking. Speak particularly of his face and its
expression. If possible, let us hear him talk. Perhaps you can tell some
of his war stories--in his own words.
=A Mysterious Person=:--Imagine a mysterious person appearing in a
little town where everybody knows everybody else. Tell how he (or she)
arrives. How does he look? What does he do? Explain clearly why he is
particularly hard to account for. What do people say about him? Try to
make each person's remarks fit his individual character. How do people
try to find out about the stranger? Does he notice their curiosity? Do
they ask him questions? If so, give some bits of their conversations
with him. You might go on and make a story of some length out of this.
Show whether the stranger really has any reason for concealing his
identity. Does he get into any trouble? Does an accident reveal who he
is and why he is in the town? Does some one find out by spying upon him?
Or does he tell all about himself, when the right time comes?
Perhaps you can put the story into the form of a series of brief
conversations about the stranger or with him.
=An Incident of the Civil War=:--Select some historical incident, or one
that you have heard from an old soldier, and tell it simply and vividly
in your own words.
COLLATERAL READINGS
The Story of a Bad Boy Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Marjorie Daw and Other People " " "
The Stillwater Tragedy " " "
Prudence Palfrey " " "
From Ponkapog to Pesth " " "
The Queen of Sheba " " "
A Sea Turn and Other Matters " " "
For Bravery on the Field of Battle
(in _Two Bites at a Cherry_) " " "
The Return of a Private
(in _Main-Travelled Roads_) Hamlin Garland
On the Eve of the Fourth Harold Frederic
Marse Chan Thomas Nelson Page
Meh Lady " " "
The Burial of the Guns " " "
Red Rock " " "
The Long Roll Mary Johnston
Cease Firing " "
The Crisis Winston Churchill
Where the Battle was Fought Mary N. Murfree
The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come John Fox, Jr.
Hospital Sketches Louisa M. Alcott
A Blockaded Family P.A. Hague
He Knew Lincoln[2] Ida Tarbell
The Perfect Tribute[3] M.R.S. Andrews
The Toy Shop[4] M.S. Gerry
Thomas Bailey Aldrich Ferris Greenslet
Park Street Papers, pp. 143-70 Bliss Perry
American Writers of To-day, pp. 104-23 H.C. Vedder
American Authors and their Homes,
pp. 89-98 F.W. Halsey
American Authors at Home, pp. 3-16 J.L. and J.B. Gilder
Literary Pilgrimages in New England,
pp. 89-97 E.M. Bacon
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (poem) Henry van Dyke
For biographies and criticisms of Thomas B. Aldrich, see also: Outlook,
86:922, August 24, 1907; 84:735, November 24, 1906; 85:737, March 30,
1907. Bookman, 24:317, December, 1906 (Portrait); also 25:218
(Portrait). Current Literature, 42:49, January, 1907 (Portrait).
Chautauquan, 65:168, January, 1912.
PAN IN WALL STREET
A.D. 1867
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
Just where the Treasury's marble front
Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations;
Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont
To throng for trade and last quotations;
Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
Outrival, in the ears of people,
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled
From Trinity's undaunted steeple,--
Even there I heard a strange, wild strain
Sound high above the modern clamor,
Above the cries of greed and gain,
The curbstone war, the auction's hammer;
And swift, on Music's misty ways,
It led, from all this strife for millions.
To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days
Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians.
And as it stilled the multitude,
And yet more joyous rose, and shriller,
I saw the minstrel where he stood
At ease against a Doric pillar:
One hand a droning organ played,
The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned
Like those of old) to lips that made
The reeds give out that strain impassioned.
'Twas Pan himself had wandered here
A-strolling through this sordid city,
And piping to the civic ear
The prelude of some pastoral ditty!
The demigod had crossed the seas,--
From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr,
And Syracusan times,--to these
Far shores and twenty centuries later.
A ragged cap was on his head;
But--hidden thus--there was no doubting
That, all with crispy locks o'erspread,
His gnarlèd horns were somewhere sprouting;
His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes,
Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them,
And trousers, patched of divers hues,
Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.
He filled the quivering reeds with sound,
And o'er his mouth their changes shifted,
And with his goat's-eyes looked around
Where'er the passing current drifted;
And soon, as on Trinacrian hills
The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him,
Even now the tradesmen from their tills,
With clerks and porters, crowded near him.
The bulls and bears together drew
From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley,
As erst, if pastorals be true,
Came beasts from every wooded valley;
And random passers stayed to list,--
A boxer Ægon, rough and merry,
A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst
With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry.
A one-eyed Cyclops halted long
In tattered cloak of army pattern,
And Galatea joined the throng,--
A blowsy apple-vending slattern;
While old Silenus staggered out
From some new-fangled lunch-house handy,
And bade the piper, with a shout,
To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy!
A newsboy and a peanut-girl
Like little Fauns began to caper;
His hair was all in tangled curl,
Her tawny legs were bare and taper;
And still the gathering larger grew,
And gave its pence and crowded nigher,
While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew
His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.
O heart of Nature, beating still
With throbs her vernal passion taught her,--
Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,
Or by the Arethusan water!
New forms may fold the speech, new lands
Arise within these ocean-portals,
But Music waves eternal wands,--
Enchantress of the souls of mortals!
So thought I,--but among us trod
A man in blue, with legal baton,
And scoffed the vagrant demigod,
And pushed him from the step I sat on.
Doubting I mused upon the cry,
"Great Pan is dead!"--and all the people
Went on their ways:--and clear and high
The quarter sounded from the steeple.
NOTES
=Wall Street=:--An old street in New York faced by the Stock Exchange
and the offices of the wealthiest bankers and brokers.
=the Treasury=:--The Sub-Treasury Building.
=last quotations=:--The latest information on stock values given out
before the Stock Exchange closes.
=Trinity=:--The famous old church that stands at the head of Wall
Street.
=curbstone war=:--The clamorous quoting, auctioning, and bidding of
stock out on the street curb, where the "curb brokers"--brokers who do
not have seats on the Stock Exchange--do business.
=sweet-do-nothing=:--A translation of an Italian expression, _dolce far
niente_.
=Sicilians=:--Theocritus (3rd century before Christ), the Greek pastoral
poet, wrote of the happy life of the shepherds and shepherdesses in
Sicily.
=Doric pillar=:--A heavy marble pillar, such as was used in the
architecture of the Dorians in Greece.
=Pan's pipe=:--Pan was the Greek god of shepherds, and patron of fishing
and hunting. He is represented as having the head and body of a man,
with the legs, horns, and tail of a goat. It was said that he invented
the shepherd's pipe or flute, which he made from reeds plucked on the
bank of a stream.
=pastoral ditty=:--A poem about shepherds and the happy outdoor life.
The word pastoral comes from the Latin _pastor_, shepherd.
=Syracusan times=:--Syracuse was an important city in Sicily. See the
note on Sicilians, above.
=Trinacrian hills=:--Trinacria is an old name for Sicily.
=bulls and bears=:--A bull, on the Stock Exchange, is one who operates
in expectation of a rise in stocks; a bear is a person who sells stocks
in expectation of a fall in the market.
=Jauncey Court=:--The Jauncey family were prominent in the early New
York days. This court was probably named after them.
=Ægon=:--Usually spelled Ægaeon; another name for Briareus, a monster
with a hundred arms.
=Daphnis=:--In Greek myth, a shepherd who loved music.
=Nais=:--In Greek myth, a happy young girl, a nymph.
=Cyclops=:--One of a race of giants having but one eye--in the middle of
the forehead. These giants helped Vulcan at his forge under Aetna.
=Galatea=:--A sea-nymph beloved by the Cyclops Polyphemus.
=Silenus=:--The foster-father and companion of Bacchus, god of wine. In
pictures and sculpture Silenus is usually represented as intoxicated.
=Fauns=:--Fabled beings, half goat and half man.
=Arethusan water=:--Arethusa, in Greek myth, was a wood-nymph, who was
pursued by the river Alpheus. She was changed into a fountain, and ran
under the sea to Sicily, where she rose near the city of Syracuse.
Shelley has a poem on Arethusa.
=baton=:--A rod or wand; here, of course, a policeman's club.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
The author sees an organ-grinder playing his gay tunes in Wall Street,
New York, among the buildings where enormous financial transactions are
carried on. He (the author) imagines this wandering minstrel to be Pan
himself, assuming a modern form. Read the notes carefully for what is
said about Pan. Notice, in the poem, how skillfully the author brings
out the contrast between the easy-going days of ancient Greece and the
busy, rushing times of modern America. Of what value is the word
_serenely_ in the first stanza? What is the "curbstone war"? Do you
think the old-fashioned Pan's pipe is common now? Could a man play an
organ and a pipe at the same time? Why is the city spoken of as
"sordid"? What is the "civic ear"? In the description of the player, how
is the idea of his being Pan emphasized? How was it that the bulls and
bears drew together? In plain words who were the people whom the author
describes under Greek names? Show how aptly the mythological characters
are fitted to modern persons. Read carefully what is said about the
power of music, in the stanza beginning "O heart of Nature." Who was the
man in blue? Why did he interfere? Why is the organ-grinder called a
"vagrant demigod"? What was it that the author doubted? What is meant
here by "Great Pan is dead"? Does the author mean more than the mere
words seem to express? Do you think that people are any happier in these
commercial times than they were in ancient Greece? After you have
studied the poem and mastered all the references, read the poem through,
thinking of its meaning and its lively measure.
Read Mrs. Browning's poem, _A Musical Instrument_, which is about Pan
and his pipe of reeds.
COLLATERAL READINGS
Nooks and Corners of Old New York Charles Hemstreet
In Old New York Thomas A. Janvier
The Greatest Street in the World:
Broadway Stephen Jenkins
The God of Music (poem) Edith M. Thomas
A Musical Instrument Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Classic Myths (See Index) C.M. Gayley
The Age of Fable Thomas Bulfinch
A Butterfly in Wall Street
(in _Madrigals and Catches_) Frank D. Sherman
Come Pan, and Pipe
(in _Madrigals and Catches_) " " "
Pan Learns Music (poem) Henry van Dyke
Peeps at Great Cities: New York Hildegarde Hawthorne
Vignettes of Manhattan Brander Matthews
New York Society Ralph Pulitzer
In the Cities (poem) R.W. Gilder
Up at a Villa--Down in the City Robert Browning
The Faun in Wall Street[5] (poem) John Myers O'Hara
THE HAND OF LINCOLN
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
Look on this cast, and know the hand
That bore a nation in its hold;
From this mute witness understand
What Lincoln was,--how large of mould
The man who sped the woodman's team,
And deepest sunk the ploughman's share,
And pushed the laden raft astream,
Of fate before him unaware.
This was the hand that knew to swing
The axe--since thus would Freedom train
Her son--and made the forest ring,
And drove the wedge, and toiled amain.
Firm hand, that loftier office took,
A conscious leader's will obeyed,
And, when men sought his word and look,
With steadfast might the gathering swayed.
No courtier's, toying with a sword,
Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute;
A chief's, uplifted to the Lord
When all the kings of earth were mute!
The hand of Anak, sinewed strong,
The fingers that on greatness clutch;
Yet, lo! the marks their lines along
Of one who strove and suffered much.
For here in knotted cord and vein
I trace the varying chart of years;
I know the troubled heart, the strain,
The weight of Atlas--and the tears.
Again I see the patient brow
That palm erewhile was wont to press;
And now 'tis furrowed deep, and now
Made smooth with hope and tenderness.
For something of a formless grace
This moulded outline plays about;
A pitying flame, beyond our trace,
Breathes like a spirit, in and out,--
The love that cast an aureole
Round one who, longer to endure,
Called mirth to ease his ceaseless dole,
Yet kept his nobler purpose sure.
Lo, as I gaze, the statured man,
Built up from yon large hand, appears;
A type that Nature wills to plan
But once in all a people's years.
What better than this voiceless cast
To tell of such a one as he,
Since through its living semblance passed
The thought that bade a race be free!
NOTES
=this cast=:--A cast of Lincoln's hand was made by Leonard W. Volk, in
1860, on the Sunday following the nomination of Lincoln for the
Presidency. The original, in bronze, can be seen at the National Museum
in Washington. Various copies have been made in plaster. An anecdote
concerning one of these is told on page 107 of William Dean Howells's
_Literary Friends and Acquaintances_; facing page 106 of the same book
there is an interesting picture. In the _Critic_, volume 44, page 510,
there is an article by Isabel Moore, entitled _Hands that have Done
Things_; a picture of Lincoln's hand, in plaster, is given in the course
of this article.
=Anak=:--The sons of Anak are spoken of in the Bible as a race of
giants. See Numbers, 13:33; Deuteronomy, 9:2.
=Atlas=:--In Greek story, the giant who held the world on his shoulders.
=the thought=:--The Emancipation Proclamation.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
Read the poem through from beginning to end. Then go back to the first
and study it more carefully. Notice that there is no pause at the end of
the first stanza. In the ninth line, mentally put in _how_ after _know_.
Explain what is said about Freedom's training her son. _Loftier office_:
Loftier than what? Note that _might_ is a noun. Mentally insert _hand_
after _courtier's_. Can you tell from the hand of a person whether he
has suffered or not? What does the author mean here by "the weight of
Atlas"? What is a "formless grace"? Is the expression appropriate here?
What characteristic of Lincoln is referred to in the line beginning
"Called mirth"? Are great men so rare as the author seems to think? Why
is the cast a good means of telling of "such a one as he"? Look
carefully at one of Lincoln's portraits, and then read this poem aloud
to yourself.
Compare this poem with the sonnet _On the Life-Mask of Abraham Lincoln_,
page 210.
COLLATERAL READINGS
Abraham Lincoln: A Short Life John G. Nicolay
The Boys' Life of Lincoln Helen Nicolay
Personal Traits of Abraham Lincoln " "
Lincoln the Lawyer F.T. Hill
Passages from the Speeches and Letters
of Abraham Lincoln R.W. Gilder (Ed.)
Lincoln's Own Stories Anthony Gross
Lincoln Norman Hapgood
Abraham Lincoln, the Boy and the Man James Morgan
Father Abraham Ida Tarbell
He Knew Lincoln[6] " "
Life of Abraham Lincoln " "
Abraham Lincoln Robert G. Ingersoll
Abraham Lincoln Noah Brooks
Abraham Lincoln for Boys and Girls C.W. Moores
The Graysons Edward Eggleston
The Perfect Tribute[6] M.R.S. Andrews
The Toy Shop[6] M.S. Gerry
We Talked of Lincoln (poem)[7] E.W. Thomson
Lincoln and the Sleeping Sentinel L.E. Chittenden
O Captain, my Captain! Walt Whitman
When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloomed " "
Poems E.C. Stedman
An American Anthology " " "
American Authors and their Homes, pp. 157-172 F.W. Halsey
American Authors at Home, pp. 273-291 J.L. and J.B. Gilder
For portraits of E.C. Stedman, see Bookman, 34:592; Current Literature,
42:49.
JEAN VALJEAN
AUGUSTA STEVENSON
(Dramatized from Victor Hugo's _Les Misérables_)
SCENE II
TIME: _Evening._
PLACE: _Village of D----; dining room of the Bishop's house._
* * * * *
[_The room is poorly furnished, but orderly. A door at the back opens on
the street. At one side, a window overlooks the garden; at the other,
curtains hang before an alcove._ MADEMOISELLE, _the Bishop's_ SISTER, _a
sweet-faced lady, sits by the fire, knitting._ MADAME, _his_
HOUSEKEEPER, _is laying the table for supper._]
MLLE. Has the Bishop returned from the service?
MADAME. Yes, Mademoiselle. He is in his room, reading. Shall I
call him?
MLLE. No, do not disturb him--he will come in good time--when
supper is ready.
MADAME. Dear me--I forgot to get bread when I went out to-day.
MLLE. Go to the baker's, then; we will wait.
[_Exit Madame. Pause._]
[_Enter the_ BISHOP. _He is an old man, gentle and kindly._]
BISHOP. I hope I have not kept you waiting, sister.
MLLE. No, brother, Madame has just gone out for bread. She
forgot it this morning.
BISHOP (_having seated himself by the fire_). The wind blows
cold from the mountains to-night.
MLLE. (_nodding_). All day it has been growing colder.
BISHOP. 'Twill bring great suffering to the poor.
MLLE. Who suffer too much already.
BISHOP. I would I could help them more than I do!
MLLE. You give all you have, my brother. You keep nothing for
yourself--you have only bare necessities.
BISHOP. Well, I have sent in a bill for carriage hire in making
pastoral visits.
MLLE. Carriage hire! I did not know you ever rode. Now I am
glad to hear that. A bishop should go in state sometimes. I venture to
say your bill is small.
BISHOP. Three thousand francs.
MLLE. Three thousand francs! Why, I cannot believe it!
BISHOP. Here is the bill.
MLLE. (_reading bill_). What is this!
EXPENSES OF CARRIAGE
For furnishing soup to hospital 1500 francs
For charitable society of D---- 500 "
For foundlings 500 "
For orphans 500 "
----
Total 3000 francs
So! that is your carriage hire! Ha, ha! I might have known it!
[_They laugh together._]
[_Enter_ MADAME, _excited, with bread._]
MADAME. Such news as I have heard! The whole town is talking
about it! We should have locks put on our doors at once!
MLLE. What is it, Madame? What have you heard?
MADAME. They say there is a suspicious vagabond in the town.
The inn-keeper refused to take him in. They say he is a released convict
who once committed an awful crime.
[_The Bishop is looking into the fire, paying no attention to Madame._]
MLLE. Do you hear what Madame is saying, brother?
BISHOP. Only a little. Are we in danger, Madame?
MADAME. There is a convict in town, your Reverence!
BISHOP. Do you fear we shall be robbed?
MADAME. I do, indeed!
BISHOP. Of what?
MADAME. There are the six silver plates and the silver
soup-ladle and the two silver candlesticks.
BISHOP. All of which we could do without.
MADAME. Do without!
MLLE. 'Twould be a great loss, brother. We could not treat a
guest as is our wont.
BISHOP. Ah, there you have me, sister. I love to see the silver
laid out for every guest who comes here. And I like the candles lighted,
too; it makes a brighter welcome.
MLLE. A bishop's house should show some state.
BISHOP. Aye--to every stranger! Henceforth, I should like every
one of our six plates on the table whenever we have a guest here.
MLLE. All of them?
MADAME. For one guest?
BISHOP. Yes--we have no right to hide treasures. Each guest
shall enjoy all that we have.
MADAME. Then 'tis time we should look to the locks on the
doors, if we would keep our silver. I'll go for the locksmith now--
BISHOP. Stay! This house shall not be locked against any man!
Would you have me lock out my brothers?
[_A loud knock is heard at street door._]
Come in!
[_Enter_ JEAN VALJEAN, _with his knapsack and cudgel. The women
are frightened._]
JEAN (_roughly_). See here! My name is Jean Valjean. I am a
convict from the galleys. I was set free four days ago, and I am looking
for work. I hoped to find a lodging here, but no one will have me. It
was the same way yesterday and the day before. To-night a good woman
told me to knock at your door. I have knocked. Is this an inn?
BISHOP. Madame, put on another plate.
JEAN. Stop! You do not understand, I think. Here is my
passport--see what it says: "Jean Valjean, discharged convict, has been
nineteen years in the galleys; five years for theft; fourteen years for
having attempted to escape. He is a very dangerous man." There! you know
it all. I ask only for straw in your stable.
BISHOP. Madame, you will put white sheets on the bed in the
alcove.
[_Exit Madame. The Bishop turns to Jean._]
We shall dine presently. Sit here by the fire, sir.
JEAN. What! You will keep me? You call me "sir"! Oh! I am going
to dine! I am to have a bed with sheets like the rest of the world--a
bed! It is nineteen years since I have slept in a bed! I will pay
anything you ask. You are a fine man. You are an innkeeper, are you not?
BISHOP. I am a priest who lives here.
JEAN. A priest! Ah, yes--I ask your pardon--I didn't notice
your cap and gown.
BISHOP. Be seated near the fire, sir.
[_Jean deposits his knapsack, repeating to himself with delight._]
JEAN. He calls me _sir_--_sir_. (_Aloud._) You will require me
to pay, will you not?
BISHOP. No, keep your money. How much have you?
JEAN. One hundred and nine francs.
BISHOP. How long did it take you to earn it?
JEAN. Nineteen years.
BISHOP (_sadly_). Nineteen years--the best part of your life!
JEAN. Aye, the best part--I am now forty-six. A beast of burden
would have earned more.
BISHOP. This lamp gives a very bad light, sister.
[_Mlle. gets the two silver candlesticks from the mantel, lights them,
and places them on the table._]
JEAN. Ah, but you are good! You don't despise me. You light
your candles for me,--you treat me as a guest,--and I've told you where
I come from, who I am!
BISHOP. This house does not demand of him who enters whether he
has a name, but whether he has a grief. You suffer--you are hungry--you
are welcome.
JEAN. I cannot understand it--
BISHOP. This house is home to the man who needs a refuge. So,
sir, this is your house now more than it is mine. Whatever is here is
yours. What need have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me,
I knew it.
JEAN. What! You knew my name!
BISHOP. Yes, your name is--Brother.
JEAN. Stop! I cannot bear it--you are so good--
[_He buries his face in his hands._]
[_Enter_ MADAME _with dishes for the table; she continues
passing in and out, preparing supper._]
BISHOP. You have suffered much, sir--
JEAN (_nodding_). The red shirt, the ball on the ankle, a plank
to sleep on, heat, cold, toil, the whip, the double chain for nothing,
the cell for one word--even when sick in bed, still the chain! Dogs,
dogs are happier! Nineteen years! and now the yellow passport!
BISHOP. Yes, you have suffered.
JEAN (_with violence_). I hate this world of laws and courts! I
hate the men who rule it! For nineteen years my soul has had only
thoughts of hate. For nineteen years I've planned revenge. Do you hear?
Revenge--revenge!
BISHOP. It is not strange that you should feel so. And if you
continue to harbor those thoughts, you are only deserving of pity. But
listen, my brother; if, in spite of all you have passed through, your
thoughts could be of peace and love, you would be better than any one of
us.
[_Pause. Jean reflects._]
JEAN (_speaking violently_). No, no! I do not belong to your
world of men. I am apart--a different creature from you all. The galleys
made me different. I'll have nothing to do with any of you!
MADAME. The supper, your Reverence.
[_The Bishop glances at the table_.]
BISHOP. It strikes me there is something missing from this
table.
[_Madame hesitates._]
MLLE. Madame, do you not understand?
[_Madame steps to a cupboard, gets the remaining silver plates, and
places them on the table._]
BISHOP (_gayly, turning to Jean_). To table then, my friend! To
table!
[_Jean remains for a moment, standing doggedly apart; then he steps over
to the chair awaiting him, jerks it back, and sinks into it, without
looking up._]
SCENE III
TIME: _Daybreak the next morning._
PLACE: _The Bishop's dining room._
* * * * *
[_The room is dark, except for a faint light that comes in through
window curtains._ JEAN VALJEAN _creeps in from the alcove. He
carries his knapsack and cudgel in one hand; in the other, his shoes. He
opens the window overlooking the garden; the room becomes lighter. Jean
steps to the mantel and lifts a silver candlestick._]
JEAN (_whispering_). Two hundred francs--double what I have
earned in nineteen years!
[_He puts it in his knapsack; takes up the other candlestick; shudders,
and sets it down again._]
No, no, he is good--he called me "sir"--
[_He stands still, staring before him, his hand still gripping the
candlestick. Suddenly he straightens up; speaks bitterly._]
Why not? 'Tis easy to give a bed and food! Why doesn't he keep men from
the galleys? Nineteen years for a loaf of bread!
[_Pauses a moment, then resolutely puts both candlesticks into his bag;
steps to the cupboard and takes out the silver plates and the ladle, and
slips them into the bag._]
All solid--I should gain at least one thousand francs. 'Tis due me--due
me for all these years!
[_Closes the bag. Pause._]
No, not the candles--I owe him that much--
[_He puts the candlesticks on mantel; takes up cudgel, knapsack, and
shoes; jumps out window and disappears. Pause._]
[_Enter_ MADAME. _She shivers; discovers the open window._]
MADAME. Why is that window open? I closed it last night myself.
Oh! Could it be possible?
[_Crosses and looks at open cupboard._]
It is gone!
[_Enter the_ BISHOP _from his room._]
BISHOP. Good morning, Madame!
MADAME. Your Reverence! The silver is gone! Where is that man?
BISHOP. In the alcove sleeping, I suppose.
[_Madame runs to curtains of alcove and looks in. Enter_
MADEMOISELLE. _Madame turns._]
He is gone!
MLLE. Gone?
MADAME. Aye, gone--gone! He has stolen our silver, the
beautiful plates and the ladle! I'll inform the police at once!
[_Starts off. The Bishop stops her._]
BISHOP. Wait!--Let me ask you this--was that silver ours?
MADAME. Why--why not?
BISHOP. Because it has always belonged to the poor. I have
withheld it wrongfully.
MLLE. Its loss makes no difference to Madame or me.
MADAME. Oh, no! But what is your Reverence to eat from now?
BISHOP. Are there no pewter plates?
MADAME. Pewter has an odor.
BISHOP. Iron ones, then.
MADAME. Iron has a taste.
BISHOP. Well, then, wooden plates.
[_A knock is heard at street door._]
Come in.
[_Enter an_ OFFICER _and two_ SOLDIERS, _dragging in_
JEAN VALJEAN.]
OFFICER. Your Reverence, we found your silver on this man.
BISHOP. Why not? I gave it to him. I am glad to see you again,
Jean. Why did you not take the candlesticks, too?
JEAN (_trembling_). Your Reverence--
BISHOP. I told you everything in this house was yours, my
brother.
OFFICER. Ah, then what he said was true. But, of course, we did
not believe him. We saw him creeping from your garden--
BISHOP. It is all right, I assure you. This man is a friend of
mine.
OFFICER. Then we can let him go?
BISHOP. Certainly.
[_Soldiers step back._]
JEAN (_trembling_). I am free?
OFFICER. Yes! You can go. Do you not understand?
[_Steps back._]
BISHOP (_to Jean_). My friend, before you go away--here are
your candlesticks (_going to the mantel and bringing the candlesticks_);
take them.
[_Jean takes the candlesticks, seeming not to know what he is doing._]
By the way, my friend, when you come again you need not come through the
garden. The front door is closed only with a latch, day or night. (_To
the Officer and Soldiers._) Gentlemen, you may withdraw.
[_Exit Officer and Soldiers._]
JEAN (_recoiling and holding out the candlesticks_).
No--no--I--I--
BISHOP. Say no more; I understand. You felt that they were all
owing to you from a world that had used you ill. Keep them, my friend,
keep them. I would I had more to give you. It is small recompense for
nineteen years.
[_Jean stands bewildered, looking down at the candlesticks in his
hands._]
They will add something to your hundred francs. But do not forget, never
forget, that you have promised to use the money in becoming an honest
man.
JEAN. I--promised--?
BISHOP (_not heeding_). Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer
belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you: I
withdraw it from thoughts of hatred and revenge--I give it to peace and
hope and God.
[_Jean stands as if stunned, staring at the Bishop, then turns and walks
unsteadily from the room._]
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
Jean Valjean, as a young man, was sent to the galleys for stealing a
loaf of bread to feed his sister's hungry children. From time to time,
when he tried to escape, his sentence was increased, so that he spent
nineteen years as a convict. Scene I of Miss Stevenson's dramatization
shows Jean Valjean being turned away from the inn because he has been in
prison.
What does the stage setting tell of the Bishop and his sister? Notice,
as you read, why each of the items in the stage setting is mentioned.
Why is Madame made to leave the room--how does her absence help the
action of the play? What is the purpose of the conversation about the
weather? About the carriage hire? Why is the Bishop not more excited at
Madame's news? What is gained by the talk about the silver? Notice the
dramatic value of the Bishop's speech beginning "Stay!" Why does Jean
Valjean speak so roughly when he enters? Why does he not try to conceal
the fact that he is a convict? Why does not the Bishop reply directly to
Jean Valjean's question? What would be the action of Mademoiselle and
Madame while Jean is speaking? What is Madame's action as she goes out?
What is gained by the conversation between Jean and the Bishop? Why does
the Bishop not reproach Jean for saying he will have revenge? Why is the
silver mentioned so many times?
While you are reading the first part of Scene III, think how it should
be played. Note how much the stage directions add to the clearness of
the scene. How long should the pause be, before Madame enters? What is
gained by the calmness of the Bishop? How can he say that the silver was
not his? What does the Bishop mean when he says, "I gave it to him"?
What are Mademoiselle and Madame doing while the conversation with the
officers and Jean Valjean is going on? Is it a good plan to let them
drop so completely out of the conversation? Why does the Bishop say that
Jean has promised? Why does the scene close without Jean's replying to
the Bishop? How do you think the Bishop's kindness has affected Jean
Valjean's attitude toward life?
Note how the action and the conversation increase in intensity as the
play proceeds: Is this a good method? Notice the use of contrast in
speech and action. Note how the chief characters are emphasized. Can you
discover the quality called "restraint," in this fragment of a play? How
is it gained, and what is its value?
EXERCISES[8]
Select a short passage from some book that you like, and try to put it
into dramatic form, using this selection as a kind of model. Do not
attempt too much at once, but think out carefully the setting, the stage
directions, and the dialogue for a brief fragment of a play.
Make a series of dramatic scenes from the same book, so that a connected
story is worked out.
Read a part of some modern drama, such as _The Piper_, or _The Blue
Bird_, or one of Mr. Howells's little farces, and notice how it makes
use of setting and stage directions; how the conversation is broken up;
how the situation is brought out in the dialogue; how each person is
made to speak in his own character.
After you have done the reading suggested above, make another attempt at
dramatizing a scene from a book, and see what improvement you can make
upon the sort of thing you did at first.
It might be interesting for two or three persons to work on a bit of
dramatization together, and then give the fragment of a play in simple
fashion before the class. Or the whole class may work on the play, and
then select some of their number to perform it.
COLLATERAL READINGS
A Dramatic Reader: Book Five Augusta Stevenson
Plays for the Home " "
Jean Valjean (translated and abridged from
Victor Hugo's _Les Misérables_) S.E. Wiltse (Ed.)
The Little Men Play (adapted from Louisa
Alcott's _Little Men_) E.L. Gould
The Little Women Play " " "
The St. Nicholas Book of Plays Century Company
The Silver Thread and Other Folk Plays Constance Mackay
Patriotic Plays and Pageants " "
Fairy Tale Plays and How to Act Them Mrs. Hugh Bell
Festival Plays Marguerite Merington
Short Plays from Dickens H.B. Browne
The Piper Josephine Preston Peabody
The Blue Bird Maurice Maeterlinck
Riders to the Sea J.M. Synge
She Stoops to Conquer Oliver Goldsmith
The Rivals Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Prince Otto R.L. Stevenson
The Canterbury Pilgrims Percy Mackaye
The Elevator William Dean Howells
The Mouse Trap " " "
The Sleeping Car William Dean Howells
The Register " " "
The Story of Waterloo Henry Irving
The Children's Theatre A. Minnie Herts
The Art of Play-writing Alfred Hennequin
A COMBAT ON THE SANDS
MARY JOHNSTON
(From _To Have and to Hold_, Chapters XXI and XXII)
A few minutes later saw me almost upon the party gathered about the
grave. The grave had received that which it was to hold until the crack
of doom, and was now being rapidly filled with sand. The crew of
deep-dyed villains worked or stood or sat in silence, but all looked at
the grave, and saw me not. As the last handful of sand made it level
with the beach, I walked into their midst, and found myself face to face
with the three candidates for the now vacant captaincy.
"Give you good-day, gentlemen," I cried. "Is it your captain that you
bury or one of your crew, or is it only pezos and pieces of eight?
"The sun shining on so much bare steel hurts my eyes," I said. "Put up,
gentlemen, put up! Cannot one rover attend the funeral of another
without all this crowding and display of cutlery? If you will take the
trouble to look around you, you will see that I have brought to the
obsequies only myself."
One by one cutlass and sword were lowered, and those who had drawn them,
falling somewhat back, spat and swore and laughed. The man in black and
silver only smiled gently and sadly. "Did you drop from the blue?" he
asked. "Or did you come up from the sea?"
"I came out of it," I said. "My ship went down in the storm yesterday.
Your little cockboat yonder was more fortunate." I waved my hand toward
that ship of three hundred tons, then twirled my mustaches and stood at
gaze.
"Was your ship so large, then?" demanded Paradise, while a murmur of
admiration, larded with oaths, ran around the circle.
"She was a very great galleon," I replied, with a sigh for the good ship
that was gone.
A moment's silence, during which they all looked at me. "A galleon,"
then said Paradise softly.
"They that sailed her yesterday are to-day at the bottom of the sea," I
continued. "Alackaday! so are one hundred thousand pezos of gold, three
thousand bars of silver, ten frails of pearls, jewels uncounted, cloth
of gold and cloth of silver. She was a very rich prize."
The circle sucked in their breath. "All at the bottom of the sea?"
queried Red Gil, with gloating eyes fixed upon the smiling water. "Not
one pezo left, not one little, little pearl?"
I shook my head and heaved a prodigious sigh. "The treasure is gone," I
said, "and the men with whom I took it are gone. I am a captain with
neither ship nor crew. I take you, my friends, for a ship and crew
without a captain. The inference is obvious."
The ring gaped with wonder, then strange oaths arose. Red Gil broke into
a bellow of angry laughter, while the Spaniard glared like a catamount
about to spring. "So you would be our captain?" said Paradise, picking
up another shell, and poising it upon a hand as fine and small as a
woman's.
"Faith, you might go farther and fare worse," I answered, and began to
hum a tune. When I had finished it, "I am Kirby," I said, and waited to
see if that shot should go wide or through the hull.
For two minutes the dash of the surf and the cries of the wheeling sea
fowl made the only sound in that part of the world; then from those
half-clad rapscallions arose a shout of "Kirby!"--a shout in which the
three leaders did not join. That one who looked a gentleman rose from
the sand and made me a low bow. "Well met, noble captain," he cried in
those his honey tones. "You will doubtless remember me who was with you
that time at Maracaibo when you sunk the galleasses. Five years have
passed since then, and yet I see you ten years younger and three inches
taller."
"I touched once at the Lucayas, and found the spring de Leon sought," I
said. "Sure the waters have a marvelous effect, and if they give not
eternal youth at least renew that which we have lost."
"Truly a potent aqua vitæ," he remarked, still with thoughtful
melancholy. "I see that it hath changed your eyes from black to gray."
"It hath that peculiar virtue," I said, "that it can make black seem
white."
The man with the woman's mantle drawn about him now thrust himself from
the rear to the front rank. "That's not Kirby!" he bawled. "He's no more
Kirby than I am Kirby! Didn't I sail with Kirby from the Summer Isles to
Cartagena and back again? He's a cheat, and I am a-going to cut his
heart out!" He was making at me with a long knife, when I whipped out my
rapier.
"Am I not Kirby, you dog?" I cried, and ran him through the shoulder.
He dropped, and his fellows surged forward with a yell. "Yet a little
patience, my masters!" said Paradise in a raised voice and with genuine
amusement in his eyes. "It is true that that Kirby with whom I and our
friend there on the ground sailed was somewhat short and as swart as a
raven, besides having a cut across his face that had taken away part of
his lip and the top of his ear, and that this gentleman who announces
himself as Kirby hath none of Kirby's marks. But we are fair and
generous and open to conviction"--
"He'll have to convince my cutlass!" roared Red Gil.
I turned upon him. "If I do convince it, what then?" I demanded. "If I
convince your sword, you of Spain, and yours, Sir Black and Silver?"
The Spaniard stared. "I was the best sword in Lima," he said stiffly. "I
and my Toledo will not change our minds."
"Let him try to convince Paradise; he's got no reputation as a
swordsman!" cried out the grave-digger with the broken head.
A roar of laughter followed this suggestion, and I gathered from it and
from the oaths and allusions to this or that time and place that
Paradise was not without reputation.
I turned to him. "If I fight you three, one by one, and win, am I
Kirby?"
He regarded the shell with which he was toying with a thoughtful smile,
held it up that the light might strike through its rose and pearl, then
crushed it to dust between his fingers.
"Ay," he said with an oath. "If you win against the cutlass of Red Gil,
the best blade of Lima, and the sword of Paradise, you may call yourself
the devil an you please, and we will all subscribe to it."
I lifted my hand. "I am to have fair play?"
As one man that crew of desperate villains swore that the odds should be
only three to one. By this the whole matter had presented itself to them
as an entertainment more diverting than bullfight or bear-baiting. They
that follow the sea, whether honest men or black-hearted knaves, have in
their composition a certain childlikeness that makes them easily turned,
easily led, and easily pleased. The wind of their passion shifts quickly
from point to point, one moment blowing a hurricane, the next sinking to
a happy-go-lucky summer breeze. I have seen a little thing convert a
crew on the point of mutiny into a set of rollicking, good-natured souls
who--until the wind veered again--would not hurt a fly. So with these.
They spread themselves into a circle, squatting or kneeling or standing
upon the white sand in the bright sunshine, their sinewy hands that
should have been ingrained red clasped over their knees, or, arms
akimbo, resting upon their hips, on their scoundrel faces a broad smile,
and in their eyes that had looked on nameless horrors a pleasurable
expectation as of spectators in a playhouse awaiting the entrance of the
players.
"There is really no good reason why we should gratify your whim," said
Paradise, still amused. "But it will serve to pass the time. We will
fight you, one by one."
"And if I win?"
He laughed. "Then, on the honor of a gentleman, you are Kirby and our
captain. If you lose, we will leave you where you stand for the gulls to
bury."
"A bargain," I said, and drew my sword.
"I first!" roared Red Gil. "God's wounds! there will need no second!"
As he spoke he swung his cutlass and made an arc of blue flame. The
weapon became in his hands a flail, terrible to look upon, making
lightnings and whistling in the air, but in reality not so deadly as it
seemed. The fury of his onslaught would have beaten down the guard of
any mere swordsman, but that I was not. A man, knowing his weakness and
insufficiency in many and many a thing, may yet know his strength in one
or two and his modesty take no hurt. I was ever master of my sword, and
it did the thing I would have it do. Moreover, as I fought I saw her as
I had last seen her, standing against the bank of sand, her dark hair,
half braided, drawn over her bosom and hanging to her knees. Her eyes
haunted me, and my lips yet felt the touch of her hand. I fought
well,--how well the lapsing of oaths and laughter into breathless
silence bore witness.
The ruffian against whom I was pitted began to draw his breath in gasps.
He was a scoundrel not fit to die, less fit to live, unworthy of a
gentleman's steel. I presently ran him through with as little
compunction and as great a desire to be quit of a dirty job as if he had
been a mad dog. He fell, and a little later, while I was engaged with
the Spaniard, his soul went to that hell which had long gaped for it. To
those his companions his death was as slight a thing as would theirs
have been to him. In the eyes of the two remaining would-be leaders he
was a stumbling-block removed, and to the squatting, open-mouthed
commonalty his taking off weighed not a feather against the solid
entertainment I was affording them. I was now a better man than Red
Gil,--that was all.
The Spaniard was a more formidable antagonist. The best blade of Lima
was by no means to be despised: but Lima is a small place, and its
blades can be numbered. The sword that for three years had been counted
the best in all the Low Countries was its better. But I fought fasting
and for the second time that morning, so maybe the odds were not so
great. I wounded him slightly, and presently succeeded in disarming him.
"Am I Kirby?" I demanded, with my point at his breast.
"Kirby, of course, señor," he answered with a sour smile, his eyes upon
the gleaming blade.
I lowered my point and we bowed to each other, after which he sat down
upon the sand and applied himself to stanching the bleeding from his
wound. The pirate ring gave him no attention, but stared at me instead.
I was now a better man than the Spaniard.
The man in black and silver rose and removed his doublet, folding it
very carefully, inside out, that the sand might not injure the velvet,
then drew his rapier, looked at it lovingly, made it bend until point
and hilt well-nigh met, and faced me with a bow.
"You have fought twice, and must be weary," he said. "Will you not take
breath before we engage, or will your long rest afterward suffice you?"
"I will rest aboard my ship," I made reply. "And as I am in a hurry to
be gone we won't delay."
Our blades had no sooner crossed than I knew that in this last encounter
I should need every whit of my skill, all my wit, audacity, and
strength. I had met my equal, and he came to it fresh and I jaded. I
clenched my teeth and prayed with all my heart; I set her face before
me, and thought if I should fail her to what ghastly fate she might
come, and I fought as I had never fought before. The sound of the surf
became a roar in my ears, the sunshine an intolerable blaze of light;
the blue above and around seemed suddenly beneath my feet as well. We
were fighting high in the air, and had fought thus for ages. I knew that
he made no thrust I did not parry, no feint I could not interpret. I
knew that my eye was more quick to see, my brain to conceive, and my
hand to execute than ever before; but it was as though I held that
knowledge of some other, and I myself was far away, at Weyanoke, in the
minister's garden, in the haunted wood, anywhere save on that barren
islet. I heard him swear under his breath, and in the face I had set
before me the eyes brightened. As if she had loved me I fought for her
with all my powers of body and mind. He swore again, and my heart
laughed within me. The sea now roared less loudly, and I felt the good
earth beneath my feet. Slowly but surely I wore him out. His breath came
short, the sweat stood upon his forehead, and still I deferred my
attack. He made the thrust of a boy of fifteen, and I smiled as I put it
by.
"Why don't you end it?" he breathed. "Finish and be hanged to you!"
For answer I sent his sword flying over the nearest hillock of sand. "Am
I Kirby?" I said. He fell back against the heaped-up sand and leaned
there, panting, with his hand to his side. "Kirby or devil," he replied.
"Have it your own way."
I turned to the now highly excited rabble. "Shove the boats off, half a
dozen of you!" I ordered. "Some of you others take up that carrion there
and throw it into the sea. The gold upon it is for your pains. You there
with the wounded shoulder you have no great hurt. I'll salve it with ten
pieces of eight from the captain's own share, the next prize we take."
A shout of acclamation arose that scared the sea fowl. They who so short
a time before had been ready to tear me limb from limb now with the
greatest apparent delight hailed me as captain. How soon they might
revert to their former mood was a question that I found not worth while
to propound to myself.
By this the man in black and silver had recovered his breath and his
equanimity. "Have you no commission with which to honor me, noble
captain?" he asked in gently reproachful tones. "Have you forgot how
often you were wont to employ me in those sweet days when your eyes were
black?"
"By no means, Master Paradise," I said courteously. "I desire your
company and that of the gentleman from Lima. You will go with me to
bring up the rest of my party. The three gentlemen of the broken head,
the bushy ruff, which I protest is vastly becoming, and the wounded
shoulder will escort us."
"The rest of your party?" said Paradise softly.
"Ay," I answered nonchalantly. "They are down the beach and around the
point warming themselves by a fire which this piled-up sand hides from
you. Despite the sunshine it is a biting air. Let us be going! This
island wearies me, and I am anxious to be on board ship and away."
"So small an escort scarce befits so great a captain," he said. "We will
all attend you." One and all started forward.
I called to mind and gave utterance to all the oaths I had heard in the
wars. "I entertain you for my subordinate whom I command, and not who
commands me!" I cried, when my memory failed me. "As for you, you dogs,
who would question your captain and his doings, stay where you are, if
you would not be lessoned in earnest!"
Sheer audacity is at times the surest steed a man can bestride. Now at
least it did me good service. With oaths and grunts of admiration the
pirates stayed where they were, and went about their business of
launching the boats and stripping the body of Red Gil, while the man in
black and silver, the Spaniard, the two gravediggers, the knave with the
wounded shoulder, and myself walked briskly up the beach.
With these five at my heels I strode up to the dying fire and to those
who had sprung to their feet at our approach. "Sparrow," I said easily,
"luck being with us as usual, I have fallen in with a party of rovers. I
have told them who I am,--that Kirby, to wit, whom an injurious world
calls the blackest pirate unhanged,--and I have recounted to them how
the great galleon which I took some months ago went down yesterday with
all on board, you and I with these others being the sole survivors. By
dint of a little persuasion they have elected me their captain, and we
will go on board directly and set sail for the Indies, a hunting ground
which we never should have left. You need not look so blank; you shall
be my mate and right hand still." I turned to the five who formed my
escort. "This, gentlemen, is my mate, Jeremy Sparrow by name, who hath a
taste for divinity that in no wise interferes with his taste for a
galleon or a guarda costa. This man, Diccon Demon by name, was of my
crew. The gentleman without a sword is my prisoner, taken by me from the
last ship I sunk. How he, an Englishman, came to be upon a Spanish bark
I have not found leisure to inquire. The lady is my prisoner, also."
"Sure by rights she should be gaoler and hold all men's hearts in ward,"
said Paradise, with a low bow to my unfortunate captive.
While he spoke a most remarkable transformation was going on. The
minister's grave, rugged, and deeply lined face smoothed itself and shed
ten years at least; in the eyes that I had seen wet with noble tears a
laughing devil now lurked, while his strong mouth became a loose-lipped,
devil-may-care one. His head with its aureole of bushy, grizzled hair
set itself jauntily upon one side, and from it and from his face and his
whole great frame breathed a wicked jollity quite indescribable.
"Odsbodikins, captain!" he cried. "Kirby's luck!--'twill pass into a
saw! Adzooks! and so you're captain once more, and I'm mate once more,
and we've a ship once more, and we're off once more
To sail the Spanish Main,
And give the Spaniard pain,
Heave ho, bully boy, heave ho!
By 'r lakin! I'm too dry to sing. It will take all the wine of Xeres in
the next galleon to unparch my tongue!"
NOTES
=the grave=:--This refers to the latter part of chapter 21 of _To Have
and to Hold_; the hero, Ralph Percy, who has been shipwrecked with his
companions, discovers a group of pirates burying their dead captain.
=pezos and pieces of eight=:--_peso_ is the Spanish word for dollar;
_pieces of eight_ are dollars also, each dollar containing eight
_reals_.
=the man in black and silver=:--Paradise, an Englishman.
=frails=:--Baskets made of rushes.
=Kirby=:--A renowned pirate mentioned in chapter 21.
=Maracaibo=:--The city or the gulf of that name in Venezuela.
=galleasses=:--Heavy, low-built vessels having sails as well as oars.
=Lucayas=:--An old name for the Bahama Islands.
=de Leon=:--Ponce de Leon discovered Florida in 1513; he searched long
for a fountain which would restore youth.
=aqua vitæ=:--Latin for _water of life_.
=Summer Isles=:--Another name for the Bermuda Islands.
=Cartagena=:--A city in Spain.
=Lima=:--A city in Peru.
=Toledo=:--A "Toledo blade"--a sword of the very finest temper, made in
Toledo, Spain.
=the Low Countries=:--Holland and Belgium.
=señor=:--The Spanish word for _sir_.
=Weyanoke=:--The home of the hero, near Jamestown, Virginia.
=Sparrow=:--A minister, one of the hero's companions; see chapter 3 of
_To Have and to Hold_.
=guarda costa=:--Coast guard.
=Diccon=:--Ralph Percy's servant.
=the gentleman without a sword=:--Lord Carnal, an enemy of Percy.
=the lady=:--She is really Percy's wife.
=Odsbodikins=; =Adzooks=:--Oaths much used two centuries ago.
=By 'r lakin=:--By our ladykin (little lady); an oath by the Virgin
Mary.
=Xeres=:--The Spanish town after which sherry wine is named.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
This selection is easily understood. Ralph Percy, his wife, and several
others (see notes) are cast on a desert shore after the sinking of their
boat. Percy leaves his companions for a time and falls among pirates; he
pretends to be a "sea-rover" himself. Why does he allude to the pirate
ship as a "cockboat"? Why are the pirates impressed by his remarks? Why
does Percy emphasize the riches of the sunken ship? Is what he says
true? (See chapter 19 of _To Have and to Hold_.) If not, is he
justified in telling a falsehood? Is he really Kirby? Is he fortunate in
his assertion that he is? How does he explain his lack of resemblance to
Kirby? What kind of person is the hero? Why does he wish to become the
leader of the pirates? Is it possible that the pirate crew should change
their attitude so suddenly? Is it a good plan in a story to make a hero
tell of his own successes? Characterize the man in black and silver. How
does the author make us feel the action and peril of the struggle? How
does she make us feel the long duration of the fight with Paradise? Do
you like the hero's behavior with the defeated pirates? Why is he so
careful to repeat to the minister what he has told the pirates? Why does
the minister appear to change his character?
Can you make this piece into a little play?
THEME SUBJECTS
The Real Pirates
Spanish Gold
A Fight for Life
A Famous Duel
Buried Treasure
Playing Pirates
Sea Stories that I Like
Captain Kidd
Ponce de Leon
The Search for Gold
Story-book Heroes
Along the Sea Shore
A Barren Island
The Rivals
Land Pirates
The Pirates in _Peter Pan_
A Struggle for Leadership
Our High School Play
SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING
Try to make a fragment of a play out of this selection. In this process,
all the class may work together under the direction of the teacher, or
each pupil may make his own attempt to dramatize the piece.
In writing the drama, tell first what the setting is. In doing so, you
had better look up some modern play and see how the setting is explained
to the reader or the actors. Now show the pirates at work, and give a
few lines of their conversation; then have the hero come upon the scene.
Indicate the speech of each person, and put in all necessary stage
directions. Perhaps you will want to add more dialogue than there is
here. Some of the onlookers may have something to say. Perhaps you will
wish to leave something out. It might be well, while the fighting is
going on, to bring in remarks from the combatants and the other pirates.
You might look up the duel scene in _Hamlet_ for this point. You can end
your play with the departure of the group; or you can write a second
scene, in which the hero's companions appear, including the lady.
Considerable dialogue could be invented here, and a new episode added--a
quarrel, a plan for organization, or a merry-making.
When your play is finished, you may possibly wish to have it acted
before the class. A few turbans, sashes, and weapons will be sufficient
to give an air of piracy to the group of players. Some grim black
mustaches would complete the effect.
=A Pirate Story=:--Tell an old-fashioned "yarn" of adventure, in which a
modest hero relates his own experiences. Give your imagination a good
deal of liberty. Do not waste much time in getting started, but plunge
very soon into the actual story. Let your hero tell how he fell among
the pirates. Then go on with the conversation that ensued--the threats,
the boasting, and the bravado. Make the hero report his struggles, or
the tricks that he resorted to in order to outwit the sea-rovers.
Perhaps he failed at first and got into still greater dangers. Follow
out his adventures to the moment of his escape. Make your descriptions
short and vivid; put in as much direct conversation as possible; keep
the action brisk and spirited. Try to write a lively tale that would
interest a group of younger boys.
COLLATERAL READINGS
To Have and to Hold Mary Johnston
Prisoners of Hope " "
The Long Roll " "
Cease Firing " "
Audrey " "
The Virginians W.M. Thackeray
White Aprons Maude Wilder Goodwin
The Gold Bug Edgar Allan Poe
Treasure Island R.L. Stevenson
Kidnapped " "
Ebb Tide " "
Buccaneers and Pirates of our Coast Frank R. Stockton
Kate Bonnett " "
Drake Julian Corbett
Drake and his Yeomen James Barnes
Drake, the Sea-king of Devon G.M. Towle
Raleigh " "
Red Rover J.F. Cooper
The Pirate Walter Scott
Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
Two Years before the Mast R.H. Dana
Tales of a Traveller (Part IV) Washington Irving
Nonsense Novels (chapter 8) Stephen Leacock
The Duel (in _The Master of Ballantrae_,
chapter 4) R.L. Stevenson
The Lost Galleon (poem) Bret Harte
Stolen Treasure Howard Pyle
Jack Ballister's Fortunes " "
Buried Treasure R.B. Paine
The Last Buccaneer (poem) Charles Kingsley
The Book of the Ocean Ernest Ingersoll
Ocean Life in the Old Sailing-Ship Days J.D. Whidden
For Portraits of Miss Johnston, see Bookman, 20:402; 28:193.
THE GRASSHOPPER
EDITH M. THOMAS
Shuttle of the sunburnt grass,
Fifer in the dun cuirass,
Fifing shrilly in the morn,
Shrilly still at eve unworn;
Now to rear, now in the van,
Gayest of the elfin clan:
Though I watch their rustling flight,
I can never guess aright
Where their lodging-places are;
'Mid some daisy's golden star,
Or beneath a roofing leaf,
Or in fringes of a sheaf,
Tenanted as soon as bound!
Loud thy reveille doth sound,
When the earth is laid asleep,
And her dreams are passing deep,
On mid-August afternoons;
And through all the harvest moons,
Nights brimmed up with honeyed peace,
Thy gainsaying doth not cease.
When the frost comes, thou art dead;
We along the stubble tread,
On blue, frozen morns, and note
No least murmur is afloat:
Wondrous still our fields are then,
Fifer of the elfin men!
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
Why is the grasshopper called a "shuttle"? What does the word _still_
mean here? Who are the "elfin clan"? By whom is the sheaf tenanted? What
is a _reveille_? Does the grasshopper chirp at night? Why is its cry
called "gainsaying"?
See how simple the meter (measure) is in this little poem. Ask your
teacher to explain how it is represented by these characters:
-u-u-u-
-u-u-u-
[Transcriber's note: The u's represent breve marks in the text]
Note which signs indicate the accented syllables. See whether or not the
accent comes at the end of the line. The rhyme-scheme is called a
_couplet_, because of the way in which two lines are linked together.
This kind of rhyme is represented by _aa_, _bb_, _cc_, etc.
EXERCISES
Find some other poem that has the same meter and rhyme that this one
has. Try to write a short poem of five or six couplets, using this meter
and rhyme. You do not need to choose a highly poetic subject: Try
something very simple.
Perhaps you can "get a start" from one of the lines given below:--
1. Glowing, darting dragon-fly.
2. Voyager on dusty wings (A Moth).
3. Buzzing through the fragrant air (A Bee).
4. Trembling lurker in the gloom (A Mouse).
5. Gay red-throated epicure (A humming-bird).
6. Stealthy vagrant of the night (An Owl).
7. Flashing through your crystal room (A Gold-fish).
8. Fairyland is all awake.
9. Once when all the woods were green.
10. In the forest is a pool.
COLLATERAL READINGS
On the Grasshopper and Cricket John Keats
To the Grasshopper and the Cricket Leigh Hunt
Little Brother of the Ground Edwin Markham
The Humble Bee R.W. Emerson
The Cricket Percy Mackaye
The Katydid " "
A Glow Worm (in _Little Folk Lyrics_) F.D. Sherman
Bees " " " " " "
MOLY
EDITH M. THOMAS
The root is hard to loose
From hold of earth by mortals, but Gods' power
Can all things do. 'Tis black, but bears a flower
As white as milk. (Chapman's Homer.)
Traveller, pluck a stem of moly,
If thou touch at Circe's isle,--
Hermes' moly, growing solely
To undo enchanter's wile.
When she proffers thee her chalice,--
Wine and spices mixed with malice,--
When she smites thee with her staff
To transform thee, do thou laugh!
Safe thou art if thou but bear
The least leaf of moly rare.
Close it grows beside her portal,
Springing from a stock immortal,--
Yes, and often has the Witch
Sought to tear it from its niche;
But to thwart her cruel will
The wise God renews it still.
Though it grows in soil perverse,
Heaven hath been its jealous nurse,
And a flower of snowy mark
Springs from root and sheathing dark;
Kingly safeguard, only herb
That can brutish passion curb!
Some do think its name should be
Shield-heart, White Integrity.
Traveller, pluck a stem of moly,
If thou touch at Circe's isle,--
Hermes' moly, growing solely
To undo enchanter's wile!
NOTES
=Chapman's Homer=:--George Chapman (1559?-1634) was an English poet. He
translated Homer from the Greek into English verse.
=moly=:--An herb with a black root and a white flower, which Hermes gave
to Odysseus in order to help him withstand the spell of the witch Circe.
=Circe=:--A witch who charmed her victims with a drink that she prepared
for them, and then changed them into the animals they in character most
resembled.
=Hermes=:--The messenger of the other Greek gods; he was crafty and
eloquent.
=The wise God=:--Hermes, or Mercury.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
Before you try to study this poem carefully, find out something of the
story of Ulysses and Circe: when you have this information, the poem
will become clear. Notice how the author applies the old Greek tale to
the experiences of everyday life. This would be a good poem to memorize.
COLLATERAL READINGS
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer John Keats
The Strayed Reveller Matthew Arnold
The Wine of Circe Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Tanglewood Tales (Circe's Palace) Nathaniel Hawthorne
Greek Story and Song, pp. 214-225 A.J. Church
The Odyssey, pp. 151-164 (School Ed.) G.H. Palmer (Trans.)
Classic Myths, chapter 24 C.M. Gayley
The Age of Fable, p. 295 Thomas Bulfinch
The Prayer of the Swine to Circe Austin Dobson
PICTURES
The Wine of Circe Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Circe and the Companions of Ulysses Briton Rivière
THE PROMISED LAND
MARY ANTIN
(From Chapter IX of _The Promised Land_)
During his three years of probation, my father had made a number of
false starts in business. His history for that period is the history of
thousands who come to America, like him, with pockets empty, hands
untrained to the use of tools, minds cramped by centuries of repression
in their native land. Dozens of these men pass under your eyes every
day, my American friend, too absorbed in their honest affairs to notice
the looks of suspicion which you cast at them, the repugnance with which
you shrink from their touch. You see them shuffle from door to door with
a basket of spools and buttons, or bending over the sizzling irons in a
basement tailor shop, or rummaging in your ash can, or moving a pushcart
from curb to curb, at the command of the burly policeman. "The Jew
peddler!" you say, and dismiss him from your premises and from your
thoughts, never dreaming that the sordid drama of his days may have a
moral that concerns you. What if the creature with the untidy beard
carries in his bosom his citizenship papers? What if the cross-legged
tailor is supporting a boy in college who is one day going to mend your
state constitution for you? What if the ragpicker's daughters are
hastening over the ocean to teach your children in the public schools?
Think, every time you pass the greasy alien on the street, that he was
born thousands of years before the oldest native American; and he may
have something to communicate to you, when you two shall have learned a
common language. Remember that his very physiognomy is a cipher the key
to which it behooves you to search for most diligently.
* * * * *
By the time we joined my father, he had surveyed many avenues of
approach toward the coveted citadel of fortune. One of these, heretofore
untried, he now proposed to essay, armed with new courage, and cheered
on by the presence of his family. In partnership with an energetic
little man who had an English chapter in his history, he prepared to set
up a refreshment booth on Crescent Beach. But while he was completing
arrangements at the beach, we remained in town, where we enjoyed the
educational advantages of a thickly populated neighborhood; namely, Wall
Street, in the West End of Boston.
Anybody who knows Boston knows that the West and North Ends are the
wrong ends of that city. They form the tenement district, or, in the
newer phrase, the slums of Boston. Anybody who is acquainted with the
slums of any American metropolis knows that that is the quarter where
poor immigrants foregather, to live, for the most part, as unkempt,
half-washed, toiling, unaspiring foreigners; pitiful in the eyes of
social missionaries, the despair of boards of health, the hope of ward
politicians, the touchstone of American democracy. The well-versed
metropolitan knows the slums as a sort of house of detention for poor
aliens, where they live on probation till they can show a certificate of
good citizenship.
He may know all this and yet not guess how Wall Street, in the West End,
appears in the eyes of a little immigrant from Polotzk. What would the
sophisticated sight-seer say about Union Place, off Wall Street, where
my new home waited for me? He would say that it is no place at all, but
a short box of an alley. Two rows of three-story tenements are its
sides, a stingy strip of sky is its lid, a littered pavement is the
floor, and a narrow mouth its exit.
But I saw a very different picture on my introduction to Union Place. I
saw two imposing rows of brick buildings, loftier than any dwelling I
had ever lived in. Brick was even on the ground for me to tread on,
instead of common earth or boards. Many friendly windows stood open,
filled with uncovered heads of women and children. I thought the people
were interested in us, which was very neighborly. I looked up to the
topmost row of windows, and my eyes were filled with the May blue of an
American sky!
In our days of affluence in Russia we had been accustomed to upholstered
parlors, embroidered linen, silver spoons and candlesticks, goblets of
gold, kitchen shelves shining with copper and brass. We had feather-beds
heaped halfway to the ceiling; we had clothes presses dusky with velvet
and silk and fine woolen. The three small rooms into which my father now
ushered us, up one flight of stairs, contained only the necessary beds,
with lean mattresses; a few wooden chairs; a table or two; a mysterious
iron structure, which later turned out to be a stove; a couple of
unornamental kerosene lamps; and a scanty array of cooking-utensils and
crockery. And yet we were all impressed with our new home and its
furniture. It was not only because we had just passed through our seven
lean years, cooking in earthern vessels, eating black bread on holidays
and wearing cotton; it was chiefly because these wooden chairs and tin
pans were American chairs and pans that they shone glorious in our
eyes. And if there was anything lacking for comfort or decoration we
expected it to be presently supplied--at least, we children did. Perhaps
my mother alone, of us newcomers, appreciated the shabbiness of the
little apartment, and realized that for her there was as yet no laying
down of the burden of poverty.
Our initiation into American ways began with the first step on the new
soil. My father found occasion to instruct or correct us even on the way
from the pier to Wall Street, which journey we made crowded together in
a rickety cab. He told us not to lean out of the windows, not to point,
and explained the word "greenhorn." We did not want to be "greenhorns,"
and gave the strictest attention to my father's instructions. I do not
know when my parents found opportunity to review together the history of
Polotzk in the three years past, for we children had no patience with
the subject; my mother's narrative was constantly interrupted by
irrelevant questions, interjections, and explanations.
The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father produced
several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little
tin cans that had printing all over them. He attempted to introduce us
to a queer, slippery kind of fruit, which he called "banana," but had to
give it up for the time being. After the meal, he had better luck with a
curious piece of furniture on runners, which he called "rocking-chair."
There were five of us newcomers, and we found five different ways of
getting into the American machine of perpetual motion, and as many ways
of getting out of it. One born and bred to the use of a rocking-chair
cannot imagine how ludicrous people can make themselves when attempting
to use it for the first time. We laughed immoderately over our various
experiments with the novelty, which was a wholesome way of letting off
steam after the unusual excitement of the day.
In our flat we did not think of such a thing as storing the coal in the
bathtub. There was no bathtub. So in the evening of the first day my
father conducted us to the public baths. As we moved along in a little
procession, I was delighted with the illumination of the streets. So
many lamps, and they burned until morning, my father said, and so people
did not need to carry lanterns. In America, then, everything was free,
as we had heard in Russia. Light was free; the streets were as bright as
a synagogue on a holy day. Music was free; we had been serenaded, to our
gaping delight, by a brass band of many pieces, soon after our
installation on Union Place.
Education was free. That subject my father had written about repeatedly,
as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence of American
opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, not even misfortune
or poverty. It was the one thing that he was able to promise us when he
sent for us; surer, safer than bread or shelter. On our second day I was
thrilled with the realization of what this freedom of education meant. A
little girl from across the alley came and offered to conduct us to
school. My father was out, but we five between us had a few words of
English by this time. We knew the word school. We understood. This
child, who had never seen us till yesterday, who could not pronounce our
names, who was not much better dressed than we, was able to offer us the
freedom of the schools of Boston! No application made, no questions
asked, no examinations, rulings, exclusions; no machinations, no fees.
The doors stood open for every one of us. The smallest child could show
us the way.
This incident impressed me more than anything I had heard in advance of
the freedom of education in America. It was a concrete proof--almost the
thing itself. One had to experience it to understand it.
It was a great disappointment to be told by my father that we were not
to enter upon our school career at once. It was too near the end of the
term, he said, and we were going to move to Crescent Beach in a week or
so. We had to wait until the opening of the schools in September. What a
loss of precious time--from May till September!
Not that the time was really lost. Even the interval on Union Place was
crowded with lessons and experiences. We had to visit the stores and be
dressed from head to foot in American clothing; we had to learn the
mysteries of the iron stove, the washboard, and the speaking-tube; we
had to learn to trade with the fruit peddler through the window, and not
to be afraid of the policeman; and, above all, we had to learn English.
The kind people who assisted us in these important matters form a group
by themselves in the gallery of my friends. If I had never seen them
from those early days till now, I should still have remembered them with
gratitude. When I enumerate the long list of American teachers, I must
begin with those who came to us on Wall Street and taught us our first
steps. To my mother, in her perplexity over the cookstove, the woman who
showed her how to make the fire was an angel of deliverance. A fairy
godmother to us children was she who led us to a wonderful country
called "uptown," where in a dazzlingly beautiful palace called a
"department store," we exchanged our hateful homemade European costumes,
which pointed us out as "greenhorns" to the children on the street, for
real American machine-made garments, and issued forth glorified in each
other's eyes.
With our despised immigrant clothing we shed also our impossible Hebrew
names. A committee of our friends, several years ahead of us in American
experience, put their heads together and concocted American names for us
all. Those of our real names that had no pleasing American equivalents
they ruthlessly discarded, content if they retained the initials. My
mother, possessing a name that was not easily translatable, was punished
with the undignified nickname of Annie. Fetchke, Joseph, and Deborah
issued as Frieda, Joseph, and Dora, respectively. As for poor me, I was
simply cheated. The name they gave me was hardly new. My Hebrew name
being Maryashe in full, Mashke for short, Russianized into Marya
(_Mar-ya_) my friends said that it would hold good in English as _Mary_;
which was very disappointing, as I longed to possess a strange-sounding
American name like the others.
I am forgetting the consolation I had, in this matter of names, from the
use of my surname, which I have had no occasion to mention until now. I
found on my arrival that my father was "Mr. Antin" on the slightest
provocation, and not, as in Polotzk, on state occasions alone. And so I
was "Mary Antin," and I felt very important to answer to such a
dignified title. It was just like America that even plain people should
wear their surnames on week days.
As a family we were so diligent under instruction, so adaptable, and so
clever in hiding our deficiencies, that when we made the journey to
Crescent Beach, in the wake of our small wagon-load of household goods,
my father had very little occasion to admonish us on the way, and I am
sure he was not ashamed of us. So much we had achieved toward our
Americanization during the two weeks since our landing.
Crescent Beach is a name that is printed in very small type on the maps
of the environs of Boston, but a life-size strip of sand curves from
Winthrop to Lynn; and that is historic ground in the annals of my
family. The place is now a popular resort for holiday crowds, and is
famous under the name of Revere Beach. When the reunited Antins made
their stand there, however, there were no boulevards, no stately
bath-houses, no hotels, no gaudy amusement places, no illuminations, no
showmen, no tawdry rabble. There was only the bright clean sweep of
sand, the summer sea, and the summer sky. At high tide the whole
Atlantic rushed in, tossing the seaweeds in his mane; at low tide he
rushed out, growling and gnashing his granite teeth. Between tides a
baby might play on the beach, digging with pebbles and shells, till it
lay asleep on the sand. The whole sun shone by day, troops of stars by
night, and the great moon in its season.
Into this grand cycle of the seaside day I came to live and learn and
play. A few people came with me, as I have already intimated; but the
main thing was that _I_ came to live on the edge of the sea--I, who had
spent my life inland, believing that the great waters of the world were
spread out before me in the Dvina. My idea of the human world had grown
enormously during the long journey; my idea of the earth had expanded
with every day at sea, my idea of the world outside the earth now budded
and swelled during my prolonged experience of the wide and unobstructed
heavens.
Not that I got any inkling of the conception of a multiple world. I had
had no lessons in cosmogony, and I had no spontaneous revelation of the
true position of the earth in the universe. For me, as for my fathers,
the sun set and rose, and I did not feel the earth rushing through
space. But I lay stretched out in the sun, my eyes level with the sea,
till I seemed to be absorbed bodily by the very materials of the world
around me; till I could not feel my hand as separate from the warm sand
in which it was buried. Or I crouched on the beach at full moon,
wondering, wondering, between the two splendors of the sky and the sea.
Or I ran out to meet the incoming storm, my face full in the wind, my
being a-tingle with an awesome delight to the tips of my fog-matted
locks flying behind; and stood clinging to some stake or upturned boat,
shaken by the roar and rumble of the waves. So clinging, I pretended
that I was in danger, and was deliciously frightened; I held on with
both hands, and shook my head, exulting in the tumult around me, equally
ready to laugh or sob. Or else I sat, on the stillest days, with my back
to the sea, not looking at all, but just listening to the rustle of the
waves on the sand; not thinking at all, but just breathing with the sea.
Thus courting the influence of sea and sky and variable weather, I was
bound to have dreams, hints, imaginings. It was no more than this,
perhaps: that the world as I knew it was not large enough to contain
all that I saw and felt; that the thoughts that flashed through my
mind, not half understood, unrelated to my utterable thoughts, concerned
something for which I had as yet no name. Every imaginative growing
child has these flashes of intuition, especially one that becomes
intimate with some one aspect of nature. With me it was the growing
time, that idle summer by the sea, and I grew all the faster because I
had been so cramped before. My mind, too, had so recently been worked
upon by the impressive experience of a change of country that I was more
than commonly alive to impressions, which are the seeds of ideas.
Let no one suppose that I spent my time entirely, or even chiefly, in
inspired solitude. By far the best part of my day was spent in
play--frank, hearty, boisterous play, such as comes natural to American
children. In Polotzk I had already begun to be considered too old for
play, excepting set games or organized frolics. Here I found myself
included with children who still played, and I willingly returned to
childhood. There were plenty of playfellows. My father's energetic
little partner had a little wife and a large family. He kept them in the
little cottage next to ours; and that the shanty survived the tumultuous
presence of that brood is a wonder to me to-day. The young Wilners
included an assortment of boys, girls, and twins, of every possible
variety of age, size, disposition, and sex. They swarmed in and out of
the cottage all day long, wearing the door-sill hollow, and trampling
the ground to powder. They swung out of windows like monkeys, slid up
the roof like flies, and shot out of trees like fowls. Even a small
person like me couldn't go anywhere without being run over by a Wilner;
and I could never tell which Wilner it was because none of them ever
stood still long enough to be identified; and also because I suspected
that they were in the habit of interchanging conspicuous articles of
clothing, which was very confusing.
You would suppose that the little mother must have been utterly lost,
bewildered, trodden down in this horde of urchins; but you are mistaken.
Mrs. Wilner was a positively majestic little person. She ruled her brood
with the utmost coolness and strictness. She had even the biggest boy
under her thumb, frequently under her palm. If they enjoyed the wildest
freedom outdoors, indoors the young Wilners lived by the clock. And so
at five o'clock in the evening, on seven days in the week, my father's
partner's children could be seen in two long rows around the supper
table. You could tell them apart on this occasion, because they all had
their faces washed. And this is the time to count them: there are twelve
little Wilners at table.
I managed to retain my identity in this multitude somehow, and while I
was very much impressed with their numbers, I even dared to pick and
choose my friends among the Wilners. One or two of the smaller boys I
liked best of all, for a game of hide-and-seek or a frolic on the beach.
We played in the water like ducks, never taking the trouble to get dry.
One day I waded out with one of the boys, to see which of us dared go
farthest. The tide was extremely low, and we had not wet our knees when
we began to look back to see if familiar objects were still in sight. I
thought we had been wading for hours, and still the water was so shallow
and quiet. My companion was marching straight ahead, so I did the same.
Suddenly a swell lifted us almost off our feet, and we clutched at each
other simultaneously. There was a lesser swell, and little waves began
to run, and a sigh went up from the sea. The tide was turning--perhaps a
storm was on the way--and we were miles, dreadful miles from dry land.
Boy and girl turned without a word, four determined bare legs ploughing
through the water, four scared eyes straining toward the land. Through
an eternity of toil and fear they kept dumbly on, death at their heels,
pride still in their hearts. At last they reach high-water mark--six
hours before full tide.
Each has seen the other afraid, and each rejoices in the knowledge. But
only the boy is sure of his tongue.
"You was scared, warn't you?" he taunts.
The girl understands so much, and is able to reply:
"You can schwimmen, I not."
"Betcher life I can schwimmen," the other mocks.
And the girl walks off, angry and hurt.
"An' I can walk on my hands," the tormentor calls after her. "Say, you
greenhorn, why don'tcher look?"
The girl keeps straight on, vowing that she would never walk with that
rude boy again, neither by land nor sea, not even though the waters
should part at his bidding.
I am forgetting the more serious business which had brought us to
Crescent Beach. While we children disported ourselves like mermaids and
mermen in the surf, our respective fathers dispensed cold lemonade, hot
peanuts, and pink popcorn, and piled up our respective fortunes, nickel
by nickel, penny by penny. I was very proud of my connection with the
public life of the beach. I admired greatly our shining soda fountain,
the rows of sparkling glasses, the pyramids of oranges, the sausage
chains, the neat white counter, and the bright array of tin spoons. It
seemed to me that none of the other refreshment stands on the
beach--there were a few--were half so attractive as ours. I thought my
father looked very well in a long white apron and shirt sleeves. He
dished out ice cream with enthusiasm, so I supposed he was getting rich.
It never occurred to me to compare his present occupation with the
position for which he had been originally destined; or if I thought
about it, I was just as well content, for by this time I had by heart my
father's saying, "America is not Polotzk." All occupations were
respectable, all men were equal, in America.
If I admired the soda fountain and the sausage chains, I almost
worshipped the partner, Mr. Wilner. I was content to stand for an hour
at a time watching him make potato chips. In his cook's cap and apron,
with a ladle in his hand and a smile on his face, he moved about with
the greatest agility, whisking his raw materials out of nowhere, dipping
into his bubbling kettle with a flourish, and bringing forth the
finished product with a caper. Such potato chips were not to be had
anywhere else on Crescent Beach. Thin as tissue paper, crisp as dry
snow, and salt as the sea--such thirst-producing, lemonade-selling,
nickel-bringing potato chips only Mr. Wilner could make. On holidays,
when dozens of family parties came out by every train from town, he
could hardly keep up with the demand for his potato chips. And with a
waiting crowd around him our partner was at his best. He was as voluble
as he was skilful, and as witty as he was voluble; at least so I guessed
from the laughter that frequently drowned his voice. I could not
understand his jokes, but if I could get near enough to watch his lips
and his smile and his merry eyes, I was happy. That any one could talk
so fast, and in English, was marvel enough, but that this prodigy should
belong to _our_ establishment was a fact to thrill me. I had never seen
anything like Mr. Wilner, except a wedding jester; but then he spoke
common Yiddish. So proud was I of the talent and good taste displayed at
our stand that if my father beckoned to me in the crowd and sent me on
an errand, I hoped the people noticed that I, too, was connected with
the establishment.
And all this splendor and glory and distinction came to a sudden end.
There was some trouble about a license--some fee or fine--there was a
storm in the night that damaged the soda fountain and other
fixtures--there was talk and consultation between the houses of Antin
and Wilner--and the promising partnership was dissolved. No more would
the merry partner gather the crowd on the beach; no more would the
twelve young Wilners gambol like mermen and mermaids in the surf. And
the less numerous tribe of Antin must also say farewell to the jolly
seaside life; for men in such humble business as my father's carry their
families, along with their other earthly goods, wherever they go, after
the manner of the gypsies. We had driven a feeble stake into the sand.
The jealous Atlantic, in conspiracy with the Sunday law, had torn it
out. We must seek our luck elsewhere.
In Polotzk we had supposed that "America" was practically synonymous
with "Boston." When we landed in Boston, the horizon was pushed back,
and we annexed Crescent Beach. And now, espying other lands of promise,
we took possession of the province of Chelsea, in the name of our
necessity.
In Chelsea, as in Boston, we made our stand in the wrong end of the
town. Arlington Street was inhabited by poor Jews, poor Negroes, and a
sprinkling of poor Irish. The side streets leading from it were occupied
by more poor Jews and Negroes. It was a proper locality for a man
without capital to do business. My father rented a tenement with a store
in the basement. He put in a few barrels of flour and of sugar, a few
boxes of crackers, a few gallons of kerosene, an assortment of soap of
the "save the coupon" brands; in the cellar a few barrels of potatoes,
and a pyramid of kindling-wood; in the showcase, an alluring display of
penny candy. He put out his sign, with a gilt-lettered warning of
"Strictly Cash," and proceeded to give credit indiscriminately. That was
the regular way to do business on Arlington Street. My father, in his
three years' apprenticeship, had learned the tricks of many trades. He
knew when and how to "bluff." The legend of "Strictly Cash" was a
protection against notoriously irresponsible customers; while none of
the "good" customers, who had a record for paying regularly on Saturday,
hesitated to enter the store with empty purses.
If my father knew the tricks of the trade, my mother could be counted on
to throw all her talent and tact into the business. Of course she had no
English yet, but as she could perform the acts of weighing, measuring,
and mental computation of fractions mechanically, she was able to give
her whole attention to the dark mysteries of the language, as
intercourse with her customers gave her opportunity. In this she made
such rapid progress that she soon lost all sense of disadvantage, and
conducted herself behind the counter very much as if she were back in
her old store in Polotzk. It was far more cozy than Polotzk--at least,
so it seemed to me; for behind the store was the kitchen, where, in the
intervals of slack trade, she did her cooking and washing. Arlington
Street customers were used to waiting while the storekeeper salted the
soup or rescued a loaf from the oven.
Once more Fortune favored my family with a thin little smile, and my
father, in reply to a friendly inquiry, would say, "One makes a living,"
with a shrug of the shoulders that added "but nothing to boast of." It
was characteristic of my attitude toward bread-and-butter matters that
this contented me, and I felt free to devote myself to the conquest of
my new world. Looking back to those critical first years, I see myself
always behaving like a child let loose in a garden to play and dig and
chase the butterflies. Occasionally, indeed, I was stung by the wasp of
family trouble; but I knew a healing ointment--my faith in America. My
father had come to America to make a living. America, which was free and
fair and kind, must presently yield him what he sought. I had come to
America to see a new world, and I followed my own ends with the utmost
assiduity; only, as I ran out to explore, I would look back to see if my
house were in order behind me--if my family still kept its head above
water.
In after years, when I passed as an American among Americans, if I was
suddenly made aware of the past that lay forgotten,--if a letter from
Russia, or a paragraph in the newspaper, or a conversation overheard in
the street-car, suddenly reminded me of what I might have been,--I
thought it miracle enough that I, Mashke, the granddaughter of Raphael
the Russian, born to a humble destiny, should be at home in an American
metropolis, be free to fashion my own life, and should dream my dreams
in English phrases. But in the beginning my admiration was spent on more
concrete embodiments of the splendors of America; such as fine houses,
gay shops, electric engines and apparatus, public buildings,
illuminations, and parades. My early letters to my Russian friends were
filled with boastful descriptions of these glories of my new country. No
native citizen of Chelsea took such pride and delight in its
institutions as I did. It required no fife and drum corps, no Fourth of
July procession, to set me tingling with patriotism. Even the common
agents and instruments of municipal life, such as the letter carrier and
the fire engines, I regarded with a measure of respect. I know what I
thought of people who said that Chelsea was a very small, dull,
unaspiring town, with no discernible excuse for a separate name or
existence.
The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the
bright September morning when I entered the public school. That day I
must always remember, even if I live to be so old that I cannot tell my
name. To most people their first day at school is a memorable occasion.
In my case the importance of the day was a hundred times magnified, on
account of the years I had waited, the road I had come, and the
conscious ambitions I entertained.
I am wearily aware that I am speaking in extreme figures, in
superlatives. I wish I knew some other way to render the mental life of
the immigrant child of reasoning age. I may have been ever so much an
exception in acuteness of observation, powers of comparison, and
abnormal self-consciousness; none the less were my thoughts and conduct
typical of the attitude of the intelligent immigrant child toward
American institutions. And what the child thinks and feels is a
reflection of the hopes, desires, purposes of the parent who brought him
overseas, no matter how precocious and independent the child may be.
Your immigrant inspectors will tell you what poverty the foreigner
brings in his baggage, what want in his pockets. Let the overgrown boy
of twelve, reverently drawing his letters in the baby class, testify to
the noble dreams and high ideals that may be hidden beneath the greasy
caftan of the immigrant. Speaking for the Jews, at least, I know I am
safe in inviting such an investigation.
Who were my companions on my first day at school? Whose hand was in
mine, as I stood, overcome with awe, by the teacher's desk, and
whispered my name as my father prompted? Was it Frieda's steady, capable
hand? Was it her loyal heart that throbbed, beat for beat with mine, as
it had done through all our childish adventures? Frieda's heart did
throb that day, but not with my emotions. My heart pulsed with joy and
pride and ambition; in her heart longing fought with abnegation. For I
was led to the schoolroom, with its sunshine and its singing and the
teacher's cheery smile; while she was led to the workshop, with its foul
air, care-lined faces, and the foreman's stern command. Our going to
school was the fulfilment of my father's best promises to us, and
Frieda's share in it was to fashion and fit the calico frocks in which
the baby sister and I made our first appearance in a public schoolroom.
I remember to this day the gray pattern of the calico, so affectionately
did I regard it as it hung upon the wall--my consecration robe awaiting
the beatific day. And Frieda, I am sure, remembers it, too, so
longingly did she regard it as the crisp, starchy breadths of it slid
between her fingers. But whatever were her longings, she said nothing of
them; she bent over the sewing-machine humming an Old-World melody. In
every straight, smooth seam, perhaps, she tucked away some lingering
impulse of childhood; but she matched the scrolls and flowers with the
utmost care. If a sudden shock of rebellion made her straighten up for
an instant, the next instant she was bending to adjust a ruffle to the
best advantage. And when the momentous day arrived, and the little
sister and I stood up to be arrayed, it was Frieda herself who patted
and smoothed my stiff new calico; who made me turn round and round, to
see that I was perfect; who stooped to pull out a disfiguring
basting-thread. If there was anything in her heart besides sisterly love
and pride and good-will, as we parted that morning, it was a sense of
loss and a woman's acquiescence in her fate; for we had been close
friends, and now our ways would lie apart. Longing she felt, but no
envy. She did not grudge me what she was denied. Until that morning we
had been children together, but now, at the fiat of her destiny she
became a woman, with all a woman's cares; whilst I, so little younger
than she, was bidden to dance at the May festival of untroubled
childhood.
I wish, for my comfort, that I could say that I had some notion of the
difference in our lots, some sense of the injustice to her, of the
indulgence to me. I wish I could even say that I gave serious thought to
the matter. There had always been a distinction between us rather out of
proportion to the difference in our years. Her good health and domestic
instincts had made it natural for her to become my mother's right hand,
in the years preceding the emigration, when there were no more servants
or dependents. Then there was the family tradition that Mary was the
quicker, the brighter of the two, and that hers could be no common lot.
Frieda was relied upon for help, and her sister for glory. And when I
failed as a milliner's apprentice, while Frieda made excellent progress
at the dressmaker's, our fates, indeed, were sealed. It was understood,
even before we reached Boston, that she would go to work and I to
school. In view of the family prejudices, it was the inevitable course.
No injustice was intended. My father sent us hand in hand to school,
before he had ever thought of America. If, in America, he had been able
to support his family unaided, it would have been the culmination of his
best hopes to see all his children at school, with equal advantages at
home. But when he had done his best, and was still unable to provide
even bread and shelter for us all, he was compelled to make us children
self-supporting as fast as it was practicable. There was no choosing
possible; Frieda was the oldest, the strongest, the best prepared, and
the only one who was of legal age to be put to work.
My father has nothing to answer for. He divided the world between his
children in accordance with the laws of the country and the compulsion
of his circumstances. I have no need of defending him. It is myself that
I would like to defend, and I cannot. I remember that I accepted the
arrangements made for my sister and me without much reflection, and
everything that was planned for my advantage I took as a matter of
course. I was no heartless monster, but a decidedly self-centered child.
If my sister had seemed unhappy it would have troubled me; but I am
ashamed to recall that I did not consider how little it was that
contented her. I was so preoccupied with my own happiness that I did not
half perceive the splendid devotion of her attitude towards me, the
sweetness of her joy in my good luck. She not only stood by approvingly
when I was helped to everything; she cheerfully waited on me herself.
And I took everything from her hand as if it were my due.
The two of us stood a moment in the doorway of the tenement house on
Arlington Street, that wonderful September morning when I first went to
school. It was I that ran away, on winged feet of joy and expectation;
it was she whose feet were bound in the tread-mill of daily toil. And I
was so blind that I did not see that the glory lay on her, and not on
me.
* * * * *
Father himself conducted us to school. He would not have delegated that
mission to the President of the United States. He had awaited the day
with impatience equal to mine, and the visions he saw as he hurried us
over the sun-flecked pavements transcended all my dreams. Almost his
first act on landing on American soil, three years before, had been his
application for naturalization. He had taken the remaining steps in the
process with eager promptness, and at the earliest moment allowed by the
law, he became a citizen of the United States. It is true that he had
left home in search of bread for his hungry family, but he went blessing
the necessity that drove him to America. The boasted freedom of the New
World meant to him far more than the right to reside, travel, and work
wherever he pleased; it meant the freedom to speak his thoughts, to
throw off the shackles of superstition, to test his own fate, unhindered
by political or religious tyranny. He was only a young man when he
landed--thirty-two; and most of his life he had been held in
leading-strings. He was hungry for his untasted manhood.
Three years passed in sordid struggle and disappointment. He was not
prepared to make a living even in America, where the day laborer eats
wheat instead of rye. Apparently the American flag could not protect him
against the pursuing Nemesis of his limitations; he must expiate the
sins of his fathers who slept across the seas. He had been endowed at
birth with a poor constitution, a nervous, restless temperament, and an
abundance of hindering prejudices. In his boyhood his body was starved,
that his mind might be stuffed with useless learning. In his youth this
dearly gotten learning was sold, and the price was the bread and salt
which he had not been trained to earn for himself. Under the wedding
canopy he was bound for life to a girl whose features were still strange
to him; and he was bidden to multiply himself, that sacred learning
might be perpetuated in his sons, to the glory of the God of his
fathers. All this while he had been led about as a creature without a
will, a chattel, an instrument. In his maturity he awoke, and found
himself poor in health, poor in purse, poor in useful knowledge, and
hampered on all sides. At the first nod of opportunity he broke away
from his prison, and strove to atone for his wasted youth by a life of
useful labor; while at the same time he sought to lighten the gloom of
his narrow scholarship by freely partaking of modern ideas. But his
utmost endeavor still left him far from his goal. In business nothing
prospered with him. Some fault of hand or mind or temperament led him to
failure where other men found success. Wherever the blame for his
disabilities be placed, he reaped their bitter fruit. "Give me bread!"
he cried to America. "What will you do to earn it?" the challenge came
back. And he found that he was master of no art, of no trade; that even
his precious learning was of no avail, because he had only the most
antiquated methods of communicating it.
So in his primary quest he had failed. There was left him the
compensation of intellectual freedom. That he sought to realize in every
possible way. He had very little opportunity to prosecute his education,
which, in truth, had never been begun. His struggle for a bare living
left him no time to take advantage of the public evening school; but he
lost nothing of what was to be learned through reading, through
attendance at public meetings, through exercising the rights of
citizenship. Even here he was hindered by a natural inability to acquire
the English language. In time, indeed, he learned to read, to follow a
conversation or lecture; but he never learned to write correctly, and
his pronunciation remains extremely foreign to this day.
If education, culture, the higher life were shining things to be
worshipped from afar, he had still a means left whereby he could draw
one step nearer to them. He could send his children to school, to learn
all those things that he knew by fame to be desirable. The common
school, at least, perhaps high school; for one or two, perhaps even
college! His children should be students, should fill his house with
books and intellectual company; and thus he would walk by proxy in the
Elysian Fields of liberal learning. As for the children themselves, he
knew no surer way to their advancement and happiness.
So it was with a heart full of longing and hope that my father led us
to school on that first day. He took long strides in his eagerness, the
rest of us running and hopping to keep up.
At last the four of us stood around the teacher's desk; and my father,
in his impossible English, gave us over in her charge, with some broken
word of his hopes for us that his swelling heart could no longer
contain. I venture to say that Miss Nixon was struck by something
uncommon in the group we made, something outside of Semitic features and
the abashed manner of the alien. My little sister was as pretty as a
doll, with her clear pink-and-white face, short golden curls, and eyes
like blue violets when you caught them looking up. My brother might have
been a girl, too, with his cherubic contours of face, rich red color,
glossy black hair, and fine eyebrows. Whatever secret fears were in his
heart, remembering his former teachers, who had taught with the rod, he
stood up straight and uncringing before the American teacher, his cap
respectfully doffed. Next to him stood a starved-looking girl with eyes
ready to pop out, and short dark curls that would not have made much of
a wig for a Jewish bride.
All three children carried themselves rather better than the common run
of "green" pupils that were brought to Miss Nixon. But the figure that
challenged attention to the group was the tall, straight father, with
his earnest face and fine forehead, nervous hands eloquent in gesture,
and a voice full of feeling. This foreigner, who brought his children to
school as if it were an act of consecration, who regarded the teacher of
the primer class with reverence, who spoke of visions, like a man
inspired, in a common schoolroom, was not like other aliens, who
brought their children in dull obedience to the law; was not like the
native fathers, who brought their unmanageable boys, glad to be relieved
of their care. I think Miss Nixon guessed what my father's best English
could not convey. I think she divined that by the simple act of
delivering our school certificates to her he took possession of America.
NOTES
=The Promised Land=:--The land of freedom and peace which the Jews have
hoped to attain. See Exodus, 3:8; 6:8; Genesis, 12:5-7; Deuteronomy,
8:7-10; Hebrews, 11:9.
=his three years of probation=:--Mary Antin's father had spent three
years in America before sending back to Russia for his family.
=Polotzk=:--Pronounced P[=o]'lotsk; a town in Russia on the Dwina River.
=seven lean years=:--A reference to the famine in Egypt predicted by
Joseph, Pharaoh's Hebrew favorite. See Genesis, 40.
=Dvina=:--The Düna or Dwina River, in Russia.
=originally destined=:--Mr. Antin's parents had intended him to be a
scholar and teacher.
=Yiddish=:--From the German word _jüdisch_, meaning Jewish; a mixed
language made up of German, Hebrew, and Russian words. It is generally
spoken by Jews.
=Chelsea=:--A suburb of Boston.
=Nemesis=:--In Greek mythology, a goddess of vengeance or punishment for
sins and errors.
=the sins of his fathers=:--See Exodus, 20:5; Numbers, 14:18;
Deuteronomy, 5:9.
=Elysian fields=:--In Greek thought, the home of the happy dead.
=Semitic=:--Jewish; from the name of Shem, the son of Noah.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
This selection gives the experience of a Jewish girl who came from
Polotzk, Russia, to Boston. Read rather slowly, with the help of these
questions: What is meant by "centuries of repression"? Is there no such
repression in America? How is it true that the Jew peddler "was born
thousands of years before the oldest native American"? What are the
educational advantages of a thickly populated neighborhood? What is your
idea of the slums? Why did the children expect every comfort to be
supplied? How much is really free in America? Is education free? How
does one secure an education in Russia? How are American machine-made
garments superior to those made by hand in Russia? Was it a good thing
to change the children's names? What effect does the sea have upon those
who live near it? What effect has a great change of environment on a
growing young person? What kind of person was Mrs. Wilner? What does Mr.
Antin mean when he says, "America is not Polotzk"? Are all men equal in
America? Read carefully the description of Mr. Wilner: How does the
author make it vivid and lively? Why was Mary Antin's first day in
school so important to her? Was it fair that Frieda should not go to
school? Should an older child be sacrificed for a younger? Should a slow
child always give way to a bright one? What do you think of the way in
which Mary accepted the situation when Frieda had to go to work? Read
carefully what Mary says about it. Is it easy to make a living in
America? Why did Mr. Antin not succeed in business? What is meant by
"the compensation of intellectual freedom"? What did Mr. Antin gain from
his life in America? What sort of man was he? In reading the selection,
what idea do you get of the Russian immigrant? Of what America means to
the poor foreigner?
THEME SUBJECTS
The Foreigners in our Town
The "Greenhorn"
The Immigrant Family
The Peddler
Ellis Island
What America Means to the Foreigner
The Statue of Liberty
A Russian Woman
The New Girl at School
The Basement Store
A Large Family
Learning to Speak a New Language
What the Public School can Do
A Russian Brass Shop
The Factory Girl
My Childish Sports
The Refreshment Stand
On the Sea Shore
The Popcorn Man
A Home in the Tenements
Earning a Living
More about Mary Antin[9]
How Children Amuse Themselves
A Fragment of My Autobiography
An Autobiography that I Have Read
SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING
=The Immigrant Family=:--Have you ever seen a family that have just
arrived in America from a foreign land? Tell where you saw them. How
many persons were there? What were they doing? Describe each person,
noting especially anything odd or picturesque in looks, dress, or
behavior. Were they carrying anything? What expressions did they have on
their faces? Did they seem pleased with their new surroundings? Was
anyone trying to help them? Could they speak English? If possible,
report a few fragments of their conversation. Did you have a chance to
find out what they thought of America? Do you know what has become of
them, and how they are getting along?
=A Fragment of my Autobiography=:--Did you, as a child, move into a
strange town, or make a visit in a place entirely new to you? Tell
rather briefly why you went and what preparations were made. Then give
an account of your arrival. What was the first thing that impressed you?
What did you do or say? What did the grown people say? Was there
anything unusual about the food, or the furniture, or the dress of the
people? Go on and relate your experiences, telling any incidents that
you remember. Try to make your reader share the bewilderment and
excitement you felt. Did anyone laugh at you, or make fun of you, or
hurt your feelings? Were you glad or sorry that you had come? Finish
your story by telling of your departure from the place, or of your
gradually getting used to your new surroundings.
Try to recall some other experiences of your childhood. Write them out
quite fully, giving space to your feelings as well as to the events.
COLLATERAL READINGS
The Promised Land Mary Antin
They Who Knock at Our Gates " "
The Lie " "
(Atlantic Monthly, August, 1913)
Children of the Tenements Jacob A. Riis
The Making of an American " " "
On the Trail of the Immigrant E.A. Steiner
Against the Current " " "
The Immigrant Tide " " "
The Man Farthest Down Booker T. Washington
Up from Slavery " " "
The Woman who Toils Marie and Mrs. John Van Vorst
The Long Day Anonymous
Old Homes of New Americans F.E. Clark
Autobiography S.S. McClure
Autobiography Theodore Roosevelt
A Buckeye Boyhood W.H. Venable
A Tuscan Childhood Lisa Cipriani
An Indian Boyhood Charles Eastman
When I Was Young Yoshio Markino
When I Was a Boy in Japan Sakae Shioya
The Story of my Childhood Clara Barton
The Story of my Boyhood and Youth John Muir
The Biography of a Prairie Girl Eleanor Gates
Autobiography of a Tomboy Jeanette Gilder
The One I Knew Best of All Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Story of my Life Helen Keller
The Story of a Child Pierre Loti
A New England Girlhood Lucy Larcom
Autobiography Joseph Jefferson
Dream Days Kenneth Grahame
The Golden Age " "
The Would-be-Goods E. Nesbit
In the Morning Glow Roy Rolfe Gilson
Chapters from a Life Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-Ward
Mary Antin: Outlook, 102:482, November 2, 1912; 104:473, June 28, 1913
(Portrait). Bookman, 35:419-421, June 1912.
WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME
WALT WHITMAN
Warble me now for joy of lilac-time (returning in reminiscence),
Sort me, O tongue and lips for Nature's sake, souvenirs of
earliest summer,
Gather the welcome signs (as children with pebbles or
stringing shells),
Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
Blue-bird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole
flashing his golden wings,
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above,
All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,
The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making,
The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise and again at sunset,
Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the
nest of his mate,
The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its
yellow-green sprouts,
For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in
it and from it?
Thou, soul, unloosen'd--the restlessness after I know not what;
Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!
O if one could but fly like a bird!
O to escape, to sail forth as in a ship!
To glide with thee, O soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er
the waters;
Gathering these hints, the preludes, the blue sky, the grass,
the morning drops of dew,
The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark-green heart-shaped leaves,
Wood-violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,
To grace the bush I love--to sing with the birds,
A warble for joy of lilac-time, returning in reminiscence.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
What is the meaning of "sort me"? Why jumble all these signs of summer
together? Does one naturally think in an orderly way when recalling the
details of spring or summer? Can you think of any important points that
the author has left out? Is _samples_ a poetic word? What is meant by
the line "not for themselves alone," etc.? Note the sound-words in the
poem: What is their value here? Read the lines slowly to yourself, or
have some one read them aloud, and see how many of them suggest little
pictures. Note the punctuation: Do you approve? Is this your idea of
poetry? What is poetry? Would this be better if it were in the full form
of verse? Can you see why the critics have disagreed over Whitman's
poetry?
WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER
WALT WHITMAN
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
Why did the listener become tired of the lecturer who spoke with much
applause? What did he learn from the stars when he was alone out of
doors? Does he not think the study of astronomy worth while? What would
be his feeling toward other scientific studies? What do you get out of
this poem? What do you think of the way in which it is written?
VIGIL STRANGE I KEPT ON THE FIELD ONE NIGHT
WALT WHITMAN
Vigil strange I kept on the field one night;
When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day,
One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look
I shall never forget,
One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reach'd up as you lay
on the ground,
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,
Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made
my way,
Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body,
son of responding kisses (never again on earth responding),
Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene,
cool blew the moderate night-wind,
Long there and then in vigil I stood,
dimly around me the battle-field spreading,
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,
But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed,
Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side
leaning my chin in my hands,
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest
comrade--not a tear, not a word,
Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier,
As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole,
Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was
your death,
I faithfully loved you and cared for you living,
I think we shall surely meet again,)
Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the
dawn appear'd,
My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form,
Folded the blanket well, tucked it carefully over head and
carefully under feet,
And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave,
in his rude-dug grave I deposited,
Ending my strange vigil with that, vigil of night and battlefield dim,
Vigil for boy of responding kisses (never again on earth responding),
Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget,
how as day brighten'd,
I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket,
And buried him where he fell.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
What is a vigil? Was Whitman ever in battle? Does he mean himself
speaking? Was the boy really his son? Is the man's calmness a sign that
he does not care? Why does he call the vigil "wondrous" and "sweet"?
What does he think about the next life? Read the poem over slowly and
thoughtfully to yourself, or aloud to some one: How does it make you
feel?
Can you see any reason for calling Whitman a great poet? Has he
broadened your idea of what poetry may be? Read, if possible, in John
Burroughs's book on Whitman, pages 48-53.
EXERCISES
Re-read the _Warble for Lilac-Time_. Can you write of the signs of fall,
in somewhat the same way? Choose the most beautiful and the most
important characteristics that you can think of. Try to use color-words
and sound-words so that they make your composition vivid and musical.
Compare the _Warble for Lilac-Time_ with the first lines of Chaucer's
_Prologue_ to the _Canterbury Tales_. With Lowell's _How Spring Came in
New England_.
THEME SUBJECTS
A Walk in the Woods
A Spring Day
Sugar-Making
My Flower Garden
The Garden in Lilac Time
The Orchard in Spring
On a Farm in Early Summer
A Walk on a Summer Night
Waiting for Morning
The Stars
Walt Whitman and his Poetry
COLLATERAL READINGS
Poems by Whitman suitable for class reading:--
On the Beach at Night
Bivouac on a Mountain Side
To a Locomotive in Winter
A Farm Picture
The Runner
I Hear It was Charged against Me
A Sight in Camp
By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame
Song of the Broad-Axe
A Child said _What is the grass?_ (from _A Song of Myself_)
The Rolling Earth (Selections from Whitman) W.R. Browne (Ed.)
The Life of Walt Whitman H.B. Binns
Walt Whitman John Burroughs
A Visit to Walt Whitman (Portraits) John Johnston
Walt Whitman the Man (Portraits) Thomas Donaldson
Walt Whitman G.R. Carpenter
Walt Whitman (Portraits) I.H. Platt
Whitman Bliss Perry
Early May in New England (poem) Percy Mackaye
Knee-deep in June J.W. Riley
Spring Henry Timrod
Spring Song Bliss Carman
ODYSSEUS IN PHAEACIA
TRANSLATED BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER
Thus long-tried royal Odysseus slumbered here, heavy with sleep and
toil; but Athene went to the land and town of the Phaeacians. This
people once in ancient times lived in the open highlands, near that rude
folk the Cyclops, who often plundered them, being in strength more
powerful than they. Moving them thence, godlike Nausithoüs, their
leader, established them at Scheria, far from toiling men. He ran a wall
around the town, built houses there, made temples for the gods, and laid
out farms; but Nausithoüs had met his doom and gone to the house of
Hades, and Alcinoüs now was reigning, trained in wisdom by the gods. To
this man's dwelling came the goddess, clear-eyed Athene, planning a safe
return for brave Odysseus. She hastened to a chamber, richly wrought, in
which a maid was sleeping, of form and beauty like the immortals,
Nausicaä, daughter of generous Alcinoüs. Near by two damsels, dowered
with beauty by the Graces, slept by the threshold, one on either hand.
The shining doors were shut; but Athene, like a breath of air, moved to
the maid's couch, stood by her head, and thus addressed her,--taking the
likeness of the daughter of Dymas, the famous seaman, a maiden just
Nausicaä's age, dear to her heart. Taking her guise, thus spoke
clear-eyed Athene:--
"Nausicaä, how did your mother bear a child so heedless? Your gay
clothes lie uncared for, though the wedding time is near, when you must
wear fine clothes yourself and furnish them to those that may attend
you. From things like these a good repute arises, and father and honored
mother are made glad. Then let us go a-washing at the dawn of day, and I
will go to help, that you may soon be ready; for really not much longer
will you be a maid. Already you have for suitors the chief ones of the
land throughout Phaeacia, where you too were born. Come, then, beg your
good father early in the morning to harness the mules and cart, so as to
carry the men's clothes, gowns, and bright-hued rugs. Yes, and for you
yourself it is more decent so than setting forth on foot; the pools are
far from the town."
Saying this, clear-eyed Athene passed away, off to Olympus, where they
say the dwelling of the gods stands fast forever. Never with winds is it
disturbed, nor by the rain made wet, nor does the snow come near; but
everywhere the upper air spreads cloudless, and a bright radiance plays
over all; and there the blessed gods are happy all their days. Thither
now came the clear-eyed one, when she had spoken with the maid.
Soon bright-throned morning came, and waked fair-robed Nausicaä. She
marveled at the dream, and hastened through the house to tell it to her
parents, her dear father and her mother. She found them still in-doors:
her mother sat by the hearth among the waiting-women, spinning
sea-purple yarn; she met her father at the door, just going forth to
join the famous princes at the council, to which the high Phaeacians
summoned him. So standing close beside him, she said to her dear
father:--
"Papa dear, could you not have the wagon harnessed for me,--the high
one, with good wheels,--to take my nice clothes to the river to be
washed, which now are lying dirty? Surely for you yourself it is but
proper, when you are with the first men holding councils, that you
should wear clean clothing. Five good sons too are here at home,--two
married, and three merry young men still,--and they are always wanting
to go to the dance wearing fresh clothes. And this is all a trouble on
my mind."
Such were her words, for she was shy of naming the glad marriage to her
father; but he understood it all, and answered thus:
"I do not grudge the mules, my child, nor anything beside. Go! Quickly
shall the servants harness the wagon for you, the high one, with good
wheels, fitted with rack above."
Saying this, he called to the servants, who gave heed. Out in the court
they made the easy mule-cart ready; they brought the mules and yoked
them to the wagon. The maid took from her room her pretty clothing, and
stowed it in the polished wagon; her mother put in a chest food the maid
liked, of every kind, put dainties in, and poured some wine into a
goat-skin bottle,--the maid, meanwhile, had got into the wagon,--and
gave her in a golden flask some liquid oil, that she might bathe and
anoint herself, she and the waiting-women. Nausicaä took the whip and
the bright reins, and cracked the whip to start. There was a clatter of
the mules, and steadily they pulled, drawing the clothing and the
maid,--yet not alone; beside her went the waiting-women too.
When now they came to the fair river's current, where the pools were
always full,--for in abundance clear water bubbles from beneath to
cleanse the foulest stains,--they turned the mules loose from the
wagon, and let them stray along the eddying stream, to crop the honeyed
pasturage. Then from the wagon they took the clothing in their arms,
carried it into the dark water, and stamped it in the pits with rivalry
in speed. And after they had washed and cleansed it of all stains, they
spread it carefully along the shore, just where the waves washed up the
pebbles on the beach. Then bathing and anointing with the oil, they
presently took dinner on the river bank and waited for the clothes to
dry in the sunshine. And when they were refreshed with food, the maids
and she, they then began to play at ball, throwing their wimples off.
White-armed Nausicaä led their sport; and as the huntress Artemis goes
down a mountain, down long Taÿgetus or Erymanthus, exulting in the boars
and the swift deer, while round her sport the woodland nymphs, daughters
of ægis-bearing Zeus, and glad is Leto's heart, for all the rest her
child o'ertops by head and brow, and easily marked is she, though all
are fair; so did this virgin pure excel her women.
But when Nausicaä thought to turn toward home once more, to yoke the
mules and fold up the clean clothes, then a new plan the goddess formed,
clear-eyed Athene; for she would have Odysseus wake and see the
bright-eyed maid, who might to the Phaeacian city show the way. Just
then the princess tossed the ball to one of her women, and missing her
it fell in the deep eddy. Thereat they screamed aloud. Royal Odysseus
woke, and sitting up debated in his mind and heart:--
"Alas! To what men's land am I come now? Lawless and savage are they,
with no regard for right, or are they kind to strangers and reverent
toward the gods? It was as if there came to me the delicate voice of
maids--nymphs, it may be, who haunt the craggy peaks of hills, the
springs of streams and grassy marshes; or am I now, perhaps, near men of
human speech? Suppose I make a trial for myself, and see."
So saying, royal Odysseus crept from the thicket, but with his strong
hand broke a spray of leaves from the close wood, to be a covering round
his body for his nakedness. He set off like a lion that is bred among
the hills and trusts its strength; onward it goes, beaten with rain and
wind; its two eyes glare; and now in search of oxen or of sheep it
moves, or tracking the wild deer; its belly bids it make trial of the
flocks, even by entering the guarded folds; so was Odysseus about to
meet those fair-haired maids, for need constrained him. To them he
seemed a loathsome sight, befouled with brine. They hurried off, one
here, one there, over the stretching sands. Only the daughter of
Alcinoüs stayed, for in her breast Athene had put courage and from her
limbs took fear. Steadfast she stood to meet him. And now Odysseus
doubted whether to make his suit by clasping the knees of the
bright-eyed maid, or where he stood, aloof, in winning words to make
that suit, and try if she would show the town and give him clothing.
Reflecting thus, it seemed the better way to make his suit in winning
words, aloof; for fear if he should clasp her knees, the maid might be
offended. Forthwith he spoke, a winning and shrewd speech:--
"I am your suppliant, princess. Are you some god or mortal? If one of
the gods who hold the open sky, to Artemis, daughter of mighty Zeus, in
beauty, height, and bearing I find you likest. But if you are a mortal,
living on the earth, most happy are your father and your honored
mother, most happy your brothers also. Surely their hearts ever grow
warm with pleasure over you, when watching such a blossom moving in the
dance. And then exceeding happy he, beyond all others, who shall with
gifts prevail and lead you home. For I never before saw such a being
with these eyes--no man, no woman. I am amazed to see. At Delos once, by
Apollo's altar, something like you I noticed, a young palm shoot
springing up; for thither too I came, and a great troop was with me,
upon a journey where I was to meet with bitter trials. And just as when
I looked on that I marveled long within, since never before sprang such
a stalk from earth; so, lady, I admire and marvel now at you, and
greatly fear to touch your knees. Yet grievous woe is on me. Yesterday,
after twenty days, I escaped from the wine-dark sea, and all that time
the waves and boisterous winds bore me away from the island of Ogygia.
Now some god cast me here, that probably here also I may meet with
trouble; for I do not think trouble will cease, but much the gods will
first accomplish. Then, princess, have compassion, for it is you to whom
through many grievous toils I first am come; none else I know of all who
own this city and this land. Show me the town, and give me a rag to
throw around me, if you had perhaps on coming here some wrapper for your
linen. And may the gods grant all that in your thoughts you long for:
husband and home and true accord may they bestow; for a better and
higher gift than this there cannot be, when with accordant aims man and
wife have a home. Great grief it is to foes and joy to friends; but they
themselves best know its meaning."
Then answered him white-armed Nausicaä: "Stranger, because you do not
seem a common, senseless person,--and Olympian Zeus himself distributes
fortune to mankind and gives to high and low even as he wills to each;
and this he gave to you, and you must bear it therefore,--now you have
reached our city and our land, you shall not lack for clothes nor
anything besides which it is fit a hard-pressed suppliant should find. I
will point out the town and tell its people's name. The Phaeacians own
this city and this land, and I am the daughter of generous Alcinoüs, on
whom the might and power of the Phaeacians rests."
She spoke, and called her fair-haired waiting-women: "My women, stay!
Why do you run because you saw a man? You surely do not think him
evil-minded, The man is not alive, and never will be born, who can come
and offer harm to the Phaeacian land: for we are very dear to the
immortals; and then we live apart, far on the surging sea, no other
tribe of men has dealings with us. But this poor man has come here
having lost his way, and we should give him aid; for in the charge of
Zeus all strangers and beggars stand, and a small gift is welcome. Then
give, my women, to the stranger food and drink, and let him bathe in the
river where there is shelter from the breeze."
She spoke; the others stopped and called to one another, and down they
brought Odysseus to the place of shelter, even as Nausicaä, daughter of
generous Alcinoüs, had ordered. They placed a robe and tunic there for
clothing, they gave him in the golden flask the liquid oil, and bade him
bathe in the stream's currents.
* * * * *
The women went away.... And now, with water from the stream, royal
Odysseus washed his skin clean of the salt which clung about his back
and his broad shoulders, and wiped from his head the foam brought by the
barren sea; and when he had thoroughly bathed and oiled himself and had
put on the clothing which the chaste maiden gave, Athene, the daughter
of Zeus, made him taller than before and stouter to behold, and she made
the curling locks to fall around his head as on the hyacinth flower. As
when a man lays gold on silver,--some skillful man whom Hephaestus and
Pallas Athene have trained in every art, and he fashions graceful work;
so did she cast a grace upon his head and shoulders. He walked apart
along the shore, and there sat down, beaming with grace and beauty. The
maid observed; then to her fair-haired waiting-women said:--
"Hearken, my white-armed women, while I speak. Not without purpose on
the part of all the gods that hold Olympus is this man's meeting with
the godlike Phaeacians. A while ago, he really seemed to me ill-looking,
but now he is like the gods who hold the open sky. Ah, might a man like
this be called my husband, having his home here, and content to stay!
But give, my women, to the stranger food and drink."
She spoke, and very willingly they heeded and obeyed, and set beside
Odysseus food and drink. Then long-tried Odysseus eagerly drank and ate,
for he had long been fasting.
And now to other matters white-armed Nausicaä turned her thoughts. She
folded the clothes and laid them in the beautiful wagon, she yoked the
stout-hoofed mules, mounted herself, and calling to Odysseus thus she
spoke and said:--
"Arise now, stranger, and hasten to the town, that I may set you on the
road to my wise father's house, where you shall see, I promise you, the
best of all Phaeacia. Only do this,--you seem to me not to lack
understanding: while we are passing through the fields and farms, here
with my women, behind the mules and cart, walk rapidly along, and I will
lead the way. But as we near the town,--round which is a lofty rampart,
a beautiful harbor on each side and a narrow road between,--there curved
ships line the way; for every man has his own mooring-place. Beyond is
the assembly near the beautiful grounds of Poseidon, constructed out of
blocks of stone deeply imbedded. Further along, they make the black
ships' tackling, cables and canvas, and shape out the oars; for the
Phaeacians do not care for bow and quiver, only for masts and oars of
ships and the trim ships themselves, with which it is their joy to cross
the foaming sea. Now the rude talk of such as these I would avoid, that
no one afterwards may give me blame. For very forward persons are about
the place, and some coarse man might say, if he should meet us: 'What
tall and handsome stranger is following Nausicaä? Where did she find
him? A husband he will be, her very own. Some castaway, perhaps, she
rescued from his vessel, some foreigner; for we have no neighbors here.
Or at her prayer some long-entreated god has come straight down from
heaven, and he will keep her his forever. So much the better, if she has
gone herself and found a husband elsewhere! The people of our own land
here, Phaeacians, she disdains, though she has many high-born suitors.'
So they will talk, and for me it would prove a scandal. I should myself
censure a girl who acted so, who, heedless of friends, while father and
mother were alive, mingled with men before her public wedding. And,
stranger, listen now to what I say, that you may soon obtain assistance
and safe conduct from my father. Near our road you will see a stately
grove of poplar trees, belonging to Athene; in it a fountain flows, and
round it is a meadow. That is my father's park, his fruitful vineyard,
as far from the town as one can call. There sit and wait a while, until
we come to the town and reach my father's palace. But when you think we
have already reached the palace, enter the city of the Phaeacians, and
ask for the palace of my father, generous Alcinoüs. Easily is it known;
a child, though young, could show the way; for the Phaeacians do not
build their houses like the dwelling of Alcinoüs their prince. But when
his house and court receive you, pass quickly through the hall until you
find my mother. She sits in the firelight by the hearth, spinning
sea-purple yarn, a marvel to behold, and resting against a pillar. Her
handmaids sit behind her. Here too my father's seat rests on the
self-same pillar, and here he sits and sips his wine like an immortal.
Passing him by, stretch out your hands to our mother's knees, if you
would see the day of your return in gladness and with speed, although
you come from far. If she regards you kindly in her heart, then there is
hope that you may see your friends and reach your stately house and
native land."
Saying this, with her bright whip she struck the mules, and fast they
left the river's streams; and well they trotted, well they plied their
feet, and skillfully she reined them that those on foot might
follow,--the waiting-women and Odysseus,--and moderately she used the
lash. The sun was setting when they reached the famous grove, Athene's
sacred ground where royal Odysseus sat him down. And thereupon he prayed
to the daughter of mighty Zeus:--
"Hearken, thou child of ægis-bearing Zeus, unwearied one! O hear me
now, although before thou didst not hear me, when I was wrecked, what
time the great Land-shaker wrecked me. Grant that I come among the
Phaeacians welcomed and pitied by them."
So spoke he in his prayer, and Pallas Athene heard, but did not yet
appear to him in open presence; for she regarded still her father's
brother, who stoutly strove with godlike Odysseus until he reached his
land.
Here, then, long-tried royal Odysseus made his prayer; but to the town
the strong mules bore the maid. And when she reached her father's famous
palace, she stopped before the door-way, and round her stood her
brothers, men like immortals, who from the cart unyoked the mules and
carried the clothing in. The maid went to her chamber, where a fire was
kindled for her by an old Apeirean woman, the chamber-servant
Eurymedousa, whom long ago curved ships brought from Apeira; her they
had chosen from the rest to be the gift of honor for Alcinoüs, because
he was the lord of all Phaeacians, and people listened to his voice as
if he were a god. She was the nurse of white-armed Nausicaä at the
palace, and she it was who kindled her the fire and in her room prepared
her supper.
And now Odysseus rose to go to the city; but Athene kindly drew thick
clouds around Odysseus, for fear some bold Phaeacian meeting him might
trouble him with talk and ask him who he was. And just as he was
entering the pleasant town, the goddess, clear-eyed Athene, came to meet
him, disguised as a young girl who bore a water-jar. She paused as she
drew near, and royal Odysseus asked:--
"My child, could you not guide me to the house of one Alcinoüs, who is
ruler of this people? For I am a toil-worn stranger come from far, out
of a distant land. Therefore I know not one among the men who own this
city and this land."
Then said to him the goddess, clear-eyed Athene: "Yes, good old
stranger, I will show the house for which you ask, for it stands near my
gentle father's. But follow in silence: I will lead the way. Cast not a
glance at any man and ask no questions, for our people do not well
endure a stranger, nor courteously receive a man who comes from
elsewhere. Yet they themselves trust in swift ships and traverse the
great deep, for the Earth-shaker permits them. Swift are their ships as
wing or thought."
Saying this, Pallas Athene led the way in haste, and he walked after in
the footsteps of the goddess. So the Phaeacians, famed for shipping, did
not observe him walking through the town among them, because Athene, the
fair-haired powerful goddess, did not allow it, but in the kindness of
her heart drew a marvelous mist around him. And now Odysseus admired the
harbors, the trim ships, the meeting-places of the lords themselves, and
the long walls that were so high, fitted with palisades, a marvel to
behold. Then as they neared the famous palace of the king, the goddess,
clear-eyed Athene, thus began:--
"Here, good old stranger, is the house you bade me show. You will see
heaven-descended kings sitting at table here. But enter, and have no
misgivings in your heart; for the courageous man in all affairs better
attains his end, come he from where he may. First you shall find the
Queen within the hall. Arete is her name.... Alcinoüs took Arete for his
wife, and he has honored her as no one else on earth is honored among
the women who to-day keep houses for their husbands. Thus has she had a
heartfelt honor, and she has it still, from her own children, from
Alcinoüs himself, and from the people also, who gaze on her as on a god
and greet her with welcomes when she walks about the town. For of sound
judgment, woman as she is, she has no lack; and those whom she regards,
though men, find troubles clear away. If she regards you kindly in her
heart, then there is hope that you may see your friends and reach your
high-roofed house and native land."
Saying this, clear-eyed Athene passed away, over the barren sea. She
turned from pleasant Scheria, and came to Marathon and wide-wayed Athens
and entered there the strong house of Erechtheus. Meanwhile Odysseus
neared the lordly palace of Alcinoüs, and his heart was deeply stirred
so that he paused before he crossed the brazen threshold; for a sheen as
of the sun or moon played through the high-roofed house of generous
Alcinoüs. On either hand ran walls of bronze from threshold to recess,
and round about the ceiling was a cornice of dark metal. Doors made of
gold closed in the solid building. The door-posts were of silver and
stood on a bronze threshold, silver the lintel overhead, and gold the
handle. On the two sides were gold and silver dogs; these had Hephaestus
wrought with subtle craft to guard the house of generous Alcinoüs,
creatures immortal, young forever. Within were seats planted against the
wall on this side and on that, from threshold to recess, in long array;
and over these were strewn light fine-spun robes, the work of women.
Here the Phaeacian leaders used to sit, drinking and eating, holding
constant cheer. And golden youths on massive pedestals stood and held
flaming torches in their hands to light by night the palace for the
feasters.
In the King's house are fifty serving maids, some grinding at the mill
the yellow corn, some plying looms or twisting yarn, who as they sit are
like the leaves of a tall poplar; and from the close-spun linen drops
the liquid oil. And as Phaeacian men are skilled beyond all others in
speeding a swift ship along the sea, so are their women practiced at the
loom; for Athene has given them in large measure skill in fair works and
noble minds.
Without the court and close beside its gate is a large garden, covering
four acres; around it runs a hedge on either side. Here grow tall
thrifty trees--pears, pomegranates, apples with shining fruit, sweet
figs and thrifty olives. On them fruit never fails; it is not gone in
winter or in summer, but lasts throughout the year; for constantly the
west wind's breath brings some to bud and mellows others. Pear ripens
upon pear, apple on apple, cluster on cluster, fig on fig. Here too the
teeming vineyard has been planted, one part of which, the drying place,
lying on level ground, is heating in the sun; elsewhere men gather
grapes; and elsewhere still they tread them. In front, the grapes are
green and shed their flower, but a second row are now just turning dark.
And here trim garden-beds, along the outer line, spring up in every kind
and all the year are gay. Near by, two fountains rise, one scattering
its streams throughout the garden, one bounding by another course
beneath the courtyard gate toward the high house; from this the
towns-folk draw their water. Such at the palace of Alcinoüs were the
gods' splendid gifts.
Here long-tried royal Odysseus stood and gazed. Then after he had gazed
his heart's fill on all, he quickly crossed the threshold and came
within the house.
NOTES
=Phaeacia=:--The land of the Phaeacians, on the Island of Scheria, or
Corcyra, the modern Corfu.
=Athene=:--Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, skill, and science. She was
interested in war, and protected warlike heroes.
=Cyclops=:--One of a race of uncouth giants, each of whom had but a
single eye, which was in the middle of the forehead.
=Nausithoüs=:--The king of the Phaeacians at the time they entered
Scheria.
=Hades=:--The realm of souls; not necessarily a place of punishment.
=Artemis=:--Another name for Diana, goddess of the moon.
=Taÿgetus and Erymanthus=:--Mountains in Greece.
=Leto=:--The mother of Artemis.
=Delos=:--An island in the Aegean Sea.
=Ogygia=:--The island of the goddess Calypso, who held Odysseus captive
for seven years.
=Hephaestus=:--Another name for Vulcan, the god of the under-world. He
was a skilled worker in metal.
=Poseidon=:--Neptune, god of the ocean.
=Land-shaker=:--Neptune.
=Marathon=:--A plain eighteen miles from Athens. It was here that the
Greeks defeated the Persians in 490 B.C.
=Erectheus=:--The mythical founder of Attica; he was half man and half
serpent.
=THE PRONUNCIATION OF PROPER NAMES IN THIS SELECTION=
Al cin' o us ([)a]l sïn' [+o] _[)u]_ s)
Ap ei' ra ([.a]p [=i]' r_a_)
Ap ei re' an ([)a]p [=i] r[=e]' _[)a]_n)
A re' te ([.a] r[=e]' t[=e])
Ar' te mis (är' t[+e] m[)i]s)
A the' ne ([.a] th[=e]' n[=e])
Ca lyp' so (k_a_ l[)i]p' s[=o])
Cir' ce (sûr' s[=e])
Cy' clops (s[=i]' cl[)o]ps)
De' los (d[=e]' l[)o]s)
Dy' mas (d[=i]' m_[.a]_s)
E rech' theus ([+e] r[)e]k' th[=u]s)
E ry man' thus ([)e]r [)i] m[)a]n' th_[=u]_s)
Eu rym e dou' sa ([=u] r[)i]m [+e] d[=oo]' s_[.a]_)
He phaes' tus (h[+e] f[)e]s' t_[)u]_s)
Le' to (l[=e]' t[=o])
Mar' a thon (m[)a]r' [.a] th[)o]n)
Nau sic' a ä (nô s[)i]k' [+a] _[.a]_)
Nau sith' o us (nô s[)i]th' [+o] _[)u]_s)
O dys' seus ([+o] d[)i]s' [=u]s)
O gyg' i a ([+o] j[)i]j' _[.a]_)
Phae a' cia (f[+e] [=a]' sh_[.a]_)
Po sei' don (p[+o] s[=i]' d_[)o]_n)
Scher' i a (sk[=e]' r[)i] _[.a]_)
Ta ÿg' e tus (t[=a] [)i]j' [+e] t_[)u]_s)
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
Odysseus (Ulysses) has been cast ashore after a long battle with the
sea, following his attempt to escape on a raft from Calypso's island. He
has been saved by the intervention of the goddess Athene, who often
protects distressed heroes. When Book VI opens, he is sleeping in a
secluded nook under an olive tree. (For Odysseus's adventures on the
sea, consult Book V of the _Odyssey_.) Is Athene's visit to Nausicaä an
unusual sort of thing in Greek story? Does it appear that it was
customary for princesses to do their own washing? Note here that _I_
refers to the daughter of Dymas, since Athene is not speaking in her own
character. From Nausicaä's conversation with her father and her
preparations for departure, what can you judge of Greek family life? How
does the author make us see vividly the activities of Nausicaä and her
maids? Does the out-door scene appear true to life? _This virgin pure_
refers to Nausicaä, who is being compared to Artemis (Diana), the
goddess of the hunt. What plan has Athene for assisting Odysseus? From
the hero's speech, what can you tell of his character? Can you find out
what adjectives are usually applied to Odysseus in the _Iliad_ and the
_Odyssey_? Why does he here call Nausicaä "Princess"? What effect is his
speech likely to have? What can you tell of Nausicaä from her reply?
Give her reasons for not taking Odysseus with her to the town. Does she
fail in hospitality? What do her reasons show of the life of Greek
women? What do you judge of the prosperity of the Phaeacians? Why does
Nausicaä tell Odysseus to seek the favor of her mother? _Her father's
brother_ means Neptune (the Sea)--brother of Zeus, Athene's father;
Neptune is enraged at Odysseus and wishes to destroy him. _Here then_:
At this point Book VII begins. From what is said of Arete, what can you
tell of the influence of the Greek women? How does the author make you
feel the richness of Alcinoüs's palace? How does it differ from modern
houses? _Corn_ means grain, not Indian corn, which, of course, had not
yet been brought from the New World. Note the vivid description of the
garden. How do you think Odysseus is received at the house of Alcinoüs?
You can find out by reading the rest of Book VII of the _Odyssey_.
THEME SUBJECTS
One of Ulysses's Adventures
An Escape from the Sea
A Picnic on the Shore
The Character of Nausicaä
My Idea of a Princess
The Life of a Greek Woman
A Group of Girls
The Character of Odysseus
Shipwrecked
A Beautiful Building
Along the Shore
Among Strangers
A Garden
A Story from the Odyssey
Odysseus at the House of Alcinoüs
The Lady of the House
The Greek Warrior
The Stranger
Why I Wish to Study Greek
SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING
=A Story from the Odyssey=:--Read, in a translation of the _Odyssey_, a
story of Odysseus, and tell it in your own words. The following stories
are appropriate: The Departure from Calypso's Island, Book V; The
Cyclops Polyphemus, Book IX; The Palace of Circe, Book X; The Land of
the Dead, Book XI; Scylla and Charybdis, Book XII; The Swineherd, Book
XIV; The Trial of the Bow, Book XXI; The Slaughter of the Suitors, Book
XXII.
After you have chosen a story, read it through several times, to fix the
details in your mind. Lay the book aside, and write the story simply,
but as vividly as possible.
=The Stranger=:--Explain the circumstances under which the stranger
appears. Are people startled at seeing him (or her)? Describe him. Is he
bewildered? Does he ask directions? Does he ask help? Quote his words
directly. How are his remarks received? Are people afraid of him? or do
they make sport of him? or do they receive him kindly? Who aids him?
Tell what he does and what becomes of him. Quote what is said of him
after he is gone.
Perhaps you will like to tell the story of Ulysses's arrival among the
Phaeacians, giving it a modern setting, and using modern names.
=Odysseus at the House of Alcinoüs=:--Without reading Book VII of the
_Odyssey_, write what you imagine to be the conversation between
Alcinoüs (or Arete) and Odysseus, when the shipwrecked hero enters the
palace.
COLLATERAL READINGS
The Odyssey George Herbert Palmer (Trans.)
The Odyssey of Homer (prose translation) Butcher and Lang
The Iliad of Homer Lang, Leaf, and Myers
The Odyssey (translation in verse) William Cullen Bryant
The Odyssey for Boys and Girls A.J. Church
The Story of the Odyssey " " "
Greek Song and Story " " "
The Adventures of Odysseus Marvin, Mayor, and Stawell
Tanglewood Tales Nathaniel Hawthorne
Home Life of the Ancient Greeks H. Blümner (trans, by A.
Zimmerman
Classic Myths (chapter 27) C.M. Gayley
The Age of Fable (chapters 22 and 23) Thomas Bulfinch
The Story of the Greek People Eva March Tappan
Greece and the Aegean Isles Philip S. Marden
Greek Lands and Letters F.G. and A.C.E. Allinson
Old Greek Folk Stories J.P. Peabody
Men of Old Greece Jennie Hall
The Lotos-eaters Alfred Tennyson
Ulysses " "
The Strayed Reveller Matthew Arnold
A Song of Phaeacia Andrew Lang
The Voyagers (in _The Fields of Dawn_) Lloyd Mifflin
Alice Freeman Palmer George Herbert Palmer
See the references for _Moly_ on p. 84, and for Odysseus on p. 140.
ODYSSEUS
GEORGE CABOT LODGE
He strove with Gods and men in equal mood
Of great endurance: Not alone his hands
Wrought in wild seas and labored in strange lands,
And not alone his patient strength withstood
The clashing cliffs and Circe's perilous sands:
Eager of some imperishable good
He drave new pathways thro' the trackless flood
Foreguarded, fearless, free from Fate's commands.
How shall our faith discern the truth he sought?
We too must watch and wander till our eyes,
Turned skyward from the topmost tower of thought,
Haply shall find the star that marked his goal,
The watch-fire of transcendent liberties
Lighting the endless spaces of the soul.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
Read the poem through. How did Ulysses strive with gods and men? Why can
it be said that he did not labor alone? Look up the story of Circe and
her palace.[10] What was the imperishable good that Ulysses sought? What
does his experience have to do with our lives? What sort of freedom does
the author speak of in the last few lines?
This verse-form is called the sonnet. How many lines has it? Make out a
scheme of the rhymes: _a b b a_, etc. Notice the change of thought at
the ninth line. Do all sonnets show this change?
EXERCISES
Read several other sonnets; for instance, the poem _On the Life-Mask of
Abraham Lincoln_, on page 210, or _On First Looking into Chapman's
Homer_, by John Keats, or _The Grasshopper and the Cricket_, by Leigh
Hunt.
Notice how these other sonnets are constructed. Why are they considered
good?
If possible, read part of what is said about the sonnet in _English
Verse_, by R.M. Alden or in _Forms of English Poetry_, by C.F. Johnson,
or in _Melodies of English Verse_, by Lewis Kennedy Morse; notice some
of the examples given.
Look in the good magazines for examples of the sonnet.
COLLATERAL READINGS
To the Grasshopper and the Cricket Leigh Hunt
The Fish Answers (or, The Fish to the Man)[11] Leigh Hunt
On the Grasshopper and Cricket John Keats
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer John Keats
Ozymandias P.B. Shelley
The Sonnet R.W. Gilder
The Odyssey (sonnet) Andrew Lang
The Wine of Circe (sonnet) Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The Automobile (sonnet)[12] Percy Mackaye
The Sonnet William Wordsworth
See also references for the _Odyssey_, p. 137, and for _Moly_, p. 84.
A ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
(In _Suburban Sketches_)
It was long past the twilight hour, which has been already mentioned as
so oppressive in suburban places, and it was even too late for visitors,
when a resident, whom I shall briefly describe as a contributor to the
magazines, was startled by a ring at his door. As any thoughtful person
would have done upon the like occasion, he ran over his acquaintance in
his mind, speculating whether it were such or such a one, and dismissing
the whole list of improbabilities, before he laid down the book he was
reading and answered the bell. When at last he did this, he was rewarded
by the apparition of an utter stranger on his threshold,--a gaunt figure
of forlorn and curious smartness towering far above him, that jerked him
a nod of the head, and asked if Mr. Hapford lived there. The face which
the lamplight revealed was remarkable for a harsh two days' growth of
beard, and a single bloodshot eye; yet it was not otherwise a sinister
countenance, and there was something in the strange presence that
appealed and touched. The contributor, revolving the facts vaguely in
his mind, was not sure, after all, that it was not the man's clothes
rather than his expression that softened him toward the rugged visage:
they were so tragically cheap; and the misery of helpless needle-women,
and the poverty and ignorance of the purchaser, were so apparent in
their shabby newness, of which they appeared still conscious enough to
have led the way to the very window, in the Semitic quarter of the
city, where they had lain ticketed, "This nobby suit for $15."
But the stranger's manner put both his face and his clothes out of mind,
and claimed a deeper interest when, being answered that the person for
whom he asked did not live there, he set his bristling lips hard
together, and sighed heavily.
"They told me," he said, in a hopeless way, "that he lived on this
street, and I've been to every other house. I'm very anxious to find
him, Cap'n,"--the contributor, of course, had no claim to the title with
which he was thus decorated,--"for I've a daughter living with him, and
I want to see her; I've just got home from a two years' voyage,
and"--there was a struggle of the Adam's-apple in the man's gaunt
throat--"I find she's about all there is left of my family."
How complex is every human motive! This contributor had been lately
thinking, whenever he turned the pages of some foolish traveller,--some
empty prattler of Southern or Eastern lands, where all sensation was
long ago exhausted, and the oxygen has perished from every sentiment, so
has it been breathed and breathed again,--that nowadays the wise
adventurer sat down beside his own register and waited for incidents to
seek him out. It seemed to him that the cultivation of a patient and
receptive spirit was the sole condition needed to insure the occurrence
of all manner of surprising facts within the range of one's own personal
knowledge; that not only the Greeks were at our doors, but the fairies
and the genii, and all the people of romance, who had but to be
hospitably treated in order to develop the deepest interest of fiction,
and to become the characters of plots so ingenious that the most cunning
invention were poor beside them. I myself am not so confident of this,
and would rather trust Mr. Charles Reade, say, for my amusement than any
chance combination of events. But I should be afraid to say how much his
pride in the character of the stranger's sorrows, as proof of the
correctness of his theory, prevailed with the contributor to ask him to
come in and sit down; though I hope that some abstract impulse of
humanity, some compassionate and unselfish care for the man's
misfortunes as misfortunes, was not wholly wanting. Indeed, the helpless
simplicity with which he had confided his case might have touched a
harder heart. "Thank you," said the poor fellow, after a moment's
hesitation. "I believe I will come in. I've been on foot all day, and
after such a long voyage it makes a man dreadfully sore to walk about so
much. Perhaps you can think of a Mr. Hapford living somewhere in the
neighborhood."
He sat down, and, after a pondering silence, in which he had remained
with his head fallen upon his breast, "My name is Jonathan Tinker," he
said, with the unaffected air which had already impressed the
contributor, and as if he felt that some form of introduction was
necessary, "and the girl that I want to find is Julia Tinker." Then he
added, resuming the eventful personal history which the listener
exulted, while he regretted, to hear: "You see, I shipped first to
Liverpool, and there I heard from my family; and then I shipped again
for Hong-Kong, and after that I never heard a word: I seemed to miss the
letters everywhere. This morning, at four o'clock, I left my ship as
soon as she had hauled into the dock, and hurried up home. The house
was shut, and not a soul in it; and I didn't know what to do, and I sat
down on the doorstep to wait till the neighbors woke up, to ask them
what had become of my family. And the first one come out he told me my
wife had been dead a year and a half, and the baby I'd never seen, with
her; and one of my boys was dead; and he didn't know where the rest of
the children was, but he'd heard two of the little ones was with a
family in the city."
The man mentioned these things with the half-apologetical air observable
in a certain kind of Americans when some accident obliges them to
confess the infirmity of the natural feelings. They do not ask your
sympathy, and you offer it quite at your own risk, with a chance of
having it thrown back upon your hands. The contributor assumed the risk
so far as to say, "Pretty rough!" when the stranger paused; and perhaps
these homely words were best suited to reach the homely heart. The man's
quivering lips closed hard again, a kind of spasm passed over his dark
face, and then two very small drops of brine shone upon his weather-worn
cheeks. This demonstration, into which he had been surprised, seemed to
stand for the passion of tears into which the emotional races fall at
such times. He opened his lips with a kind of dry click, and went on:--
"I hunted about the whole forenoon in the city, and at last I found the
children. I'd been gone so long they didn't know me, and somehow I
thought the people they were with weren't over-glad I'd turned up.
Finally the oldest child told me that Julia was living with a Mr.
Hapford on this street, and I started out here to-night to look her up.
If I can find her, I'm all right. I can get the family together, then,
and start new."
"It seems rather odd," mused the listener aloud, "that the neighbors let
them break up so, and that they should all scatter as they did."
"Well, it ain't so curious as it seems, Cap'n. There was money for them
at the owners', all the time; I'd left part of my wages when I sailed;
but they didn't know how to get at it, and what could a parcel of
children do? Julia's a good girl, and when I find her I'm all right."
The writer could only repeat that there was no Mr. Hapford living on
that street, and never had been, so far as he knew. Yet there might be
such a person in the neighborhood: and they would go out together and
ask at some of the houses about. But the stranger must first take a
glass of wine; for he looked used up.
The sailor awkwardly but civilly enough protested that he did not want
to give so much trouble, but took the glass, and, as he put it to his
lips, said formally, as if it were a toast or a kind of grace, "I hope I
may have the opportunity of returning the compliment." The contributor
thanked him; though, as he thought of all the circumstances of the case,
and considered the cost at which the stranger had come to enjoy his
politeness, he felt little eagerness to secure the return of the
compliment at the same price, and added, with the consequence of another
set phrase, "Not at all." But the thought had made him the more anxious
to befriend the luckless soul fortune had cast in his way; and so the
two sallied out together, and rang doorbells wherever lights were still
seen burning in the windows, and asked the astonished people who
answered their summons whether any Mr. Hapford were known to live in the
neighborhood.
And although the search for this gentleman proved vain, the contributor
could not feel that an expedition which set familiar objects in such
novel lights was altogether a failure. He entered so intimately into the
cares and anxieties of his protégé that at times he felt himself in some
inexplicable sort a shipmate of Jonathan Tinker, and almost personally a
partner of his calamities. The estrangement of all things which takes
place, within doors and without, about midnight may have helped to cast
this doubt upon his identity;--he seemed to be visiting now for the
first time the streets and neighborhoods nearest his own, and his feet
stumbled over the accustomed walks. In his quality of houseless
wanderer, and--so far as appeared to others--possibly worthless
vagabond, he also got a new and instructive effect upon the faces which,
in his real character, he knew so well by their looks of neighborly
greeting; and it is his belief that the first hospitable prompting of
the human heart is to shut the door in the eyes of homeless strangers
who present themselves after eleven o'clock. By that time the servants
are all abed, and the gentleman of the house answers the bell, and looks
out with a loath and bewildered face, which gradually changes to one of
suspicion, and of wonder as to what those fellows can possibly want of
_him_, till at last the prevailing expression is one of contrite desire
to atone for the first reluctance by any sort of service. The
contributor professes to have observed these changing phases in the
visages of those whom he that night called from their dreams, or
arrested in the act of going to bed; and he drew the conclusion--very
proper for his imaginable connection with the garroting and other
adventurous brotherhoods--that the most flattering moment for knocking
on the head people who answer a late ring at night is either in their
first selfish bewilderment, or their final self-abandonment to their
better impulses. It does not seem to have occurred to him that he would
himself have been a much more favorable subject for the predatory arts
than any of his neighbors, if his shipmate, the unknown companion of his
researches for Mr. Hapford, had been at all so minded. But the faith of
the gaunt giant upon which he reposed was good, and the contributor
continued to wander about with him in perfect safety. Not a soul among
those they asked had ever heard of a Mr. Hapford,--far less of a Julia
Tinker living with him. But they all listened to the contributor's
explanation with interest and eventual sympathy; and in truth,--briefly
told, with a word now and then thrown in by Jonathan Tinker, who kept at
the bottom of the steps, showing like a gloomy spectre in the night, or,
in his grotesque length and gauntness, like the other's shadow cast
there by the lamplight,--it was a story which could hardly fail to
awaken pity.
At last, after ringing several bells where there were no lights, in the
mere wantonness of good-will, and going away before they could be
answered (it would be entertaining to know what dreams they caused the
sleepers within), there seemed to be nothing for it but to give up the
search till morning, and go to the main street and wait for the last
horse-car to the city.
There, seated upon the curbstone, Jonathan Tinker, being plied with a
few leading questions, told in hints and scraps the story of his hard
life, which was at present that of a second mate, and had been that of
a cabin-boy and of a seaman before the mast. The second mate's place he
held to be the hardest aboard ship. You got only a few dollars more than
the men, and you did not rank with the officers; you took your meals
alone, and in everything you belonged by yourself. The men did not
respect you, and sometimes the captain abused you awfully before the
passengers. The hardest captain that Jonathan Tinker ever sailed with
was Captain Gooding of the Cape. It had got to be so that no man could
ship second mate under Captain Gooding; and Jonathan Tinker was with him
only one voyage. When he had been home awhile, he saw an advertisement
for a second mate, and he went round to the owners'. They had kept it
secret who the captain was; but there was Captain Gooding in the owners'
office. "Why, here's the man, now, that I want for a second mate," said
he, when Jonathan Tinker entered; "he knows me."--"Captain Gooding, I
know you 'most too well to want to sail under you," answered Jonathan.
"I might go if I hadn't been with you one voyage too many already."
"And then the men!" said Jonathan, "the men coming aboard drunk, and
having to be pounded sober! And the hardest of the fight falls on the
second mate! Why, there isn't an inch of me that hasn't been cut over or
smashed into a jell. I've had three ribs broken; I've got a scar from a
knife on my cheek; and I've been stabbed bad enough, half a dozen times,
to lay me up."
Here he gave a sort of desperate laugh, as if the notion of so much
misery and such various mutilation were too grotesque not to be amusing.
"Well, what can you do?" he went on. "If you don't strike, the men think
you're afraid of them; and so you have to begin hard and go on hard. I
always tell a man, 'Now, my man, I always begin with a man the way I
mean to keep on. You do your duty and you're all right. But if you
don't'--Well, the men ain't Americans any more,--Dutch, Spaniards,
Chinese, Portuguee, and it ain't like abusing a white man."
Jonathan Tinker was plainly part of the horrible tyranny which we all
know exists on shipboard; and his listener respected him the more that,
though he had heart enough to be ashamed of it, he was too honest not to
own it.
Why did he still follow the sea? Because he did not know what else to
do. When he was younger, he used to love it, but now he hated it. Yet
there was not a prettier life in the world if you got to be captain. He
used to hope for that once, but not now; though he _thought_ he could
navigate a ship. Only let him get his family together again, and he
would--yes, he would--try to do something ashore.
No car had yet come in sight, and so the contributor suggested that they
should walk to the car-office, and look in the "Directory," which is
kept there, for the name of Hapford, in search of whom it had already
been arranged that they should renew their acquaintance on the morrow.
Jonathan Tinker, when they had reached the office, heard with
constitutional phlegm that the name of the Hapford for whom he inquired
was not in the "Directory." "Never mind," said the other; "come round to
my house in the morning. We'll find him yet." So they parted with a
shake of the hand, the second mate saying that he believed he should go
down to the vessel and sleep aboard,--if he could sleep,--and murmuring
at the last moment the hope of returning the compliment, while the
other walked homeward, weary as to the flesh, but, in spite of his
sympathy for Jonathan Tinker, very elate in spirit. The truth is,--and
however disgraceful to human nature, let the truth still be told,--he
had recurred to his primal satisfaction in the man as calamity capable
of being used for such and such literary ends, and, while he pitied him,
rejoiced in him as an episode of real life quite as striking and
complete as anything in fiction. It was literature made to his hand.
Nothing could be better, he mused; and once more he passed the details
of the story in review, and beheld all those pictures which the poor
fellow's artless words had so vividly conjured up: he saw him leaping
ashore in the gray summer dawn as soon as the ship hauled into the dock,
and making his way, with his vague sea-legs unaccustomed to the
pavements, up through the silent and empty city streets; he imagined the
tumult of fear and hope which the sight of the man's home must have
caused in him, and the benumbing shock of finding it blind and deaf to
all his appeals; he saw him sitting down upon what had been his own
threshold, and waiting in a sort of bewildered patience till the
neighbors should be awake, while the noises of the streets gradually
arose, and the wheels began to rattle over the stones, and the milk-man
and the ice-man came and went, and the waiting figure began to be stared
at, and to challenge the curiosity of the passing policeman; he fancied
the opening of the neighbor's door, and the slow, cold understanding of
the case; the manner, whatever it was, in which the sailor was told that
one year before his wife had died, with her babe, and that his children
were scattered, none knew where. As the contributor dwelt pityingly upon
these things, but at the same time estimated their aesthetic value one
by one, he drew near the head of his street, and found himself a few
paces behind a boy slouching onward through the night, to whom he called
out, adventurously, and with no real hope of information,--
"Do you happen to know anybody on this street by the name of Hapford?"
"Why, no, not in this town," said the boy; but he added that there was a
street of the same name in a neighboring suburb, and that there was a
Hapford living on it.
"By Jove!" thought the contributor, "this is more like literature than
ever"; and he hardly knew whether to be more provoked at his own
stupidity in not thinking of a street of the same name in the next
village, or delighted at the element of fatality which the fact
introduced into the story; for Tinker, according to his own account,
must have landed from the cars a few rods from the very door he was
seeking, and so walked farther and farther from it every moment. He
thought the case so curious, that he laid it briefly before the boy,
who, however he might have been inwardly affected, was sufficiently true
to the national traditions not to make the smallest conceivable outward
sign of concern in it.
At home, however, the contributor related his adventures and the story
of Tinker's life, adding the fact that he had just found out where Mr.
Hapford lived. "It was the only touch wanting," said he; "the whole
thing is now perfect."
"It's _too_ perfect," was answered from a sad enthusiasm. "Don't speak
of it! I can't take it in."
"But the question is," said the contributor, penitently taking himself
to task for forgetting the hero of these excellent misfortunes in his
delight at their perfection, "how am I to sleep to-night, thinking of
that poor soul's suspense and uncertainty? Never mind,--I'll be up
early, and run over and make sure that it is Tinker's Hapford, before he
gets out here, and have a pleasant surprise for him. Would it not be a
justifiable _coup de théâtre_ to fetch his daughter here, and let her
answer his ring at the door when he comes in the morning?"
This plan was discouraged. "No, no; let them meet in their own way. Just
take him to Hapford's house and leave him."
"Very well. But he's too good a character to lose sight of. He's got to
come back here and tell us what he intends to do."
The birds, next morning, not having had the second mate on their minds
either as an unhappy man or a most fortunate episode, but having slept
long and soundly, were singing in a very sprightly way in the wayside
trees; and the sweetness of their notes made the contributor's heart
light as he climbed the hill and rang at Mr. Hapford's door.
The door was opened by a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, whom he knew
at a glance for the second mate's daughter, but of whom, for form's
sake, he asked if there were a girl named Julia Tinker living there.
"My name's Julia Tinker," answered the maid, who had rather a
disappointing face.
"Well," said the contributor, "your father's got back from his Hong-Kong
voyage."
"Hong-Kong voyage?" echoed the girl, with a stare of helpless inquiry,
but no other visible emotion.
"Yes. He had never heard of your mother's death. He came home yesterday
morning, and was looking for you all day."
Julia Tinker remained open-mouthed but mute; and the other was puzzled
at the want of feeling shown, which he could not account for even as a
national trait. "Perhaps there's some mistake," he said.
"There must be," answered Julia: "my father hasn't been to sea for a
good many years. _My_ father," she added, with a diffidence
indescribably mingled with a sense of distinction,--"_my_ father 's in
State's Prison. What kind of looking man was this?"
The contributor mechanically described him.
Julia Tinker broke into a loud, hoarse laugh. "Yes, it's him, sure
enough." And then, as if the joke were too good to keep: "Mis' Hapford,
Mis' Hapford, father's got out. Do come here!" she called into a back
room.
When Mrs. Hapford appeared, Julia fell back, and, having deftly caught a
fly on the doorpost, occupied herself in plucking it to pieces, while
she listened to the conversation of the others.
"It's all true enough," said Mrs. Hapford, when the writer had recounted
the moving story of Jonathan Tinker, "so far as the death of his wife
and baby goes. But he hasn't been to sea for a good many years, and he
must have just come out of State's Prison, where he was put for bigamy.
There's always two sides to a story, you know; but they say it broke his
first wife's heart, and she died. His friends don't want him to find his
children, and this girl especially."
"He's found his children in the city," said the contributor gloomily,
being at a loss what to do or say, in view of the wreck of his romance.
"Oh, he's found 'em, has he?" cried Julia, with heightened amusement.
"Then he'll have me next, if I don't pack and go."
"I'm very, very sorry," said the contributor, secretly resolved never to
do another good deed, no matter how temptingly the opportunity presented
itself. "But you may depend he won't find out from _me_ where you are.
Of course I had no earthly reason for supposing his story was not true."
"Of course," said kind-hearted Mrs. Hapford, mingling a drop of honey
with the gall in the contributor's soul, "you only did your duty."
And indeed, as he turned away, he did not feel altogether without
compensation. However Jonathan Tinker had fallen in his esteem as a man,
he had even risen as literature. The episode which had appeared so
perfect in its pathetic phases did not seem less finished as a farce;
and this person, to whom all things of every-day life presented
themselves in periods more or less rounded, and capable of use as facts
or illustrations, could not but rejoice in these new incidents, as
dramatically fashioned as the rest. It occurred to him that, wrought
into a story, even better use might be made of the facts now than
before, for they had developed questions of character and of human
nature which could not fail to interest. The more he pondered upon his
acquaintance with Jonathan Tinker, the more fascinating the erring
mariner became, in his complex truth and falsehood, his delicately
blended shades of artifice and naïveté. He must, it was felt, have
believed to a certain point in his own inventions: nay, starting with
that groundwork of truth,--the fact that his wife was really dead, and
that he had not seen his family for two years,--why should he not place
implicit faith in all the fictions reared upon it? It was probable that
he felt a real sorrow for her loss, and that he found a fantastic
consolation in depicting the circumstances of her death so that they
should look like his inevitable misfortunes rather than his faults. He
might well have repented his offence during those two years of prison;
and why should he not now cast their dreariness and shame out of his
memory, and replace them with the freedom and adventure of a two years'
voyage to China,--so probable, in all respects, that the fact should
appear an impossible nightmare? In the experiences of his life he had
abundant material to furnish forth the facts of such a voyage, and in
the weariness and lassitude that should follow a day's walking equally
after a two years' voyage and two years' imprisonment, he had as much
physical proof in favor of one hypothesis as the other. It was doubtless
true, also, as he said, that he had gone to his house at dawn, and sat
down on the threshold of his ruined home; and perhaps he felt the desire
he had expressed to see his daughter, with a purpose of beginning life
anew; and it may have cost him a veritable pang when he found that his
little ones did not know him. All the sentiments of the situation were
such as might persuade a lively fancy of the truth of its own
inventions; and as he heard these continually repeated by the
contributor in their search for Mr. Hapford, they must have acquired an
objective force and repute scarcely to be resisted. At the same time,
there were touches of nature throughout Jonathan Tinker's narrative
which could not fail to take the faith of another. The contributor, in
reviewing it, thought it particularly charming that his mariner had not
overdrawn himself, or attempted to paint his character otherwise than as
it probably was; that he had shown his ideas and practices of life to be
those of a second mate, nor more nor less, without the gloss of regret
or the pretences to refinement that might be pleasing to the supposed
philanthropist with whom he had fallen in. Captain Gooding was of course
a true portrait; and there was nothing in Jonathan Tinker's statement of
the relations of a second mate to his superiors and his inferiors which
did not agree perfectly with what the contributor had just read in "Two
Years before the Mast,"--a book which had possibly cast its glamour upon
the adventure. He admired also the just and perfectly characteristic air
of grief in the bereaved husband and father,--those occasional escapes
from the sense of loss into a brief hilarity and forgetfulness, and
those relapses into the hovering gloom, which every one has observed in
this poor, crazy human nature when oppressed by sorrow, and which it
would have been hard to simulate. But, above all, he exulted in that
supreme stroke of the imagination given by the second mate when, at
parting, he said he believed he would go down and sleep on board the
vessel. In view of this, the State's Prison theory almost appeared a
malign and foolish scandal.
Yet even if this theory were correct, was the second mate wholly
answerable for beginning his life again with the imposture he had
practised? The contributor had either so fallen in love with the
literary advantages of his forlorn deceiver that he would see no moral
obliquity in him, or he had touched a subtler verity at last in
pondering the affair. It seemed now no longer a farce, but had a pathos
which, though very different from that of its first aspect, was hardly
less tragical. Knowing with what coldness, or at the best, uncandor, he
(representing Society in its attitude toward convicted Error) would have
met the fact had it been owned to him at first, he had not virtue enough
to condemn the illusory stranger, who must have been helpless to make at
once evident any repentance he felt or good purpose he cherished. Was it
not one of the saddest consequences of the man's past,--a dark necessity
of misdoing,--that, even with the best will in the world to retrieve
himself, his first endeavor must involve a wrong? Might he not, indeed,
be considered a martyr, in some sort, to his own admirable impulses? I
can see clearly enough where the contributor was astray in this
reasoning, but I can also understand how one accustomed to value
realities only as they resembled fables should be won with such pensive
sophistry; and I can certainly sympathize with his feeling that the
mariner's failure to reappear according to appointment added its final
and most agreeable charm to the whole affair, and completed the mystery
from which the man emerged and which swallowed him up again.
NOTES
=Mr. Charles Reade=:--An English novelist (1814-1884).
=protégé= (French):--A person under the care of another. The form given
here is masculine; the feminine is _protégée_.
=coup de théâtre=:--(French) A very striking scene, such as might appear
on the stage.
=Two Years before the Mast=:--A sea story written by R.H. Dana, about
1840.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
What is a romance? The phrase _already mentioned_ refers to earlier
parts of the book _Suburban Sketches_, from which this story is taken.
What effect does the author gain by the ring at the door-bell? How does
he give you a quick and vivid idea of the visitor? What significance do
the man's clothes have in the story? By means of what devices does the
author interest you in the stranger? Do adventures really happen in
everyday life? Why does the author speak of one's own "register"? Mr.
Howells has written a number of novels in which he pictures ordinary
people, and shows the romance of commonplace events. Why does the
listener "exult"? How does the man's story affect you? What is gained by
having it told in his own words? Is Jonathan Tinker's toast a happy one?
What does the contributor mean by saying that he would have been a good
subject for "the predatory arts"? _The last horse-car_: To Boston; the
scene is probably laid in Cambridge where Mr. Howells lived for some
years. In what way does the sailor's language emphasize the pathetic
quality of his story? How was the man "literature made to the author's
hand"? What are the "national traditions" mentioned in connection with
the boy? Why was the story regarded as "too perfect" when it was related
at home? In what way was Julia Tinker's face "disappointing"? How does
the author feel when he hears the facts in the case? Why does he resolve
never to do a good deed again? The author gives two reasons why Jonathan
Tinker did not tell the truth: what seems to you the real reason?
Characterize Tinker in your own words. Is the ending of the selection
satisfactory? Did you think that Tinker would come back? Can you make a
little drama of this story?
THEME SUBJECTS
An Old Sailor
People who do not Tell the Truth
The Forsaken House
Asking Directions
A Tramp
The Lost Address
An Evening at Home
A Sketch of Julia Tinker
The Surprise
A Long-lost Relative
What Becomes of the Ex-Convicts?
The Jail
A Stranger in Town
A Late Visitor
What I Think of Jonathan Tinker
The Disadvantages of a Lively Imagination
Unwelcome
If Jonathan Tinker had Told the Truth
The Lie
A Call at a Stranger's House
An Unfortunate Man
A Walk in Dark Streets
The Sea Captain
Watching the Sailors
SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING
=A Late Visitor=:--Try to write this in the form of a dialogue or little
play. The host is reading or conversing in the family sitting-room, when
the doorbell rings. There is a conversation at the door, and then the
caller is brought in. Perhaps the stranger has some evil design. Perhaps
he (or she) is lost, or in great need. Perhaps he turns out to be in
some way connected with the family. Think out the plan of the dialogue
pretty thoroughly before you begin to write. It is possible that you
will want to add a second act in which the results of the first are
shown. Plan your stage directions with the help of some other drama, as,
for instance, that given on page 52.
=The Lie=:[13]--This also may be written in the form of a slight
dramatic composition. There might be a few brief scenes, according to
the following plan:--
Scene 1: The lie is told.