CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH WE COMPLETE OUR ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE THREE WOOERS, AND OTHER

THINGS.

We will begin with Señor Alonso whose surname was Pacheco. He was a

native of Salamanca, where he had studied philology, and left his home

because he was displeased at his father’s second marriage. He followed

the only career possible to him in that epoch, that is he enlisted and

served for three years in Italy, leaving behind him proofs of his great

valor. This profession might have proved lucrative for him, for he was

much thought of by his chiefs, but he was dangerously wounded, during

his three years service, and before he had completely recovered his

strength, he received a letter from his father in which he informed

him of the death of his step-mother and complained of feeling sad and

lonely during these last years of his life. Since the cause of Señor

Alonso’s discontent was thus removed, and as he loved his father, and

was besides growing tired of the reckless life of a soldier, he left its

perils and its glory to others, and returned home. Two years passed

away, and his father died, leaving him a sufficient income to allow him

to live decently, and a lawsuit of great importance which, two years

later, brought him to court, where he had been only once before, for a

few days on his way to Italy. Señor Alonso had never been in love, first,

on account of the circumstances in his family, and afterward, because,

in his life as a soldier, he had never had a chance to think of women,

except as objects of diversion, beings who helped to make his life more

pleasant. For the last two months of his stay in Madrid, he had been

absorbed in his lawsuit, which was apparently approaching its end and

looked so promising that it seemed not only possible but probable that

he would soon find himself quite wealthy. Eight days before our story

opens, he had in coming out of the church of San Jose,—which is now no

longer in existence,—noticed among a crowd of people the head of a lady

on whose face he had been compelled to fix his gaze, even against his

own wishes. We may mention that the hidalgo’s suddenly became as red as

though the blood were trying to rush out, and then he turned pale and

nervous, and began sighing and trembling as though he were quite weary.

What had happened? He himself could not explain it, but the fact is that

Doña Sol’s black eyes were the cause of this commotion. It was only for

a moment, a single moment, that the young girl had looked into the face

of the hidalgo, but it was enough to make him feel as he had never felt

before, and he became so excited that very little was wanting to make

him forget that he was in a sacred place, and force himself through the

crowd toward her, causing the greatest scandal. But he soon lost sight

of those eyes of fire, and provokingly tempting lips, and longing to

see them again, he moved forward, elbowing his way from one side to the

other, and looking about him constantly, until at last he reached the

street. Here he could move at ease, for the faithful (Catholic Christians

who live in obedience to the church) were dispersing in every direction.

He looked about him like a dog nosing in the air, but he had lost his

black eyes. He ran up the street, and then back, but the bewitching

being had completely disappeared, making it impossible for him to find

out who she was or where he could see her. When at last he rested he

was out of breath. He clenched his fist with all the force of despair,

for his desires were kindling more and more as the obstacles which he

encountered increased. Thus the hidalgo stood for more than half an hour,

leaning against a wall, with drooping head, eyes closed, arms folded, and

mind engaged in contemplating the lady of the black eyes. As he could

do nothing more, he had to resign himself to fate, trusting that an

accident might bring about better luck. He went to church the next day,

but without meeting her. Thus he passed four days, always preoccupied,

sleeping very little, and eating still less, when one morning, returning

from mass, and passing down Las Infantas street, he heard a woman’s

voice, and raising his eyes, could not restrain an exclamation of

surprise and joy, for there on the balcony was the bewitching brunette,

leaning out to call after a man who was just leaving the house. The man,

who was small, ugly and stupid looking, returned and entered. Doña Sol,

as if by accident, looked at the hidalgo, left the balcony, turned round

to close the blind, gave him another glance, and disappeared.

“Ah,” sighed Señor Alonso, as though he wished to send his soul after the

young lady, “how happy I am!”

There was no longer any necessity to search for her; all he had to do was

to approach her. Judging correctly that the little man was a servant,

he decided to wait for his return, imagining that as his purse was well

stocked it was all that was necessary. In less than five minutes the

servant came back and started on his errand. Señor Alonso followed him,

stopped him in La Horteleza street, and, showing him a gold piece, said,

“Don’t be offended at my offering you a little present. Take this.”

“What do you wish?” asked the servant, smiling, and examining the hidalgo

from head to foot.

“Almost nothing, but it is a great deal to me. I worship your lady—”

“Ah, already?”

“I am a hidalgo, have enough to live on, and before two months are over I

shall be quite rich, and you, too, if you serve me.”

“I understand.”

“My name is Alonso Pacheco.—But here, take this.”

“No.”

“You refuse to serve me? Perhaps your lady is no longer mistress of her

heart?”

“She loves no one,” said the servant, candidly.

“How fortunate!”

“I am obliged to tell my noble lady everything I see or hear in the

street, and everything I do or say.”

“In that case—”

“May God keep you!” said the servant, turning and running away so quickly

that it would have been impossible to overtake him.

Señor Alonso was left behind with the money in his hand.

“Vive el cielo! Could anybody imagine such a thing?”

He had, however, the consolation of thinking that his words would reach

the ears of the beautiful young girl, and that she would make him some

sign if she should reciprocate his affection, or wish to correspond

with him, and he was glad that fortune favored him so far that there

was no rival in the case. Next day Señor Alonso went again to Las

Infantas street, and was rewarded by seeing the young girl, who opened

the balcony, put out her head and immediately disappeared. And the same

thing happened day after day, and as Doña Sol always gave the gallant

a glance, he was induced to think that she reciprocated his affection,

although he expected still to have to surmount many difficulties. He

came again at night to look at the house and sigh, and behaved in every

respect like a beardless lad of seventeen. He had never been in love

before, and now it had taken such firm hold of his heart that it would

never leave it again. Señor Alonso regretted very much that he had never

learned to play the guitar, and that his voice was not pleasant, for

he was deprived of the pleasure of serenading his beloved. Pacheco was

honorable, brave, and had a noble heart, his one fault being that his

only solution of difficult questions was the sword. That was the result

of his old training and soldier life. He had thought more than once that

the best plan would be to scare the stupid servant with a cudgel, instead

of offering him money, but fortunately he could not find an opportunity

of carrying out his absurd resolution.

* * * * *

Now, let us say a few words about the black-eyed hidalgo. His name was

Jacinto Carmona, he was from Sevilla, and he, too, had enough to live

decently, although he was not rich, and spent all he had—and more too—in

enjoying himself, and dressing as extravagantly as possible. At ten years

old he had been left an orphan under the guardianship of a clergyman, a

man of honor, but very strict and severe, who had always tried to do his

duty in bringing up the orphan in the ways of virtue and training him to

work and to be a useful man. He made him study Latin for five years, but

could not accomplish anything more. The boy was as turbulent as possible,

and the more severe the punishment, the more he rebelled, the result of

which was that the good priest became so weary that he had finally to

acknowledge himself conquered. The good man complained of his misfortune,

but his young pupil complained still louder, asserting that he was the

victim of exaggerated severity and the stale prejudices of his guardian.

“You can see for yourself,” he would say. “You have only to look at my

clothes to see how I am treated. They have been worn out and mended so

often that it would be hard to tell which was the original stuff. Didn’t

my father leave me an income of six hundred ducats? Why shouldn’t I be

dressed decently? And as for eating, even without counting fast days, how

often do I get meat? Very seldom, indeed. For my uncle says that gluttony

is a mortal sin, and whenever he wants to punish me he makes me do

without breakfast, dinner, or supper, and as he wants to punish me pretty

often, the result is that I fast half the days in the year. That’s the

reason that I am so thin and pale and weak, and in the end I shall die,

not from any disease, but from starvation. Though my uncle does say that

I look that way on account of my sins, and that I would be possessed by

an evil spirit, if it were not for his fervent prayers which the good

Lord has heard.”

Whenever Jacinto spoke in this strain he appeared much moved, his eyes

would become moist and at times he would even weep. And being a handsome

young man, he always appealed to the women, so that he found plenty of

defenders whenever he quarrelled with his uncle. The fair sex was his

weakness, and his follies in this direction excited serious disgust

in more than one of his acquaintances. When the young man reached his

twenty-fifth year, his uncle surrendered to him his inheritance, in

a greatly improved condition, and gave him some good advice besides.

Jacinto felt like a man who has been a long time in prison and suddenly

recovers his liberty. He threw himself with avidity into a life of

dissipation that would have speedily accomplished his ruin if his good

uncle had not continued his advice and sometimes admonished him severely.

“I want to see the world,” said the young fellow at last, and gathering

together all the money he could obtain, and bidding his uncle farewell,

he took the road to Madrid, leaving behind him three women who had been

foolish enough to believe in the love of a young scapegrace.

Apart from this failing, Jacinto was very kind-hearted, and could not

look upon distress unmoved. What was his object in going to Madrid? He

wanted expansion, emotions, life, and went without any definite object.

He had never been seriously in love, and, to his misfortune, the same

fate as Señor Alonso’s overtook him. One day he saw Doña Luz on one of

the balconies of her house, and, as we have mentioned, she neither looked

at people on the sly, or sought to hide herself, as did her sisters.

Jacinto stared at her, and she contemplated him with perfect tranquility.

He felt that his heart was beating more strongly than usual, and Doña

Luz, probably unconsciously, smiled.

“Where am I?” cried the young man. “Not even in dreamland can one

conceive such a vision of beauty.”

The quiet look, revealing the tranquility of its owner’s mind, charmed

the young man all the more in that he was beginning to tire of his stormy

pleasures. He could contain himself no longer, but lifting his head was

preparing to call to her with his customary daring, when Doña Luz smiled

a second time, and disappeared.

“She would not have listened to me!” exclaimed the young man in despair.

“And yet she smiled to me when she left. Now that I think of it, it would

have been folly to do what I was thinking of, and she has given me a

lesson that will teach me to be more prudent.”

After this Doña Luz came to the balcony every day at the same time,

always perfectly tranquil, and always smiling, and Jacinto finished by

falling seriously in love. Not knowing any one in Madrid, he could not

find out who the lady was, and as luck would have it, he never saw the

stupid servant, either going or coming. This was the situation of affairs

when he met the other two gallants.

* * * * *

And now we will finish by saying a few words concerning the plump

chubby-cheeked one.

His name was Santiago Morcillo. He was a native of Leon, had no parents,

and was one of those quiet beings whom it is difficult to rouse, either

through anger or pleasure. When anything unpleasant happened, he said

only, “God’s will be done,” and if he had reason to feel pleased, showed

it only by a smile or by going to church to thank God for the favors

which he bestowed on him. His father’s conduct had been disorderly, and

he left but few unencumbered possessions, his affairs being in confusion,

but the good-natured Santiago did not mind this. He was quite the

opposite of his father and, by force of work, economy and shrewdness,

he recovered what was lost, and even improved his condition so far that

finally he was free from debt and in easy circumstances. Until then he

had never thought of women, and when he did, he said,

“I shall take a rest now. It would be folly to begin a dangerous

experiment immediately. My mother was a very virtuous woman, but all

women are not alike.”

The good Morcillo was not only economical, but somewhat avaricious, and

it occurred to him to use the influence of his relatives to obtain some

sort of office, and with this object in view he had come to the court at

Madrid. One morning he went to mass at St. Joseph’s Church, and standing

near the entrance, and turning aside to let a caballero pass, he saw Doña

Estrella, who was kneeling in prayer, her virgin lips moving in religious

fervor, and her eyes raised to Heaven with a most sweet and tender

expression. For the first time Señor Santiago felt a vivid impression,

and involuntarily he made a somewhat impious comparison between the

sublime young girl and an angel. He was always timid in the presence

of women, but this being was not a woman, she was a cherub. Being a

good Catholic, the hidalgo instantly repented of his sinful attention

to worldly affairs, and turning his back upon the young lady, began to

repeat his prayers; but he was unable to forget the cherub with the blue

eyes, and ten minutes later, moved by an irresistible attraction, he

turned and looked again. He saw her a second time, and felt his heart

beating. When the mass was over, the good Morcillo could contain himself

no longer. He turned quickly round and looked for her. The mother was

very near her daughter, and in front, one behind the other, were her

two sisters. However, in the crowd it was not easy to see that the four

belonged together, and besides, the hidalgo had no eyes for any except

the fair one. He tried to get nearer to her, but every one rose at the

same moment, and he again lost sight of her for a few moments. He tried

his best to force a way for himself through the crowd, but, being quite

confused, he paid no attention as to where he planted his feet, and many

of the faithful accosted him roughly, while others threw themselves

against him and prevented his getting out. The poor fellow was almost

suffocated, crushed and choking. He could hardly breathe, and perspired

freely, while his face became livid. His stoutness was his great

misfortune, and he missed the lady.

“Is it possible that I have fallen in love?” he asked himself when he got

into the street.

He could not forget the fair face, and began to think the matter over

with as much calmness as he could muster in his embarrassment. Having

met such an angel of a woman, why should he not marry her? A bachelor’s

life was very nice, but only up to a certain age. He went to mass the

next day, and again he saw Estrella, and lost her in leaving the church.

At last, on the day when our story begins, Morcillo, like the others,

discovered by accident the residence of the charming maiden. He saw her

on the balcony. Nothing else happened, but, feeling sure that he was

in love, and that his will power was not strong enough to resist his

passion, he made up his mind to go on with his wooing, and not to stop,

unless this marvelous being with the face of an angel should prove to be

a demon, which was, of course, impossible.

* * * * *

Now we know the three hidalgos, who did not resemble each other in the

slightest degree.

(_To be continued._)

QUATRAIN.

To dash irradiant on the barren shore

The wave is born; the lark to sing and soar;

To traffic with the sun upsprings the tree—

Man only has no certain destiny.

—_H. C. H._

[Illustration: EXTRACTS FROM THE LOG OF THE “RITA”

BEING A DISCONNECTED ACCOUNT OF THE DOINGS OF SOME ARTISTS ON A SUMMER

CRUISE....]

[Illustration]

“First day out. We can scarcely realize we have left behind the heat,

the noise, and the dust of the city for three weeks. Far to the north,

overhung by clouds of noisome smoke, our late prison is gradually sinking

from sight. Only the tallest spires and houses can be seen. As the

distance grows greater our hearts grow lighter, and dance in unison with

the leaping waves. The day is a miracle of light and color,—and we’re a

happy crew!”

[Illustration]

“Came very near being wrecked last night. Even the moon was full—but that

fact saved the lives of all on board. Spike made a sketch this morning

that will explain better than words.”

[Illustration]

“The fashionable portrait painter’s man and girl flirting on the shore

turned out to be rather clever devices for frightening crows. He has been

advised to consult an oculist.”

[Illustration]

“Fuzzie-Wuzzie and the Languid Aquarellist got together in the forecastle

to hatch a scheme to get possession of the champagne. Nick, the Nipper,

woke up and heard the conversation. He called to Mock-a-Hi. Hi took in

the situation at a glance, and skewered Fuzzie and the Aquarellist with

his prize finger-nail (with which he does his etchings), and thus the

villains were balked. The conspirators had been eating Anti-Puncture,

so that when Hi withdrew his nail, none of the wind came out of their

tires. There was little blood and much wine spilled over this affair. The

Skipper instantly had the schemers put in irons, and Nick, the Nipper,

was allowed to torture them in their helpless condition with a few of his

songs and imitations, as a reward for his vigilance.”

[Illustration]

“To-day we took on board a small party of guests, several ladies being

among the number. The finished style in which our fashionable portrait

painter received the latter excited general admiration. There is very

little doubt but that he will be promoted to be Assistant Skipper, with a

cook’s pay.”

[Illustration]

“The Skipper complained this evening of “feeling queer in the head,”

and the Duke made unkindly reference to the moon (which is known to

have a peculiar influence in certain cases), but got “sat on” for his

inopportune display of wit. Fuzzie’s allusion to the banquet in the cabin

last night was perhaps more truly explanatory.”

[Illustration]

“Sailing close to shore,—and enjoying the beautiful glimpses of field and

wood seen through the golden haze of a summer afternoon. What a glorious

land!”

[Illustration]

“The Languid Aquarellist is singing the national anthem. Perhaps he is

being unconsciously stirred by all these wondrous beauties of nature.”

[Illustration]

“Here Truthful Freddie—sits by the hour, in the golden evening glow,

dreaming of—what?”

[Illustration]

“Salad day. Before seven o’clock this morning Curly and the Duke

had caught enough crabs to supply the mess of a man-of-war. The

salad—prepared by the Duke, of course—was pronounced excellent in

technique, although somewhat after the manner of Bouguereau, being

extremely smooth and delicate. But this can be forgiven in a salad.”

[Illustration]

“Late this afternoon we passed a sailing party homeward-bound. As they

passed, quite close, Spike, with his ever-ready pencil, transferred

several of the most conspicuous members to paper.”

[Illustration]

“For his marvelous success in mixing salads, the Duke, who studied the

culinary art in Paris and Rome, has been made Second Mate.”

[Illustration]

“Three days out. The Languid Aquarellist insisted this morning on going

ashore and shooting ducks—wild ones. After he had almost decimated

a farmer’s prize flock of pekins (without noticing their barnyard

confidence in man)—he was promoted by the Captain for excellent gunnery,

and the addition to the yacht’s stores.”

[Illustration]

“Tomson, (of the Barber’s-Own School), spent the entire afternoon trying

to convince Miss ⸺ that his own peculiar method of painting is the acme

of art. Miss ⸺ seemed delighted with his efforts, and thinks his pictures

are “just lovely.” She wants him to attempt an imaginary portrait of the

sea serpent.

* * * * *

Owing to the ceaseless motion of the boat, Tomson’s pictures are

decidedly impressionistic.”

[Illustration]

—“And then Bill Weatherbones gave us his version of the great naval

combat at Santiago, in which he took a very prominent part. ‘I tole yer

how it wuz,’ Bill began; ‘it wuz dis way, sur. I wuz a-settin’ on de aft

hatch a-smokin’ a cigar Bill Sampson giv’ me, an’ Bill an’ Winnie Schley

wuz a-workin’ out a little game wid de cards. Bill t’rowed down his papes

an’ sed,—

“I aint got no luck, I got to shake yuse fellers. Mc. he’s sent me de

wire to go over an’ chin dat man Shafter, wot’s runnin’ de army push,

an’ make him git a move on hisself.” “Don’t go, Bill,” sez I, “send

one o’ de gang, it’s too hot fer yer, wot’s de good yer workin’?” “Dem

aint me orders,” sez Bill, den turnin’ to Winnie Schley, he giv’ him de

stern look, an’ sed, “Winnie, yer do de stunts here till I gets back wid

meself, an’ if de Spaniels tries ter get out de bottle squirt de guns on

’em.” “I’m on,” sez Winnie, an’ he giv’ me de wink, “if de farmers shows

up I shoots.” Den de Admiral he gits in his little ya’t an’ sails off.

Winnie den piped up de grog all eround, an’ de game went on ag’in. I

aint much stuck on de game de navy push puts up, it’s on de squar’, an’

so I set dere gappin’ an’ feedin’ me face, while de boys plays. All of

a sudding I seen over dere where de guy Hobson sinked de Merrymac some

smoke. I wunk t’ meself, but didden say nothin’ to break de boys up,

but soon Winnie Schley looked up an’ seen it. “Hully gee!” he yelled,

“de blokes is a-chasin’ out,” an’ he grabbed a bunch o’ flags an’ did

de signal act o’ his life. He worked dose flags till he looked like a

skirt dancer. De udder ships looked like a back yard wid de clothes-line

full of red-flannel shirts from de wavin’ de guys put up. “Git dem guns

loaded,” yelled Schley, “yuse blokes look lively, dere.” Boom! busted out

one o’ de big guns, an’ de noise it knock de win’ outten me works. It

hit de Spaniel an’ turned him bottom upwards; when he come up ag’in he

shot his gun at us, but it wuz half a mile too high. Schley he rung out

de joyous laugh. “Dere optics aint no good,” sez he, den he lets anudder

ball go at him dat went clean t’rough him an’ hit anudder ship two miles

off an’ sunk it in a minnit. Den up comes anudder Spaniel, an’ I seen⸺’”

[Illustration]

“The steering gear is a little rattled: a puff of wind blew a lock of

Mate Fuzzie-Wuzzie’s hair into the wheels, and instantly the vessel swung

round. The engine was stopped, and in the excitement that ensued, a case

of champagne was almost lost overboard. We had to run backward for a mile

and a-half to disengage Fuzzie’s hair from the machinery. Fuzzie has been

reduced.”

[Illustration]

“Spike’s interest in the war has grown to be a matter of serious

inconvenience to all on board. He has literally covered the yacht

with Military and Naval cartoons. The boat will certainly have to be

re-painted. This morning he came on deck with a drawing he did sometime

during the night, which represents Uncle Sam admonishing Spain to stop

kicking the “yaller dorg”—Cuba. It’s not half bad, but his claim of it’s

being the best yet made on the war is a little strong. He has been so

busy admiring it all day he has not thought to make any others—and we

have had time to breathe.”

[Illustration]

“We came to anchor this evening near the wreck of the “Two Sisters,” in

the vicinity of which—on the shore—was situated a dog-pound, containing

some two hundred canines awaiting execution.... We enjoyed a night of

delightful rest.”

[Illustration]

“The Skipper went out on his bicycle gig to take a survey of the harbor,

but the roadway was running so high he found it difficult to make any

headway, and had to return to the yacht.”

[Illustration]

“Curly has been pronounced unfit for the duties of an able-bodied seaman,

and has been handed over to the Duke for treatment. It is suspected he

is afflicted with some curious, and hitherto unknown, form of love.

Yesterday the Duke administered a very carefully prepared shrimp salad,

but it failed utterly to bring about the desired results. He’s still very

pensive, and seems to wish to be alone. Grave symptoms indeed. Ever since

our last visit ashore, when he was seen walking through the fields with

a tall, willowy creature of undeniable attractiveness, he has been very

dejected and apathetic.

[Illustration]

We shall try keel-hauling as a last resort,—but trust it will not be

necessary.”

[Illustration]

“The last glimpse of the glorious old Bay, and the last day afloat. The

cruise has been one of continuous delight, but we can not but regret

the end has come, and we must tread the bricks of uninteresting streets

instead of the swaying deck of the Rita. But, as Bill Weatherbones would

say, “Wot’s de use? Man aint born to be happy,—an’ dats straight.”

[Illustration: THE END]

[Illustration: THE FOUR FEARS OF OUR GENERAL

_SOUVENIRS of CHILDHOOD_]

_Adapted from the French by Adele Bacon._

THE SECOND FEAR.

The battle on the mountain had passed off much better than we had dared

to hope, and, although we had not found our enemies as sound asleep as

we had desired, our early morning attack had never-the-less completely

surprised them. We managed to seize their recent position on the plateau

with scarcely any loss. This position, although a very exposed one, was

worth a great deal more, from the strategist’s point of view, than the

valley in which we were encamped the night before. Besides, in making

war, it is always desirable to occupy those places voluntarily selected

and defended by an opponent.

Our work, however, was by no means over; another sort of effort lay

before us.

Our foes, driven from their position on the heights, had succeeded in

forming another; and were strongly entrenched on the lower extremity

of the same plateau, from the loftier end of which we had so lately

dislodged them.

With a considerable amount of adroitness, they had succeeded in placing a

little river, called the Oued-el-Kebir, between our camp and their own.

We were compelled therefore to cross this river, in order to force them

to move farther on, and abandon to us the territory that we both coveted.

We had resolved, once our morning’s work was over, to enjoy a much needed

repose on our hardly earned mountain; but, towards noon, everybody was on

foot, excepting several badly wounded soldiers, and the little group of

officers, who had chatted together near the General’s tent the preceding

evening, were invited to drink a cup of coffee with him in the most

picturesque smoking room that I have ever seen, although the picturesque

quality is by no means rare in Algeria.

It was an enclosure walled in by rocks in the shape of heaps of large

pennies, arranged side by side, so as to form an amphitheatre, the slope

of which permitted us to see, by the aid of our glasses, the new field on

which we were soon to operate.

The country, which was beautiful so far as the scenery was concerned,

presented no insolvable military problems; it was wooded, but not

impenetrable.

We would of course have much preferred not to be separated from the

place of attack by a long, serpentine strip of water, which, swollen by

the recent melting of the snow, added materially to the defence of our

adversaries. It goes without saying that we possessed neither artillery

to protect our passage nor boats to effect it. In pursuits such as now

occupied us, a train of artillery could only be an encumbrance, and the

river which flowed sometimes in a valley, and sometimes between high,

steep banks, made it almost a certainty that we should get a thorough

wetting before we reached the other side. We knew that the General had

sent the necessary men to measure the depth of that barrier of water,

and to see if we should have the good luck to find a place for fording

it. In default of this, we should be forced to make use of our temporary

bridges, but we did not wish to count absolutely on them. In making war,

one can usually tell best what to do on the spur of the moment. While

waiting for the necessary information to be brought in for making such

preparations as were possible, and for the night to come, fully half a

day must elapse. The General had thought that crossing at night was less

dangerous. Little Jacques, grown up, had no longer a horror of shadows,

and even liked to utilize them. When we had considered, found great fault

with, and speculated upon the meditated expedition, we returned to our

conversation of the preceding night.

The General had had the imprudence to speak to us of _two_ stories; we

had heard one; what about the other?

Captain Robert,—the officer with whom the General sometimes quarrelled,

perhaps because he felt that he had an especial partiality for him,—being

slyly urged on by the rest of us, had the indiscretion to ask him for it.

“Oh, as to that one, my children, you must not insist,” said the General.

“It is only a story of childhood, which has none of the qualities which

made the other acceptable to grown men. I have no taste for failures,—you

will cause me to be guilty of one.”

“General,” replied the obstinate captain, “you have just called us your

children, therefore a child’s story is quite suitable for us. It will

rejuvenate us. Children are amused by everything, you know, and if

by chance your second tale is a trifle more gay than the first, very

well,—we shall enjoy it.”

“Gay!” responded the General, “I don’t know about that. However, it is

not a tragedy. But you shall see. You wish it,—so here goes!”

* * * * *

“Perhaps all of you here are not fond of the water,” began the General,

casting a significant glance at the river which had preoccupied our

thoughts.

“That depends on circumstances,” responded the captain; “water is very

good, but there are times when one would rather do without it.”

“Water, mingled with too many gun-shots, and after a difficult march,

might prove unhealthy,” interrupted a hoarse voice, that of the doctor.

“I should not recommend it as a remedy for my cold, but the water of your

story, General,—for I suppose by your commencement your history is going

to be a wet one,—will perhaps do me good.”

“Good!” said the General, “here is the doctor who imagines I am going to

give him a tonic. But so long as you have wished for it doctor, you must

drink it. But no more interruptions:—I have already forgotten where I

was.”

“General,” replied the doctor, “you have just said ‘every one here is

perhaps not fond of water;’ and you were not contradicted.”

“Thanks!” said the General. “And silence in the ranks; I will recommence.”

“Every one here does not like the water I said, very well, when I was

little it seems I was of that same opinion. I didn’t like water. Let us

understand each other fully as to the importance which you should attach

to my repugnance to this fluid, during these first years of my life.

I accepted water in many ways: I loved it sugared, and even with a

little orange flavor, but I hated it cold on my face in winter, and only

allowed myself to be washed willingly when it was warm. I liked, too,

to stand on a bridge, and watch the water flowing underneath, and by a

strange contradiction, I even enjoyed going on it, in a boat—_with papa_.

But I should have had a horrible fear to fall in the water, or have it

go suddenly over my head. To be frank, I believe I should have been

frightened to have it up to my ankles, otherwise than in a foot bath. But

then, one is not born perfect.

“This fear of the water was the despair of my father. He, like a

practical man, thought my love of boats and navigation, and my horror

of all actual contact with it, were contradictory if not incompatible

traits; that the liking for it on the one hand and the dislike of it

on the other argued as complete an absence of logic in the brain of

his little son as in his physical and moral organisms. He was right.

Aunt Marie and my mother were guilty of the sugared and warm water,

but my antipathy for it, otherwise than in these forms, seemed to be a

fundamental part of my nature.

“‘There is a reform for you to make in my absence,’ said my father to

his wife and his sister-in-law. ‘If I don’t find it accomplished when I

return, I agree in any way that you may find best, you will force me to

intervene myself, with a method perhaps a little brusque, but of which I

have more than once seen the efficacy.

“‘Understand that if I have to throw Jacques into the water like a little

dog, to teach him to save himself, I shall do it over and over again,

until he finds it agreeable, until he conquers his fright, and learns to

swim. Jacques pretends he wishes to become a sailor, like his father,

but I shall not allow him to become one of those sailors,—and there are

such,—who are actually afraid of the water.’”

“‘Afraid of the water? The child is not _afraid_ of it,’ said mamma.

“‘It is only the cold which he dislikes,’ added my aunt.

“‘Really! And you can suggest no other remedy than to heat the brooks and

the rivers, the lakes and the seas, expressly for our little darling?

That would be, according to your ideas, a reform more easily carried out

than the correction of his fear of cold water!’

“‘Correction! Correction!’ replied aunt Marie impatiently. ‘One can not

“correct” one’s nervous system at will, my dear brother, one has to cure

it as one can. There are certain organisms which must be left to correct

themselves, with age. Our Jacques is brave in many ways, as you well

know; he has really only one fear,—that of contact with cold water. Well,

that will pass in time, as he grows older.’

“‘Time! time!’ returned my father, ‘time passes, but not our defects,

when, instead of correcting them, we leave them alone, or envelop them in

cotton. Sister Marie, do not change my boy into a little girl.’

“‘Your son,’ responded aunt Marie, ‘is as yet neither a boy nor a girl:

he is an angel, and you ought to be glad of it.’

“‘Glad!’ replied my father. ‘I can tell you about that better on my

return. However, I reserve the right of trying to find a young sailor

in your angel, some fine morning. I will not take you unawares. I have

warned both you and my wife. When I come back, I will take your little

Jacques with me in a boat, and whether he knows how to swim or not, I

will make him brave, in spite of himself.’

“This conversation made my aunt and my mother tremble. Although they

were apparently against me, they were really on my side. They tried to

encourage me, telling me I should be a sailor first, and a brave one,—an

admiral soon after. This delighted me. ‘What a pity, though,’ I said to

myself, ‘that water is so cold and wet, and that one can not walk on it

without sinking. Why should it be so?’”

* * * * *

“The moment has come, to speak to you of my uncle, my father’s brother.

This brother, who was older than my father by about ten years, was a

retired officer. What a wonderful man he was too! It seems to me that I

had known only great and heroic people, in my childhood. It was hardly

possible to turn out badly, in the midst of such fine beings. What is

good in me, I owe altogether to them. My uncle had traveled extensively.

He had taken part in all the campaigns of the first Republic, and of the

First Empire, and had brought back from them a love of flowers which

you may explain as best you can. He loved the land as much as my father

loved the sea, but only for the purpose of covering it with flowers.

He possessed a charmingly situated property, on the outskirts of the

town, where he cultivated, with excessive care, a magnificent collection

of roses, celebrated throughout the entire horticultural world. This

collection contained more than four thousand varieties: I repeat, four

thousand, catalogued, numbered, each with a name and a history. Certain

people pretend to tell them apart at a glance, but I must say it was

easier to confound them in an equal degree of admiration. I should have

felt unjust in preferring one to another, and I admitted a difference

in them only in their colors. My father called his brother’s place ‘the

Garden of Roses.’ The Garden of Roses was for me the only serious rival

of the court of aunt Marie’s hospital, and do you know why? Not because

it was sweeter smelling, and richer in flowers than any place I have ever

seen elsewhere; not because I always brought back beautiful _bouquets_

for my mother, for aunt Marie and for her chapel; not because it was

bordered on one entire side by a pretty little river, but because upon

that river my uncle Antoine, out of honor for his brother, the sailor,

kept a small, but very attractive looking, boat. In this boat, which

appeared immense to me, my father used to take me on short voyages, not

in the water, but on the water, which frightened me so much. When I was

navigating on the little stream, how many times have I imagined that I

was on the ocean, _en route_ for America, India, the North Pole, or the

Island of Robinson Crusoe.

“At the time of which I speak, my father, after a year passed upon the

seas of China, returned to spend a three months’ holiday with us. I felt

that I must make the most of it. The year before, I had been delighted to

go with him on many little expeditions, both by land and water. But this

year, alas! I expected little pleasure on the latter. One of the first

questions he asked was whether I was still afraid of my old enemy. I was

obliged to confess that I still felt the same in regard to it.

“‘What! But how old are you?’

“Brother,’ said aunt Marie, ‘he was just six years old when you left us.’

“‘But according to that your pupil is now seven.’

“‘Yes, papa, seven,’ said I. ‘I am getting to be a big boy.’

“‘Big! Yes, that is possible. But the larger you are, my poor Jacques,

the less excuse you have for not knowing how to swim, for having fear of

the water.’

“‘He has tried,’ interposed my aunt. ‘I had uncle Antoine’s gardener, who

is an excellent swimmer, give him a lesson in the river, but he came

out so blue with cold that I dared not let him go back again. Although

he neither cried nor complained, I am certain he would have died in less

than five minutes.’

“‘You believe that, perhaps, my poor dear sister,’ replied my father.

‘It is, however, an experience which he will have to repeat. But I warn

Jacques that in the meantime, or until he is able to swim, at least a few

feet, there will no longer be a boat for him at the “Garden of Roses.”

The St. Jacques (which was the name given in my honor to my uncle’s

boat)—the St. Jacques must remain at anchor.’

“This was terrible, but it was irrevocable. It never entered my head to

try to make my father alter his decision.

“Then he said to me, ‘My boy, you love boats, but hate the water;

when you have rendered two such contrary propositions a little more

harmonious, when you are no longer afraid of wetting your precious little

skin, you may voyage all you like in uncle Antoine’s boat. Until then,

do not dream of doing so. One should never go in a boat unless one is

capable of taking care of one’s self in case of accident.’

“The following morning we went to see uncle Antoine.

* * * * *

“My father and I at length set out. It was good to have him back, to hold

his hand, and our disagreement upon one point had not seriously troubled

our friendly relations. When we arrived, we found uncle Antoine, who

occasionally suffered from the gout, incapable of taking a step in the

garden. My father offered to give him his revenge for the game of chess

which he had gained from him the year before,—the day previous to his

departure.

“‘As for you, Jacques,’ said uncle Antoine, ‘as you have no gout, run

away, pick my cherries, eat my strawberries, look at my roses, go and see

your chickens and rabbits and feed them for me. You would perhaps do well

to take along a book, your ‘Swiss Family Robinson,’ go and read it in the

hammock. Take a nap, if that pleases you, but whatever you do, be good.

When one is not watched, there is a double duty and a double merit in

being good.’

“‘I will add,’ put in my father, ‘that you may go in the path by the edge

of the water, and you will do well to watch attentively what goes on in

the river. Flowing water is an instructive spectacle for a boy like you.’

“‘Instructive?’ queried my uncle.

“‘Full of information,’ answered my father. ‘It is in the water that the

fishes swim. It is in the water also that Jacques will have to swim very

shortly,—like a fish.’

“‘Like a fish?’ said my uncle. ‘Then you will have to give him fins.’

“‘One doesn’t need fins to swim with,’ replied my father. ‘Frogs do not

have them, yet they manage to swim beautifully. If Jacques will examine

those which he disturbs when he approaches the bank, if he studies the

way they keep their heads out of the water in order to breathe, and the

art with which they manage their arms and legs, in directing themselves

about in that beautiful fresh water which so frightens your nephew, he

will receive from these little animals a swimming lesson superior to any

that your gardener can give him.’

“‘That is very true’, uncle Antoine replied. ‘Go, Jacques,—go take your

lesson. It has never before occurred to me what services my frogs could

render you.’

“I was about to start, when my father stopped me with a gesture.

[Illustration]

“‘You understand, do you not Jacques, exactly what you are permitted to

do? I have still, however, to tell you what you must not do: you are not

to set foot upon the St. Jacques; this is forbidden until I tell you

otherwise. Do you understand?’

“‘Yes, father, I understand, but⸺’

“‘There isn’t any “but,”’ replied my father.

“Uncle Antoine threw me a compassionate look. However, this look was only

meant to say: ‘I am sorry, Jacques, but your father has spoken. I have

nothing to say.’

“I did, one after another, the things which were authorized. I ate some

cherries, I picked some strawberries, gave grain to the chickens, and

cabbage-leaves to our rabbits. I re-read, lying in the hammock, two

chapters of my ‘Swiss Family Robinson,’ but, far from making me sleepy,

this book awoke in me a longing for adventure. I then directed my steps

towards the river. I had, however, the wisdom not to go in the direction

of the boat,—that is to say, in the direction of temptation. I regarded

the flowing water curiously, and found real pleasure in doing so. My

uncle’s river was not one of those lazy streams of which the movement

is imperceptible. How could it rest mute between its borders, when it

was forced to carry its fresh water past the lands of a hundred owners,

which, from the right and the left, cried to it—‘Wet us,’ ‘Refresh us,’

‘We are dying of thirst.’

“It certainly was a spectacle well worth seeing, this continuous flow

of clear water over a bed of golden sand, dotted here and there with

flexible green plants, which, swaying with every movement of the tide

make such charming little retreats for the fish. The minnows and gudgeon

glided like shadows between the few large stones which took the place of

reefs on this miniature coast. Their goings and comings amused me very

much, and I made up my mind that some day one could apply to me as to

them the proverb, ‘Happy as a fish in the water.’ All this would have

been perfect, if little by little I had not approached the spot where,

under the boughs and between the roots of an enormous willow, my uncle

had anchored the famous St. Jacques. Desiring not to disobey my father.

I had made up my mind not to look at the St. Jacques, not to take a step

towards it; this was prudent, but it was ordained that I should break my

word that day. Reasons for doing so were not lacking: first—the portion

of the walk by the water where I intended to stay being in the hot sun, I

had not seen a single frog; the hot herbage did not suit them.

“To take my swimming lesson it was necessary to go to the side where the

boat was moored. Only under the willows, and in the damp grass which

surrounded the Bay St. Jacques, could I hope to find them. Second—as

my father was anxious that I should study how frogs swam, I had made a

mistake in keeping away from the only place where I stood some chance of

finding them. I knew well that there alone could they always be seen.

Besides, going _near_ the St. Jacques was not the same thing as going

_on_ the St. Jacques. Third—it is not difficult to refrain from getting

into a boat, even when one has a great desire to do so. So I pushed aside

the long branches of the great willow which hung down to the ground,

and found myself in the presence of the St. Jacques. What a beautiful

boat she was! Since I had last seen her my uncle had had her repainted.

Her new costume of mingled red and white suited her marvelously; her

mast,—there was a mast,—painted also, was even more beautiful than one

of those lovely paper wind-mills that one’s parents never buy one. Her

pennant had also been renewed. It was certainly for my father’s return

that uncle Antoine had gone to the expense of this brilliant _toilette_.

The hull hardly stirred. Its imperceptible balancings on the water

resembled the quiet breathing of a sleeping person. Under the transparent

veil of the drooping branches of the weeping willow, no breath could

reach it. The St. Jacques had the air of a little potentate in repose,

under a canopy of verdure. If papa had not forbidden me to get in the

little boat, it would have been delightful to read my ‘Swiss Family

Robinson’ out upon the water. Sitting in the bow, leaning against the

mast, one might imagine one’s self on an island. But then, that which is

forbidden one can not prevent from being forbidden.”

“I tried at first to think of nothing but frogs. But, as if on purpose,

not one showed himself. I was sure they were hiding in the shadow of the

boat. I went up quite close to the St. Jacques, and still nothing jumped

into the water. Decidedly, and in spite of all my good intentions, I

was not to take my swimming lesson that day. But what were those three

green spots that I saw down there on the white edge of the boat? They

were,—yes, they were three frogs taking a nap at their ease, as if the

St. Jacques belonged to them.

“One could not tolerate a thing of that sort. I stepped gently over the

edge of the boat to chase away the trespassers. Paf, paf, paf, with a

single hop, each of them made one of those famous dives of which my

father had spoken. Now or never was the moment to ask them for a lesson.

I did not fail to do so. I was lost in admiration of their talent.

Papa was right; a frog swims to perfection. It swims so correctly and

elegantly that by its vigorous, regular movements, one understands

clearly what one ought to do if one happened to be in its place. This

sort of lesson, illustrated by an example, shows one much better what

movements to make than when the gardener holds you under the stomach, and

shouts you don’t know what in your ears. If father should throw me into

the water, I should think of the frogs: I should do as they did, and I

should certainly swim.

[Illustration: “_What a beautiful boat she was!_”

_Drawn by Clinton Peters._]

“I had reached this point in my resolutions, when the sound of something

heavy falling suddenly into the water made me raise my head. The noise

was followed by a cry, and this cry by five or six others.

“That which made the noise was something which looked like a big blue

package, which was squirming and beating the water frequently, across by

the opposite bank.

“I looked with all my eyes, and was filled with horror in recognizing

the little boy—still in dresses—of the gardener across the stream whom I

had sometimes seen from the bank. The poor little one—I should be more

correct in saying the poor big one—had evidently escaped from his mother,

and had taken advantage of the occasion to come alone to the river, and

turning a summersault by mistake, was now in danger of drowning. He was

not exactly happy. He cried like a little madman in the instants when his

crimson face emerged from the water, and, by a sort of instinct, beat the

water with both hands and feet.

“I noticed that his skirts held him up temporarily, but that could not

last long. I began to cry in my turn, and call,—‘Papa! uncle!’—but the

sound of my voice could not reach so far, and I felt that there must be

something better to do than cry. I said to myself that one must go into

the river to rescue the poor child. Yes, but in order to do that, it was

necessary to wet one’s self in the cold water, which was particularly

disagreeable to me, as you already know, and what was worse, they would

see, afterwards, by my wet clothes that I had disobeyed, that I had not

stayed in the path, but had broken my word; that was the most terrible

part. In a couple of seconds all views of the situation flashed through

my mind. Should I try to save the gardener’s little boy? Then I must

disobey. An idea came to me which struck me as brilliant. I would take

off my shoes, my stockings and my trousers, and leave them in the boat;

the water evidently was not very deep, because I could see the bottom;

I was quite large and by rolling my shirt up under my vest, I thought

I could go. In a moment this was done. In another moment, and without

stumbling, I had descended into the water, which, alas! was far from,

warm. But that was not all. I had miscalculated the depth of the water

and my height, and, when I had taken two or three steps towards the

child, who still cried, I saw that if I went any farther I should wet my

shirt and my vest. That seemed to me impossible to do. I took one step

back toward the boat. The thought did not occur to me that I should have

undressed completely at first, and that I might do it even now. Yes, I

very nearly left the child to drown, for the sake of not wetting the

clothes which I still wore (which, it is true, were new ones) and of not

having to admit afterwards, that I had disobeyed.

“My hesitation did not last long. ‘Father will forgive me.’ I said to

myself, when he knows all about it, ‘and giving myself up altogether

to the sentiment of a duty which I felt was superior to all others, I

succeeded, scarcely knowing how, in crossing the river, in reaching

the little boy, who had already stopped crying, in pulling his head

out of the water first, and then, with infinite pains, in seating him

on the first step of a worm-eaten stair-case which mounted the sloping

river-bank, towards his father’s garden.

“No one appeared; no answer came to my cries. There were still four steps

to mount, to reach the garden: I finally contrived to climb them with

my burden. Once there, I laid the child down among the cabbages. From

violet, he had become quite pale, and much frightened, I ran towards his

parents’ house.”

VI.

“Then I found the little one’s mother, whom I knew by sight.

“She was a large, healthy-looking woman, and, as I rushed into her

presence, was working at her spinning-wheel, singing meanwhile. When she

saw me suddenly appear, scarcely half clothed, and soaking wet, she was

seized with a fit of anger, and before in my trouble I could manage to

explain myself, boxed me vigorously on both ears.

“It was the first time in my life I had received such treatment. Furious

at this proceeding, I threw myself on her, calling her every name I could

think of, and holding her by the skirt, I cried to her that out among the

cabbages there lay a little boy who might be dead.

“The good woman, astonished, began to imagine from the little I was able

to tell her, that she had been too quick; she concluded to follow me. I

feared I was taking her to a dead child, all was so quiet over in the

cabbage garden. But I was wrong. The little fellow I had pulled out of

the water was in better condition than I. We found him sitting tranquilly

in his wet garments, his arm resting carelessly on a fine large cabbage.

Without saying a word, he was staring straight in front of him. But at

the sight of his mother he suddenly recovered his voice, and commenced

bellowing even louder than he had done when he was paddling in the river.

Why should he cry? I thought it stupid to cry just when help had arrived.

He was, however, not so far wrong, poor, fat little fellow: he was a

little man who had already experienced many things in life; he knew well

what awaited him. To tell the truth, he knew that his mother’s first

action, in moments of excitement, was at once quick and varied.

[Illustration]

“Seeing him in good condition, but wet from head to foot, mother Brazon

lifted him up by one arm, and pulling up his frock, administered a

spanking which considerably augmented the loudness of the little boy’s

shrieks. I was indignant. It appears that I was wrong. I have since heard

it said that, medicinally, the maternal treatment was admirably suited to

the occasion. Is that true, doctor?”

“Quite true,” answered the doctor, laughing.

“With all this going on, I was scarcely contented; on the one hand, I

was beginning to shiver with cold, and on the other, for the first time

in my life, I found myself with strangers far away from the remainder of

my clothes, and I had a terrible fear lest Madame Brazon should profit

by the occasion to administer to me (otherwise than on my ears) the same

treatment she had so recently applied to her own son, and which the

doctor, no doubt, would have approved. But these two exercises had been

sufficient to calm the good woman.

“We had no sooner entered the house than she proved herself a loving

mother to little Auguste, and very kind to me. Quick as a wink she

undressed us both entirely, and bundled us both, in spite of our

resistance, between the white sheets of her big bed.

“Three minutes later she made us each drink a glass of sugared wine—very

hot—which put Auguste in an extremely jubilant frame of mind. I could not

share it. The worst was perhaps over. All was finished on our side of

the river, but that which was soon going to pass on the other side began

to occupy my mind. I thought alternately of papa, of mamma, of my uncle,

of my wet clothes, of the two boxes on my ears, of the boat, and of

aunt Marie. All this was very complicated for a childish brain, already

confused. Little Auguste, searching for a warm place, had curled up in my

arms and gone to sleep. Scarcely knowing it, I followed his example, and

became unconscious in the middle of my sad reflections. It seems they let

us sleep nearly two hours. When I awoke and found myself in that room and

in that bed, and felt the head of a chubby little boy on my shoulder, I

was, at first, much astonished. I opened my eyes without daring to move.

But soon my memory returned, I remembered everything, and cried, ‘Papa!

papa!’

“‘Present!’ replied my father. He had been there by my bedside,—my dear

father,—for one hour, and my darling mother was there also. Aunt Sister

Marie had been unable to leave, or she would have been there, too.

“Madame Brazon, it appears, had at length succeeded in recognizing in the

small gentleman so scantily clad, whose ears she had so lately boxed,

the little boy she had often seen in the garden across the river, and to

explain the enigma, she had sent a neighbor to uncle Antoine’s. It had

suddenly interrupted the game of chess. My father arrived soon after,

bringing with him my uncle’s doctor. The doctor, after looking at the

pretty picture we made in Madame Brazon’s bed, had said, ‘Let them sleep.’

“While waiting for us to wake up, father had sent to town for dry

clothes; my mother had brought them herself. When I was dressed, my

father took me between his knees and said to me:

“‘Tell me everything.’

“I gave him, in fewer words than I have just used, an exact account of

what had happened. My father listened to me. I saw clearly that he was

not angry. At one moment, however, I saw him grow pale; it was when he

realized from my explanations that to go and _undrown_ little Auguste

(this was the word I used, and it has been so well remembered by all the

family that I have not forgotten it), it was, I say, when he understood

that I must certainly have crossed the river to reach the child.

“‘It is incomprehensible!’ said he to mamma and the doctor. ‘The middle

of the river is every where at least five or six feet deep. What did he

do?’

“‘Papa,’ said I, ‘I did as I saw the frogs do.’

“‘But then, my child, you _swam_.’

“‘I do not know, papa; perhaps—’

“‘Did the water go over your head?’

“‘No, papa, surely not.’

“‘You got no water in your mouth while you were going across to rescue

little Auguste? You did not go altogether under water?’

“‘No, papa; no papa.’

“‘Very well, my wife,’ said my father to my mother, ‘that proves that

when one has to swim, one can swim. Jacques swam, because occupied with

something besides his fear of water, he thought only of the end he wished

to attain. I am sure that he is now cured of his former fright, and

that with a few good lessons he will become a good swimmer. And to be a

good swimmer is very useful: it enables one to save one’s self as well

as others. Without this baby, Madame Brazon, without his courage and

_sang-froid_, your child would have been lost.’

“‘My God!’ she cried. ‘And I thanked him with two blows!’

“‘Yes, papa,—two hard ones!’

“‘Madame Brazon,’ said my father, ‘kiss my son on the two cheeks that you

treated so roughly. There is nothing like a kiss to repair an injury.

When one is kissed, all wounds are cured.’”

VII.

“My story,” continued the General, “should not give the idea to children,

or to grown persons either, that it is always wise to make an abrupt

debut in the art of swimming, but it shows that the movements by the aid

of which a man swims are as natural to him as to most animals, and that

if suddenly forced to do so, he has no fear of wetting himself, and can,

by not losing his head, and by thinking of frogs, cross a little river in

safety.

“If you have to make the effort to-night, remember this, and help one

another. To leave a comrade behind is not a creditable proceeding. Many a

time have I congratulated myself that I pulled little Brazon out of the

water.”

“Brazon! Brazon! General?” said the doctor. “But I have known someone

of that name in the army,—a lieutenant-colonel, a strong, brave fellow.

Wait! It was he whose arm I cut off after our expedition against the

Beni-Raten. He was forced to retire—brave fellow!—after that. I shall

always remember what he said to me when the operation was over: ‘Thanks,

doctor. I regret my arm, but don’t regret the occasion that made me lose

it.’”

“And did he tell you,” said the General, “what that occasion was?”

“Faith! no!” responded the doctor, “he needed sleep too badly.”

“Very well, I will tell you,” continued the General, in a voice full of

feeling. “I had had my horse killed under me and my leg broken. I should

have been left to the mercy of the Kabyles, but he rescued me, took me on

his shoulders, carried me to a place of safety, and only when this was

done, discovered that during the trip a ball had shattered his elbow.

Brazon lost his arm in saving my life.

“The story I have just told you made us good friends. Uncle Antoine

became interested in him, my father also: we were educated together, and

have had more or less the same career. Poor Brazon! When he retired, he

returned to ⸺ and lives in what used to be his father’s garden, opposite

uncle Antoine’s ‘Garden of Roses.’

“Since then we have joined the two properties by a bridge, under which a

boat can pass. When I retire, in my turn, I shall not have to swim to go

and see my dear Auguste.”

VIII.

“General,” said the young captain, “will you permit me to ask you one

question? Did not your family spoil you a trifle after this incident?”

“Oh, yes!” replied the General. “I did not lack attention. Aunt Marie and

my mother both kissed me. My uncle declared I was a fine little fellow,

and Madame Brazon, about two weeks later, sent me the very biggest

pumpkin in her garden. She had found out that I adored pumpkin soup.”

[Illustration]

[Illustration: THE HAPPINESS OF BEING NEARSIGHTED]

When Dr. St. George Mivart contributed to a well-known English periodical

his article, “The Happiness In—Ahem!”—the title naturally attracted

immediate attention and won for the paper a consideration which led to

the universal discussion that immediately followed. No one wished or

expected to go to the place concerning which he set forth some of the

particulars, and even some of the secrets; but as everybody had friends

who were in danger of such a fate, and enemies who were certain of it,

there was naturally no little curiosity to learn from the writings

of the early Fathers and later learned ecclesiastics whom Dr. Mivart

quoted how these persons would fare there. To the general surprise, he

disclosed that even in that dismal abode, with an eternal summer of a

temperature the height of which no thermometer known to earthly science

could measure, there was yet to be expected at times a certain degree of

felicity. Christmas and Easter, it may be remembered, were days off, when

holiday existed, the fires were banked and comparative coolness prevailed.

To the man or woman of acute sight, who sees everything far or near

without the necessity of optical aids, and to whom all surroundings are

definite and clear, and who recalls the fellow-being who must either wear

glasses or grope and stumble and be uncertain of environment, it would

appear nonsense to say that there is a happiness in being nearsighted.

And yet in a certain form of nearsightedness there are sources of delight

which even the man of perfect sight never knows. There are scientific

distinctions which the oculist who examines your eyes and the optician

who is anxious to sell you a pair of glasses will explain between the

nearsightedness which compels you to pore over a book, holding it close

to your eyes, and the other form which enables you to read the finest

print without glasses, and yet debars you from recognizing your wife or

mother-in-law half way across the street. There is certainly not much

happiness in the former, because, although it may give the impression

that you are a close student and a man of deep erudition to go about with

a book or newspaper directly at the end of your nose, the appearance you

present is not heroic or graceful, and the young ladies seeing you are

apt to smile; and being regarded as a book-worm and pedant you can never

hope to create much of a figure in society.

It is only the nearsighted man who can not distinguish things very well

at a distance, and who, therefore, gets a strictly impressionist view

of life, who really enjoys existence. He can do without his glasses, if

necessary, or if he does not think them becoming, and yet experience

almost perfect comfort. For him, indeed, the world never loses its

illusions, and years, far from robbing him of this boon, only adds

to the glamour of enchantment in which he lives. There are those who

maintain that the really great men of history have always been short—not

in funds, but in stature—and they instance Socrates, Napoleon, Edmund

Kean, Victor Hugo and a multitude of others; but, in point of fact it

may be still more conclusively shown that the majority of great men have

been short-sighted. Much of the romantic view of existence taken by the

ancients we may ascribe to the fact that many of them were near-sighted

and had not the use of spectacles, which did not come into vogue until

the Thirteenth Century, although the Chinese, it is said, had them

for some time before that. Nothing but nearsightedness could have so

stimulated the imagination of Shakespeare and idealized everything about

him, although, indeed, it is true that we have no portraits or busts

in which he is shown to have worn glasses. Still, there are so many

references in his writings to “thickness of sight” and difficulties of

vision, and there are such exquisite descriptions of color effects, that

we can not doubt him to have been the victim of what the doctors would

call optical infirmity, although it is quite the reverse.

The fact that many of our famous modern poets did not wear glasses is

no proof that for definite seeking they did not require them. Byron,

Shelley or Keates, we may be sure, never would have worn glasses in any

circumstances, as such appurtenances would have been out of character.

There was not in their time the great variety of the pince-nez that we

have at present, rimless and almost invisible; but there was the very

fashionable single eyeglass, rather larger than the monocle in use at

present, and that Beau Brummel himself, and later Count D’Orsay, did

not disdain. The Duke of Wellington used a single eyeglass, tied to a

black ribbon, which hung about his neck, habitually, and through it saw

the Battle of Waterloo, and, before the engagement was over, Blücher’s

columns coming up.

But to enjoy the happiness of being nearsighted the eyeglasses and

spectacles should be dispensed with and life viewed through the

natural organs alone. Then it is, as already remarked, that we get the

impressionist effect, which is the only one worth having. The man with

what are called good eyes perceives all the details, and consequently all

the coarse and ugly particulars of the life, still and in motion, about

him, and all its faults and shortcomings. After all, what we want is

feeling; the thousand intricacies of form we do not need or desire; give

us the general effects and our spirit transfigures them. Give us figures,

incidents and scenes in vague and poetic mass, and the most delightful

and thrilling emotions are aroused.

These are the results obtained by the nearsighted man. To him there is

very little that is ugly in life, and especially is it true that all

women are beautiful. As I go through the streets I meet at every turn

the most exquisite girls, of whose features, indeed, I know little

in detail, but there comes to me a general effect of brilliant eyes,

lovely complexions and entrancing hair. Every figure is elegant and

each walks with the step of a goddess. There are some old women, but

none middle-aged or faded; I know not that most distressing of mortal

wrecks, the woman “well preserved.” I catch a swift glimpse of a face

at a window, or one flashes from a carriage—it is always fair; in the

crowded thoroughfares of the shopping districts the tall and picturesque

hats, covered with flowers; the soft gowns, the ribbons of myriad colors

flit by, giving me but a glimpse, and ravish me. Still more enchanting

are these graceful beings at night by the electric light, or vaguely

disclosed in the wan beams of the moon.

Natural scenery has a charm which the unhappy man who is not nearsighted

can never know. Everything looks uncertain, dim, hazy and very often

mystical; colors affect the eye with a delicious softness; there

are no keen and cruel contrasts; distant woods and skies, with the

multitude of intermingled hues in summer, and the browns and grays of

autumn and winter, fall tenderly upon the vision. The changes of light

upon the mountain side, and, still more vividly, the seashore, early

in the morning or at sunset, stir the deepest sources of sentiment.

The nearsighted eye is never photographic; the lines and colors are

everywhere mingled and confused, and in both rest and action there is a

delicious complexity and indefiniteness.

One can imagine no more interesting scene of movement than that in the

evening at the height of the season on the esplanade at Atlantic City.

I never witness it without thinking of two of the dreams of De Quincey,

which he describes in some detail—the one of the crowd moving by in

endless procession, like the figures on a frieze, on and on forever, the

other of the innumerable faces of his vision revealed in the incessant

convulsions of the ocean. At about half-past eight o’clock in the

evening toward the end of July, when the season is at its climax, this

impressive throng, in two lines, moving to the right and to the left, is

most numerous. There is, so far as I am aware, nothing precisely like it

anywhere else in the world—so variegated, so well-dressed, so lively and

so complicated. To enjoy it perfectly there must be the vagueness of a

veiled vision, and then, in addition to the passing faces, you catch the

soft, dreamy effects of the costumes—whites and pinks, sometimes even

the bold Mephistophelean red; the dim azures, the pale greens subsiding

into yellow. In the two tides goes this strange army, slow in motion,

laughing, volatile, the silvery tinkle of feminine laughter and the

deeper murmur of conversation. To observe this throng has an absorbing

fascination, but if at times you rest, it is to look over the railing of

the esplanade at the darkness of the ocean and watch the waves rushing

in, like sheeted women with outstretched and affrighted arms.

Summing up, if I were asked to define the special enjoyment derived

from nearsightedness, I should say that it arises from two sources—the

serenity of the scenes disclosed by the sight, the absence of harshness

in sky, landscape or environment anywhere; the fusing of mean details

into an agreeable mass. And even stranger and pleasanter than this is the

mystical effect; the softness and dreaminess of atmosphere and distances;

the indolent, abstracted and slightly melancholy tone of mind produced;

the beguiling idealization of existence.

—_Walter Edgar M’Cann._

[Illustration]

[Illustration: “_An XVIII Century Beauty._”

_From the miniature by Hugh Nicholson._]

[Illustration: COMMENT]

We take great pleasure in presenting to our readers this month the

first installment of a serial story by the famous Spanish novelist, D.

Ramon Ortega y Frias. The translation is the work of Mr. L. Solyom, of

Washington, whose ability as a linguist is well known and of a very high

order. “Elena’s Daughters,” a romance full of the charm of movement and

color, depicts, with unusual skill, the life of the Spanish people in the

early part of the Seventeenth Century, when Philip IV was king, and when

love was won by the sword and honor was held to be a priceless thing.

The manners and customs, the superstitions and ignorance, the desperate

bravery and cunning of the times are made to contribute to the absorbing

interest of the story, an interest that is fully maintained to the

concluding sentence of the last chapter.

D. Ramon Ortega y Frias was born in 1825. Long sickness and family

misfortunes compelled him to give up studies and to devote his life to

literary pursuits. He is one of the most popular Spanish novelists—in

fact, he may be considered the father of the Spanish novel, being the

first to replace the numerous French translations which were almost

exclusively read before he wrote his original compositions. His subjects

are drawn from Spanish history and give true pictures of the manners

and customs of the country. He has also translated some works from the

French, and has written poetry and numerous critical literary articles.

* * * * *

Through the courtesy of Mr. Hugh Nicholson, the well-known English

miniaturist, we are enabled to reproduce one of his most important

miniatures. It is called “An Eighteenth Century Beauty,” and was given

the place of honor in the inaugural exhibition of the London Society

of Miniature Painters, held in 1896. Mr. Nicholson has been engaged

in painting little portraits of prominent Baltimoreans for the past

two seasons, and his recent return to Baltimore from abroad proves the

continuance of his well-merited popularity. His work is distinguished by

exquisitely delicate coloring and technique, and never lacks the strength

necessary to the successful portrayal of character.

* * * * *

A most important event in the artistic life of the South, and one whose

ultimate results are likely to be of such a far-reaching nature that is

impossible to even roughly estimate their valve at the present time,

occurred on January 18th., 1899. On that day a group of representative

and influential gentlemen met at the residence of Mr. Theodore Marburg

and founded what is known as The Municipal Art Association of the City

of Baltimore. Although the idea of such an organization is not a new

one,—such associations already exist and are in a flourishing condition

in New York, Boston and other Northern Cities,—no such society can be

found elsewhere in the South. Baltimore can therefore for once be justly

congratulated on having shown a spirit of real enterprise and civic

pride, which, sooner or later, is sure to be followed by all her Southern

sisters.

The main object of this new municipal art association is to receive and

collect funds for the beautifying of the public squares and buildings

of the City. It will also use its utmost endeavors—through experts

and disinterested, broad-minded laymen—to have such funds judiciously

expended. It is proposed to enlarge the membership, which is somewhat

limited at present, as much as possible and at the same time, to form

a woman’s auxiliary branch that will work in harmony with the main

organization, composed exclusively of men. It is estimated that a body

of at least two thousand public-spirited men and women can thus be found

and eventually welded into a powerful association devoted to the very

best artistic interests of the people of Baltimore. If this calculation

is correct, a considerable amount of money will accumulate annually in

the treasury of the society, solely from the collection of the yearly

dues, which have been wisely fixed at the small sum of $5.00. In order to

increase the association’s resources much more rapidly than is otherwise

practicable, it has been resolved that life membership may be procured

by those who are willing to pay the sum of $100.00, and that the title

of “Patron” will be bestowed on all those who are liberal enough to

donate the sum of $1000, or more. The money so collected from dues and

voluntary contributions is to be carefully husbanded until the amount

becomes sufficiently large to justify the directors in opening a worthy

competition for the decoration of some public building, the erection of

a statue, or the building of a monument of real and lasting artistic

merit. It may not be possible to procure enough money to purchase such a

work of art annually, but it will be a question of only a few years at

most before the results of this much needed society will become evident

to the least observant. It is with feelings of the greatest pleasure

that we commend this highly laudable and intelligent movement to the

people of Baltimore, and we hope they will give it their unswerving and

enthusiastic support.

* * * * *

At the first meeting of the organizers of The Municipal Art Association

of the City of Baltimore, it was stated that the articles and by-laws

governing this new society had been taken almost bodily from those

of the New York organization. It was argued that as they had been

thoroughly tested and proved to be of great working value in New York,

therefore they must of necessity be suited to the needs of Baltimore. In

a certain measure this is true, but the reasoning is rather fallacious

and misleading. The artistic conditions that prevail at the present time

in the two cities are by no means the same: New York has a Metropolitan

Museum, filled with the finest specimens of ancient and modern art,

which is always open to the public, besides an Academy of Design, a

Society of American Artists, an Architectural League and any number

of galleries that are constantly instructing the people in what is

being done by native and foreign contemporaneous artists—whether they

be painters, sculptors, or architects. In Baltimore we have only the

Walters’ Gallery,—a wonderfully fine collection of paintings, ceramics,

and bronzes, to be sure, but one that is practically unchanging and that

is open to the public for only a comparatively few days of the year,—and

such small exhibitions of pictures as can be collected from time to time

through the efforts and enterprise of Mr. David Bendann and the Charcoal

Club—an organization that is far from being supported as it should be by

those interested in the artistic development of the City.

General Felix Agnus forcibly voiced the feeling of a great many of the

gentlemen who founded the new society when he suggested that the scope

of The Municipal Art Association of the City of Baltimore be enlarged by

such changes in the articles of incorporation as would eventually empower

it to erect a public Museum, and to receive bequests in the shape of

paintings and other works of art. We would go farther than General Agnus

and suggest to the board of Directors that the New Art Association be

not only empowered to collect funds to build a Museum, but a fire-proof,

well-lighted gallery also, constructed especially for, and devoted solely

to a yearly exhibition of works by modern artists. Until this is done

Baltimore must of necessity remain more or less ignorant and provincial

in all artistic matters. Galleries for such yearly exhibitions exist in

every other large city of the United States, and that one has not been

built here long ago is due, we are sure, not to a dearth of funds or

taste, but solely to a curious lack of co-operation among those who have

the power and the inclination to stimulate the rational development of a

love for things of beauty.

We therefore hope that The Municipal Art Association of the City of

Baltimore will not imitate too closely the objects and the by-laws of

the New York Society, but will add these other two extremely necessary

projects to an already praiseworthy program, and thereby render our

citizens more appreciative of the artistic attractions they propose to

offer them in the near future.

* * * * *

There is no spectacular display, either in the old world or in the new,

to compare with the New Orleans Mardi Gras. But there has been too little

care paid to the development of the floats and of the costumes of the

mummers,—those which are directly under the control of the committee

which is usually placed in charge.

We are always interested in art, and in the artist, and would suggest

that our New Orleans friends might add greatly to the excellence of their

entertainment by consulting men more of an artistic than of a business

temperament in arranging their annual and unique displays.

* * * * *

The movements in the local security markets have shown a somewhat halting

tendency of late. This is not unnatural, following the sustained upward

movement and the broad and active buying which has marked the operations

in stocks and bonds for several months. Operators and dealers are not

disturbed that the market should rest for awhile, and confidence is easy

where it is felt that the rising trend to values will again occur as soon

as investors have been able to scan the field anew and to digest the

conditions which affect the values of securities.

There has been no decline here, as this is essentially an investment and

not a speculative market. Prices are not stimulated or advanced by stock

jobbing operations and false rumors which so seriously affect values in

speculative centres, but rest solely on the merits of the property which

the security represents. There has been a slight shading of values in a

few instances in issues which had been rapidly advanced by the strong

public demand. This was notably the case in the shares of some of the new

trust companies. The Continental Trust stock had an abnormal rise to $285

a share, representing a premium of $85 a share, as $200 a share will be

paid in by the stockholders. Since the Stock Exchange permitted trading

in the receipts of this company the premium has declined 25 points, as at

the close of last week it was reported that the stock had been offered

110, with 100 the best bid. Citizens’ Trust shares have also fallen off

from 57 to 49½, with declines less marked in the shares of the older

institutions, and with many of them showing gains.

The announcement of the entrance into the local trust field of a new

company with large capital and influential backing probably had some

unfavorable effect on the stocks of the companies recently started.

This new concern will be a strong bidder for business, and while it is

expected to work in a field of development, it is not unlikely to receive

some business which would have gone to the other companies.

This field of trust seems to be a favorable and a profitable one,

however, for large combinations of capital.

* * * * *

We spoke in our last issue of the opportunity that was about to be given

to erect a fine and lasting monument to the memory of the Confederate and

Federal soldiers who lost their lives on the battle-field of Antietam.

This opportunity presented itself early in January to the judges in

charge of the competition for a commemorative monument, or statue, for

the erection of which ample funds were voted by the Maryland Legislature.

We had some misgivings as to the artistic merits of the sketch that

would be chosen,—owing to the fact that such awards are usually left

to the taste of artistically incompetent persons, instead of to men

whose training and experience guarantee that the work shall be, if not

great, of at least a fair average quality,—but we had no idea that even

judges selected at random (as these evidently were) would be willing to

put themselves on record as approving a design that, while not out of

place for a summer-house or a soda-water fountain, is altogether so in a

memorial erected to the glory of our dead heroes.

If these gentlemen paid for the monument out of their own pockets and

offered it to the State as a gift, it still ought to be refused as

utterly unworthy the subject, or of public acceptance, but it is nothing

less than outrageous to force the taxpayers of Maryland to accept and

to furnish money for such a travesty on good taste. To make matters even

worse, and that, strange to say, the judges found was entirely possible,

the award was given to a New England contractor, so that we are not only

to have a most inappropriate monument, but an inappropriate one made

in another State for which an important sum of money must be paid by

the people of Maryland. We are not narrow-minded in these matters, and

believe that, to fittingly honor our brave dead, we should have the best

sculptor or architect that can be procured, no matter whence he comes,

but it can hardly be claimed in this case that it was necessary to go

outside the State.

In fact, it seems to us, it would hardly have been possible to find

anything more trivial or unsuitable, even had a prize been especially

offered for that purpose. That such things are accepted with so little

complaint by the press and public almost justifies one in abandoning hope

that we shall ever see any real improvement in our muddled way of looking

at questions of this sort.

* * * * *

No military organization in the United States is better and more

favorably known than the Fifth Maryland, distinctively a Southern

regiment.

For over thirty years it has stood the equal of any militia regiment in

the country. In latter years the only organization, in the popular mind,

that challenged its supremacy was the Seventh New York, and when the

famed Seventh declined to go to the Spanish war and the Fifth, in a body,

volunteered for government service, to go anywhere they were ordered to

go and do anything they were asked to do, there could be no further doubt

that the Fifth Maryland, which has always clung to its gray uniform,

emblematic of other days, was the “real thing,” as far as the militia of

the country was concerned.

It seems a shame that not only the people of Baltimore and of Maryland,

but the people of the South generally, should not take vigorous offence

that at this time, after the regiment has served its country for over

three months, and has returned to its armory in Baltimore, for what are,

apparently, political reasons and reasons of personal gratification, this

splendid body of men should be threatened with dissolution.

In this condition which confronts the command several things enter.

In the first place, there never was any discord, never any disagreement

among the officers until a certain element appeared. This element has

gone now, but other troubles have arisen. Its old commanding officer,

whom all the men loved, was prevented from going to the Spanish war with

his command—questionably prevented,—as subsequent events have shown.

With him, “physically disqualified,” were other officers, quite as well

beloved and respected by the men, and all of these gentlemen still hold

their commissions from the State of Maryland.

The order retiring them was one from the Adjutant-General of the State,

which order, by the way, has very recently been revoked,—and now a board

has been appointed to examine these officers physically and otherwise.

Before the Adjutant-General recalled his retirement order, they had

asked to be returned to the offices to which their commissions lawfully

entitled them.

The make-up of the board appointed to treat the cases of these officers

has been questioned, not only upon the ground that it is partisan, but

because some of its members are not qualified to serve upon it. Before

this number of “DIXIE” goes to press the board will have met. Possibly it

will have reached its decision. It is probable, if it disqualifies these

men, that numbers of Southerners will consider it a case of hanging them

first and trying them afterwards.

The people like the Fifth Maryland. Its officers like it. And if the

“retired” officers are not allowed to go back to their command,—these

officers whom their men love,—there will be no more Fifth Regiment. Its

other officers will resign, its faithful enlisted men will vanish like

smoke, and in the place of the Fifth of fame there will be a hybrid

combination, sustained by that sort of political power that commands no

respect from honest-thinking men.

There is yet time for the “powers that be” to pause. The Fifth Regiment

is not a thing to be ruthlessly slaughtered. Parties come and parties go,

but there are elections yet to come, and the men of Maryland and of the

South will not forget those who killed their cherished Fifth Maryland.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: BOOKS & AUTHORS]

TWO POET-NOVELISTS.

GEORGE MEREDITH.

Art and artists are continually suffering at the hands of “belletristic

triflers.” Phrase-making is the passion of the day; and as a falsity or

a half-truth concerning literary matters is so much easier of utterance

than the awkward whole truth, that demands lengthy qualifications, we

seldom find the latter gaining in the race with glittering mendacities.

It is not, for instance, the saner body of Matthew Arnold’s criticism

that has been generally absorbed; it is his more or less questionable

catch-words and airy brevities of characterization. These seem apt to

the understanding because they fit so well the tongue; their convenience

gives them their fatal persuasion. The world likes a criticism in little,

a nut-shell verdict, something of intellectual color that can readily

be memorized for dinner-table parlance, the vague generalization that

conceals the specific ignorance. Macaulay’s “rough pistolling ways and

stamping emphasis,” Scott’s “bastard epic style,” and the conception

of Shelley as “a beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in the void

his luminous wings in vain” have thus come to be solemn verities with

many who care more to talk literature than to read it. A whilom gaiety

of journalism served to convince the public that Whitman’s voice was

a “barbaric yawp”; and consequently his “Leaves of Grass” is seldom

glimpsed save in a spirit of derision. These are some of the unhappy

results of our latter-day strain after “a pregnant conciseness” of

language.

George Meredith like many of his predecessors has suffered much from

the thumb-nail criticism of the day. His judges are apt to insist upon

his mannerisms and to insist on nothing else. The generality of readers

hearing so much about the “mereditherambic style” rest under the belief

that this writer is a tripod of frenzied incoherence; that he lacks,

especially as a poet, both style and substance. That this is far from

being the truth about Meredith’s verse anyone who has read it with

attention well knows. Not only does much of it fulfil the requisites of

orthodox style, but it contains, even more than his novels, the vital

convictions of his mind. Indeed, it is in his verse we come nearest the

real teacher, as we come nearest the man in his relation to life at

large—to the general scheme of things.

A realization of George Meredith’s poetical virtues by the reader of

real literature is due a writer who has proved his claim to genius in a

monumental series of novels, a writer who, while not acceptable to all,

has yet many admirers that regard him as one of the strongest towers of

modern thought. One can, however, scarcely hope for more than a limited

acceptance of his poems; that he should be popular in the ordinary

meaning of the word, as some poets are taken to heart by the sons of

men, is indeed scarcely conceivable. Such popularity, which is after all

an equivocal tribute for the most part, Mr. Meredith has never aimed to

secure. His has been a life of remoteness from profane ambitions, a life

steadfast to the standard early set for himself—a standard of the highest

kind.

And yet, while Mr. Meredith may not exercise the attraction of many

other poets for the general reader, few will deny that in his fruits of

song one tastes the flavor of an original, deep-seeing mind; that there

is in the character of many of his poems what well rewards the serious

attention necessary to their complete comprehension. Difficult in part

they may seem in the casual reading, owing to combined entanglement of

rhetoric and ideas, but few who press their inquiry past the line of a

first natural discouragement of perusal can fail totally to be affected

by the spell they cast over the mind. Beauty there is unquestionably

lurking beneath what seems often a wilful obscuration of theme. Coming

here and there upon some apparently dry metrical husk of thought, there

falls, as from some frost-bitten flower-pod, a shower of fairy seeds that

lodge as a vital donation within the remembrance. Groping in the midst of

a Meredithian mystery, even the less sensitive ear catches a ritornello

of exquisite, wholly seductive sound. For it is not so infrequently that

like his “The Lark Ascending.”

“He rises and begins to round,

He drops the silver chain of sound,

Of many links without a break,

In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake—”

The lark-note is not, however, the leading characteristic of Mr.

Meredith’s muse, although quite within the scope of it. It is rather

the lark’s joy in nature clothed with the more artificial vocalism of

man. Mr. Meredith is pantheist in large measure when he attunes his

lute-strings to the demands of Mother Earth. For him the gods of Greece

do not live only in the pages of Lempriere, as most modern poets would

have us believe, but they still maintain, albeit in more subtle form,

their old supreme habitation in lawn and sylvan hollow, or mix with the

familiar miracle of grey eve and rose-red dawn. In his verse Mr. Meredith

hastens to undo the harness of that worldly wisdom that binds him in his

novels. He re-baptizes himself to the graces of nature pure, rejoices in

all that belongs to the idealism of primitive life. The poet can pipe as

rustically as a faun when he is so minded. He can pay a moving tribute to

young love and the romance of vernal feeling, as proved by that beautiful

lift of minstrelsy, “Love in the Valley,” with its limpid, ecstatic

meter, its delicious imagery and spiritual sweetness of thought; not to

speak of many other lyrics of the same sort. These lighter pleasures

and profits of George Meredith, together with his more serious efforts,

like “Ode to the Spirit of Earth and Autumn,” a magnificent color-poem,

uniquely accenting the bacchic abandon of October and trumpeting mightily

the note of triumphant manhood, and “The Nuptials of Attila,” full of

a haunting rush of language, ought to afford substantial relish to the

general admirers of high art.

Has George Meredith’s vigorous, almost massive harp a message for

humanity? is the natural inquiry of those who reading Wordsworth or

Tennyson find in their works sure faiths and consolatory teaching. And is

such message so abeyant that only those of his readers who are endowed

with power of subtle divination may find it? Certainly in the case of the

seer the debt of clear utterance is obligatory, just as from the lyricist

we look for delight and tears and mellifluence; it is a responsibility

that falls from heaven with the mantle of inspiration, only a congenital

inceptitude for lucidity excuses it. Too often, it must be confessed, it

is only the ghostly sense of a message that trails through Mr. Meredith’s

work, glimpsing and disappearing in will-o’-wisp fashion. The thirsting

traveller chasing such mirages of meaning over the sands of obscurity may

be pardoned if he conclude that to only the very privileged few does the

Fata Morgana of his muse grant a kindly haven of specific instruction.

But while this is true of passages and poems, it is not true of all his

poems. There is much in his volumes of verse that state distinctly his

philosophical principles. The ground-work of Mr. Meredith’s philosophy

is the worth of nature as distinct from the artificial institutions of

man. In nature pure exists the true temple of wisdom; it is the tribunal

whereat all knowledge and sentiment must finally receive its endorsement

or its condemnation. In nature we open the real book of life. It is,

therefore, that in his verse we find continually a worship of the liberty

of the forest, a recognition of its power to promote the vital growth of

heart and head. Mr. Meredith would not have us forget that the mind and

spirit are integral elements of nature. Particularly in “The Woods of

Westermain,” beginning,

“Enter these enchanted woods,

You who dare—”

is this philosophy stated forcibly and at length. Naturalness in all

things is the keynote of his utterance. It is from his poetry that we

gain the clue to that humorous and seemingly harsh, satirical attitude

towards worldliness which distinguishes his novels and has occasioned

the frequent outcry that Mr. Meredith is a heartless epigrammatist. The

truer criticism is that he derides the artifices, the sham decencies and

mawkish sentimentality of society as the earnest champion of the natural.

Thus we find Sir Willoughby Patterne in “The Egoist” demonstrating the

pursuit of a spurious worldly philosophy, as we find the hero of “Richard

Feverel” proving the mistake of yoking nature to an artificial system,

while his women, such as Clara in “The Egoist,” Nataly in “One of Our

Conquerors,” and Diana in “Diana of the Crossways,” are clear, protesting

voices against masculine prejudices and feminine bondage. This is also

the teaching of his remarkable poem entitled “Modern Love.” George

Meredith has within the last few months added to his poetical works a

work called “Odes in Contribution to the Song of French History” (New

York: Charles Scribner’s Sons), which while having a Pindarian sublimity

of intent, a plentitude of rapt and fiery passages is too involved and

vague to constitute a real master-work. Whatever be said of Meredith’s

faults, a serious reading of his verse cannot but persuade one that he is

a poet who is distinctly virile and worth while. Though much that he has

written may have the mark of mortality, there is much also that wears the

amaranthine wreath of eternal life, either for beauty of phrase or for

profundity of philosophic truth.

THOMAS HARDY.

Genius proves itself as much by the tenacity of its taste for one

handicraft as by anything else; it evidences itself not so much in

versatility as in volume. It is rather a mark of mediocre mentality when

a man must needs lay his hand to the doing of this and that. Genius, as

a rule, has no such itch; generally speaking, he is content to fulfill

himself in one given direction—to maintain his being in a single sphere

with a passion superior to that of his fellows. Thus it is we seldom find

after leaving the regions of facile talent writers whose inspiration

expresses itself in prose and poetical form with equal seriousness; one

is the vehicle of the divine voice, the other a mere diversion. Goethe,

it is true, has given us “Wilhelm Meister,” Victor Hugo was a great poet

as well as a great romancer, George Meredith, as we have endeavored to

show, is a singer of peculiar force as well as a master novelist, and

among the later literary figures of especial power we have Kipling, whose

prose and poetry about balance the scale of worth; but the exceptions are

few, and the logic of letters tends to show oneness of aim in the case of

genius.

Thomas Hardy undoubtedly belongs to the ranks of great novelists;

his series of romances has been laid on the firm basis of beauty and

knowledge; he has hallowed a part of England peculiarly rich in unique

personality and natural charm; it belongs to him and the heirship of

his memory as validly as though it had been granted him by the Crown.

So well has he filled the office of fictionist that there seems no

need of an attempt on his part to enforce his fame by appearing as a

poet. The publication of “Wessex Poems” (New York: Harper & Bros.) is

indeed no positive declaration of such ambition; it is perhaps put forth

hesitatingly rather in response to public demand than because of a

conviction of its intrinsic merit. It represents the fruit of odd moments

punctuating a long literary career. The character of the volume is what

one might have anticipated, although had it been of a wholly different

sort it could scarcely have created surprise. There are two Hardys—the

man on whose heart weighs the melancholy facts of human existence and the

happier artist in close and peaceful communion with the sweet infinite

spirit of nature. It is the former Hardy that figures in the volume

singularly unsoftened by any intimation of the other phase of the writer.

The character of Hardy himself as existing behind the art-self is one

that inspires a peculiar interest. One would know it not simply to

gratify a curiosity that, indeed, is too much indulged of late in lines

of gross private revelation, but to weigh the justice of the charge

of wilful pessimism so generally made against him. The gloomy brow of

Hardy’s art seems far from being of that impersonal sort which makes much

of the modern melancholy of literature inexcusable as a mere degenerate

seeking.

One feels inclined to say that Hardy’s prose is poetry and his poetry

prose. The present volume reveals little of the genuine lyric gift, but

the singing while labored is not without force and individual color.

Some of the ballads possess considerable spirit, and where character is

outlined it cuts the consciousness with Hardy’s well-known skill of vivid

portraiture; as for instance, “The Dance at the Phœnix,” describing the

passion of an aged dame for the pleasures of her youth how she steals

forth from the bed of her good man to foot it gaily at the inn and

how on her return at morn she dies from over-exertion; “Her Death and

After” where the lover of a dead woman sacrifices her fair fame for the

sake of rescuing her child from the cruelties of a stepmother; and “The

Burghers,” a tale of guilty lovers, and a husband’s unique conduct. In

these, as in other poems of the kind, one can not but feel that Hardy

would have put the matter so much better in prose; which, indeed, is

what in some cases he has done. Some of the contemplative verse has a

quaintness of expression which suggests the sonnets of Shakespeare; the

lines are frequently lame, but every now and then there is a really

virile phrase. In true old English style are some of the lyrics, of which

“The Stranger’s Song” is perhaps the most successful:

O! my trade, it is the rarest one,

Simple shepherds all—

My trade is a sight to see;

For my customers I tie, and take ’em up on high,

And waft ’em to a far countree!

My tools are but common ones,

Simple shepherds all—

My tools are no sight to see;

A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing,

Are implements enough for me!

To-morrow is my working day,

Simple shepherds all—

For the farmer’s sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta’en,

And on his soul may God ha’ mercy!

That love proves itself at best a pathetic compromise is plainly gleaned

from the pages of the poems. There is sounded no joyous though momentary

content in heart-possession: nothing there we find but a record of

youth, its dreams darkened and blighted by the false promises of time;

bitter retrospect of age beholding a heavy philosophy scrawling on all

fair things of life and faith the epitaph of fragility and decay. The

earth-bound character of the poet’s thought is well illustrated in the

following lines:

If but some vengeful god would call to me

From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,

Know that thy sorrow is my ecstacy,

That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”

Then would I bear, and clench myself and die,

Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;

Half-eased, too, that a Powerfuller than I

Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,

And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?

—Crass casualty obstructs the sun and rain,

And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan....

These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown

Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

And again, in “Nature’s Questionings,” we find him conceiving the “field,

flock and lonely tree” as asking:

“Has some Vast Imbecility,

Mighty to build and blend,

But impotent to tend,

Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?

“Or come we of an Automaton

Unconscious of our pains....

Or are we live remains

Of Godhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone?”

“Or is it that some high Plan Betides,

As yet not understood,

Of Evil stormed by Good;

We the Forlorn Hope over which Achievement strides?”

And having no conclusion for his own heart—

“No answerer I....

Meanwhile, the winds, and rains,

And Earth’s old glooms and pains,

Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death

Neighbors nigh.”

One instinctively compares this with Tennyson’s spirit of noble

meditation in “In Memoriam;” and it must be confessed that Hardy suffers

by comparison as lacking the essential attributes of Anglo-Saxon

courageousness. One regrets the publication of “Wessex Poems,” for it

reveals the character of a great writer in an unfortunate and belittling

light; to reconstruct one’s impression of his power and personality one

feels the need of reopening one of his most delightful books, such as

“The Woodlanders,” to breathe its good smells of Mother Earth, and under

its domination as an exquisite pastoral production find there, and not in

“Wessex Poems,” Thomas Hardy, the poet.

—_Edward A. Uffington Valentine._

[Illustration: THE FAMILY WINKTUM AND THEIR FRIENDS.]

[Illustration]

“That’s a jolly looking spider,”

Said the Winktum’s little boy;

“If only I can catch him,

He will make a splendid toy.

I think if I can reach so far,

I’ll pop him in this little jar.”

[Illustration]

The Twirly-fish came out on land

To take a promenade,

But meeting with the Bubble-boy

Grew very much afraid.

The Bubble-boy, who lives on land,

Had thought to take a swim,

But when he saw the Twirly-fish

He shook at sight of him.

* * * * *

[Illustration: GEORGE K. MCGAW AND CO.

IMPORTING GROCERS AND WINE MERCHANTS

220 AND 222 N. CHARLES ST.

HAVANA AND KEY WEST CIGARS

TELEPHONE No. 1821]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _THE New St. James HOTEL_

_North Charles and Centre Streets, BALTIMORE._

_J. G. ROHR, Manager._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Flim_—_My brother is a doctor, and we just work into each

others’ hands._

_Flam_—_Why, are you a druggist?_

_Flim_—_No, undertaker._]

[Illustration: _He_—_How is it you always have a previous engagement when

I call?_

_She_—_Oh, that’s my luck._]

* * * * *

David Bendann

Etchings and Engravings

Manufacturer of Frames.

Fine Art Rooms, Gallery of Paintings on Free Exhibition.

105 East Baltimore Street, Baltimore.

* * * * *

ADVERTISE IN “DIXIE.”

It reaches not only Baltimore, but the South generally.

* * * * *

CROOK, HORNER & CO.,

Steam Hot-Water Heating and Ventilating Engineers, BALTIMORE.

PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS FURNISHED.

* * * * *

Maryland Title Insurance and Trust Co.

EQUITABLE BUILDING. TELEPHONE 1376.

T. K. WORTHINGTON, President.

THOMAS HILL, Vice-President.

JOHN H. DUNCAN, Sec’y—Treas. Pro Tem.

DIRECTORS:

John A. Whitridge,

Alexander Brown,

Edgar G. Miller,

Thomas Hill,

George Whitelock,

Jesse Hilles,

E. H. Perkins,

Francis M. Jencks,

L. M. Duvall,

Jno. A. Tompkins,

T. K. Worthington.

Examines and Insures Titles to Real and Leasehold Property.

Money to Loan on Mortgage (no commissions).

Mortgages and Ground Rents For Sale.

Conveyancing.

* * * * *

[Illustration: —_Who is that little mon?_

—_He’s me swell friend, McCub, of the very upper crust._

—_Well, they put too much shortening in the crust._]

* * * * *

[Illustration:

Said Johan Gespoozlelheim Ditzer,

Dor hair-cud you gif me dond fid zir!

Unt my mindt vill derangedt,

Uf you dond got id schangedt,

Unt your nose zir, py me vill ged hid zir!]

* * * * *

[Illustration: MARYLAND CEMENT CO

PORTLAND CEMENT

NOS. 2 & 4 E. LEXINGTON ST. BALTIMORE. MD.

TOLTEC PATAPSCO]

* * * * *

The Jolly Tinker and the Lovers.

[Illustration: I.]

[Illustration: II.]

[Illustration: III.]

[Illustration: IV.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: BORST’S RATHSKELLER

UNDER THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC.

Meals at all Hours. Attendance First-Class.

DELICACIES IN SEASON.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THIS IS GREAT SCOTT.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Miss Boldie._—_What will prevent one’s hair falling out?_

_Miss Caustic._—_Hair Pins!_]

* * * * *

[Illustration: H. L. WASHBURN & CO., Commercial Printers and Publishers,

’Phone, 1527.

_The Dixie Magazine is a product of our establishment._

An opportunity to bid on your work is solicited.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: Hotel Rennert....

_BALTIMORE._

An Up-to-date Fire-proof ... European Hotel.

_EDWARD RENNERT, MANAGER._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _One of the Girls_—“_Did he marry well?_”

_Another one_—“_I should say so. He corresponded through a matrimonial

agency with a girl who said she was only a countess, when she was really

a cook._”]

* * * * *

[Illustration: The Artists’ Photographer,

RECOMMENDED AND EMPLOYED BY LEADING BALTIMORE ARTISTS...

G. de J. Mesny, 226 Charles St., North.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: PEACEFUL SLUMBER COMES TO THE USER OF THE GLOBE SPRING

AT ALL DEALERS

MANUFACTURED BY FOSTER BRO’S MANUFACTURING CO. BALTIMORE, MD.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: “_QUEEN OF SEA ROUTES._”

Merchants and Miners Transportation Co.

_STEAMSHIP LINES BETWEEN_

Baltimore

Boston

Providence

Savannah

Norfolk

Newport News

_ONLY LINE RUNNING A SUNDAY STEAMER BETWEEN_

BALTIMORE, NEWPORT NEWS, AND NORFOLK.

Accommodations and Cuisine Unsurpassed. Send for Particulars.

J. C. WHITNEY, Traffic Manager.

W. P. TURNER, Gen’l Passenger Agent.

GENERAL OFFICES, 216 E. GERMAN STREET.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: —_The critics have ruined my new play._

—_How’s that?_

—_They said there wasn’t an immoral line in it._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE ALPHA PHOTO-ENGRAVING CO.

DESIGNERS HALF-TONE ENGRAVERS & ZINC-ETCHERS

BALTO. 217 E. GERMAN ST. MD.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: The GLOBE BEER

_THE GLOBE BEERS ARE UNEXCELLED._

Gold Brau, Light. Munich, Dark.

_TELEPHONE CALL, 1425._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: —_He—he says he loves me so much that at times he feels as

if he could eat me._

—_Yes, and in a few years he will say he is sorry he didn’t._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: —_Golf Terms_: “_On the Links._”]

* * * * *

[Illustration:

“A GOLDEN THOUGHT,

IN SILVER WROUGHT,

I, IN HIS SHOP, DID SEE.”

JACOBI AND JENKINS

DESIGNERS AND MAKERS OF _STERLING SILVERWARE_... EXCLUSIVELY.

_No. 216 Charles Street, North, Baltimore._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: —_Why did you kick my dog?_

—_He’s mad._

—_He’s not mad._

—_Well, he ought to be; I’d be mad if anybody kicked me._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _In Boston._—

—_Now, Johnnie, would you say the price of cod has risen, or gone up?_

—_Speaking of cod, I would say it has roes._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: HURLBUTT AND HURLBUTT

MAKERS OF DRAPERIES CURTAINS PORTIERES & FURNITURE

ARTISTIC & ORIGINAL IDEAS

BEST WORKMANSHIP

403 NORTH CHARLES STREET AT MULBERRY STREET

BALTIMORE]

* * * * *

How Little Ikey Fooled the Trolley Company.

[Illustration: I.]

[Illustration: II.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE CLUB

Restaurant and Café;

LOUIS BENNETT, Proprietor, S. W. Cor. Charles and Saratoga Sts.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: DIXIE

_Brings Largest Returns to Advertisers Because_

PRINTING—CIRCULATION—CLASS OF PEOPLE REACHED—THE BEST.

The Advertiser who contracts for a full or half page for a period of

six months, or more, will be furnished, gratis, with a special original

decoration or picturesque design, illustrative of his business or

profession.

DIXIE PUBLISHING COMPANY, BALTIMORE.]

WHAT IS BEING SAID OF DIXIE.

“The initial number is artistically illustrated and the reading matter

has a genuine literary tone.... It can not fail to attract general

interest.... Its combined merit and cheapness should insure its

success.”—THE BALTIMORE SUN, _Jan. 11, 1899_.

“The Magazine is good to look at and interesting to read.... There are

three Ps in the dish of art Editors ... and they make an excellent

pictorial feast.”—THE CHARLOTTESVILLE (VA.) DAILY PROGRESS, _Jan. 14,

1899_.

“The new monthly is devoted to literature and art, and the first number

shows that its contributors are well qualified to deal with both

subjects.... The literary and art-loving public should give the new

magazine a cordial welcome. It certainly deserves success.”—THE NORFOLK

(VA.) LANDMARK, _Jan. 21, 1899_.

“The initial number presents an artistic and attractive appearance. The

paper used is of specially fine quality, and typographically _Dixie_ is

all that can De desired.”—THE BALTIMORE TELEGRAM, _Jan. 28, 1899_.

“It is finely illustrated and is quaintly and aesthetically gotten up.

Its typographical appearance is very handsome, while its contents cover

a wide range of live up-to-date topics handled in a thoroughly crisp and

bright style. The artistic features of the periodical are prominently

brought out, and the edition shows care and ability.”—THE CHARLESTON (W.

VA.) DAILY TRIBUNE, _Jan. 18, 1899_.

“The first number is printed on handsome paper ... has some exquisite

illustrations ... lovely poems ... Miss McClelland in her best vein ...

but it is the pictures which are really most remarkable ... Alden Peirson

has sixteen lovely views of picturesque scenes about Baltimore.”—THE NEW

ORLEANS (LA.) PICAYUNE, _Jan. 22, 1899_.

“The Dixie is out, and it fully justifies all the hopes that have been

felt for it.... It is crowded with interesting articles and beautiful

pictures.... The magazine is handsome, the printing well done, and its

success ought to be genuine and permanent.”—THE BALTIMORE AMERICAN, _Jan.

11, 1899_.

“Its general appearance, both inside and out, is very attractive....

We hope “Dixie” will meet the success that it undoubtedly

deserves.”—CHARLESTON (S. C.) NEWS AND COURIER, _Jan. 29, 1899_.

“A most attractive publication.”—WASHINGTON POST, _Jan. 16, 1899_.

“DIXIE deserves long life and liberal encouragement.”—THE SUNDAY HERALD,

BALTIMORE, _Jan. 15, 1899_.

“The first number of the “Dixie” magazine ... will delight all readers

who enjoy wholesome and entertaining literature presented in attractive

form.... The indications are that the publishers will meet with the

success their bright periodical merits.”—THE MONTGOMERY (MD.) PRESS,

_Feb. 3, 1899_.

“The January number was particularly attractive for its illustrations....

It is to be hoped that Baltimore and the South at large will give

generous support.”—THE BALTIMORE NEWS, _Feb. 8, 1899_.

“The magazine is well illustrated and handsomely printed, and presents an

attractive table of contents.”—THE LYNCHBURG (VA.) NEWS, _Jan. 15, 1899_.

“The people of Baltimore, of Maryland, and of the South ought to be glad

that there have been found both talent and courage enough in a Southern

city to begin a Southern magazine.... Success, over and over again, to

the Dixie.”—THE ANNAPOLIS (MD.) RECORD, _Feb. 4, 1899_.

“... Its pages show literary and artistic taste of fine quality, and the

typographic effect is very pleasing ... and, doubtless, will meet with a

hearty and generous reception.”—THE DAILY INDEX-APPEAL, PETERSBURG, VA.,

_Jan. 15, 1899_.

“Dixie ... has made a favorable impression on the reading public and

promises well to become popular. The contents of the first number, both

literary and pictorial, compare well with the leading publications of its

class.”—EVERY SATURDAY REVIEW, BALTIMORE, _Jan. 21, 1899_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Indicated in Bladder and Kidney Diseases, Diabetes and

Bright’s.

“Clears up the urine and relieves Vesical Irritation.”

GENEVA LITHIA WATER.

“Cures that most annoying Disease, Irritable Bladder.”

Depot, 227 N. Charles St. (Masonic Temple,) BALTIMORE.

Sold by all Clubs of note.

Send for Pamphlet.]