AN OFFERING.
Clementina was always ready to accord any reasonable request Florimel
could make of her; but her letter lifted such a weight from her heart
and life that she would now have done whatever she desired, reasonable
or unreasonable, provided only it was honest. She had no difficulty in
accepting Florimel's explanation that her sudden disappearance was but a
breaking of the social jail, the flight of the weary bird from its
foreign cage back to the country of its nest; and that same morning she
called upon Demon. The hound, feared and neglected, was rejoiced to see
her, came when she called him, and received her caresses: there was no
ground for dreading his company. It was a long journey, but if it had
been across a desert instead of through her own country, the hope that
lay at the end of it would have made it more than pleasant. She, as well
as Lady Bellair, had friends upon the way, but no desire either to
lengthen the journey or shorten its tedium by visiting them.
The letter would have found her at Wastbeach instead of London had not
the society and instructions of the schoolmaster detained her a willing
prisoner to its heat and glare and dust. Him only in all London must she
see to bid good-bye. To Camden Town therefore she went that same
evening, when his work would be over for the day. As usual now, she was
shown into his room--his only one. As usual also, she found him poring
over his Greek Testament. The gracious, graceful woman looked lovelily
strange in that mean chamber--like an opal in a brass ring. There was no
such contrast between the room and its occupant. His bodily presence was
too weak to "stick fiery off" from its surroundings, and to the eye that
saw through the bodily presence to the inherent grandeur, that grandeur
suggested no discrepancy, being of the kind that lifts everything to its
own level, casts the mantle of its own radiance around its surroundings.
Still, to the eye of love and reverence it was not pleasant to see him
in such _entourage_, and now that Clementina was going to leave him, the
ministering spirit that dwelt in the woman was troubled.
"Ah!" he said, and rose as she entered, "this is then the angel of my
deliverance!" But with such a smile he did not look as if he had much to
be delivered from. "You see," he went on, "old man as I am, and
peaceful, the summer will lay hold upon me. She stretches out a long arm
into this desert of houses and stones, and sets me longing after the
green fields and the living air--it seems dead here--and the face of
God, as much as one may behold of the Infinite through the revealing
veil of earth and sky and sea. Shall I confess my weakness, my poverty
of spirit, my covetousness after the visual? I was even getting a little
tired of that glorious God-and-man lover, Saul of Tarsus: no, not of
him, never of _him_, only of his shadow in his words. Yet perhaps--yes,
I think so--it is God alone of whom a man can never get tired. Well, no
matter: tired I was, when lo! here comes my pupil, with more of God in
her face than all the worlds and their skies He ever made."
"I would my heart were as full of Him too, then, sir," answered
Clementina. "But if I am anything of a comfort to you, I am more than
glad; therefore the more sorry to tell you that I am going to leave you,
though for a little while only, I trust."
"You do not take me by surprise, my lady. I have of course been looking
forward for some time to my loss and your gain. The world is full of
little deaths--deaths of all sorts and sizes, rather let me say. For
this one I was prepared. The good summer-land calls you to its bosom,
and you must go."
"Come with me," cried Clementina, her eyes eager with the light of the
sudden thought, while her heart reproached her grievously that only now
first had it come to her.
"A man must not leave the most irksome work for the most peaceful
pleasure," answered the schoolmaster. "I am able to live--yes, and do my
work--without you, my lady," he added with a smile, "though I shall miss
you sorely."
"But you do not know where I want you to come," she said.
"What difference can that make, my lady, except indeed in the amount of
pleasure to be refused, seeing this is not a matter of choice? I must be
with the children whom I have engaged to teach, and whose parents pay me
for my labor--not with those who, besides, can do well without me."
"I cannot, sir--not for long at least."
"What! not with Malcolm to supply my place?"
Clementina blushed, but only like a white rose. She did not turn her
head aside; she did not lower their lids to veil the light she felt
mount into her eyes; she looked him gently in the face as before, and
her aspect of entreaty did not change. "Ah! do not be unkind, master,"
she said.
"Unkind!" he repeated. "You know I am not. I have more kindness in my
heart than any lips can tell. You do not know, you could not yet
imagine, the half of what I hope of and for and from you."
"I _am_ going to see Malcolm," she said with a little sigh. "That is, I
am going to visit Lady Lossie at her place in Scotland--your own old
home, where so many must love you. _Can't_ you come? I shall be
traveling alone, quite alone, except my servants."
A shadow came over the schoolmaster's face: "You do not _think_, my
lady, or you would not press me. It pains me that you do not see at once
it would be dishonest to go without timely notice to my pupils, and to
the public too. But, beyond that quite, I never do anything of myself. I
go not where I wish, but where I seem to be called or sent. I never even
wish much, except when I pray to Him in whom are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. After what He wants to give me I am wishing all
day long. I used to build many castles, not without a beauty of their
own--that was when I had less understanding--now I leave them to God to
build for me: He does it better, and they last longer. See now, this
very hour, when I needed help, could I have contrived a more lovely
annihilation of the monotony that threatened to invade my weary spirit
than this inroad of light in the person of my Lady Clementina? Nor will
He allow me to get overwearied with vain efforts. I do not think He will
keep me here long, for I find I cannot do much for these children. They
are but some of His many pagans--not yet quite ready to receive
Christianity, I think--not like children with some of the old seeds of
the truth buried in them, that want to be turned up nearer to the light.
This ministration I take to be more for my good than theirs--a little
trial of faith and patience for me--a stony corner of the lovely valley
of humiliation to cross. True, I _might_ be happier where I could hear
the larks, but I do not know that anywhere have I been more peaceful
than in this little room, on which I see you so often cast round your
eyes curiously, perhaps pitifully, my lady."
"It is not at all a fit place for _you_," said Clementina with a touch
of indignation.
"Softly, my lady, lest, without knowing it, your love should make you
sin. Who set thee, I pray, for a guardian angel over my welfare? I could
scarce have a lovelier, true; but where is thy brevet? No, my lady: it
is a greater than thou that sets me the bounds of my habitation. Perhaps
He may give me a palace one day. If I might choose, it would be things
that belong to a cottage--the whiteness and the greenness and the sweet
odors of cleanliness. But the Father has decreed for His children that
they shall know the thing that is neither their ideal nor His. Who can
imagine how in this respect things looked to our Lord when He came and
found so little faith on the earth? But perhaps, my lady, you would not
pity my present condition so much if you had seen the cottage in which I
was born, and where my father and mother loved each other, and died
happier than on their wedding-day. There I was happy too until their
loving ambition decreed that I should be a scholar and a clergyman. Not
before then did I ever know anything worthy the name of trouble. A
little cold and a little hunger at times, and not a little restlessness
always, was all. But then--ah, then my troubles began. Yet God, who
bringeth light out of darkness, hath brought good even out of my
weakness and presumption and half-unconscious falsehood. When do you
go?"
"To-morrow morning, as I purpose."
"Then God be with thee! He _is_ with thee, only my prayer is that thou
mayst know it. He is with me, and I know it. He does not find this
chamber too mean or dingy or unclean to let me know Him near me in it."
"Tell me one thing before I go," said Clementina: "are we not commanded
to bear each other's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ? I read
it to-day."
"Then why ask me?"
"For another question: does not that involve the command to those who
have burdens that they should allow others to bear them?"
"Surely, my lady. But _I_ have no burden to let you bear."
"Why should I have everything and you nothing? Answer me that."
"My lady, I have millions more than you, for I have been gathering the
crumbs under my Master's table for thirty years."
"You are a king," answered Clementina. "But a king needs a handmaiden
somewhere in his house: that let _me_ be in yours. No, I will be proud,
and assert my rights: I am your daughter. If I am not, why am I here? Do
you not remember telling me that the adoption of God meant a closer
relation than any other fatherhood, even His own first fatherhood, could
signify? You cannot cast me off if you would. Why should you be poor
when I am rich? You _are_ poor: you cannot deny it," she concluded with
a serious playfulness.
"I will not deny my privileges," said the schoolmaster, with a smile
such as might have acknowledged the possession of some exquisite and
envied rarity.
"I believe," insisted Clementina, "you are just as poor as the apostle
Paul when he sat down to make a tent, or as our Lord himself after he
gave up carpentering."
"You are wrong there, my lady. I am not so poor as they must often have
been."
"But I don't know how long I may be away, and you may fall ill,
or--or--see some--some book you want very much, or--"
"I never do," said the schoolmaster.
"What! never see a book you want to have?"
"No, not now. I have my Greek Testament, my Plato and my Shakespeare,
and one or two little books besides whose wisdom I have not yet quite
exhausted."
"I can't bear it!" cried Clementina, almost on the point of weeping.
"You will not let me near you. You put out an arm as long as the
summer's, and push me away from you. _Let_ me be your servant." As she
spoke she rose, and walking softly up to him where he sat, kneeled at
his knees and held out suppliantly a little bag of white silk tied with
crimson. "Take it--father," she said, hesitating, and bringing the word
out with an effort: "take your daughter's offering--a poor thing to show
her love, but something to ease her heart."
He took it, and weighed it up and down in his hand with an amused smile,
but his eyes full of tears. It was heavy. He opened it. A chair was
within his reach: he emptied it on the seat of it, and laughed with
merry delight as its contents came tumbling out. "I never saw so much
gold in my life if it were all taken together," he said. "What beautiful
stuff it is! But I don't want it, my dear. It would but trouble me." And
as he spoke he began to put it in the bag again. "You will want it for
your journey," he said.
"I have plenty in my reticule," she answered. "That is a mere nothing to
what I could have to-morrow morning for writing a cheque. I am afraid I
am very rich. It is such a shame! But I can't well help it. You must
teach me how to become poor. Tell me true: how much money have you?" She
said this with such an earnest look of simple love that the schoolmaster
made haste to rise that he might conceal his growing emotion.
"Rise, my dear lady," he said as he rose himself, "and I will show you."
He gave her his hand, and she obeyed, but troubled and disappointed, and
so stood looking after him while he went to a drawer. Thence, searching
in a corner of it, he brought a half-sovereign, a few shillings and some
coppers, and held them out to her on his hand with the smile of one who
has proved his point. "There!" he said, "do you think Paul would have
stopped preaching to make a tent so long as he had as much as that in
his pocket? I shall have more on Saturday, and I always carry a month's
rent in my good old watch, for which I never had much use, and now have
less than ever."
Clementina had been struggling with herself: now she burst into tears.
"Why, what a misspending of precious sorrow!" exclaimed the
schoolmaster. "Do you think because a man has not a gold-mine he must
die of hunger? I once heard of a sparrow that never had a worm left for
the morrow, and died a happy death notwithstanding." As he spoke he took
her handkerchief from her hand and dried her tears with it. But he had
enough ado to keep his own back. "Because I won't take a bagful of gold
from you when I don't want it," he went on, "do you think I should let
myself starve without coming to you? I promise you I will let you
know--come to you if I can--the moment I get too hungry to do my work
well and have no money left. Should I think it a disgrace to take money
from _you_? That would show a poverty of spirit such as I hope never to
fall into. My _sole_ reason for refusing now is that I do not need it."
But for all his loving words and assurances Clementina could not stay
her tears. She was not ready to weep, but now her eyes were as a
fountain.
"See, then, for your tears are hard to bear, my daughter," he said, "I
will take one of these golden ministers, and if it has flown from me ere
you come, seeing that, like the raven, it will not return if once I let
it go, I will ask you for another. It _may_ be God's will that you
should feed me for a time."
"Like one of Elijah's ravens," said Clementina, with an attempted laugh
that was really a sob.
"Like a dove whose wings are covered with silver and her feathers with
yellow gold," said the schoolmaster.
A moment of silence followed, broken only by Clementina's failures in
quieting herself.
"To me," he resumed, "the sweetest fountain of money is the hand of
love, but a man has no right to take it from that fountain except he is
in want of it. I am not. True, I go somewhat bare, my lady; but what is
that when my Lord would have it so?"
He opened again the bag, and slowly, reverentially indeed, drew from it
one of the new sovereigns with which it was filled. He put it in a
waistcoat pocket and laid the bag on the table.
"But your clothes are shabby, sir," said Clementina, looking at him with
a sad little shake of the head.
"Are they?" he returned, and looked down at his lower garments,
reddening and anxious. "I did not think they were more than a little
rubbed, but they shine somewhat," he said. "They are indeed polished by
use," he went on with a troubled little laugh: "but they have no holes
yet--at least none that are visible," he corrected. "If you tell me, my
lady, if you honestly tell me, that my garments"--and he looked at the
sleeve of his coat, drawing back his head from it to see it better--"are
unsightly, I will take of your money and buy me a new suit." Over his
coat-sleeve he regarded her, questioning.
"Everything about you is beautiful," she burst out. "You want nothing
but a body that lets the light through." She took the hand still raised
in his survey of his sleeve, pressed it to her lips, and walked, with
even more than her wonted state, slowly from the room.
He took the bag of gold from the table and followed her down the stair.
Her chariot was waiting her at the door. He handed her in, and laid the
bag on the little seat in front.
"Will you tell him to drive home?" she said with a firm voice, and a
smile which if any one care to understand let him read Spenser's
fortieth sonnet. And so they parted. The coachman took the queer,
shabby, un-London-like man for a fortune-teller his lady was in the
habit of consulting, and paid homage to his power with the handle of his
whip as he drove away. The schoolmaster returned to his room--not to his
Plato, not even to Saul of Tarsus, but to the Lord himself.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
SOME LAST WORDS FROM SAINTE-BEUVE.
It is seven years since the world of letters lost the prince of critics,
the last of the critics. His unfinished and unpublished manuscripts were
eagerly demanded and devoured; while obituaries, notices, reminiscences
and those analyses which the French term _appreciations_ rained in from
various quarters. The latest of these that deserves attention was an
outline of Saint-Beuve's life and literary career by the Vicomte
d'Haussonville, in which, with an affectation of impartiality and
fairness, every page was streaked with malice; imperfect justice was
done to Sainte-Beuve's intellect; his influence and reputation were
understated; and a picture was given of him as a man which could not but
be disagreeable and disappointing to the vast number who admired him as
a writer. In regard to the first two points, ill-nature and inaccuracy
can do no harm: Sainte-Beuve's fame and ability are perfectly well known
to the reading public of to-day, and the opinion of posterity will rest
upon his own merits rather than on the statements of any biographer, as
he is one of the authors whose writings are sure to be more read than
what other people write about them. The unpleasant personal impression
is not so easily dismissed: however exaggerated we may be disposed to
think it, the reflection occurs, "How this man was feared!" The
appearance of the notice several years after Sainte-Beuve's death
strengthens this conviction: M. d'Haussonville waited until his subject
should be quite cold before he ventured to touch him.
The causes of this dread and dislike are not to be found in
Sainte-Beuve's voluminous works, nor have I met with any evidence of it
in the writings of his literary contemporaries. He obviously held that
it is a critic's duty to be just before he is generous, and there may be
a lack of geniality in his praise, though it is not given grudgingly;
but I cannot recall an instance of literary spite in the large
proportion of his writings with which I am familiar. His judgments are
often severe, never harsh: he frequently dealt in satire, rarely, as far
as my memory serves, in sarcasm, and he condemns irony as one of the
least intelligent dispositions of the mind. The only case in which I
remember having suspected Sainte-Beuve of ill-nature was in a notice of
J. J. Ampere printed in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ shortly after the
latter's death; but a person who had known Ampere long and well, and on
the friendliest terms, declared that it gave an entirely fair
description of the man, who, full of talent and amiability as he was,
had many weaknesses. Two pleas only can justify disinterring and
gibbeting an author's private life--either his having done the same by
others, or his having made the public the confidant of his individual
experience. Few writers have intruded their own personality upon their
readers less than Sainte-Beuve has done: the poems and novels of his
youth, which won fervent admiration from the literary leaders of that
day, De Vigny, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, are now forgotten: he is known
to readers of the last half century by a series of critical and
biographical essays extending from 1823 or 1824 to 1870, which combine
every attribute of perfect criticism except enthusiasm. The most
prominent feature of his method is the conscientiousness with which he
credits the person upon whom he passes judgment with every particle of
worth which can be extracted from his writings, acts or sayings: he
adopts as the basis of criticism the acknowledgment of whatever merit
may exist in the subject of consideration; and his talent and patience
for sifting the grain from the chaff are remarkable and admirable. An
author who has left some forty volumes conceived in this spirit should
have been safe against an effusion of spleen in his biographer. I am not
assailing the fidelity of M. d'Haussonville's portrait--of which I have
no means of judging--but the temper in which it is executed, which can
be judged without difficulty. Besides the injustice already mentioned,
it is disfigured by tittle-tattle, which tends to render the original
ridiculous and repulsive, but does not add one whit to our knowledge of
Sainte-Beuve as a man or an author.
A defence of Sainte-Beuve is not within the purpose of the present
article; but it was impossible for one who has known him favorably for
twenty years through his works and the testimony of his most
distinguished literary compeers to speak of him at all without
protesting against the detraction to which his memory has been
subjected. Two small posthumous volumes have lately been issued in
France,[C] revealing qualities which might expose the dead man to a mean
revenge, though to most readers they will have a delightful freshness
unspoiled by any bitter flavor. They consist of a series of notes on all
sorts of subjects, literary, dramatic, religious and political, one of
them being actually made up of the jottings in his later notebooks,
while the other contains the memoranda of a sort of high-class gossip
with which Sainte-Beuve supplied a friend, the editor of _La Revue
Suisse_, during the years 1843-45. These were not to be published as
they stood, but to be used by the editor, M. Juste Olivier, as he should
think best: they are fragmentary, mere bits of raw material--if any
product of that accomplished brain can be so termed--to be worked up by
another hand. They were qualified by marginal observations, such as
"This is for you alone," "This is rather strong," and they were to be
absolutely anonymous, the author allowing himself the luxury of free
speech, of writing exactly as he thought and felt; in short, of trusting
his indiscretion to M. Olivier's discretion. The latter used his
judgment independently; Sainte-Beuve's views and comments often became
merely one ingredient in an article for which others supplied the rest;
and the editor kneaded the whole into shape to his own liking. But the
MSS. remained intact, and were confided by M. Olivier to M. Jules
Troubat, Sainte-Beuve's private secretary and editor, who has published
them in their integrity, he tells us, with the exception of "a few
indispensable suppressions." The other volume, as we have said, is
composed of his notebooks. These last were intended to take the place of
memoirs by Sainte-Beuve himself, who wrote a short preface, under the
name of M. Troubat, destined for a larger volume to appear after his
death. He published, however, the greater part of those which he had
already collected in vol. ii. of the _Causeries de Lundi_: the present
series contains the notes which accumulated subsequently. M. Troubat has
given them to the world as they stood. Both books abound in the
characteristics of the author's style--good sense, moderation,
perception, discrimination, delicacy, sparkle, unerring taste, as well
as judgment in matters of intelligence. A parcel of disconnected
passages cannot possess the flow and finish of a complete essay, but
each bit has the clearness, incisiveness and smooth polish of his native
wit. They give us Sainte-Beuve's first impression, thought, mental
impulse, about daily events regarding which he sometimes afterward
modified his opinion. Not often, however, for he had, if not precisely
the prophetic vision which belongs to genius or minds illuminated by
enthusiasm or sympathy, that keen far-sightedness which recognizes at a
distance rather than foresees the coming event or man. He tells a
quantity of anecdotes, and he had exactly the sort of humor and absence
of tenderness for human weakness which perceives the point that makes a
story good in the greatest variety of speeches and situations. The key
to the dislike and fear with which some people must have regarded him
while living lies probably in just this appreciation. It is vain to
assert that humor is necessarily kindly, or the adjectives "grim" and
"savage" would not so often be tacked to it. Nobody could have hoped
that friendship would blind Sainte-Beuve to an absurdity: on the other
hand, even his enemies might count on his recognition if they had said a
good thing, and his not spoiling it in the repetition, as too many
friends do. This produced an impartiality in his verdicts which is the
moral essence of criticism, but perhaps the most trying quality to the
subject of it: he says himself that he had irritated and envenomed more
people by his praise than by his blame. He had not a high opinion of
human nature, which is curiously illustrated by his female portraits:
when there has been only a doubt of a woman's virtue, he never gives her
the benefit of the doubt; when there has not been even the suspicion of
a slip, he presumes that she kept her secrets better than most people
do. He was sensitive to the accusation of cynicism, and resented
extremely an article in _L'Union_ of June, 1855, in which he was set
down as having not only a skeptical mind, but a skeptical heart; which
was no doubt very nearly true. Yet he was on his guard against his
natural cynicism in his literary judgments at least, as one need but
glance over them to see. In the _Cahiers_ he cites an expression of his
fair friend Madame d'Arbonville: "How many good things there are besides
the things which we like! We ought to make room within ourselves for a
certain _opposite_;" and he adds that this should be the motto of a
liberal and intelligent critic. These convictions helped to make his
criticism as admirable, as invaluable, as it is; but the sharpness from
which his literary work is free makes his private observations on men
and things more entertaining. There are few people so well-natured as
not to enjoy the peculiar pungency which gives many of the passages in
the two volumes before us their relish: now and then it is as if we had
got hold of the cruets which were to season a whole article. There is a
batch of anecdotes about Lamartine, whose conspicuous gifts and position
put his puerile vanity in relief; and that vanity Sainte-Beuve never
spared. Lamartine set the fashion of his own idolatry by constituting
himself the high priest; adulation was not enough--he demanded
adoration; and he received it. He had a habit of contemplating himself
from an objective but highly-idealizing point of view, best expressed by
saying that he had a hero-worship for himself: his memoirs and other
autobiographical writings are full of it, and in his intercourse it
perpetually overflowed. "That is the brow they have tried to bend to the
dust!" he exclaimed, standing before his own likeness in Ary Scheffer's
studio. Lord Houghton, among his many good stories, had one of spending
an evening at Lamartine's in Paris with a circle of celebrities. Alfred
de Vigny, who had been out of town, presented himself. "Welcome back!"
said Lamartine magnificently. "You come from the provinces: do they
admire us down there?"--"They adore you," replied De Vigny with a bow.
The conversation was a prolonged paean to the host, with choral strophe
and antistrophe. One of the party began to rehearse the aspects in which
Lamartine was the greatest man in France--"As a poet, as an orator, as
an historian, as a statesman;" and as he paused, "And as a _soldier_,"
added Lamartine with a sublime gesture, "if ever France shall need him."
This may have been the country neighbor who, we learn from Sainte-Beuve,
pronounced Lamartine to be Fenelon without his didacticism, Rousseau
without his sophistry, Mirabeau without his incendiary notions. Still,
there were asides in the dialogue. One evening, the week before the
overthrow of the provisional government of which Lamartine was
president, he had a crowded reception, and, notwithstanding the failure
and imminent downfall of his administration, he was radiant with
satisfaction. "What can M. de Lamartine have to be so pleased about?"
said one of his friends to another. "He is pleased with himself," was
the reply.--"One of those speeches," observes Sainte-Beuve, "which only
friends find to make." But Lamartine was by no means solitary in this
infatuation. Sainte-Beuve remarks that "Nothing is so common in our
days: some think themselves God, some the Son of God, some archangels.
Pierre Leroux thinks himself the first, De Vigny the last: Lamartine is
a good prince--he is satisfied to be a seraph."
These books give us daily glimpses of Paris thirty years ago, of that
incessant mental movement, inquiry, desire for novelty and vivacity of
transient interest which dazzle the brain as the scintillation of the
sun upon the unstable waves does the eye. In all great cities, quite as
much as in villages, there is a topic which for the moment occupies
everybody, and which cannot be escaped, whether you enter a
drawing-room, pick up a newspaper or rush into the street: the chief
difference is, that in the great cities it changes oftener--"every
fortnight here," says Sainte-Beuve of Paris. The history of many a nine
days' wonder may be gathered from the _Chroniques_: we can mark the
first effect of occurrences startling at the time, some of which are now
wholly forgotten, while others have become historical; we witness the
appearance of new divinities who have since found their pedestals,
niches or obscure corners. Among these was Ponsard, chiefly known in
this country, to those who remember Mademoiselle Rachel's brief,
gleaming transit, as the author of _Horace et Lydie_, a light, bright,
graceful piece based upon Horace's "Donec gratus eram tibi."
M. Ponsard, who was from the south of France, arrived in Paris in 1843
with a tragedy called _Lucrece_, which had been in his pocket for three
years. It was read first at the house of the actor Bocage before a
party of artists, actors and men of letters such as Paris alone can
bring together. The litterateurs gave their opinion with caution and an
oracular ambiguity which did not commit them too much: Gautier, on being
asked how he liked it, replied, "It did not put me to sleep;" but the
sculptor Preault, not having a literary reputation at stake, declared
that if there were a "Roman prize" for tragedy (as there is for music
and the fine arts, entitling the fortunate competitor to four years'
travel and study in classic lands at the expense of the government) the
author would set out on the morrow for the Eternal City. The play was
read again a week or two afterward in the drawing-room of the Comtesse
d'Agoult, the beautiful, gifted, reckless friend of Lizst's youth, and
mother of the wife of Von Bulow and Wagner. The success was complete.
Sainte-Beuve was again present; and Lamartine was among the audience
full of admiration: the poor young poet could not nerve himself to come.
The play was read by Bocage, who took the principal part, that of
Brutus, when it was brought out at the Odeon. The chaste Lucretia was
played by Madame Dorval, whose strength lay in parts of a different
kind, and who announced her new character to a friend with the comment,
"I only play women of virtue now-a-days." Reports of the new tragedy,
which had been heard only in secret session, soon got about Paris, and
excited intense curiosity and impatience; one of the daily papers
published a scene from _Lucrece_; the sale was immense; everybody
praised it to the skies, even members of the Academy. The next day the
hoax came out: a clever but third-rate writer, M. Mery, had made April
fools of the wits of Paris. The piece itself was soon performed, and
made what is called in this country an immense sensation: the theatre,
long out of favor, was crowded every night; the papers were full of it
every morning; it was the topic about which everybody talked. Authors
who had lately written less popular plays were somewhat envious and
spiteful; Victor Hugo pronounced _Lucrece_ to be Livy versified; Dumas
repeated (or invented) the speech of an enthusiastic notary, who
exclaimed, "What a piece! Not one of my clerks could have written it."
Madame de Girardin had just brought out her tragedy of _Judith_ at the
Theatre Francais, with the powerful support of Rachel in the principal
character: the drama, when read by Rachel and Madame de Girardin (whose
beauty, wit and social position gave her during her whole life a
fictitious rank in a certain set, of which none were better aware than
the members of it) in Madame Recamier's drawing-room, had produced a
better effect than it did upon the stage, where it was considered a
respectable failure. Madame de Girardin could not control or conceal her
chagrin, and meeting M. Ponsard one evening at the Duchesse de
Grammont's, declined to have him presented to her. He took his honors so
quietly--so tamely in the opinion of some people--that Madame Dorval
exhorted him: "Wake up! wake up! you look like a hen that has hatched an
eagle's egg." Since the Augustan age of French literature, since
Corneille and Racine, a really fine tragedy on a classic subject had
been unknown, and the romantic reaction was then at its height. The
moral view of _Lucrece_ was a new and important element of success. "The
religious feeling of the Roman matron, the inviolability of the domestic
hearth, are these not new? do not they count for much?" observed the
virtuous philosopher Ballanche, the devoted, unselfish friend of Madame
Recamier. Sainte-Beuve was greatly impressed by the nobility of the
characters and treatment, and after pointing out its beauties and
shortcomings, set the seal to his encomium by affirming that the secret
of the power of _Lucrece_ was that it had soul.
The extraordinary favor with which this play was received marked an
epoch in a small way, a return to antique ideas and themes, to more
elevated subjects and modes of dealing with them. Six weeks after its
appearance Sainte-Beuve writes: "We have always been rather apish in
France: the Grecian, Roman and biblical tragedies which every day now
brings forth are innumerable. Who will deliver me from these Greeks and
Romans? Here we are overrun by them again after forty years'
insurrection, and by the Hebrews to boot." The high-water mark of the
author's popularity was the publication of a trifle called the
_Anti-Lucrece_, which was sold in the purlieus of the Odeon: next day
there was a rumor that a second _Anti-Lucrece_ was in preparation. But
the tide had turned: six months later, when the theatre reopened after
the summer vacation with the same tragedy, Sainte-Beuve records:
"_Lucrece_ has reappeared only to die, not by the poignard, but of
languor, coldness, premature old age. It is frightful how little and how
fast we live in these times--works as well as men. We survive ourselves
and our children: the generations are turned upside down. Here is a
piece which scarcely six months ago all Paris ran to hear without being
asked:... now they are tired of it already, and can find nothing in it:
it is like last year's snow." The death-blow of the tragedy was given,
Sainte-Beuve says, not by the dagger, but by a luckless blunder of the
actor who played Lucretia's father, and who, instead of saying,
_L'assassin palissant_ ("The assassin turning pale,") said, _L'assassin
polisson_ ("The scamp of an assassin"); which set everybody laughing;
and that was the end of it.
M. Ponsard might console himself, if he liked, by the reflection that
his play, if not immortal, had killed his fair rival's _Judith_ and
swallowed up Victor Hugo's _Burgraves_, which had been acted at the
Theatre Francais a month before _Lucrece_ was first produced. Regarding
the former, Sainte-Beuve shows unwonted tenderness or policy. "Never let
me be too epigrammatic about Madame de Girardin," he wrote to M.
Olivier: "I would not seem to play the traitor to her smiles;" though in
reference to a sharp encounter between her and Jules Janin he hints that
she has claws of her own. He does not deny himself the pleasure of
mentioning Victor Hugo's little weaknesses. At the first three
representations of _Les Burgraves_ the theatre was packed with the
author's friends: on the fourth a less partial public hissed to that
degree that the curtain was dropped, and thenceforward each night was
stormier until the play was withdrawn. Hugo could not bring himself to
allow that he had been hissed, and, being behind the scenes, said to the
actors, with the fatal sibilation whistling through the house, "They are
interrupting my play" (_On trouble ma piece_); which became a byword
with these wicked wits. Sainte-Beuve, with his infallible instinct of
wherein dwelt the vital greatness or defect of a production,
characterizes the piece as an exaggeration. He admits that it has
talent, especially in the preface, but adds, "Hugo sees all things
larger than life: they look black to him--in _Ruy Blas_ they looked red.
But there is grandeur in the _Burgraves_: he alone, or Chateaubriand,
could have written the introduction.... The banks of the Rhine are not
so lofty and thunder-riven as he makes out, nor is Thessaly so black,
nor Notre Dame so enormous, but more elegant, as may be seen from the
pavement. But this is the defect of his eye."
Amidst these theatrical diversions the chronicler alludes to the
fashionable preaching which occupied the gay world at hours when
playhouses and drawing-rooms were not open. There was a religious
revival going on in Paris almost equal to that which Moody and Sankey
have produced here. "During Passion Week" (1843) "the crowd in all the
churches, but at Notre Dame particularly, was prodigious. M. de Ravignan
preached three times a day--at one o'clock for the women of the gay
world, in the evening for the men, at other hours for the workingmen. He
adapted his sermons to the different classes: to the women of the world
he spoke as a man who knows the world and has belonged to it. They
rushed, they crowded, they wept. I do not know how many communicants
there were at Easter, but I believe the figure has not been so high for
fifty years." At Advent of the same year the same scenes were repeated,
with the Abbe Lacordaire in the pulpit. This excitement, and the debates
in the Chamber on the subject of the theological lectures at the
Sorbonne and College of France, call forth some excellent pages
regarding the condition of Catholicism in France and the Gallican
Church, and a brief, rapid review of the causes of the decline of the
latter, which Sainte-Beuve asserts (more than thirty years ago) to be
defunct. "Gallicanism, the noblest child of Catholicism, is dead before
his father, _who in his dotage remains obstinately faithful to his
principles_.... Gallicanism in its dissolution left a vast patrimony:
the Jesuits may grab a huge bit of it, but the bulk will be diminished
and disseminated.... At the rate things are going, Catholicism is
tending to become _a sect_." The insight of this is as remarkable as the
expression. Some years afterward, marking the progress of liberal ideas
in religion, he says: "Men's conceptions of God are constantly changing.
What was the atheism of yesterday will be the deism of to-morrow."
There are few Frenchman of any calling who are indifferent to politics,
and the men of letters almost without exception are interested
spectators when not actors in public affairs. From 1843 to 1845, the
period of the _Chroniques_, was a dead calm in the political horizon of
France, undisturbed by the little distant cloud of warfare in Algiers:
the Legitimists worked up farcical fermentations which had no more body
or head than those of the present day, although the chances of the party
were rather better. The duke of Bordeaux (as the Comte de Chambord was
then called) made an excursion to England one Christmas, which was
seized as an occasion, or more probably was a preconcerted signal, for a
dreary little demonstration of loyalty on the part of his adherents, who
crossed over to pay their respects to him in London: by great
arithmetical efforts their number was added up and made to amount to
four hundred, though whether so many really went was doubted. There were
a few old noblemen of great family: Berryer the eminent lawyer and
Chateaubriand were the only names of individual distinction in the list,
and the chief results were that Queen Victoria was annoyed (some of the
Orleans family being on a visit to her at the time) and intimated her
annoyance, and that the superb Chateaubriand was spoken of in the
English newspapers as "the good old man;" which Sainte-Beuve enjoyed
extremely.
The _Cahiers_ extend from 1847 to 1869, including the vicissitudes which
brought about the Second Empire, whose annihilation Sainte-Beuve died
half a year too soon to witness. In January, 1848, he felt the storm
brewing in the air, though he little guessed from what quarter it would
come nor on whose head it would burst. On the revolution of the 24th of
February he writes: "What events! what a dream! I was prepared for much,
but not so soon, nor for this.... I am tempted to believe in the nullity
of every judgment, my own in particular--I who make it a business to
judge others, and am so short-sighted.... The future will disclose what
no one can foresee. There is no use in talking of ordinary wisdom
and prudence: they have been utterly at fault. Guizot, the
historian-philosopher, has turned out more stupid than a Polignac:
Utopia and the poet's dream, on the contrary, have become facts and
reality. I forgive Lamartine everything: he has been great during these
days, and done honor to the poetic nature." But afterward, in looking
back to the poet's reign, he grew satirical: "It was in the time of the
good provisional government, which did so many things and left so many
undone. The fortunes of France crumbled to pieces in a fortnight, but it
was under the invocation of equality and fraternity. As to liberty, it
only existed for madmen, and the wise took good care to make no use of
it. 'The great folk are terribly scared,' said my portress, but the
small fry triumphed: it was their turn. So much had never been said
about work before, and so little was never done. People walked about all
day, planted liberty-trees at every street-corner, illuminated
willy-nilly, and perorated in the clubs and squares until midnight. The
Exchange rang with disasters in the morning: in the evening it sparkled
with lanterns and fireworks. It was the gayest anarchy for the lower
classes of Paris, who had no police and looked after themselves. The
street-boys ran about with flags; workmen without work, but paid
nevertheless, walked in perpetual procession; the demireps had kicked
over the traces, and on the sidewalks the most virtuous
fellow-citizenesses were hugged without ceremony: it must be added that
they did not resent it too much. The grisettes, having nothing to eat,
gave themselves away for nothing or next to nothing, as during the
Fronde. The chorus of the Girondists was sung on every open lot, and
there was a feast of addresses. Lamartine wrought marvels such as
Ulysses might have done, and he was the siren of the hour. Yet they
laughed and joked, and the true French wit revived. There was general
good-humor and amiability in those first days of a most licentious
spring sunshine. There was an admixture of bad taste, as there always is
in the people of Paris when they grow sentimental. They made grotesque
little gardens round the liberty-trees, which they watered
assiduously.... The small fry adored their provisional government, as
they formerly did their good king Louis XII., and more than one simple
person said with emotion, 'It must be admitted that we are well
governed, _they talk so well!_'" Before three months had elapsed the
provisional government was at an end: "their feet slipped in
blood--literally, in torrents of blood." "The politicians of late years
have been playing a game of chess, intent wholly upon the board, but
never giving a thought to the table under the board. But the table was
alive, the back of a people which began to move, and in the twinkling of
an eye chessboard and men went to the devil."
Among the entries of the next ten or twelve years are sketches of the
leading statesmen and scraps of their conversation: those of Thiers are
very animated. Sainte-Beuve says that he has a happiness of verbal
expression which eludes his pen; "yet raise him upon a pinnacle of works
of art" (of which M. Thiers has always been a patron publicly and
privately), "of historical monuments and flatterers, and he will never
be aught but the cleverest of marmosets." If he had lived another
twelvemonth, Sainte-Beuve might have had some other word for the Great
Citizen. On Guizot he is still more severe, making him out a mere
humbug, and of the poorest sort. When the poet Auguste Barbier became a
candidate for the French Academy, M. Guizot had never heard of him, and
had to be told all about him and his verses--there was surely no
disgrace in this ignorance on the part of a man engrossed in studies and
pursuits of a more serious nature--but before a week was over he was
heard expressing amazement that another person knew nothing of Barbier,
and talking of his poems as if he had always been familiar with them.
The Duchesse de Broglie said: "What M. Guizot has known since morning he
pretends to have known from all eternity."
This paper might be prolonged almost to the length of the volumes
themselves by quoting all the keen, sagacious or brilliant sayings
which they contain. Two more, merely to exemplify Sainte-Beuve's command
of words in very different lines of thought: "The old fragments of cases
in [Greek: phi] and [Greek: then], the ancient remains of verbs in
[Greek: mi] the second aorists, which alone survive the other submerged
tenses, always produce the same effect upon me, in view of the regular
declensions and conjugations, as the multitude of the isles and Cyclades
in relation to the Peloponnesus and the rest of the mainland on the map
of Greece: there was a time when they were all one. The rocks and peaks
still stand to attest it."--"_Never_ is a word which has always brought
bad luck to him who used it from the tribune."
M. Troubat speaks of the correspondence of Sainte-Beuve as destined for
publication: the _Chroniques_ and _Cahiers_ are like anchovies to whet
the appetite for a longer and more continuous reading.
SARAH B. WISTER.
FOOTNOTES:
[C] _Chroniques Parisiennes_ and _Les Cahiers de Sainte-Beuve_.
A FEW LETTERS.
BROOKSIDE, April 12, 1872.
Dear Cousin Bessie: It does not seem possible that but two months from
to-day I saw you standing on your porch in good old Applethorpe bidding
me an April "farewell." I can see you now, as I saw you then,
smiling--or rather laughing--and saying, "Write! write often; and if you
can't find any _real_ news, make something up." I little thought then I
should so soon find material for correspondence. He was very sick at
first, but really seems better now. But I forgot you don't know anything
about him. Well! neither do _I_ much, but "what I have I give unto
thee." So, I'll begin at the beginning of my romance.
Day before yesterday, as I was engaged in the very romantic work of
ploughing, I heard a clattering of hoofs and the snort and pant of a
horse at full tear. In an instant the runaway was brought up, bang!
against my fence. It was the work of but a moment to leap over and seize
the animal. I then perceived his rider clinging, senseless, to the
saddle by one stirrup. It is a great mercy to him that he was not
killed, but he had been dragged but a short distance, and was therefore
not severely injured. I secured the horse to the fence as quickly as
possible, and then disengaged the gentleman. Upon removing him to the
house, sending for a physician and applying various remedies, his
consciousness was restored, and we soon discovered his injuries as well
as a little of his history. His wounds prove to be bruises about the
head and face (more disfiguring than serious), and a broken leg which
it will take several weeks to cure.
So here he is on my hands till he is well. I'm not sorry, either, for
"it is not good for man to be alone," and I find him my nearest
neighbor--like me an orphan, like me with a small fortune, consisting
principally of his farm, and about my age. I've no doubt we shall get
along capitally. I shall write every few days of his progress, knowing
that you will be interested in whatever interests me. Don't forget to
send me all the gossip of Applethorpe, for I am going to make my
neighbor acquainted with all the inhabitants of Applethorpe by
proxy--_i. e._, through your letters; so write your most entertaining
ones, as I expect to read them all aloud to amuse and interest a
captious invalid. "No more at present" from your affectionate cousin,
PHILIP AUBREY.
TO MISS BESSIE LINTON, Applethorpe.
APPLETHORPE, April 20, 1872.
MY DEAR BOY: Your letter duly rec'd. I am glad you have found
companionship, though I am sorry for him that it should be an accident
that literally "threw" him in your way. You did not tell me his name, or
anything but the bare fact of his accident. Be sure that you will find
in me an interested listener--or rather _reader_--of anything you may
choose to tell me. But don't leave accounts of _yourself_ out of your
letters in order to make room for _him_. Remember, you are my only
relation, the only person in the world in whom I have a right to be
interested. It does not seem possible to me, when I think of it, that
there is only five years' difference in our ages: why, I'm sure I feel
ten years older, instead of five. I was very young at fifteen to take
charge of a great boy of ten; and if it were not that you were the good
boy you always were, I never could have fulfilled the charge your dying
mother left me. Do not think, dear, I was not _glad_ to do it for her.
Could I ever, _ever_, if I worked five times as hard as I have since she
left you, repay all that she did for me, the poor miserable, shy orphan
left to her care?
But out upon these memories! Let us deal with the present and future.
_Item._ Mary Montrose's engagement to Joel Roberts is "out" to-day. I'm
glad, for I'm tired of keeping the secret. Poor dear Mary! I do _hope_
she will be happy. She inquires very cordially after you every time she
sees me. She doesn't know she blasted one of my most precious hopes when
she told me she was engaged to Joel.
Good-bye, dear! Be sure and write long letters to your affectionate
cousin,
BESSIE L----.
BROOKSIDE, April 30, 1872.
DEAR BESS: Please excuse my not answering your last two letters, on the
plea of business. Indeed, working and waiting on my friend, George
Hammond, have occupied all my time.
Now, Bessie, I want you to do something for me. Yesterday, when I got
your letter, I read it aloud as usual, George looking very sad the
while. When I was done he said in a trembling tone, "I wish to heaven
there was some one in the world nearly enough related to me to care to
write to me! But I am alone, entirely alone;" and his eyes filled.
(Forgive his weakness, Bess: he has been very sick.) I tried to cheer
him, but all to no purpose till an idea struck him. His face
brightening, he said, "Do you believe, Philip--I know it is a great deal
to ask--but do you believe you could persuade your cousin to write to
_me_? I should prize it _so_ much. Do you think she _would_? Just fancy
what it is never to receive a letter from any one except a
business-man!"
Now, Bessie, _won't_ you write him once in a while? There is not a
particle of harm in it, and I assure you it will be a real boon to the
poor fellow. Just imagine him lying here on his back day after day, and
not a thing to amuse him but my company!
Of course you'll say that you can have nothing to write about to a
stranger. But you'll soon find something, _I_ know: I'll trust to your
"woman's wit." Ask him about his past life: begin _that_ way. But there!
I'll not give you any advice on the subject: you understand writing
letters better than I do. So good-bye, "fair coz." Pray accede to my
request.
Yours, etc.,
PHILIP A----.
BROOKSIDE, July 1, 1872.
MY DEAREST BESSIE: I'm getting jealous! Twice within a week have you
written to George Hammond, and but once to me. Your letters to him are
long, I know, for I see him read them. The correspondence is become
something desperate--no wonder. He has just told me that through your
letters he has become very deeply attached to you, and that when I
return home at the end of another week he will come and plead his cause
personally. He asks my benediction. I am sure he has my most hearty good
wishes, and I do hope, Bessie dear, you may be inclined to say "Yes."
Then, after you are married, you can come out here and settle down near
your only remaining relative for the rest of your natural existence. You
smile and shake your head, and say, "Oh yes, that will last till Philip
marries!" But I say that if I see you and George Hammond united, it is
all I ask.
But I shall say no more. He can plead better by word of mouth than I by
paper, I hope. Ever your devoted
PHILIP.
TO MISS BESSIE LINTON.
A week later, Bessie Linton, fair and young spite of her thirty years,
waited at the Applethorpe station in her pony-carriage for her cousin
and his friend. She was possessed by so many emotions that she hardly
knew whether she most wished or most dreaded seeing the visitors. That
she was herself deeply interested in George Hammond she did not pretend
to deny even to herself; yet just at the last she dreaded seeing him. It
seemed to bring everything so near.
The whistle sounded round the bend, and in another moment the dreaded,
hoped-for train arrived. There alighted from it a number of passengers,
but none that Bessie recognized at all. Presently there came toward her
a gentleman with full beard and moustache, holding out his hand and
exclaiming, "Cousin Bessie, don't you know me?"
"Why, Philip Aubrey! No, I _didn't_. Why, where--" and she hesitated a
half second--"where is my Philip gone?"
"He's here alive and hearty, and the same old scapegrace, I'm afraid."
Then, seeing the look of inquiry and suspense on her face, he added with
considerable embarrassment, "George didn't come just yet. I'll tell you
all about it when we get home."
She was forced to be satisfied, but a nameless feeling of "something"
made the drive a rather silent one, although each tried spasmodically to
start a conversation. Tea over, Philip drew Bessie out into the garden,
and sitting down in a rustic scat, said, "Bessie, come and sit down: I
want to talk to you." Simply, straightforwardly as of old, she came.
"Bessie dear," said Philip, "I have something to say, and don't know how
to say it. But I guess the only way is to tell the truth at once. There
is no such person as George Hammond."
Bessie's heart-blood stopped for what seemed half an hour, and then she
articulated slowly, "Then who wrote those letters, Philip?"
"_I_ did," he answered sadly.
She started away from him as if he had been a serpent. She walked up and
down like a caged animal. At last her scorn burst forth: "_You_, Philip
Aubrey! _you_! You have dared to laugh me to scorn, have you? You have
dared to presume that because I am what the world calls an 'old maid,' I
am a fit mark for the arrows of the would-be wits? Philip Aubrey, all I
have to wish is, that your actions may recoil upon yourself." She would
have said more, but her feelings overcame her entirely, and sitting down
she covered her face with her hand, the tears trickling through her
fingers.
"Oh, Bessie! Bessie! they have. Bitterly have I repented of my ruse. But
I know if you will hear me you will not judge me harshly."
She drew herself up, and throwing all possible scorn into her face,
said, "Go! and if there remains in your body one vestige of feeling
belonging to a gentleman, never let me look upon your face again."
Like a stricken cur he went from her presence. He knew her too well: he
knew that once roused as she now was, years could not efface her
impression. He knew she would listen to no apology, no word of any kind;
so the only thing left for him to do, as she had expressed it, was to
"leave her presence."
As soon as he was fairly gone Bessie rose, went into the house, locked
herself in her own room and struggled with herself. She did not even
pretend to herself that her trouble was not hard to bear. What did life
hold for her now? She had not even the cousin on whom her affections had
so long been centred as her one living relation.
"Oh, if he had only died! if he had only died before he deceived me this
way!" she moaned, "I think I should have borne it more easily. It cannot
be called the thoughtless trick of a boy: he is too old, and has carried
it on too long, and planned it all too systematically, for that."
Three hours after she came from her vigil pale and silent, but a
conqueror. A little card stuck in the drawing-room mirror told her that
Philip had started for New York on his way to his Western home again.
"I declare, Ophelie, Bessie Linton's awful queer about Philip Aubrey.
Last night I says to her, says I, 'Bessie, I hear Philip Aubrey's
home--is he?' First she turned mighty red, and then as white as a sheet,
and she seemed kind a-chokin' like; but in a moment she says, 'So he
was, Mrs. Dartle, but he found some pressing business that took him back
a great deal sooner than he expected.' 'La!' says I, 'what a pity! You
ain't seen him for so long, and you was so attached to him!' And she
says, just as cold as an ice-pitcher, 'I shall miss him very much. Have
you seen my new heliotrope, Mrs. Dartle?' So I couldn't say anything
more, but I declare to man I'd give a penny to know what's the
matter--such friends as they used to be, too! You may depend upon it the
fault's on his side. Mebbe he's done something dreadful."
So things got whispered around, not very much to the credit of Mr.
Aubrey, but after Mrs. Dartle's rebuff no one dared question Miss
Linton, knowing her so well.
Day succeeded day, and no one knew the bitterness that filled Miss
Linton's heart so full that it seemed as if it must burst. Then came a
letter from Philip. "Shall I open it? No, I will send it back. That he
should dare to write again!" One mail followed another, and still the
letter was unsent, was unopened. At last, after a fortnight had passed,
her good sense got the better of her ill-feeling, and she said to
herself, "I will at least see what he can say for himself in excuse. I
need not answer it." So she opened it, and read as follows:
BROOKSIDE, October 8, 1872.
MY MUCH-ABUSED COUSIN: I dare not even _hope_ that you will not return
this unopened. But if you do open it I hope you may read what I have to
say without _too_ bitter feelings. Where shall I commence to tell you my
story?
You know what you said in regard to "making up" news, and one day as I
was out riding my horse _did_ land me at my own fence in the way I
described. For weeks I lay on a bed of the most excruciating torture.
Then I began to recover, and although I was confined to a sofa my
faculties were on the alert, and I was pretty nearly distracted for
something to do to amuse myself with. Finally, a brilliant idea struck
me, and you were the victim of its execution. Believe me, believe me,
Bessie dear, I only meant it for the harmless amusement of a week or
two, but I became so interested in your letters to my imaginary friend
that I could not bear to give them up. I had, Bessie, as I told you,
learned to love you from your letters. They were so precious to me, it
seemed like tearing from me a part of my very life to think of letting
you know how I had deceived you, and so closing all the correspondence
(which meant so much to me) between us. You will say I was cowardly. I
_was_: I know it, and I admit it. But, Bessie, Bessie, I loved you so!
Let my love plead for me. I thought it would be easier for me to tell
you face to face. But God knows the hardest task I ever set myself was
telling you how I had deceived you.
Bessie, don't cast me off! Can't you find a little corner in your heart
wherein I may rest? Let me be your cousin: of course I dare not hope
ever to be anything dearer. But if you only will forgive me the trick
into which I was led by sickness and want of amusement, and afterward
continued from love of you, it is all I dare ask.
Ever your devoted
PHILIP.
Emotions of various kinds seized the soul of Bessie Linton as she read
Philip's letter once, twice, thrice. First, her heart was hardened to
anything he might say--then as he told of his sufferings a little pity
crept in; and finally, as she concluded the last word for the third
time, her heart was so overflowing with pity--which is akin to
love--that she--forgave him.
At least, so I suppose, as they passed my window just now laughing, and
as happy a married couple as ever you saw, if she _is_ "five years older
than he is, and had the bringin' of him up," to use Mrs. Dartle's
expression.
E. C. HEWITT.
FROM THE FLATS.
What heartache--ne'er a hill!
Inexorable, vapid, vague and chill
The drear sand-levels drain my spirit low.
With one poor word they tell me all they know;
Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain,
Do drawl it o'er again and o'er again.
They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name:
Always the same, the same.
Nature hath no surprise,
No ambuscade of beauty 'gainst mine eyes
From brake or lurking dell or deep defile;
No humors, frolic forms--this mile, that mile;
No rich reserves or happy-valley hopes
Beyond the bends of roads, the distant slopes
Her fancy fails, her wild is all run tame:
Ever the same, the same.
Oh might I through these tears
But glimpse some hill my Georgia high uprears,
Where white the quartz and pink the pebbles shine,
The hickory heavenward strives, the muscadine
Swings o'er the slope, the oak's far-falling shade
Darkens the dogwood in the bottom-glade,
And down the hollow from a ferny nook
Bright leaps a living brook!
SIDNEY LANIER.
A DAY'S MARCH THROUGH FINLAND.
"Why don't you go to Imatra?" asks my friend P---- as we lean over the
side of the Peterhof steamer and watch the golden domes of St.
Petersburg rising slowly from the dull gray level of the Gulf of
Finland. "Now that you've seen a bit of Central Russia, that's the next
thing for you to do. Go to Imatra, and I'll go too."
"And where on earth _is_ Imatra?" ask I innocently.
"Oh come! you don't mean to say you've never heard of Imatra? Why,
everybody knows it. Let's go there next week."
Nevertheless, it so happens that I have _not_ heard of Imatra--an
ignorance probably shared by most people out of Russia, and perhaps not
a few in it. But I am destined to a speedier acquaintance than I had
anticipated with the famous waterfall (or "foss," as the natives call
it), which, lying forty miles due north of the Finnish port of Viborg,
close to the renowned "Saima Lake," attracts the amateur fishermen of
St. Petersburg by scores every summer.
The proposed trip comes at an auspicious moment, for St. Petersburg in
July is as thoroughly a "city of the dead" as London in September or
Chamouni in January; and the average tourist, having eaten cabbage-soup
at Wolff's or Dominique's, promenaded the Nevski Prospect and bought
photographs in the Gostinni-Dvor (the Russian Regent street and
Burlington Arcade), witnessed a service in the Isaac Church, and perhaps
gone on to Moscow to stare at the Kremlin and the Monster Bell, must
either await the approach of winter or fall back upon the truly British
consolation of being able to "say that he has been there." Then is the
time for suburban or rural jaunts; for picnics at Peterhof and drives to
Oranienbaum; for wandering through the gardens of Catherine II. at
Tsarskoe-Selo ("Czar's Village") and eating curds and cream at
Pavlovski; for surveying the monastery of Strelna or the batteries of
Cronstadt; or, finally, for taking the advice of my roving friend and
going to Imatra.
Accordingly, behold all our preparations made--knapsacks packed,
tear-and-wear garments put in requisition, many-colored Russian notes
exchanged (at a fearful discount) for dingy Finnish silver[D]--and at
half-past ten on a not particularly bright July morning we stand on the
deck of the anything but "good ship" Konstantin, bound for Viborg.
Despite her tortoise qualities as a steamer, however (which prolong our
voyage to nearly nine hours), the vessel is really luxurious in her
accommodations; and were her progress even slower, the motley groups
around us (groups such as only Dickens could describe or Leech portray)
would sufficiently beguile the time--jaunty boy-officers in brand-new
uniforms, gallantly puffing their _papirossi_ (paper cigarettes) in
defiance of coming nausea, and discussing the merits of the new opera
loud enough to assure every one within earshot that they know nothing
whatever about it; squat Finnish peasants, whose round, puffy faces and
thick yellow hair are irresistibly suggestive of overboiled
apple-dumplings; gray-coated Russian soldiers, with the dogged endurance
of their race written in every line of their patient, solid, unyielding
faces; a lanky Swede, whose huge cork hat and broad collar give him the
look of an exaggerated medicine-bottle; the inevitable tourist in the
inevitable plaid suit, struggling with endless convolutions of
fishing-tackle and hooking himself in a fresh place at every turn; three
or four pale-faced clerks on leave, looking very much as if their
"overwork" had been in some way connected with cigars and bad brandy; a
German tradesman from Vasili-Ostroff (with the short turnip-colored
moustache characteristic of Wilhelm in his normal state), in dutiful
attendance on his wife, who is just completing her preparations for
being comfortably ill as soon as the vessel starts; and a fine specimen
of the real British merchant, talking vehemently (in a miraculous
dialect of his own invention) to a Russian official, whose air of
studied politeness shows plainly that he does not understand a word of
his neighbor's discourse.
Directly we go off the rain comes on, with that singular fatality
characteristic of pleasure-trips in general, arising, doubtless, from
the mysterious law which ordains that a man shall step into a puddle the
instant he has had his boots blacked, and that a piece of
bread-and-butter shall fall (how would Sir Isaac Newton have accounted
for it?) with the buttered side downward. In a trice the deck is
deserted by all save two or three self-devoted martyrs in macintosh, who
"pace the plank" with that air of stern resolution worn by an Englishman
when dancing a quadrille or discharging any other painful duty. The
scenery throughout the entire voyage consists chiefly of fog, relieved
by occasional patches of sand-bank; and small wonder if the superior
attractions of the well-spread dinner-table detain most of our
fellow-sufferers below. What is this first dish that they offer us? _Raw
salmon_, by the shade of Soyer! sliced thin and loaded with pepper. Then
follow soup, fried trout, roast beef, boiled ditto, slices of German
sausage, neck of veal and bacon, fried potatoes and cabbage. Surely,
now, "Hold, enough!" Not a bit of it: enter an enormous plum-pudding,
which might do duty for a globe at any provincial school; next, a dish
of rice and preserve, followed by some of the strongest conceivable
cheese; finally, strawberries, and bilberries, with cream and sugar _ad
libitum_. Involuntarily I recall the famous old American story of the
"boss" at a railway refreshment-room who demanded fifty cents extra from
a passenger who stuck to the table after all the rest had dined and gone
away. "Your board says, 'Dinner, three dollars and fifty cents!'"
remonstrated the victim.--"Ah! that's all very well for reasonable
human bein's with one stomach apiece," retorted the Inexorable; "but
when a feller eats _as if there were no hereafter_, we've got to pile it
on!"
As we pass Cronstadt the fog "lifts" slightly, giving us a momentary
glimpse of the huge forts that guard the passage--the locked door which
bars out Western Europe. There is nothing showy or pretentious about
these squat, round-shouldered, narrow-eyed sentinels of the channel; but
they have a grim air of reserved strength, as though they could be
terribly effective in time of need. Two huge forts now command the
"southern channel," in addition to the four which guarded it at the time
of the Baltic expedition during the Crimean war; and the land-batteries
(into which no outsider is now admitted without special permission) are
being strengthened by movable shields of iron and other appliances of
the kind, for which nearly one million roubles (one hundred and fifty
thousand pounds) have been set apart. The seaward approaches are
commanded by numerous guns of formidable calibre, and far away on the
long, level promontory of the North Spit we can just descry a dark
excrescence--the battery recently constructed for the defence of the
"northern passage." Thus, from the Finnish coast to Oranienbaum a
bristling line of unbroken fortification proclaims Russia's aversion to
war, and the gaping mouths of innumerable cannon announce to all who
approach, with silent eloquence, that "L'empire c'est la paix." It is a
fine political parable that the Western traveler's first glimpse of
Russian civilization should assume the form of a line of batteries,
reminding one of poor Mungo Park's splendid unconscious sarcasm, when,
while wandering helplessly in the desert, he came suddenly upon a gibbet
with a man hanging in chains upon it; "Whereupon," says he, "I kneeled
down and gave hearty thanks to Almighty God, who had been pleased to
conduct me once more into a Christian and civilized country."
As the afternoon creeps on the rain seems to fall heavier, the fog to
brood thicker, the steamer to go (if possible) slower than before.
However, everything earthly has an end except a suit in chancery; and by
nightfall (if there _be_ any nightfall in this wonderful region, where
it is lighter at midnight than in England at daybreak) we reach Viborg,
a neat little town built along the edge of a narrow inlet, with the
straight, wide, dusty streets which characterize every Russian town from
Archangelsk to Sevastopol. Along the edge of the harbor runs a well
laid-out promenade, a favorite resort after sunset, when the cool breeze
from the gulf comes freshly in after the long, sultry hours of the
afternoon. Behind it cluster, like a heap of colored pebbles, the
painted wooden houses of the town; while over all stands, like a veteran
sentinel, the gray massive tower of the old castle, frowning upon the
bristling masts of the harbor like the Past scowling at the Present.
The rippling sea in front and the dark belt of forest behind give the
whole place a very picturesque appearance; but the beauty of the latter
is sorely marred by the destroying sweep of a recent hurricane, traces
of which are still visible in the long swathes of fallen trees that lie
strewn amid the greenwood, like the dead among the living.
In the solemn, subdued light of the northern evening we rattle in a
crazy drosky over the uneven stones of the town into the vast desolate
square in which stands the solitary hotel, a huge barrack-like building,
up and down which we wander for some time, like the prince in the
Sleeping Beauty's palace, without meeting any sign of life, till at
length in a remote corner we come suddenly upon a chubby little waiter
about the size of a well-grown baby, to whom we give our orders. This,
however, is his first and last appearance, for every time we ring a
different waiter, of the same diminutive size, answers the bell; which
oppresses us with an undefined apprehension of having got into a
charity-school by mistake.
When I first made the acquaintance of Viborg, a journey thither from St.
Petersburg, though the distance by land is only about eighty miles, was
no light undertaking. The daring traveler who elected to travel by road
had no choice but to provide himself with abundant wrappings and a good
stock of food, draw his strong boots up to his knee, fortify his inner
man with scalding tea or fiery corn-whisky, and struggle through
axle-deep mud or breast-high snow (according to the season), sometimes
for two days together. "Mais nous avons change tout cela." Two trains
run daily from St. Petersburg, covering the whole distance in about four
hours, and the stations along the line, though bearing marks of hasty
construction, are still sufficiently comfortable and well supplied with
provisions. Thanks to this direct communication with the capital, Viborg
is now completely _au fait_ of the news of the day, and all fashionable
topics are canvassed as eagerly on the promenade of this little Finnish
seaport as along the pavements of the Nevski Prospect.
"We must breakfast early to-morrow, mind," says P---- as we settle into
our respective beds, "for a march in the sun here is no joke, you bet!"
"Worse than in Arabia or South America?" ask I with calm scorn.
"You'll find the north of Russia a pretty fair match for both at this
season. Do you happen to know that one of the hottest places in the
world is Archangelsk on the White Sea? In summer the pitch melts off the
vessels like butter, and the mosquitoes are so thick that the men on
board the grain-ships fairly burrow into the corn for shelter.[E]
Good-night! Sharp six to-morrow, mind!"