thickest having been selected, Mr. Pickwick was wrapped up, and
started off, under the guidance of Mr. Weller: presenting the
singular phenomenon of an elderly gentleman, dripping wet, and
without a hat, with his arms bound down to his sides, skimming
over the ground, without any clearly defined purpose, at the
rate of six good English miles an hour.
But Mr. Pickwick cared not for appearances in such an extreme case, and
urged on by Sam Weller, he kept at the very top of his speed until he
reached the door of Manor Farm, where Mr. Tupman had arrived some five
minutes before, and had frightened the old lady into palpitations of the
heart by impressing her with the unalterable conviction that the kitchen
chimney was on fire--a calamity which always presented itself in glowing
colors to the old lady's mind, when anybody about her evinced the
smallest agitation.
Mr. Pickwick paused not an instant until he was snug in bed. Sam Weller
lighted a blazing fire in his room, and took up his dinner, and
afterwards a great rejoicing was held in honor of his safety.
FOOTNOTES:
[O] MR. PICKWICK, a benevolent, simple-minded old gentleman, is the
founder of the Pickwick Club. He and three other members, Mr. Winkle,
Mr. Snodgrass, and Mr. Tupman, form the Corresponding Society of the
club, and they travel over England together, meeting with many
laughable adventures. They are accompanied by Samuel Weller, Mr.
Pickwick's servant, an inimitable compound of cool impudence, quaint
humor, and fidelity. The Pickwickians have accepted the invitation of
Mr. Wardle, of Manor Farm, Dingley Dell, to be present at the
marriage of his daughter, Isabella, to Mr. Trundle. Among the guests
are also Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen, two medical students,
and Mr. Allen's sister, Arabella. Other members of Mr. Wardle's
household are Mr. Wardle's mother, the "old lady" of Manor Farm, his
daughter, Emily, and Joe, a servant lad, known as the "fat boy." The
wedding takes place on the twenty-third of December, and then follow
the Christmas festivities, of which the skating forms a part.
LXVII. THE HANGING OF THE CRANE.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.--1807-1882.
I.
The lights are out, and gone are all the guests
That thronging came with merriment and jests
To celebrate the Hanging of the Crane
In the new house,--into the night are gone;
But still the fire upon the hearth burns on,
And I alone remain.
O fortunate, O happy day,
When a new household finds its place
Among the myriad homes of earth,
Like a new star just sprung to birth,
And roll'd on its harmonious way
Into the boundless realms of space!
So said the guests in speech and song,
As in the chimney, burning bright,
We hung the iron crane to-night,
And merry was the feast and long.
II.
And now I sit and muse on what may be,
And in my vision see, or seem to see,
Through floating vapors interfused with light,
Shapes indeterminate, that gleam and fade,
As shadows passing into deeper shade
Sink and elude the sight.
For two alone, there in the hall,
Is spread the table round and small;
Upon the polish'd silver shine
The evening lamps, but, more divine,
The light of love shines over all;
Of love, that says not mine and thine,
But ours, for ours is thine and mine.
They want no guests, to come between
Their tender glances like a screen,
And tell them tales of land and sea,
And whatsoever may betide
The great, forgotten world outside;
They want no guests; they needs must be
Each other's own best company.
III.
The picture fades; as at a village fair
A showman's views, dissolving into air,
Again appear transfigured on the screen,
So in my fancy this; and now once more,
In part transfigured, through the open door
Appears the selfsame scene.
Seated, I see the two again,
But not alone; they entertain
A little angel unaware,
With face as round as is the moon;
A royal guest with flaxen hair,
Who, throned upon his lofty chair,
Drums on the table with his spoon,
Then drops it careless on the floor,
To grasp at things unseen before.
Are these celestial manners? these
The ways that win, the arts that please?
Ah yes; consider well the guest,
And whatsoe'er he does seems best;
He ruleth by the right divine
Of helplessness, so lately born
In purple chambers of the morn,
As sovereign over thee and thine.
He speaketh not; and yet there lies
A conversation in his eyes;
The golden silence of the Greek,
The gravest wisdom of the wise,
Not spoken in language, but in looks
More legible than printed books,
As if he could but would not speak.
And now, O monarch absolute,
Thy power is put to proof; for, lo!
Resistless, fathomless, and slow,
The nurse comes rustling like the sea,
And pushes back thy chair and thee,
And so good night to King Canute.
IV.
As one who walking in a forest sees
A lovely landscape through the parted trees,
Then sees it not, for boughs that intervene;
Or, as we see the moon sometimes reveal'd
Through drifting clouds, and then again conceal'd,
So I behold the scene.
There are two guests at table now;
The king, deposed and older grown,
No longer occupies the throne,--
The crown is on his sister's brow;
A Princess from the Fairy Isles,
The very pattern girl of girls,
All cover'd and embower'd in curls,
Rose-tinted from the Isle of Flowers,
And sailing with soft, silken sails
From far-off Dreamland into ours.
Above their bowls with rims of blue
Four azure eyes of deeper hue
Are looking, dreamy with delight;
Limpid as planets that emerge
Above the ocean's rounded verge,
Soft-shining through the summer night.
Steadfast they gaze, yet nothing see
Beyond the horizon of their bowls;
Nor care they for the world that rolls
With all its freight of troubled souls
Into the days that are to be.
V.
Again the tossing boughs shut out the scene,
Again the drifting vapors intervene,
And the moon's pallid disk is hidden quite:
And now I see the table wider grown,
As round a pebble into water thrown
Dilates a ring of light.
I see the table wider grown,
I see it garlanded with guests,
As if fair Ariadne's Crown
Out of the sky had fallen down;
Maidens within whose tender breasts
A thousand restless hopes and fears,
Forth reaching to the coming years,
Flutter awhile, then quiet lie,
Like timid birds that fain would fly,
But do not dare to leave their nests;--
And youths, who in their strength elate
Challenge the van and front of fate,
Eager as champions to be
In the divine knight-errantry
Of youth, that travels sea and land
Seeking adventures, or pursues,
Through cities, and through solitudes
Frequented by the lyric Muse,
The phantom with the beckoning hand,
That still allures and still eludes.
O sweet illusions of the brain!
O sudden thrills of fire and frost!
The world is bright while ye remain,
And dark and dead when ye are lost!
VI.
The meadow-brook, that seemeth to stand still,
Quickens its current as it nears the mill;
And so the stream of Time that lingereth
In level places, and so dull appears,
Runs with a swifter current as it nears
The gloomy mills of Death.
And now, like the magician's scroll,
That in the owner's keeping shrinks
With every wish he speaks or thinks,
Till the last wish consumes the whole,
The table dwindles, and again
I see the two alone remain.
The crown of stars is broken in parts;
Its jewels, brighter than the day,
Have one by one been stolen away
To shine in other homes and hearts.
One is a wanderer now afar
In Ceylon or in Zanzibar,
Or sunny regions of Cathay;
And one is in the boisterous camp
Mid clink of arms and horses' tramp,
And battle's terrible array.
I see the patient mother read,
With aching heart, of wrecks that float
Disabled on those seas remote,
Or of some great heroic deed
On battle-fields, where thousands bleed
To lift one hero into fame.
Anxious she bends her graceful head
Above these chronicles of pain,
And trembles with a secret dread
Lest there among the drown'd or slain
She find the one beloved name.
VII.
After a day of cloud and wind and rain
Sometimes the setting sun breaks out again,
And, touching all the darksome woods with light.
Smiles on the fields, until they laugh and sing,
Then like a ruby from the horizon's ring
Drops down into the night.
What see I now? The night is fair,
The storm of grief, the clouds of care,
The wind, the rain, have pass'd away;
The lamps are lit, the fires burn bright,
The house is full of life and light:
It is the Golden Wedding day.
The guests come thronging in once more,
Quick footsteps sound along the floor,
The trooping children crowd the stair,
And in and out and everywhere
Flashes along the corridor
The sunshine of their golden hair.
On the round table in the hall
Another Ariadne's Crown
Out of the sky hath fallen down;
More than one Monarch of the Moon
Is drumming with his silver spoon;
The light of love shines over all.
O fortunate, O happy day!
The people sing, the people say.
The ancient bridegroom and the bride,
Smiling contented and serene,
Upon the blithe, bewildering scene,
Behold, well pleas'd, on every side
Their forms and features multiplied,
As the reflection of a light
Between two burnish'd mirrors gleams,
Or lamps upon a bridge at night
Stretch on and on before the sight,
Till the long vista endless seems.
LXVIII. EARTHWORMS.
CHARLES DARWIN--1809-1882.
_From_ THE FORMATION OF VEGETABLE MOULD THROUGH THE ACTION OF WORMS.
Worms have played a more important part in the history of the world than
most persons would at first suppose. In almost all humid countries they
are extraordinarily numerous, and for their size possess great muscular
power. In many parts of England a weight of more than ten tons of dry
earth annually passes through their bodies and is brought to the surface
on each acre of land; so that the whole superficial bed of vegetable
mould passes through their bodies in the course of every few years. From
the collapsing of the old burrows the mould is in constant though slow
movement, and the particles composing it are thus rubbed together. By
these means fresh surfaces are continually exposed to the action of the
carbonic acid in the soil, and of the humus-acids which appear to be
still more efficient in the decomposition of rocks. The generation of
the humus-acids is probably hastened during the digestion of the many
half-decayed leaves which worms consume. Thus the particles of earth,
forming the superficial mould, are subjected to conditions eminently
favorable for their decomposition and disintegration. Moreover, the
particles of the softer rocks suffer some amount of mechanical
trituration in the muscular gizzards of worms, in which small stones
serve as mill-stones....
Archaeologists ought to be grateful to worms, as they protect and
preserve for an indefinitely long period every object, not liable to
decay, which is dropped on the surface of the land, by burying it
beneath their castings. Thus, also, many elegant and curious tesselated
pavements and other ancient remains have been preserved; though no doubt
the worms have in these cases been largely aided by earth washed and
blown from the adjoining land, especially when cultivated. The old
tesselated pavements have, however, often suffered by having subsided
unequally from being unequally undermined by the worms. Even old massive
walls may be undermined and subside; and no building is in this respect
safe, unless the foundations lie six or seven feet beneath the surface,
at a depth at which worms cannot work. It is probable that many
monoliths and some old walls have fallen down from having been
undermined by worms.
Worms prepare the ground in an excellent manner for the growth of
fibrous-rooted plants and for seedlings of all kinds. They periodically
expose the mould to the air, and sift it so that no stones larger than
the particles which they can swallow are left in it. They mingle the
whole intimately together, like a gardener who prepares fine soil for
his choicest plants. In this state it is well fitted to retain moisture
and to absorb all soluble substances, as well as for the process of
nitrification. The bones of dead animals, the harder parts of insects,
the shells of land-molluscs, leaves, twigs, etc., are before long all
buried beneath the accumulated castings of worms, and are thus brought
in a more or less decayed state within reach of the roots of plants.
Worms likewise drag an infinite number of dead leaves and other parts of
plants into their burrows, partly for the sake of plugging them up and
partly as food.
The leaves which are dragged into the burrows as food, after being
torn into the finest shreds, partially digested, and saturated with
the intestinal secretions, are commingled with much earth. This
earth forms the dark-colored, rich humus which almost everywhere
covers the surface of the land with a fairly well-defined layer or
mantle. Von Hensen placed two worms in a vessel eighteen inches in
diameter, which was filled with sand, on which fallen leaves were
strewed; and these were soon dragged into their burrows to a depth
of three inches. After about six weeks an almost uniform layer of
sand, a centimetre (.4 inch) in thickness, was converted into humus
by having passed through the alimentary canals of these two worms.
It is believed by some persons that worm-burrows, which often
penetrate the ground almost perpendicularly to a depth of five or
six feet, materially aid in its drainage; notwithstanding that the
viscid castings piled over the mouths of the burrows prevent or
check the rain-water directly entering them. They allow the air to
penetrate deeply into the ground. They also greatly facilitate the
downward passage of roots of moderate size; and these will be
nourished by the humus with which the burrows are lined. Many seeds
owe their germination to having been covered by castings; and others
buried to a considerable depth beneath accumulated castings lie
dormant, until at some future time they are accidentally uncovered
and germinate.
Worms are poorly provided with sense-organs, for they cannot be said to
see, although they can just distinguish between light and darkness; they
are completely deaf, and have only a feeble power of smell; the sense of
touch alone is well developed. They can therefore learn little about the
outside world, and it is surprising that they should exhibit some skill
in lining their burrows with their castings and with leaves, and in the
case of some species in piling up their castings into tower-like
constructions. But it is far more surprising that they should apparently
exhibit some degree of intelligence instead of a mere blind instinctive
impulse, in their manner of plugging up the mouths of their burrows.
They act in nearly the same manner as would a man, who had to close a
cylindrical tube with different kinds of leaves, petioles, triangles of
paper, etc., for they commonly seize such objects by their pointed ends.
But with thin objects a certain number are drawn in by their broader
ends. They do not act in the same unvarying manner in all cases, as do
most of the lower animals; for instance, they do not drag in leaves by
their foot-stalks, unless the basal part of the blade is as narrow as
the apex, or narrower than it.
When we behold a wide, turf-covered expanse, we should remember that its
smoothness, on which so much of its beauty depends, is mainly due to all
the inequalities having been slowly levelled by worms. It is a
marvellous reflection that the whole of the superficial mould over any
such expanse has passed, and will again pass, every few years, through
the bodies of worms. The plough is one of the most ancient and most
valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the land was in
fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus ploughed by
earth-worms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals
which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as
have these lowly organized creatures.
LXIX. "AS SHIPS, BECALMED AT EVE."
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.--1819-1861.
As ships, becalm'd at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day
Are scarce long leagues apart descried;
When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:
E'en so--but why the tale reveal
Of those, whom year by year unchanged,
Brief absence join'd anew to feel,
Astounded, soul from soul estranged?
At dead of night their sails were fill'd,
And onward each rejoicing steer'd--
Ah, neither blame, for neither will'd,
Or wist, what first with dawn appear'd!
To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass guides--
To that, and your own selves, be true.
But O blithe breeze! and O great seas,
Though ne'er, that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.
One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare,--
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there.
LXX. DUTY.
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
Duty--that's to say, complying
With whate'er's expected here;
On your unknown cousin's dying,
Straight be ready with the tear;
Upon etiquette relying,
Unto usage nought denying,
Lend your waist to be embraced,
Blush not even, never fear;
Claims of kith and kin connection,
Claims of manners honor still,
Ready money of affection
Pay, whoever drew the bill.
With the form conforming duly,
Senseless what it meaneth truly,
Go to church--the world require you,
To balls--the world require you too,
And marry--papa and mamma desire you,
And your sisters and schoolfellows do.
Duty--'tis to take on trust
What things are good, and right, and just;
And whether indeed they be or be not,
Try not, test not, feel not, see not:
'Tis walk and dance, sit down and rise
By leading, opening ne'er your eyes;
Stunt sturdy limbs that Nature gave,
And be drawn in a Bath chair along to the grave.
'Tis the stern and prompt suppressing,
As an obvious deadly sin,
All the questing and the guessing
Of the soul's own soul within:
'Tis the coward acquiescence
In a destiny's behest,
To a shade by terror made,
Sacrificing, aye, the essence
Of all that's truest, noblest, best:
'Tis the blind non-recognition
Or of goodness, truth, or beauty,
Save by precept and submission;
Moral blank, and moral void,
Life at very birth destroy'd.
Atrophy, exinanition!
Duty!
Yea, by duty's prime condition
Pure nonentity of duty!
LXXI. SONNETS.
CHARLES HEAVYSEGE.--1816-1876.
I.
The day was lingering in the pale north-west,
And night was hanging o'er my head,--
Night where a myriad stars were spread;
While down in the east, where the light was least,
Seem'd the home of the quiet dead.
And, as I gazed on the field sublime,
To watch the bright, pulsating stars,
Adown the deep where the angels sleep
Came drawn the golden chime
Of those great spheres that sound the years
For the horologe of time.
Millenniums numberless they told,
Millenniums a million-fold
From the ancient hour of prime.
II.
The stars are glittering in the frosty sky,
Frequent as pebbles on a broad sea-coast;
And o'er the vault the cloud-like galaxy
Has marshall'd its innumerable host.
Alive all heaven seems! with wondrous glow
Tenfold refulgent every star appears,
As if some wide, celestial gale did blow,
And thrice illume the ever-kindled spheres.
Orbs, with glad orbs rejoicing, burning, beam,
Ray-crown'd, with lambent lustre in their zones,
Till o'er the blue, bespangled spaces seem
Angels and great archangels on their thrones;
A host divine, whose eyes are sparkling gems,
And forms more bright than diamond diadems.
III.
Hush'd in a calm beyond mine utterance,
See in the western sky the evening spread;
Suspended in its pale, serene expanse,
Like scatter'd flames, the glowing cloudlets red.
Clear are those clouds; and that pure sky's profound,
Transparent as a lake of hyaline;
Nor motion, nor the faintest breath of sound,
Disturbs the steadfast beauty of the scene.
Far o'er the vault, the winnow'd welkin wide,
From the bronzed east unto the whiten'd west,
Moor'd, seem, in their sweet, tranquil, roseate pride,
Those clouds the fabled islands of the blest;--
The lands where pious spirits breathe in joy,
And love and worship all their hours employ.
LXXII. DOCTOR ARNOLD AT RUGBY.
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY.--1815-1880.
With his usual and undoubting confidence in what he believed to be a
general law of Providence, he based his whole management of the school
on his early-formed and yearly-increasing conviction that what he had to
look for, both intellectually and morally, was not performance but
promise; that the very freedom and independence of school life, which in
itself he thought so dangerous, might be made the best preparation for
Christian manhood; and he did not hesitate to apply to his scholars the
principle which seemed to him to have been adopted in the training of
the childhood of the human race itself. He shrunk from pressing on the
conscience of boys rules of action which he felt they were not yet able
to bear, and from enforcing actions which, though right in themselves,
would in boys be performed from wrong motives. Keenly as he felt the
risk and fatal consequences of the failure of this trial, still it was
his great, sometimes his only support to believe that "the character is
braced amid such scenes to a greater beauty and firmness than it ever
can attain without enduring and witnessing them. Our work here would be
absolutely unendurable if we did not bear in mind that we should look
forward as well as backward--if we did not remember that the victory of
fallen man lies not in innocence but in tried virtue." "I hold fast," he
said, "to the great truth, that 'blessed is he that overcometh;'" and he
writes in 1837: "Of all the painful things connected with my employment,
nothing is equal to the grief of seeing a boy come to school innocent
and promising, and tracing the corruption of his character from the
influence of the temptations around him, in the very place which ought
to have strengthened and improved it. But in most cases those who come
with a character of positive good are benefited; it is the neutral and
indecisive characters which are apt to be decided for evil by schools,
as they would be in fact by any other temptation."
But this very feeling led him with the greater eagerness to catch at
every means by which the trial might be shortened or alleviated. "Can
the change from childhood to manhood be hastened, without prematurely
exhausting the faculties of body or mind?" was one of the chief
questions on which his mind was constantly at work, and which in the
judgment of some he was disposed to answer too readily in the
affirmative. It was with the elder boys, of course, that he chiefly
acted on this principle, but with all above the very young ones he
trusted to it more or less. Firmly as he believed that _a_ time of trial
was inevitable, he believed no less firmly that it might be passed at
public schools sooner than under other circumstances; and, in proportion
as he disliked the assumption of a false manliness in boys, was his
desire to cultivate in them true manliness, as the only step to
something higher, and to dwell on earnest principle and moral
thoughtfulness, as the great and distinguishing mark between good and
evil. Hence his wish that as much as possible should be done _by_ the
boys, and nothing _for_ them; hence arose his practice, in which his own
delicacy of feeling and uprightness of purpose powerfully assisted him,
of treating the boys as gentlemen and reasonable beings, of making them
respect themselves by the mere respect he showed to them; of showing
that he appealed and trusted to their own common sense and conscience.
Lying, for example, to the masters, he made a great moral offence:
placing implicit confidence in a boy's assertion, and then, if a
falsehood was discovered, punishing it severely,--in the upper part of
the school, when persisted in, with expulsion. Even with the lower forms
he never seemed to be on the watch for boys; and in the higher forms any
attempt at further proof of an assertion was immediately checked: "If
you say so, that is quite enough--_of course_ I believe your word;" and
there grew up in consequence a general feeling that "it was a shame to
tell Arnold a lie--he always believes one."