Library of the World_s Best Literature_ Ancient and Modern _ Volume 05 1670 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Library of the World's Best
Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 05
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern —
Volume 05

Editor: Charles Dudley Warner
Hamilton Wright Mabie
Lucia Gilbert Runkle
George H. Warner

Release date: September 24, 2004 [eBook #13520]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13520

Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner and the
Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIBRARY OF
THE WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE, ANCIENT AND MODERN —
VOLUME 05 ***

LIBRARY OF THE

WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE
ANCIENT AND MODERN

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
EDITOR

HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE
LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE
GEORGE HENRY WARNER

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Connoisseur Edition

VOL. V.

1896

THE ADVISORY COUNCIL

CRAWFORD H. TOY, A.M., LL.D.,
Professor of Hebrew,
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, Mass.

THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL.D., L.H.D.,
Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of
YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, Conn.

WILLIAM M. SLOANE, PH.D., L.H.D.,
Professor of History and Political Science,
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, N.J.

BRANDER MATTHEWS, A.M., LL.B.,
Professor of Literature,
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City.

JAMES B. ANGELL, LL.D.,
President of the
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Ann Arbor, Mich.

WILLARD FISKE, A.M., PH.D.,
Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages and
Literatures,
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, N.Y.

EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A.M., LL.D.,
Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Cal.

ALCÉE FORTIER, LIT.D.,
Professor of the Romance Languages,

TULANE UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, La.

WILLIAM P. TRENT, M.A.,
Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of English
and History,
UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.

PAUL SHOREY, PH.D.,
Professor of Greek and Latin Literature,
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Ill.

WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL.D.,
United States Commissioner of Education,
BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D.C.

MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A.M., LL.D.,
Professor of Literature in the
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D.C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOL. V.

OTTO EDWARD LEOPOLD VON BISMARCK -- 1815-
By Munroe Smith

Letters-- To Fran von Arnim
To His Wife: Aug. 7, 1851; June 6, 1859; June 8, 1859; June
28, 1859; July 26, 1859
To Oscar von Arnim
To His Wife: Aug. 4, 1862; July 9, 1866; Sept. 3, 1870; June
23, 1852
Personal Characteristics of the Members of the Frankfort Diet
From a Speech on the Military Bill

BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON -- 1832-
By William Morton Payne

Over the Lofty Mountains ('Arne')
The Cloister in the South ('Arnljot Gelline')
The Plea of King Magnus ('Sigurd Slembe')
Sin and Death (same)
The Princess
Sigurd Slembe's Return
How the Mountain Was Clad ('Arne')
The Father

WILLIAM BLACK -- 1841-

The End of Macleod of Dare
Sheila in London ('A Princess of Thule')

RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE -- 1825-

A Desperate Venture ('Lorna Doone')
A Wedding and a Revenge (same)
Landing the Trout ('Alice Lorraine')
A Dane in the Dike ('Mary Anerley')

WILLIAM BLAKE -- 1757-1827

Song
Song
The Two Songs
Night
The Piper and the Child
Holy Thursday
Cradle Song
The Little Black Boy
The Tiger

CHARLES BLANC -- 1813-1882

Rembrandt ('The Dutch School of Painters')
Albert Dürer's 'Melancholia' (same)
Ingres ('Life of Ingres')
Calamatta's Studio ('Contemporary Artists')
Blanc's Début as Art Critic (same)
Delacroix's 'Bark of Dante' (same)
Genesis of the 'Grammar'
Moral Influence of Art ('Grammar of Painting and Engraving')
Poussin's 'Shepherds of Arcadia' (same)
Landscape (same)
Style (same)
Law of Proportion in Architecture (same)

STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER -- 1782-1848

A Picture
The Knitting-Room

The Hosier

MATHILDE BLIND -- 1847-1896

From 'Love in Exile'
Seeking
Songs of Summer
A Parable
Love's Somnambulist
The Mystic's Vision
From 'Tarantella'
O Moon, Large Golden Summer Moon
Green Leaves and Sere

GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO -- 1313-1375
By W.J. Stillman

Frederick of the Alberighi and His Falcon
The Jew Converted to Christianity by Going to Rome
The Story of Saladin and the Jew Usurer
The Story of Griselda

FRIEDRICH MARTIN VON BODENSTEDT -- 1819-1892

Two
Wine
Song
Unchanging
The Poetry of Mirza-Schaffy ('Thousand and One Days in the East')
Mirza-Schaffy (same)
The School of Wisdom (same)
An Excursion into Armenia (same)
Mirza-Jussuf
Wisdom and Knowledge

JOHANN JAKOB BODMER -- 1698-1783

Kinship of the Arts ('Rubens')

Poetry and Painting ('Holbein')
Tribute to Tobacco ('Dürer')

BOËTIUS -- 475-525

Of the Greatest Good ('Consolations of Philosophy')

NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX -- 1636-1711

Advice to Authors ('The Art of Poetry')
The Pastoral, the Elegy, the Ode, and the Epigram (same)
To Molière ('The Satires')

GASTON BOISSIER -- 1823-2152

Madame de Sévigné as a Letter-Writer ('Life of Madame de
Sévigné')
French Society in the Seventeenth Century (same)
How Horace Lived at his Country-House ('The Country of Horace
and Virgil')

GEORGE H. BOKER -- 1823-1890

The Black Regiment
The Sword-Bearer
Sonnets

SAINT BONAVENTURA -- 1221-1274
By Thomas Davidson

On the Beholding of God in His Footsteps in This Sensible World

GEORGE BORROW -- 1803-1881
By Julian Hawthorne

At the Horse-Fair ('Lavengro')
A Meeting ('The Bible in Spain')

JUAN BOSCAN -- 1493-?1540

On the Death of Garcilaso
A Picture of Domestic Happiness ('Epistle to Mendoza')

JACQUES BÉNIGNE BOSSUET -- 1627-1704
By Adolphe Cohn

From the Sermon upon 'The Unity of the Church'
Opening of the Funeral Oration on Henrietta of France
From the 'Discourse upon Universal History'
Public Spirit in Rome

JAMES BOSWELL -- 1740-1795
By Charles F. Johnson

An Account of Corsica
A Tour to Corsica
The Life of Samuel Johnson

PAUL BOURGET -- 1852-

The American Family ('Outre-Mer')
The Aristocratic Vision of M. Renan ('Study of M. Renan')

SIR JOHN BOWRING -- 1792-1872

The Cross of Christ
Watchman! What of the Night?
Hymn
From Luis de Gongora: Not All Nightingales
From John Kollar: Sonnet
From Bogdanovich (Old Russian): Song
From Bobrov: The Golden Palace
From Dmitriev: The Dove and The Stranger
From Sarbiewski: Sapphics to A Rose

HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN -- 1848-1895

A Norwegian Dance ('Gunnar')

MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON -- 1837-

Advent of the Hirelings ('The Christmas Hirelings')
"How Bright She Was--" etc. ('Mohawks')

GEORG BRANDES -- 1842-
By William Morton Payne

Björnson ('Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century')
The Historical Movement in Modern Literature ('Main Currents in
the Literature of the Nineteenth Century')

SEBASTIAN BRANDT -- 1458-1521

The Universal Shyp
Of Hym That Togyder Wyll Serve Two Maysters
Of To[o] Moche Spekynge or Bablynge

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME V

Saint Dunstan (Colored Plate) Frontispiece
Bismarck (Portrait) 1930
"The Surrender at Sedan" (Photogravure) 1944
Richard Doddridge Blackmore (Portrait) 2012
"Rembrandt and His Wife" (Photogravure) 2055
Giovanni Boccaccio (Portrait) 2090
"The Decameron" (Photogravure) 2108
"Fatima" (Photogravure) 2120
"Domestic Happiness" (Photogravure) 2206

VIGNETTE PORTRAITS

Björnstjerne Björnson
William Black
William Blake
Mathilde Blind
Friedrich M. von Bodenstedt
Johann Jakob Bodmer
Boëtius
Nicholas Boileau-Despréaux
Gaston Boissier
George H. Boker
George Borrow
Jacques Bénigne Bossuet
James Boswell
Paul Bourget
Sir John Bowring
Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

Georg Brandes
Sebastian Brandt

OTTO EDWARD LEOPOLD VON BISMARCK
(1815-)

BY MUNROE SMITH

tto Edward Leopold, fourth child of Charles and Wilhelmina von Bismarck,
was born at Schönhausen in Prussia, April 1, 1815. The family was one of
the oldest in the "Old Mark" (now a part of the province of Saxony), and
not a few of its members had held important military or diplomatic
positions under the Prussian crown. The young Otto passed his school years
in Berlin, and pursued university studies in law (1832-5) at Göttingen and at
Berlin. At Göttingen he was rarely seen at lectures, but was a prominent
figure in the social life of the student body: the old university town is full of
traditions of his prowess in duels and drinking bouts, and of his difficulties
with the authorities. In 1835 he passed the State examination in law, and
was occupied for three years, first in the judicial and then in the
administrative service of the State, at Berlin, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Potsdam.
In 1838 he left the governmental service and studied agriculture at the
Eldena Academy. From his twenty-fourth to his thirty-sixth year (1839-51)
his life was that of a country squire. He took charge at first of property held
by his father in Pomerania; upon his father's death in 1845 he assumed the
management of the family estate of Schönhausen. Here he held the local
offices of captain of dikes and of deputy in the provincial Diet. The latter
position proved a stepping-stone into Prussian and German politics; for
when Frederick William IV. summoned the "United Diet" of the kingdom
(1847), Bismarck was sent to Berlin as an alternate delegate from his
province.
The next three years were full of events. The revolution of 1848 forced all
the German sovereigns who had thus far retained absolute power, among
them the King of Prussia, to grant representative constitutions to their
people. The same year witnessed the initiation of a great popular movement

for the unification of Germany. A national Parliament was assembled at
Frankfort, and in 1849 it offered to the King of Prussia the German imperial
crown; but the constitution it had drafted was so democratic, and the
opposition of the German princes so great, that Frederick William felt
obliged to refuse the offer. An attempt was then made, at a Parliament held
in Erfurt, to establish a "narrower Germany" under Prussian leadership; but
this movement also came to nothing. The Austrian government, paralyzed
for a time by revolts in its own territories, had re-established its power and
threatened Prussia with war. Russia supported Austria, and Prussia
submitted at Olmütz (1850). In these stirring years, Bismarck--first as a
member of the United Diet and then as a representative in the new Prussian
Chamber of Deputies--made himself prominent by hostility to the
constitutional movement and championship of royal prerogative. He
defended the King's refusal of the imperial crown, because "all the real gold
in it would be gotten by melting up the Prussian crown"; and he compared
the pact which the King, by accepting the Frankfort constitution, would
make with the democracy, to the pact between the huntsman and the devil
in the 'Freischütz': sooner or later, he declared, the people would come to
the Emperor, and pointing to the Imperial arms, would say, "Do you fancy
this eagle was given you for nothing?" He sat in the Erfurt Parliament, but
had no faith in its success. He opposed the constitution which it adopted,
although this was far more conservative than that drafted at Frankfort,
because he deemed it still too revolutionary. During the Austro-Prussian
disputes of 1850 he expressed himself, like the rest of the Prussian
Conservatives, in favor of reconciliation with Austria, and he even defended
the convention of Olmütz.
After Olmütz, the German Federal Diet, which had disappeared in 1848,
was reconstituted at Frankfort, and to Frankfort Bismarck was sent, in 1857,
as representative of Prussia. This position, which he held for more than
seven years, was essentially diplomatic, since the Federal Diet was merely a
permanent congress of German ambassadors; and Bismarck, who had
enjoyed no diplomatic training, owed his appointment partly to the fact that
his record made him persona grata to the "presidential power," Austria. He
soon forfeited the favor of that State by the steadfastness with which he
resisted its pretensions to superior authority, and the energy with which he
defended the constitutional parity of Prussia and the smaller States; but he

won the confidence of the home government, and was consulted by the
King and his ministers with increasing frequency on the most important
questions of European diplomacy. He strove to inspire them with greater
jealousy of Austria. He favored closer relations with Napoleon III., as a
make-weight against the Austrian influence, and was charged by some of
his opponents with an undue leaning toward France; but as he explained in
a letter to a friend, if he had sold himself, it was "to a Teutonic and not to a
Gallic devil."

In the winter of 1858-9, as the Franco-Austrian war drew nearer, Bismarck's
anti-Austrian attitude became so pronounced that his government, by no
means ready to break with Austria, but rather disposed to support that

power against France, felt it necessary to put him, as he himself expressed
it, "on ice on the Neva." From 1859 to 1862 he held the position of Prussian
ambassador at St. Petersburg. In 1862 he was appointed ambassador at
Paris. In the autumn of the same year he became Minister-President of
Prussia.
The new Prussian King, William I., had become involved in a controversy
with the Prussian Chamber of Deputies over the reorganization of the army;
his previous ministers were unwilling to press the reform against a hostile
majority; and Bismarck, who was ready to assume the responsibility, was
charged with the premiership of the new cabinet. "Under some
circumstances," he said later, "death upon the scaffold is as glorious as upon
the battlefield." From 1862 to 1866 he governed Prussia without the support
of the lower chamber and without a regular budget. He informed a
committee of the Deputies that the questions of the time were not to be
settled by-debates, but by "blood and iron."
In the diplomatic field it was his effort to secure a position of advantage for
the struggle with Austria for the control of Germany,--a struggle which, six
years before, he had declared to be inevitable. During his stay in St.
Petersburg he had strengthened the friendly feeling already subsisting
between Prussia and Russia; and in 1863 he gave the Russian government
useful support in crushing a Polish insurrection. To a remonstrance from the
English ambassador, somewhat arrogantly delivered in the name of Europe,
Bismarck responded, "Who is Europe?" While in Paris he had convinced
himself that no serious interference was to be apprehended from Napoleon.
That monarch overrated Austria; regarded Bismarck's plans, which appear
to have been explained with extraordinary frankness, as chimerical; and
pronounced Bismarck "not a serious person." Bismarck, on the other hand,
privately expressed the opinion that Napoleon was "a great unrecognized
incapacity." When, in 1863, the death of Frederick VII. of Denmark without
direct heirs raised again the ancient Schleswig-Holstein problem, Bismarck
saw that the opportunity had come for the solution of the German question.
The events of the next seven years are familiar history. In 1864 Prussia and
Austria made war on Denmark, and obtained a joint sovereignty over the
duchies of Holstein and Schleswig. In 1866, with Italy as her ally, Prussia
drove Austria out of the German Confederation; annexed Schleswig,

Holstein, Hanover, Electoral Hesse, and Frankfort; and brought all the
German States north of the Main, except Luxemburg, into the North
German Confederation, of which the King of Prussia was President and
Bismarck Chancellor. When war was declared by France in 1870, the South
German States also placed their forces at the King of Prussia's disposal; and
before the war was over they joined the newly established German Empire,
which thus included all the territories of the old Confederation except
German Austria and Luxemburg. The old Confederation was a mere league
of sovereign States; the new Empire was a nation. To this Empire, at the
close of the war, the French Republic paid an indemnity of five milliards of
francs, and ceded Alsace and Lorraine.
In giving the German people political unity Bismarck realized their
strongest and deepest desire; and the feeling entertained toward him
underwent a sudden revulsion. From 1862 to 1866 he had been the best
hated man in Germany. The partial union of 1867--when, as he expressed it,
Germany was "put in the saddle"--made him a national hero. The
reconciliation with the people was the more complete because, at
Bismarck's suggestion, a German Parliament was created, elected by
universal suffrage, and because the Prussian ministers (to the great
indignation of their conservative supporters) asked the Prussian Deputies to
grant them indemnity for their unconstitutional conduct of the government
during the preceding four years. For the next ten years Bismarck had behind
him, in Prussian and in German affairs, a substantial nationalist majority. At
times, indeed, he had to restrain their zeal. In 1867, for instance, when they
desired to take Baden alone into the new union,--the rest of South Germany
being averse to entrance,--Bismarck was obliged to tell them that it would
be a poor policy "to skim off the cream and let the rest of the milk turn
sour."
Bismarck remained Chancellor of the Empire as well as Minister-President
of Prussia until 1890, when William II. demanded his resignation. During
these years the military strength of the Empire was greatly increased; its
finances were placed upon an independent footing; its authority was
extended in legislative matters, and its administrative system was developed
and consolidated. Conflicts with the Roman Catholic hierarchy (1873-87),
and with the Social Democracy (1878-90) resulted indecisively; though
Bismarck's desire to alleviate the misery which in his opinion caused the

socialistic movement gave rise to a series of remarkable laws for the
insurance of the laboring classes against accident, disease, and old age.
With a return to the protective system, which Bismarck advocated for fiscal
reasons, he combined the attempt to enlarge Germany's foreign market by
the establishment of imperial colonies in Africa and in the Pacific Ocean. In
other respects his foreign policy, after 1870, was controlled by the desire to
preserve peace. "Germany," he said, "belongs to the satisfied nations."
When the Russian friendship cooled, he secured an alliance with Austria
(1879), which Italy also joined (1882); and the "triple alliance" thus formed
continued to dominate European politics for many years after Bismarck's
withdrawal from office.
Of Bismarck's State papers, the greater portion are still buried in the
Prussian archives. The most important series that has been published
consists of his dispatches from Frankfort (Poschinger, Preussen im
Bundestag, 1851-8, 4 vols.). These are marked by clearness of statement,
force of argument, and felicity of illustration. The style, although less direct
and simple than that of his unofficial writings, is still excellent. A large part
of the interest attaching to these early papers lies in their acute
characterization of the diplomatists with whom he had to deal. His analysis
of their motives reveals from the outset that thorough insight into human
nature which was to count for so much in his subsequent diplomatic
triumphs. Of his later notes and dispatches, such as have seen the light may
be found in Hahn's documentary biography ('Fürst Bismarck,' 5 vols.). His
reports and memorials on economic and fiscal questions have been
collected by Poschinger in 'Bismarck als Volkswirth.'
Of Bismarck's parliamentary speeches there exists a full collection
(reproduced without revision from the stenographic reports) in fifteen
volumes. Bismarck was not an orator in the ordinary acceptation of the
word. His mode of address was conversational; his delivery was
monotonous and halting. He often hesitated, searching for a word; but when
it came, it usually seemed the only word that could have expressed his
meaning, and the hesitation that preceded it gave it a singular emphasis. It
seemed to be his aim to convince his hearers, not to win them; his appeal
was regularly to their intelligence, not to their emotions. When the energy
and warmth of his own feelings had carried him into something like a flight
of oratory, there was apt to follow, at the next moment, some plain matter-

of-fact statement that brought the discussion back at once to its ordinary
level. Such an anti-climax was often very effective: the obvious effort of the
speaker to keep his emotions under restraint vouched for the sincerity of the
preceding outburst. It should be added that he appreciated as few Germans
do the rhetorical value of understatement.
He was undoubtedly at his literary best in conversation and in his letters.
We have several volumes of Bismarck anecdotes, Bismarck table-talk, etc.
The best known are those of Busch, which have been translated into
English--and in spite of the fact that his sayings come to us at second hand
and colored by the personality of the transmitter, we recognize the qualities
which, by the universal testimony of those who knew him, made him one of
the most fascinating of talkers. These qualities, however, come out most
clearly in a little volume of letters ('Bismarck briefe'), chiefly addressed to
his wife. (These letters have been excellently translated into English by F.
Maxse.) They are characterized throughout by vivid and graphic
descriptions, a subtle sense of humor, and real wit; and they have in the
highest degree--far more than his State papers or speeches--the literary
quality, and that indescribable something which we call style.
Bismarck furnishes, once for all, the answer to the old French question,
whether a German can possibly have esprit--witness his response to the
German prince who desired his advice regarding the offer of the crown of
one of the Balkan States:--"Accept, by all means: it will be a charming
recollection for you." He possessed also to a high degree the power of
summing up a situation or characterizing a movement in a single phrase;
and his sayings have enriched the German language with more quotations
than the spoken words of any German since Luther.
Of the numerous German biographies, Harm's gives the greatest amount of
documentary material; Hesekiel's (which has been translated into English)
is the most popular. The best French biography is by Simon; the only
important English work is that by Lowe. For bibliography, see Schulze and
Roller, (Bismarck-Literatur) (1895), which contains about 600 titles. The
Frankfort dispatches and the speeches have been translated into French, but
not into English.

TO FRAU VON ARNIM

SCHÖNHAUSEN, August 7th, 1850.
The fact is, this journey, and I see it more clearly the nearer it approaches,
gives me a right of reversion on the new lunatic asylum, or at least a seat for
life in the Second Chamber. I can already see myself on the platform of the
Genthiner station; then both of us packed in the carriage, surrounded with
all sorts of child's necessaries--an embarrassing company; Johanna ashamed
to suckle the baby, which accordingly roars itself blue; then the passports,
the inn; then at Stettin railway station with both bellowing monkeys; then
waiting an hour at Angermünde for the horses; and how are we to get from
Kröchlendorf to Külz? It would be perfectly awful if we had to remain for
the night at Stettin. I did that last year with Marie and her squallings. I was
in such a state of despair yesterday over all these visions that I was
positively determined to give the whole thing up, and at last went to bed
with the resolve at least to go straight through, without stopping anywhere;
but what will one not commit for the sake of domestic peace? The young
cousins, male and female, must become acquainted, and who knows when
Johanna will see you again? She pounced upon me last night with the boy
in her arms, and with all those wiles which formerly lost us Paradise; of
course she succeeded in wringing my consent that everything should remain
as before. I feel, however, that I am as one to whom fearful injustice is
done, and I am certain that I shall have to travel next year with three
cradles, wet-nurses, long-clothes, and counterpanes. I am now awake by six
o'clock, and already in a gentle simmer of anger; I cannot get to sleep,
owing to all the visions of traveling which my imagination paints in the
darkest colors, even up to the "picnics" on the sandhills of Stolpmünde. And

then if one were only paid for it! But to travel away the last remnants of a
once handsome fortune with sucking babies!--I am very unhappy!
Well--Wednesday, then, in Gerswalde--I should have done probably better
by driving over Passow, and you would not have had so far to Prenzlau as
to G----. However, it is now a fait accompli, and the pain of selection is
succeeded by the quiet of resignation. Johanna is somewhat nervous about
her dresses, supposing you Boitzenburgers have company.

TO HIS WIFE

FRANKFORT, August 7th, 1851.
I wanted to write to you yesterday and to-day, but, owing to all the clatter
and bustle of business, could not do so until now, late in the evening on my
return from a walk through the lovely summer-night breeze, the moonlight,
and the murmuring of poplar leaves, which I took to brush away the dust of
the day's dispatches and papers. Saturday afternoon I drove out with
Rochow and Lynar to Rüdesheim; there I took a boat, rowed out upon the
Rhine, and swam in the moonlight, with nothing but nose and eyes out of
the water, as far as the Mäusethürm near Bingen, where the bad bishop
came to his end. It gives one a peculiar dreamy sensation to float thus on a
quiet warm night in the water, gently carried down by the current, looking
above on the heavens studded with the moon and stars, and on each side the
banks and wooded hill-tops and the battlements of the old castles bathed in
the moonlight, whilst nothing falls on one's ear but the gentle splashing of
one's own movements. I should like to swim like this every evening. I drank
some very fair wine afterwards, and then sat a long time with Lynar
smoking on the balcony--the Rhine below us. My little New Testament and
the star-studded heavens brought us on the subject of religion, and I argued
long against the Rousseau-like sophism of his ideas, without, however,
achieving more than to reduce him to silence. He was badly treated as a
child by bonnes and tutors, without ever having known his parents. Later
on, in consequence of much the same sort of education as myself, he picked
up the same ideas in his youth; but is more satisfied and more convinced by
them than ever I was.

Next day we took the steamer to Coblenz, stopped there an hour for
breakfast, and came back the same way to Frankfort, where we arrived in
the evening. I undertook this expedition with the intention of visiting old
Metternich, who had invited me to do so at Johannisberg; but I was so much
pleased with the Rhine that I preferred to make my way over to Coblenz
and to postpone the visit. When you and I saw it we had just returned from
the Alps, and the weather was bad; on this fresh summer morning, however,
and after the dusty monotony of Frankfort, the Rhine has risen very
considerably in my estimation. I promise myself complete enjoyment in
spending a couple of days with you at Rüdesheim; the place is so quiet and
rural, honest people and cheap living. We will hire a small boat and row at
our leisure downwards, climb up the Niederwald and a castle or two, and
return with the steamer. One can leave this place early in the morning, stay
eight hours at Rüdesheim, Bingen, or Rheinstein, etc., and be back again in
the evening. My appointment here appears now to be certain.

Moscow, June 6th, 1859.
I will send you at least a sign of life from here, while I am waiting for the
samovar; and a young Russian in a red shirt is exerting himself behind me
with vain attempts to light a fire--he puffs and blows, but it will not burn.
After having complained so much about the scorching heat lately, I woke
to-day between Twer and here, and thought I was dreaming when I saw the
country and its fresh verdure covered far and wide with snow. I shall
wonder at nothing again, and having convinced myself of the fact beyond
all doubt, I turned quickly on the other side to sleep and roll on farther,
although the play of colors--from green to white--in the red dawn of day
was not without its charm. I do not know if the snow still lies at Twer; here
it has thawed away, and a cool gray rain is rattling on the green tin of the
roofs. Green has every reason to be the Russian favorite color. Of the five
hundred miles I have passed in traveling here, I have slept away about two
hundred, but each hand-breadth of the remainder was green in every shade.
Towns and villages, and more particularly houses, with the exception of the
railway stations, I did not observe. Bushy forests with birch-trees cover
swamp and hill, a fine growth of grass beneath, long tracts of meadow-land
between; so it goes on for fifty, one hundred, two hundred miles. Ploughed

land I do not remember to have remarked, nor heather, nor sand. Solitary
grazing cows or horses awoke one at times to the presumption that there
might be human beings in the neighborhood. Moscow, seen from above,
looks like a field of young wheat: the soldiers are green, the cupolas green,
and I do not doubt that the eggs on the table before me were laid by green
hens.
You will want to know how I come to be here. I also have already asked
myself this question, and the answer I received was that change is the soul
of life. The truth of this profound saying becomes especially obvious after
having lived for ten weeks in a sunny room of a hotel, with the look-out on
pavements. The charms of moving become rather blunted if they occur
repeatedly within a short period; I therefore determined to forego them,
handed over all paper to----, gave Engel my keys, declared that I would put
up in a week at Stenbock's house, and drove to the Moscow station. This
was yesterday at noon, and this morning, at eight o'clock, I alighted here at
the Hôtel de France. First of all I shall pay a visit to a charming
acquaintance of former times, who lives in the country, about twenty versts
from here; to-morrow evening I shall be here again; Wednesday and
Thursday shall visit the Kremlin and so forth; and Friday or Saturday sleep
in the beds which Engel will meantime buy. Slow harnessing and fast
driving lie in the character of this people. I ordered the carriage two hours
ago: to every call which I have been uttering for each successive ten
minutes of an hour and a half, the answer is, "Immediately," given with
imperturbably friendly composure; but there the matter rests. You know my
exemplary patience in waiting, but everything has its limits; afterwards
there will be wild galloping, so that on these bad roads horse and carriage
break down, and at last we reach the place on foot. I have meanwhile drunk
three glasses of tea and annihilated several eggs; the efforts at getting warm
have also so perfectly succeeded that I feel the need of fresh air. I should,
out of sheer impatience, commence shaving if I had a glass. This city is
very straggling, and very foreign-looking, with its green-roofed churches
and innumerable cupolas; quite different from Amsterdam, but both the
most original cities I know. No German guard has a conception of the
luggage people drag with them into the railway carriage; not a Russian goes
without two real pillows in white pillow-cases, children in baskets, and
masses of eatables of every kind. Out of politeness they bowed me into a

sleeping car, where I was worse off than in my seat. Altogether, it is
astonishing to me to see the fuss made here about a journey.

Moscow, June 8th.
This city is really, as a city, the handsomest and most original existing: the
environs are cheerful, not pretty, not ugly; but the view from the top of the
Kremlin on this panorama of green-roofed houses, gardens, churches, spires
of the strangest possible form and color, mostly green, or red or bright blue,
generally crowned at the top with a gigantic golden onion, and mostly five
or more on one church,--there are certainly a thousand steeples!--anything
more strangely beautiful than all this lit up by the slanting rays of the
setting sun it is impossible to see. The weather has cleared up again, and I
should stay here a few days longer if there were not rumors of a great battle
in Italy, which may perhaps bring diplomatic work in its train, so I will be
off there and get back to my post. The house in which I am writing is,
curiously enough, one of the few that survived 1812; old, thick walls, like
those at Schönhausen, Oriental architecture, big Moorish rooms.

June 28th, Evening.
After a three hours' drive through the gardens in an open carriage, and a
view of all its beauties in detail, I am drinking tea, with a prospect of the
golden evening sky and green woods. At the Emperor's they want to be en
famille the last evening, as I can perfectly well understand; and I, as a
convalescent, have sought retirement, and have indeed done quite enough
to-day for my first outing. I am smoking my cigar in peace, and drinking
excellent tea, and see, through the smoke of both, a sunset of really rare
beauty. I send you the inclosed jasmine as a proof that it really grows and
blossoms here in the open air. On the other hand, I must own that I have
been shown the common chestnut in shrub-form as a rare growth, which in
winter is wrapped up; otherwise, there are very fine large oaks, ash-trees,
limes, poplars, and birches as thick as oaks.

Petersburg, July 26, 1859.
Half an hour ago a cabinet courier woke me with war and peace. Our policy
drifts more and more into the Austrian wake; and when we have once fired
a shot on the Rhine, it is over with the Italian-Austrian war, and in its place
a Prussian-French comes on the scene, in which Austria, after we have
taken the burden from her shoulders, stands by us or fails to stand by us just
so far as her own interests require. She will certainly not allow us to play a
very brilliant victor's part.
As God wills! After all, everything here is only a question of time: nations
and individuals, folly and wisdom, war and peace, they come and go like
the waves, but the sea remains. There is nothing on this earth but hypocrisy
and jugglery; and whether fever or grape-shot tear off this fleshly mask, fall
it must sooner or later: and then, granted that they are equal in height, a
likeness will after all turn up between a Prussian and an Austrian which will
make it difficult to distinguish them. The stupid and the clever, too, look
pretty much alike when their bones are well picked. With such views, a man
certainly gets rid of his specific patriotism; but it would indeed be a subject
for despair if our salvation depended on them.

TO HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW, OSCAR VON ARNIM

RHEINFELD, August 16th, 1861.
I have just received the news of the terrible misfortune which has befallen
you and Malwine, My first thought was to come to you at once, but in
wanting to do so I overrated my powers. My régime has touched me up a
good deal, and the thought of suddenly breaking it off met with such
decided opposition that I have resolved to let Johanna go alone. Such a
blow goes beyond the reach of human consolation. And yet it is a natural
desire to be near those we love in their sorrow, and to lament with them in
common. It is the only thing we can do. A heavier sorrow could scarcely
have befallen you. To lose such an amiable and a so-happily-thriving child
in such a way, and to bury along with him all the hopes which were to be
the joys of your old days,--sorrow over such a loss will not depart from you

as long as you live on this earth; this I feel with you, with deep and painful
sympathy. We are powerless and helpless in God's mighty hand, so far as he
will not himself help us, and can do nothing but bow down in humility
under his dispensations. He can take from us all that he gave, and make us
utterly desolate; and our mourning for it will be all the bitterer, the more we
allow it to run to excess in contention and rebellion against his almighty
ordinance. Do not mingle your just grief with bitterness and repining, but
bring home to yourself that a son and a daughter are left to you, and that
with them, and even in the feeling of having possessed another beloved
child for fifteen years, you must consider yourself blessed in comparison
with the many who have never had children nor known a parent's joy.
I do not want to trouble you with feeble grounds for consolation, but only to
tell you in these lines how I, as friend and brother, feel your suffering like
my own, and am moved by it to the very core. How all small cares and
vexations, which daily accompany our life, vanish at the iron appearance of
real misfortune! and I feel like so many reproaches the reminiscences of all
complaints and covetous wishes, over which I have so often forgotten how
much blessing God gives us, and how much danger surrounds us without
touching us. We are not to attach ourselves to this world, and not regard it
as our home. Another twenty, or in happiest case thirty years, and we are
both of us beyond the cares of this life, and our children have reached our
present standpoint, and find with astonishment that the freshly begun life is
already going down hill. It would not be worth while to dress and undress if
it were over with that.
Do you still remember these words of a fellow-traveler from Stolpemünde?
The thought that death is the transition to another life will certainly do little
to alleviate your grief; for you might think that your beloved son might
have been a true and dear companion to you during the time you are still
living in this world, and would have continued, by God's blessing, the
memory of you here. The circle of those whom we love contracts itself and
receives no increase till we have grandchildren. At our time of life we form
no fresh bonds which are capable of replacing those that die off. Let us
therefore keep the closer together in love until death separates us from one
another, as it now separates your son from us. Who knows how soon? Won't
you come with Malle to Stolpmünde, and stay quietly with us for a few
weeks or days? At all events I shall come to you at Kröchlendorf, or

wherever else you are, in three or four weeks. I greet my dearest Malle with
all my heart. May God give her, as well as you, strength to bear and
patiently submit.

TO HIS WIFE

BIARRITZ, August 4th, 1862.
I am afraid I have caused some confusion in our correspondence, as I
induced you to write too soon to places where I have not yet arrived. It will
be better for you to address your letters to Paris, just as though I were there;
the embassy then sends them after me, and I can more quickly send word
there if I alter my route. Yesterday evening I returned from St. Sebastian to
Bayonne, where I slept, and am now sitting here in a corner-room of the
Hotel de l'Europe, with charming view on the blue sea, which drives its
white foam through the curious cliffs against the lighthouse. I have a bad
conscience for seeing so many beautiful things without you. If one could
transport you here through the air, I would go directly back again to St.
Sebastian, and take you with me. Fancy the Siebengebirge with the
Drachenfels placed by the sea; close by, Ehrenbreitstein, and between the
two, pushing its way into the land, an arm of the sea, somewhat broader
than the Rhine, and forming a round bay behind the mountains. In this you
bathe in transparently clear water, so heavy and so salt that you swim on the
top of it by yourself, and look through the broad gate of rocks into the sea,
or landward where the mountain chains top each other, always higher,
always bluer.
The women of the middle and lower classes are strikingly pretty,
occasionally beautiful; the men surly and uncivil; and the comforts of life to
which we are accustomed are missing. The heat is not worse here than
there, and I do not mind it; find myself, on the contrary, very well, thank
God. The day before yesterday there was a storm, such as I have never seen
anything like. I had to take a run three times before I could succeed in
getting up a flight of three steps on the jetty; pieces of stone and large
fragments of trees were carried through the air. Unfortunately, therefore, I
countermanded my place in a sailing vessel to Bayonne, for I could not

suppose that after four hours all would be quiet and cheerful. I lost thus a
charming sail along the coast, remained a day more at St. Sebastian, and left
yesterday in the diligence, rather uncomfortably packed between nice little
Spanish women, with whom I could not talk a syllable. So much Italian,
however, they understood that I could demonstrate to them my satisfaction
with their exterior. I looked to-day at a railway guide to see how I could get
from here--that is, from Toulouse--by railway over Marseilles to Nice, then
by boat to Genoa; from there over Venice, Trieste, Vienna, Breslau, Posen,
Stargard to Cöslin! If it were only possible to go over Berlin! I cannot very
well pass through there just now.

TO HIS WIFE

HOHENMAUTH, Monday, July 9th, 1866.
Do you still remember, my heart, how nineteen years ago we passed
through here on the way from Prague to Vienna? No mirror showed the
future, neither when, in 1852, I went along this line with the good Lynar.
Matters are going well with us; if we are not immoderate in our demands,
and do not imagine that we have conquered the world, we shall acquire a
pace which will be worth the trouble. But we are just as quickly intoxicated
as discouraged, and I have the ungrateful task of pouring water in the
foaming wine, and making them see that we are not living alone in Europe,
but with three neighbors still. The Austrians are in Moravia, and we are
already so bold that their positions to-day are fixed for our headquarters to-
morrow. Prisoners are still coming in, and one hundred and eighty guns
since the 3d up to to-day. If they call up their southern army, with God's
good help we shall beat them again. Confidence is universal. I could hug
our fellows, each facing death so gallantly, so quiet, obedient, well-
behaved, with empty stomachs, wet clothes, wet camp, little sleep, the soles
of their boots falling off, obliging to everybody, no looting, no
incendiarism, paying where they can, and eating moldy bread. There must
after all abide in our man of the soil a rich store of the fear of God, or all
that would be impossible. News of acquaintances is difficult to obtain;
people are miles apart from one another; no one knows where the other is,
and nobody to send; men enough, but no horses. I have had Philip searched

for, for four days; he is slightly wounded in the head by a lance, as G----
wrote to me, but I cannot find out where he is, and now we are already forty
miles farther on.
The King exposed himself very much indeed on the 3d, and it was a very
good thing that I was with him; for all warnings on the part of others were
of no avail, and no one would have ventured to speak as I allowed myself to
do the last time, and with success, after a heap of ten men and fifteen horses
of the Sixth Regiment of cuirassiers were wallowing in their blood near us,
and the shells whizzed round the sovereign in the most unpleasant
proximity. The worst luckily did not burst. But after all I like it better than if
he should err on the other side. He was enchanted with his troops, and
rightly, so that he did not seem to remark all the whistling and bursting
about him; as quiet and comfortable as on the Kreuzberg, and kept
constantly finding battalions that he wanted to thank and say good evening
to, until there we were again under fire. But he has had to hear so much
about it, that he will leave it alone for the future, and you can be at ease;
besides, I hardly believe in another real battle.
If you have no news of a person, you can all implicitly believe that he lives
and is well, as all casualties occurring to one's acquaintances are known in
twenty-four hours at the longest. We have not come at all into
communication with Herwarth and Steinmetz, but know that they are both
well. G----- quietly leads his squadron with his arm in a sling. Good-bye, I
must go on duty.
YOUR MOST TRUE V.B.

TO HIS WIFE

Note.--This letter did not reach its destination, but, together with the entire
post, was captured by franc-tireurs and published by a French newspaper.

VENDRESSE, 3 September [1870].

My Dear Heart:

I left my present quarters before early dawn the day
before yesterday, came back to-day, and have in the
mean time witnessed the great battle of Sedan, in
which we made about thirty thousand prisoners, and
threw the remainder of the French army, which we
have been pursuing since Bar-le-Duc, into the
fortress, where they had to surrender themselves,
along with the Emperor, prisoners of war. Yesterday
morning at five o'clock, after I had been negotiating
until one o'clock A.M. with Moltke and the French
generals about the capitulation to be concluded, I
was awakened by General Reille, with whom I am
acquainted, to tell me that Napoleon wished to speak
with me. Unwashed and unbreakfasted, I rode
towards Sedan, found the Emperor in an open
carriage, with three aides-de-camp and three in
attendance on horseback, halted on the road before
Sedan. I dismounted, saluted him just as politely as
at the Tuileries, and asked for his commands. He
wished to see the King; I told him, as the truth was,
that his Majesty had his quarters fifteen miles away,
at the spot where I am now writing. In answer to
Napoleon's question where he should go to, I offered
him, as I was not acquainted with the country, my
own quarters at Donchéry, a small place in the
neighborhood, close by Sedan. He accepted, and
drove, accompanied by his six Frenchmen, by me
and by Carl (who in the mean time had ridden after
me) through the lonely morning towards our lines.
Before coming to the spot, he began to hesitate on
account of the possible crowd, and he asked me if he
could alight in a lonely cottage by the wayside; I had
it inspected by Carl, who brought word that it was
mean and dirty. "N'importe," said N., and I ascended
with him a rickety, narrow staircase. In an apartment
of ten feet square, with a deal table and two rush-

bottomed chairs, we sat for an hour; the others were
below. A powerful contrast with our last meeting in
the Tuileries in 1867. Our conversation was a
difficult thing, if I wanted to avoid touching on
topics which could not but affect painfully the man
whom God's mighty hand had cast down. I had sent
Carl to fetch officers from the town and to beg
Moltke to come. We then sent one of the former to
reconnoitre, and discovered two and one-half miles
off, in Fresnois, a small château situated an a park.
Thither I accompanied him with an escort of the
cuirassier regiment of life-guards, which had
meantime been brought up; and there we concluded
with the French general-in-chief, Wimpffen, the
capitulation by virtue of which forty to sixty
thousand Frenchmen,--I do not know it accurately at
present,--with all they possess, became our prisoners.
Yesterday and the day before cost France one
hundred thousand men and an Emperor. This
morning the latter, with all his suite and horses and
carriages, started for Wilhelmshöhe, near Cassel.

It is an event of great weight in the world's history, a
victory for which we will humbly thank the
Almighty, and which decides the war, even if we
have to carry it on against France shorn of her
Emperor.

I must conclude. With heartfelt joy I learnt from your
and Maria's letters that Herbert has arrived among
you. Bill I spoke to yesterday, as already
telegraphed, and embraced him from horseback in
his Majesty's presence, while he stood motionless in
the ranks. He is very healthy and happy. I saw Hans
and Fritz Carl, both Billows, in the Second dragoon
guards, well and cheerful.

Good-by, my heart; love to the children.

Your

V.B.

THE SURRENDER AT SEDAN.
Photogravure from a Painting by Anton Von Werner.

The surrender, at Sedan, in 1870, of the French army of 84,000 under
Napoleon III.,
MacMahon and Wimpffen, to the Germans, 250,000 strong, under William
I., was
the signal for the downfall of the French empire and the establishment of
the
republic. In the accompanying picture, the figure seated at the extreme
left is GENERAL FAURE; the middle figure of the group of three,

standing,
is GENERAL CASTELNAU. GENERAL WIMPFFEN, who succeeded
MacMahon as commander Sept. 1 and signed the capitulation
Sept. 2, stands in a stooping posture, leaning upon his chair
and the table. Across the table, his right hand resting
upon it, and standing erect, is GENERAL MOLTKE,
The seated figure in the foreground is BISMARCK;
behind whom, writing, stands COUNT NOSTIZ.

TO HIS WIFE

OFEN, June 23d, 1852.

I have just come from the steamer, and do not know
how better to employ the moment I have at my
disposal before Hildebrand follows with my things,
than by sending you a little sign of life from this very
easterly but very beautiful world. The Emperor has
been graciously pleased to assign me quarters in his
castle; and here I am in a large vaulted hall, sitting at
an open window through which the evening bells of
Pesth are pealing. The outlook is charming. The
castle stands high; beneath me, first, the Danube,
spanned by the suspension bridge; across it, Pesth;
and further off the endless plain beyond Pesth,
fading away into the purple haze of evening. To the
left of Pesth I look up the Danube; far, very far away
on my left,--that is, on its right bank,--it is first
bordered by the town of Ofen; back of that are hills,
blue and still bluer, and then comes the brown-red in
the evening sky that glows behind them. Between the
two towns lies the broad mirror of water, like that at
Linz, broken by the suspension bridge and a wooded
island. The journey here, too, at least from Gran to
Pesth, would have delighted you. Imagine the

Odenwald and the Taunus pushed near to each other,
and the space between filled with the waters of the
Danube. The shady side of the trip was its sunny
side; it was as hot as if Tokay was to be grown on the
boat: and the number of tourists was great, but--only
think of it--not an Englishman! They cannot yet have
discovered Hungary. There were, however, odd
customers enough, of all races, oriental and
occidental, greasy and washed. A very amiable
general was my chief traveling companion; I sat and
smoked with him nearly the whole time, up on the
paddle-box.

I am growing impatient as to what has become of
Hildebrand; I lean out of the window, partly
mooning and partly watching for him as if he were a
sweetheart, for I crave a clean shirt--if you could
only be here for a moment, and if you too could now
see the dull silver of the Danube, the dark hills on a
pale-red background, and the lights that shine up
from below in Pesth, Vienna would go down a good
way in your estimation as compared with "Buda-
Pesth," as the Hungarians call it. You see that I too
can go into raptures over nature. Now that
Hildebrand has really turned up, I shall calm my
fevered blood with a cup of tea, and soon after go to
bed.

JUNE 24TH: Evening.

As yet I have had no opportunity to send this off.
Again the lights are gleaming up from Pesth; on the
horizon, in the direction of the Theiss, there are
flashes of lightning; above us the sky is clear and the
stars are shining. I have been a good deal in uniform
to-day; presented my credentials, in formal audience,

to the young ruler of this country, and received a
very agreeable impression. After dinner the whole
court made an excursion into the hills, to the "Fair
Shepherdess"--who, however, has long been dead;
King Matthias Corvinus loved her several hundred
years ago. There is a view from there (over wooded
hills, something like those by the Neckar) of Ofen,
its hills, and the plain. A country festival had brought
together thousands of people; they pressed about the
Emperor, who had mingled with the throng, with
ringing shouts of "eljen" [vive]; they danced the
csardas, waltzed, sang, played music, climbed into
the trees, and crowded the court. On a grassy slope
there was a supper table for some twenty persons,
with seats on one side only, while the other was left
free for the view of forest, castle, city, and country.
Above us were tall beeches, with climbing
Hungarians on the branches; behind and quite near
us, a closely crowded and crowding mass of people;
further off, music from wind instruments, alternating
with song--wild gipsy melodies. Illumination--
moonlight and sunset-red, with torches scattered
through the forest. It might all be produced without a
change as grand scenic effect in a romantic opera.
Next to me sat the white-haired Archbishop of Gran,
in a black silk gown with a red hood; on the other
side a very amiable, trig cavalry general. You see the
picture was rich in contrasts. Then we drove home in
the moonlight with an escort of torches....

It is very quiet and comfortable up here now; I hear
nothing but the ticking of a clock on the wall, and
the distant rumble of carriages below. May angels
watch over you; over me, a grenadier in a bearskin
does it, six inches of whose bayonet I see projecting
above the window-sill, a couple of arm's-lengths
from me, and reflecting a ray of light. He is standing

above the terrace on the Danube, and thinking
perhaps of his Nancy.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MEMBERS OF THE
FRANKFORT DIET

Confidential Dispatch to Minister Von Manteuffel, May 30th, 1853

In connection with my report of to-day regarding the attitude of certain
envoys in the Kettenburg affair, I take the liberty of making some
confidential remarks regarding the personal traits of my colleagues in
general, in case it should interest your Excellency to have the information.
Herr von Prokesch is probably well enough known in Berlin to make
further indications of his personal characteristics unnecessary; at the same
time, I cannot refrain from remarking that the calmness and ease with which
he advances false statements of fact, or contests true statements, surpass my
expectations, although I have been led to expect a good deal in this
direction. These qualities are supplemented by a surprising degree of
coolness in dropping a subject or making a change of front, as soon as the
untruth which he has taken as his point of departure is identified beyond the
possibility of evasion. In case of necessity he covers a retreat of this sort by
an ebullition of moral indignation, or by an attack, often of a very personal
character, which transfers the discussion to a new and quite different field.
His chief weapons in the petty war which I am obliged to wage with him, as
often as the interests which we represent diverge, are: (1) Passive
resistance, i.e., a dilatory treatment of the affair, by which he forces upon
me the rôle of a tiresome dun, and not infrequently, by reason of the nature
of the affair, that of a paltry dun. (2) In case of attack, the fait accompli, in
the shape of apparently insignificant usurpations on the part of the Chair.
These are commonly so calculated that any protest on my part cannot but
seem like a deliberate search for points of controversy or like captious
verbal criticism. It is therefore scarcely possible for me to avoid, in my
dealings with him, the appearance of quarrelsomeness, unless I am willing

to sacrifice the interests of Prussia to a degree which every concession
would increase....
The Bavarian envoy, Herr von Schrenk, I place among the best elements in
the assembly, as regards both his capacity and his character. He is a
thorough and industrious worker, and practical in his views and opinions;
although his predominantly juristic training and mode of thinking make him
at times disputatious, and tend to impede the progress of affairs. In official
intercourse he is frank and obliging, so long as his [Bavarian] patriotism,
which is high-strung and extremely irritable, is treated with consideration; a
foible for which I take particular pains to make allowance.
Our Saxon colleague, Herr von Nostitz, inspires in me less confidence. It
seems to me that he has at bottom a traditional inclination toward Prussia
and its political system, which is nourished in part by a Protestantism that is
more rationalistic than orthodox, and by his fear of Ultramontane
tendencies. I believe, however,--and I should be glad to find that I do him
an injustice,--that on the whole, personal interests take precedence with him
over political interests, and that the suppleness of his character permits him
to view the latter in whatever light best suits the former. His economic
position is dependent upon his place, aside from the salary, by reason of the
fact that he owns a house here in which he lives, which he bought before
1848 at a high price, and which he has vainly attempted to rent for the last
five years. His political course is therefore controlled by his desire of
remaining in his official position under every contingency; and with the
present tendency of the Saxon government, Austria has certainly more
opportunity to help him in keeping his place than has Prussia. This
circumstance indeed does not prevent Herr von Nostitz from avoiding, as
far as his instructions will allow, any patent injury to Prussia; but with his
great capacity for labor, his intelligence, and his long experience, he
constitutes the most effective support of all Austria's efforts in the federal
assembly. He is particularly adroit in formulating reports and propositions
in awkward controversial questions; he knows how to give his draught a
color of compromise without the least sacrifice of any Austrian interest, as
soon as the correct interpretation comes to the aid of the apparently
indeterminate expression. When his draughts become the basis of
subsequent discussion, it is then usually discovered for the first time that the
real purpose for which they were drawn is contained in what seemed to be

casual and incidental words. If the current in Dresden should shift in the
Prussian direction, the valuable personal assistance which Herr von Nostitz
is able to render by means of his sense, his experience, and the credit both
have won him, would be thrown on the Prussian side with the same
certainty as now on the Austrian, unless too strong a tie were found in the
fact that one of his sons is being educated in the Austrian Naval School,
while another is already an officer in the imperial service.
Herr von Bothmer returned to this place a few days ago as representative of
Hanover; I learn from him, however, with regret, that his further stay here is
in no wise assured. Not only is his a straightforward character that awakens
confidence, but he is also the only one of my colleagues who has sufficient
independence to give me anything more than passive assistance when I am
obliged to protest against the conduct of the Chair.
His opposite is found in Herr von Reinhard. While Herr von Bothmer is
thorough, clear, and objective in his productions, those of the Würtemberg
envoy bear the stamp of superficiality and confused thinking. His removal
from the federal assembly might justly be regarded as a great gain for us. I
do not know whether his departure from Berlin was connected with
circumstances which have left in him a lasting dislike of Prussia, or whether
confused political theories (regarding which he expresses himself with more
ease and with greater interest than regarding practical affairs) have brought
him to believe that the Prussian influence in Germany is deleterious: but at
all events his antipathy to us exceeds the degree which, in view of the
political situation of Würtemberg, can be supposed to exist in the mind of
his sovereign; and I have reason to assume that his influence upon the
instructions which are sent him, and his activity, so far as this is
independent of instructions, are exerted, as a matter of principle, to the
disadvantage of Prussia.... In his bearing towards me personally there is
nothing which would justify the conclusion that his feelings are of the sort I
have indicated; and it is only rarely that a point is reached in our debates at
which, moderated by a certain timidity, his suppressed bitterness against
Prussia breaks out. I may remark incidentally that it is he who invariably
appears at our sessions last, and too late; and who, through want of attention
and through subsequent participation in the discussion on the basis of
misapprehensions, occasions further repetitions and waste of time.

The envoy from Baden, Herr von Marschall, is not without sense and
fitness for affairs, but is scrupulously careful to avoid the responsibility of
an independent opinion, and to discover in the least dubitable matter an
intermediate point of view from it may be possible to agree with both sides,
or at least to disagree with neither. If there is no escape, he inclines, either
for family reasons or because his government is more afraid of Vienna than
of Berlin, to the Austrian side rather than to ours. Support against the Chair-
-as, for example, in the matter of the order of business, upon which he is
charged with a report--I can hardly expect from him.
Our colleague from the Electorate, Herr von Trott, takes as little part as
possible in the affairs of the Diet; especially avoids reports and committee
work; and is frequently absent, making the representative from Darmstadt
his proxy. He prefers country life and hunting to participation in assemblies,
and gives the impression rather of a jovial and portly squire than of an
envoy. He confines himself to announcing his vote, briefly and in the exact
language of his instructions; and while the latter are invariably drawn by the
Minister, Hassenpflug, in accordance with the directions received from
Austria, it does not appear to me that either Austria or the States of the
Darmstadt coalition enjoy the personal support of Herr von Trott any more
than we do--an impartiality which is rendered easy to the Hessian envoy as
much by his distaste for affairs, and I like to think by the revolt of his
essentially honorable nature against all that savors of intrigue, as by his
formerly indubitable sympathy for Prussia's interests.
We find a more inimical element in the Grand-Ducal Hessian envoy, Baron
von Münch-Bellinghausen. While this gentleman is attached from the start
to the interests of Austria by his family connections with the former
presidential envoy of the same name, his antagonism to Prussia is
considerably intensified by his strong, and I believe sincere, zeal for the
Catholic Church. In private intercourse he is a man of agreeable manners;
and as regards his official attitude, I have to this extent no cause of
complaint--that beyond the degree of reserve imposed upon him by the anti-
Prussian policy of his government, I have observed in him no tendency
towards intrigue or insincerity. For the rest, he is a natural opponent of the
Prussian policy in all cases where this does not go hand in hand with
Austria and the Catholic Church; and the warmth with which he not
infrequently supports his opinion against me in discussion, I can regard

only as a proof of the sincerity of his political convictions. It is certainly,
however, an anomalous thing that a Protestant sovereign, who at this
moment is in conflict with Catholic bishops, is represented in the
Confederacy by Herr von Münch....
One of our trustiest allies is Herr von Scherff, who personally is altogether
devoted to the Prussian interests, and has moreover a son in our military
service; he is experienced in affairs, and prudent to the point of timidity.
This latter trait, as well as the sort of influence which his Majesty the King
of the Netherlands exercises upon the federal instructions, often prevents
him from giving me, in the sessions of the Diet, that degree of support
which I should otherwise receive from him. Outside of the sessions I have
always been able to count on him with confidence, whenever I have called
upon him for advice, and whenever it has been a question of his aiding me
through his influence upon some other envoy or through the collection of
information. With his Royal Highness the Prince of Prussia, Herr von
Scherff and his family justly stand in special favor.

Nassau and Brunswick are represented by the Baron von Dungern, a
harmless character, who has neither the personal capacity nor the political
credit requisite to give him influence in the Federal Assembly. If the
difference that exists in most questions between the attitude of Brunswick
and that of Nassau is settled in most cases in favor of the views held by
Nassau, (i.e., by Austria,) this is partly due indeed to the connection of Herr
von Dungern and his wife with families that are in the Austrian interest, and
to the fact that the envoy, who has two sons in the Austrian military service,
feels more dread of Austria's resentment than of Prussia's; but the chief
mistake lies in the circumstance that Brunswick is represented by a servant
of the Duke of Nassau, who lives here in the immediate neighborhood of
his own court,--a court controlled by Austrian influences,--but maintains
with Brunswick, I imagine, connections so closely restricted to what is
absolutely necessary that they can hardly be regarded as an equivalent for
the five thousand florins which his Highness Duke William contributes to
his salary.
The Mecklenburg envoy, Herr von Oertzen, justifies in all respects the
reputation of an honorable man which I had heard attributed to him before

he assumed his present position. In the period immediately following the
reopening of the Federal Diet, he, like a large number of his fellow-
countrymen, showed an unmistakable leaning to Austria; but it seems to me
indubitable that his observation for two years of the methods which
Austrian policy employs here through the organ of the Chair has aroused in
Herr von Oertzen's loyal nature, in spite of the fact that he too has a son in
the Austrian army, a reaction which permits me to count fully upon him as
far as his personal attitude is concerned, and upon his political support as
far as his instructions--of the character of which, on the whole, I cannot
complain--in any wise permit. In any case I can depend upon his pursuing,
under all circumstances, an open and honorable course.... His attitude in the
debates is always tranquil, and in favor of compromise....
The representative of the Fifteenth Curia is Herr von Eisendecher, a man
whose ready sociability, united with wit and vivacity in conversation,
prepossesses one in his favor. He was formerly an advanced Gothaite, and it
seems that this tendency of his has shaded over into a lively sympathy for
the development of the Confederation as a strong, unified, central power;
since in this way, and with the help of Austria, he thinks that a substitute
will be discovered for the unsuccessful efforts towards unity in the Prussian
sense. The Curia, it is reported, is so organized that the two Anhalts and the
two Schwarzburgs, if they are united among themselves, outvote
Oldenburg.
It is in a simpler way and without stating his reasons that the representative
of the Sixteenth Curia, Baron von Holzhausen, throws his influence on the
Austrian side of the scales. It is said of him that in most cases he draws up
his own instructions, even when he has ample time to send for them, and
that he meets any protest raised by his principals by holding his peace, or by
an adroit use of the large number of members of his Curia and the lack of
connection between them. To this it is to be added that the majority of the
little princes are not disposed to spend upon their federal diplomacy the
amount that would be required for a regular and organized chancelry and
correspondence; and that if Herr von Holzhausen, who after the departure
of Baron von Strombeck obtained the place as the lowest asker, should
resign from their service, they would hardly be able, with the means at their
disposal, to secure so imposing a representative as this prosperous
gentleman, who is decorated with sundry grand-crosses and the title of

privy councillor, and is a member of the oldest patrician family of
Frankfort. The nearest relations of Herr von Holzhausen, who is himself
unmarried and childless, are in the service of Austria. Moreover, his family
pride, which is developed to an unusual degree, points back with all its
memories to the imperial city patriciate that was so closely associated with
the glorious era of the Holy Roman Empire; and Prussia's entire position
seems to him a revolutionary usurpation, which has played the most
material part in the destruction of the privileges of the Holzhausens. His
wealth leads me to assume that the ties that bind him to Austria are merely
ambitious tendencies--such as the desire for an imperial order or for the
elevation of the family to the rank of Austrian counts--and not pecuniary
interests, unless his possession of a large quantity of [Austrian] mining
shares is to be regarded in the latter light.
If your Excellency will permit me, in closing, to sum up the results of my
report, they amount to what follows:--
The only envoys in the Federal Diet who are devoted to our interests as
regards their personal views are Herren von Fritsch, von Scherff, and von
Oertzen. Herein the first of these follows at the same time the instructions
of the government which he represents. Personally assured to Austria, on
the other hand, without it being possible to make the same assertion as
regards the governments they represent, are Herren von Eisendecher and
von Holzhausen, and von Dungern as representing Brunswick. On the
Austrian side, besides these, are almost always, in accordance with the
instructions of their governments, Herr von Nostitz, Herr von Reinhard,
Herr von Münch, Herr von Trott (who, however, displays greater
moderation than his Darmstadt colleague), and Herr von Dungern as
representing Nassau.
A position in part more independent, in part more mediatory, is assumed by
Herren von Schrenk, von Bothmer, von Bülow, von Marschall, and by the
representatives of the Free Cities; and yet in the attitude of these envoys
also, Austrian influences are not infrequently noticeable.

FROM A SPEECH ON THE MILITARY BILL

IN THE GERMAN IMPERIAL DIET, FEBRUARY 6TH, 1888

When I say that we must constantly endeavor to be equal to all
contingencies, I mean by that to claim that we must make greater exertions
than other powers in order to attain the same result, because of our
geographical position. We are situated in the middle of Europe. We have at
least three fronts of attack. France has only its eastern frontier, Russia only
its western frontier, on which it can be attacked. We are, moreover, in
consequence of the whole development of the world's history, in
consequence of our geographical position, and perhaps in consequence of
the slighter degree of internal cohesion which the German nation as
compared with others has thus far possessed, more exposed than any other
people to the risk of a coalition. God has placed us in a situation in which
we are prevented by our neighbors from sinking into any sort of indolence
or stagnation. He has set at our side the most war-like and the most restless
of nations, the French; and he has permitted warlike inclinations, which in
former centuries existed in no such degree, to grow strong in Russia. Thus
we get a certain amount of spurring on both sides, and are forced into
exertions which otherwise perhaps we should not make. The pikes in the
European carp-pond prevent us from becoming carps, by letting us feel
their prickles on both our flanks; they constrain us to exertions which
perhaps we should not voluntarily make; they constrain us Germans also to
a harmony among ourselves that is repugnant to our inmost nature: but for
them, our tendency would rather be to separate. But the Franco-Russian
press in which we are caught forces us to hold together, and by its pressure
it will greatly increase our capacity for cohesion, so that we shall reach in
the end that state of inseparableness which characterizes nearly all other
nations, and which we still lack. But we must adapt ourselves to this decree
of Providence by making ourselves so strong that the pikes can do no more
than enliven us....

The bill gives us an increase in troops trained to arms--a possible increase:
if we do not need it, we need not call for it; we can leave it at home. But if
we have this increase at our disposal, and if we have the weapons for it, ...
then this new law constitutes a reinforcement of the guarantees of peace, a
reinforcement of the league of peace, that is precisely as strong as if a
fourth great power with an army of 700,000 men--and this was formerly the
greatest strength that existed--had joined the alliance. This powerful
reinforcement will also, I believe, have a quieting effect upon our own
countrymen, and lessen in some degree the nervousness of our public
opinion, our stock-market, and our press. I hope it will act upon them as a
sedative when they clearly comprehend that from the moment at which this
law is signed and published the men are there. The armament too may be
said to be ready, in the shape of what is absolutely necessary: but we must
procure a better, for if we form an army of triarians of the best human
material that we have,--of the men above thirty, the husbands and fathers,--
we must have for them the best weapons there are. We must not send them
into the fight with an outfit that we do not regard as good enough for our
young troops of the line. The solid men, the heads of families, these stalwart
figures that we can still remember from the time that they held the bridge of
Versailles,--these men must have the best rifles on their shoulders, the
completest armament, and the amplest clothing to protect them from wind
and weather. We ought not to economize there.--But I hope it will
tranquilize our fellow-citizens, if they are really thinking of the contingency
(which I do not expect to occur) of our being attacked simultaneously on
two sides,--of course, as I have pointed out in reviewing the events of the
last forty years, there is always the possibility of any sort of coalition,--I
hope it will tranquillize them to remember that if this happens, we can have
a million good soldiers to defend each of our frontiers. At the same time we
can keep in the rear reserves of half a million and more, of a million even,
and we can push these forward as they are needed. I have been told, "That
will only result in the others going still higher." But they cannot. They have
long ago reached their limits.... In numbers they have gone as high as we,
but in quality they cannot compete with us. Bravery, of course, is equal
among all civilized nations; the Russian and the Frenchman fight as bravely
as the German: but our men, our 700,000 new men, have seen service; they
are soldiers who have served their time, and who have not yet forgotten
their training. Besides--and this is a point in which no people in the world

can compete with us--we have the material for officers and under-officers to
command this enormous army. It is here that competition is excluded,
because it involves a peculiarly broad extension of popular culture, such as
exists in Germany and in no other country....
There is a further advantage that will result from the adoption of this law:
the very strength at which we are aiming necessarily makes us peaceful.
That sounds paradoxical, but it is true. With the powerful machine which
we are making of the German army no aggression will be attempted. If I
saw fit--assuming a different situation to exist from that which in my
conviction does exist'--to come before you here to-day and say to you, "We
are seriously menaced by France and Russia; the prospect is that we shall be
attacked: such at least is my conviction, as a diplomatist, on the basis of the
military information that we have received; it is to our advantage to defend
ourselves by anticipating the attack, and to strike at once; an offensive war
is a better one for us to wage, and I accordingly ask the Imperial Diet for a
credit of a milliard or half a milliard, in order to undertake to-day the war
against our two neighbors,"--well, gentlemen, I do not know whether you
would have such confidence in me as to grant such a request. I hope not.
But if you did, it would not be enough for me. If we in Germany desire to
wage a war with the full effect of our national power, it must be a war with
which all who help to wage it, and all who make sacrifices for it--with
which, in a word, all the nation--must be in sympathy. It must be a people's
war; it must be a war that is carried on with the same enthusiasm as that of
1870, when we were wickedly attacked. I remember still the joyful shouts
that rang in our ears at the Cologne station; it was the same thing from
Berlin to Cologne; it was the same thing here in Berlin. The waves of
popular approval bore us into the war, whether we liked it or not. So it must
be, if a national force like ours is to be brought fully into operation. It will
be very difficult, however, to make it clear to the provinces, to the federal
states and to their people, that a war is inevitable, that it must come. It will
be asked: "Are you so sure of it? Who knows?" If we finally come to the
point of making the attack, all the weight of the imponderables, which
weigh much more than the material weights, will be on the side of our
antagonist whom we have attacked. "Holy Russia" will be filled with
indignation at the attack. France will glisten with weapons to the Pyrenees.
The same thing will happen everywhere. A war into which we are not borne

by the will of the people--such a war will of course be carried on, if in the
last instance the established authorities consider and have declared it to be
necessary. It will be carried on with energy and perhaps victoriously, as
soon as the men come under fire and have seen blood; but there will not be
back of it, from the start, the same dash and heat as in a war in which we
are attacked....
I do not believe--to sum up--that any disturbance of the peace is in
immediate prospect; and I ask you to deal with the law that lies before you,
independently of any such idea or apprehension, simply as a means for
making the great force which God has lodged in the German nation
completely available in the event of our needing it. If we do not need it, we
shall not call for it. We seek to avoid the chance of our needing it. This
effort on our part is still, in some degree, impeded by threatening newspaper
articles from foreign countries; and I wish to address to foreign countries
especially the admonition to discontinue these threats. They lead to nothing.
The threat which we receive, not from the foreign government, but in the
press, is really a piece of incredible stupidity, if you think what it means--
that by a certain combination of words, by a certain threatening shape given
to printer's ink, a great and proud power like the German Empire is assumed
to be capable of intimidation. This should be discontinued; and then it
would be made easier for us to assume a more conciliatory and obliging
attitude toward our two neighbors. Every country is responsible in the long
run, somehow and at some time, for the windows broken by its press; the
bill is presented some day or other, in the ill-humor of the other country. We
can easily be influenced by love and good-will,--too easily perhaps,--but
most assuredly not by threats. We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the
world; and it is the fear of God that makes us love and cherish peace. But
whoever, despite this, breaks it, will find that the warlike patriotism that in
1813, when Prussia was weak, small, and exhausted by plunder, brought her
whole population under her banners, has to-day become the common
heritage of the whole German nation; and whoever attacks the German
nation will find it united in arms, and in every soldier's heart the firm faith
"God will be with us."

BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON
(1832-)

BY WILLIAM M. PAYNE

f The two great writers who have, more than any others, made it possible
for Norway to share in the comity of intellectual intercourse so
characteristic of the modern literary movement, it must be granted that
Björnson is, more distinctly than Ibsen, the representative of their common
nationality. Both are figures sufficiently commanding to belong, in a sense,
to the literature of the whole world, and both have had a marked influence
upon the ideals of other peoples than that from which they sprung; but the
wider intellectual scope of Ibsen has been gained at some sacrifice of the
strength that comes from taking firm root in one's native soil, and speaking
first and foremost to the hearts of one's fellow-countrymen. What we may
call the cosmopolitan standpoint of the greater part of his work has made its
author less typically a Norwegian than Björnson has always remained. It is
not merely that the one writer has chosen to spend the best years of his life
in countries not his own, while the other has never long absented himself
from the scarred and storm-beaten shores of the land, rich in historic
memories and "dreams of the saga-night," that gave him birth and nurture.
Tourguénieff lived apart from his fellow-countrymen for as many years as
Ibsen has done, yet remained a Russian to the core. It is rather a difference
of native intellectual bent that has left Björnson to stand as the typical
representative of the Norwegian spirit, while the most famous of his
contemporaries has given himself up to the pursuit of abstractions, and has
been swept along by a current of thought resulting from the confluence of
many streams. The intensely national character of Björnson's manifold
activity is well illustrated by a remark of Georg Brandes, to the effect that
mention of Björnson's name in the presence of any gathering of Norwegians
is like running up the national flag. And it seems, on the whole, that the sum

total of his literary achievement must be reckoned the greatest to be set
down to the credit of any one Norwegian since Norway began to develop a
literature of her own. Far nobler and finer than that of either Wergeland or
Welhaven, the two most conspicuous of his predecessors, this achievement
is challenged by that of Ibsen alone, and even then in but a single aspect. It
is only as dramatists that suspense of judgment between the two men is for
a moment admissible; as a poet the superiority of Björnson is
unquestionable, while his rank as the greatest of Norwegian novelists is
altogether beyond dispute.
The chief facts of Björnson's life may be briefly set
forth. The son of a parish priest, he was born
December 8th, 1832, at Kvikne. When the boy was
six years of age, his family removed to the
Romsdal, and a few years later Björnstjerne was
sent to school at Molde. His childhood was thus
passed in the midst of the noblest scenery of
BJÖRNSON Norway, and in regions of the richest legendary
association. The austere sublimity of the
Jötunheim--the home of the frost-giants--first impressed his childish
sensibilities, but was soon exchanged for the more varied and picturesque
but hardly less magnificent scenery of the western fjords. At the age of
seventeen the boy was sent to school in Christiania, and in 1852 entered the
University. Instead of devoting himself to his studies, he wrote a play called
'Valborg,' which was actually accepted by the management of the
Christiania Theatre. The piece was, however, never printed or even
performed; for the author became so conscious of its imperfections that he
withdrew it from rehearsal. But it gave him the entrée of the playhouse, a
fact which did much to determine the direction of his literary activities. He
left the University with his course uncompleted, and for two or three years
thereafter supported himself by journalism. In 1857, at the age of twenty-
four, his serious literary career began with the publication of 'Synnöve
Solbakken,' his first novel, and 'Mellern Slagene' (Between the Battles), his
first printed dramatic work. In this year also, upon the invitation of Ole
Bull, he went to Bergen, where he remained for two years as director of the
theatre. In 1860 he secured from the government a traveling stipend, and
spent the greater part of the next two years abroad, mostly in Rome, busily

writing all the time. Returning to Norway, he has since remained there for
the most part, although his winters have frequently been spent in other
countries. For a long time he lived regularly in Paris several months of each
year; one winter (1879-80) he was the guest of the Grand Duke of
Meiningen; the following (1880-81) he spent in the United States, lecturing
in many cities. Since 1874 his Norwegian home has been at Aulestad in the
Gausdal, where he has an estate, and occupies a capacious dwelling--half
farm-house, half villa--whose broad verandas look out upon the charming
open landscape of Southern Norway. For the last twenty years he has been
almost as conspicuous a figure in the political as in the literary arena, and
the recognized leader of the Norwegian republican movement. Numerous
kinds of social and religious controversy have also engaged his attention,
and made his life a stirring one in many ways.
In attempting to classify Björnson's writings for the purpose of rendering
some critical account of the man's work, the first impulse is to group them
into the three divisions of fiction, lyric, and drama. But the most obvious
fact of his long literary life is after all not so much that he has done great
work in all three of these fundamental forms, as that the whole spirit and
method of his work, whatever the form, underwent a radical transformation
about midway in his career. For the first twenty years of his active life,
roughly speaking, he was an artist pure and simple; during the subsequent
twenty years, also roughly speaking, he has been didactic, controversial,
and tendentious. (The last word is good Spanish and German and ought to
be good English.) For the purpose of the following summary analysis, I
have therefore thought it best to make the fundamental grouping
chronological rather than formal, since the plays and the novels of the first
period have much more in common with one another than either the plays
or the novels of the first period have in common with the plays or the
novels of the second.
Björnson's work in lyrical and other non-dramatic poetry belongs almost
wholly to the first period. It consists mainly of short pieces scattered
through the idyllic tales and saga-plays that nearly make up the sum of his
activity in its purely creative and poetic phase. Some of these lyrics strike
the very highest and purest note of song, and have secured lasting lodgment
on the lips of the people. One of them, indeed, has become pre-eminently

the national song of Norway, and may be heard wherever Norsemen are
gathered together upon festal occasions. It begins in this fashion:--

"Ay, we love this land of ours,
Crowned with mountain domes;
Storm-scarred o'er the sea it towers
With a thousand homes.
Love it, as with love unsated
Those who gave us birth,
While the saga-night, dream-weighted,
Broods upon our earth."

Another patriotic song, hardly less popular, opens with the following
stanza:--

"There's a land where the snow is eternally king,
To whose valleys alone come-the joys of the spring,
Where the sea beats a shore rich, with lore of the
past,
But this land to its children is dear to the last."

The fresh beauty of such songs as these is, however, almost utterly
uncommunicable in another language. Somewhat more amenable to the
translator is the song 'Over de Höje Fjelde' (Over the Lofty Mountains),
which occurs in 'Arne,' and which is perhaps the best of Björnson's lyrics.
An attempt at a version of this poem will be found among the illustrative
examples appended to the present essay. The scattered verses of Björnson
were collected into a volume of 'Digte og Sange' (Poems and Songs) in
1870, and in the same year was published 'Arnljot Gelline,' the author's only
long poem not dramatic in form. This uneven and in passages
extraordinarily beautiful work is a sort of epic in fifteen songs, difficult to
read, yet simple enough in general outline. Arnljot Gelline was a sort of
freebooter of the eleventh century, whose fierce deeds were preserved in
popular tradition. The 'Heimskringla' tells us how, grown weary of his
lawless life, he joined himself to Olaf the Holy, accepted baptism, and fell
at Stiklestad righting for Christianity and the King. From this suggestion,
the imagination of the poet has worked out a series of episodes in Arnljot's
life, beginning with his capture of the fair Ingigerd--whose father he slew,

and who, struggling against her love, took refuge in a cloister--and ending
with the day of the portentous battle against the heathen. It is all very
impressive, and sometimes very subtle, while occasional sections, such as
Ingigerd's appeal for admission to the cloister, and Arnljot's apostrophe to
the sea, must be reckoned among the finest of Björnson's inspirations. Since
1870 Björnson has published little verse, although poems of an occasional
character and incidental lyrics have now and then found their way into
print. 'Lyset' (The Light), a cantata, is the only recent example of any
magnitude.
Björnson first became famous as the delineator of the Norwegian peasant.
He felt that the peasant is the lineal descendant of the man of the sagas, and
that in him lies the real strength of the national character. The story of
'Synnöve Solbakken' (1857) was quickly followed by 'Arne' (1858), 'En
Glad Gut' (A Happy Boy: 1860), and a number of small pieces in similar
vein. They were at once recognized both at home and abroad as something
deeper and truer of their sort than had hitherto been achieved in the
Scandinavian countries, and perhaps in Europe. In their former aspect, they
were a reaction from the conventional ideals hitherto dominant in Danish
literature (which had set the pace for most of Björnson's predecessors); and
in their latter and wider aspect they were the Norwegian expression of the
tendency that had produced the German and French peasant idyls of
Auerbach and George Sand. They embodied a return to Nature in a spirit
that may, with a difference, be called Wordsworthian. They substituted a
real nineteenth-century pastoral for the sham pastoral of the eighteenth
century. They reproduced the simple style of the sagas, and reduced life to
its primitive elements. The stories of 'Fiskerjenten' (The Fisher Maiden:
1868), and 'Brude Slaaten' (The Bridal March: 1873), belong, on the whole,
with this group; although they are differentiated by a touch of modernity
from which a discerning critic might have prophesied something of the
author's coming development. These stories have been translated into many
languages, and have long been familiar to English readers. It is worth
noting that 'Synnöve Solbakken,' the first of them all, appeared in English a
year after the publication of the original, in a translation by Mary Howitt.
This fact seems to have escaped the bibliographers; which is not surprising,
since the name of the author was not given upon the title-page, and the
name of the story was metamorphosed into 'Trust and Trial.'

The inspiration of the sagas, strong as it is in these tales, is still more
evident in the series of dramas that run parallel with them. These include
'Mellem Slagene' (Between the Battles: 1858), 'Halte Hulda' (Lame Hulda:
1858), 'Kong Sverre' (1861), 'Sigurd Slembe' (1862), and 'Sigurd Jorsalfar'
(Sigurd the Jerusalem-Farer: 1872). The first two of these pieces are short
and comparatively unimportant. 'Kong Sverre' is a longer and far more
ambitious work; while in 'Sigurd Slembe,' a trilogy of plays, the saga-phase
of Björnson's genius reached its culmination. This noble work, which may
almost claim to be the greatest work in Norwegian literature, is based upon
the career of a twelfth-century pretender to the throne of Norway, and the
material was found in the 'Heimskringla.' There are few more signal
illustrations in literature of the power of genius to transfuse with its own life
a bare mediæval chronicle, and to create from a few meagre suggestions a
vital and impressive work of art. One thinks instinctively, in seeking for
some adequate parallel, of what Goethe did with the materials of the Faust
legend, or of what Shakespeare did with the indications offered for 'King
Lear' and 'Cymbeline' by Holinshed's chronicle-history. And the two
greatest names in modern literature are suggested not only by this general
fact of creative power, but also more specifically by certain characters in the
trilogy. Audhild, the Icelandic maiden beloved of Sigurd, has more than
once been compared with the gracious and pathetic figure of Gretchen; and
Earl Harald is one of the most successful attempts since Shakespeare to
incarnate once again the Hamlet type of character, with its gentleness, its
intellectuality, its tragic irony, and the defect of will which forces it to sink
beneath the too heavy burden set upon its shoulders by fate. 'Sigurd
Jorsalfar,' the last of the saga-plays, was planned as the second part of a
dramatic sequence, of which the first was never written. Another work in
this manner, having for its protagonist the great national hero, Olaf
Trygvason, was also planned and even begun; but the author's energy
flagged, and he felt himself irresistibly impelled to devote himself to more
modern themes dealt with in a more modern way. But before leaving this
phase of Björnson's work, mention must be made of 'Maria Stuart i
Skotland' (1864), chronologically interjected among the saga-plays, and
dealing with the more definite history of the hapless Queen of Scots in
much of the saga-spirit. Björnson felt that the Scots had inherited no little of
the Norse blood and temper, and believed that the psychology of his saga-
heroes was adequate to account for the group of men whose fortunes were

bound up with those of Mary Stuart in Scotland. He finds his key to the
problem of her career in the fact that she was by nature incapable of
yielding herself up wholly to a man or a cause, yet was surrounded by men
who demanded of her just such whole-souled allegiance. Bothwell and
Knox were pre-eminently men of this stamp; as were also, in some degree,
Darnley and Rizzio. The theory may seem fanciful, but there is no doubt
that Björnson's treatment of this fascinating subject is one of the strongest it
has ever received, and that his play takes rank with such European
masterpieces as Scott's novel, and Alfieri's tragedy, and Swinburne's great
poetic trilogy.
The late sixties and the early seventies were with Björnson a period of
unrest and transformation. His previous work had been that of a genius
isolated, comparatively speaking, and concentrated upon a small part of
human life. His frequent journeys abroad and the wider range of his reading
now brought him into the full current of European thought, and led to a
substitution of practical ideals for those of the visionary. He felt that he
must reculer pour mieux sauter, and for nearly a decade he produced little
original work. Yet his first attempt at a modern problem-play, 'De Nygifte'
(The Newly Married Pair), curiously enough, dates from as far back as
1865. This work was, however, a mere trifle, and has interest chiefly as a
forerunner of what was to come. It was not until 1874 that Björnson became
conscious that his new thought was ripe enough to bear fruit, and that he
began with 'Redaktören' (The Editor) the series of plays dealing with social
problems that have been the characteristic work of his second period. It is
interesting to note, for comparison, the fact that the similar striking
transformation of energy in Ibsen's case dates from 1877, when
'Samfundet's Stötter' (The Pillars of Society) was produced, and that this
work had, like Björnson's 'Redaktören,' a forerunner in 'De Unges Forbund'
(The League of Youth), published in 1869. The list of Björnson's problem-
plays--many of which have been extraordinarily successful upon the stage,
both in the Scandinavian countries and in Germany--includes in addition to
'Redaktören,' seven other pieces. They are: 'En Fallit' (A Bankruptcy: 1875),
'Kongen' (The King: 1877), 'Leonarda' (1879), 'Det Ny System' (The New
System: 1879), 'En Hanske' (A Glove: 1883), 'Over Ævne' (Beyond the
Strength: 1883), and 'Geografi og Kjærlighed' (Geography and Love: 1885).
A sequel to 'Over Ævne' has also recently appeared. The most noteworthy

of these works, considered as acting plays, are 'Redaktören' and 'En Fallit.'
The one has for its subject the degradation of modern journalism; the other
attacks the low standard of commercial morality prevailing in modern
society. 'En Hanske' plants itself squarely upon the proposition that the
obligations of morality are equally binding upon both sexes; a problem
treated by Ibsen, after a somewhat different fashion, in 'Gengangere'
(Ghosts). This play has occasioned much heated discussion, for its theme is
of the widest interest, besides being pivotal as regards Björnson's
sociological views. 'Over Ævne' is a curiously wrought and delicate
treatment of religious mysticism, fascinating to read, but not very definite in
outcome. 'Kongen' is probably the most remarkable, all things considered,
of this series of plays, and Björnson told me some years ago that he
considered it the most important of his works. Taking frankly for granted
that monarchy, whether absolute or constitutional, is an outworn institution,
the play discusses the question whether it may not be possible so to
transform the institution as to fit it for a prolongation of existence. The
interest centres about the character of a king who is profoundly convinced
that the principle he embodies is an anachronism or a lie, and who seeks to
do away with the whole structure of convention, and ceremonial, and
hypocrisy, that the centuries have built about the throne and its occupants.
But his dearest hopes are frustrated by the forces of malice, and dull
conservatism, and invincible stupidity; the burden proves too heavy for
him, the fight too unequal, and he takes his own life in a moment of despair.
The terrible satirical power of certain scenes in this play would be difficult
to match were our choice to range through the whole literature of Revolt. Its
production brought upon the author a storm of furious denunciation. He had
outraged both throne and altar, and his sacrilegious hand had not spared
things the most sacrosanct. But a less passionate judgment, while still
deprecating something of the author's violence, will recognize the fact that
the core of the work is a noble idealism in both politics and religion, and
will justify the hot indignation with which the author assails the shams that
in modern society stifle the breath of free and generous souls.
During all these years of writing for the stage Björnson did not, however,
forget that he was also a novelist; and it is in fiction that he has scored the
greatest of his recent triumphs. But the world of 'Synnöve' and 'Arne' is now
far behind him. The transition from his earlier to his later manner as a

novelist is marked by two or three stories delicate in conception but
uncertain of utterance, and relatively unimportant. These books are
'Magnhild' (1877), 'Kaptejn Mansana' (1879), and 'Stöv' (Dust: 1882). They
were, however, significant of a new development of the author's genius, for
they were the precursors of two great novels soon thereafter to follow. 'Det
Flager i Byen og paa Havnen' (Flags are Flying in Town and Harbor)
appeared in 1884. (Paa Guds Veje) (In God's Way) was published in 1889.
These books are experiments upon a larger scale than their author had
previously attempted in fiction, and neither of them exhibits the perfect
mastery that went to the simpler making of the early peasant tales. They are
somewhat confused and turbulent in style, and it is evident that their author
is groping for adequate means of handling the unwieldy material brought to
his workshop by so many currents of modern thought. The central theme of
'Det Flager' (in its English translation called, by the way, 'The Heritage of
the Kurts') is the influence of heredity upon the life of a family group. The
process of rehabilitation, resulting from the introduction of a healthy and
vigorous strain into a stock weakened by the vices and passions of several
generations, and aided by a scientific system of education, is carried on
before our eyes, and the story of this process is the substance of the book.
Regeneration is not wholly achieved, but the end leaves us hopeful for the
future; and the flags that fly over town and harbor in the closing chapter
have a symbolical significance, for they announce a victory of spirit over
sense, not alone in the case of certain individuals, but also in the case of the
whole community with which they are identified. If this book comes to be
forgotten as a novel (which is not likely), it will have a fair chance of being
remembered, along with 'Levana' and 'Emile,' as a sort of educational
classic. 'Paa Gud's Veje,' the last great work of Björnson, is also strongly
didactic in tone, yet it attains at its highest to a tranquillity of which the
author seemed for many years to have lost the secret. The struggle it depicts
is that between religious bigotry and liberalism as they contend for the
mastery in a Norwegian town; and the moral is that "God's way" is the way
of people who order their lives aright and keep their souls sweet and pure,
rather than the way of the Pharisee who pins his faith to observances and
allows the letter of his religion to overshadow the spirit. Not an unchristian
inculcation, surely; yet for it and for similar earlier utterances Björnson has
been held up as Antichrist by the ministers of a narrow Lutheran orthodoxy,
very much as the spokesmen of an antiquated caste-system of society have

esteemed his ideas to be those of the most ruthless and radical of
iconoclasts. But he is a stout fighter, and attacks of this sort only serve to
arouse him to new energy. And so he toils manfully on for the
enlightenment of his people, knowing that his cause is the cause of
civilization itself--of a rational social organization, an exalted ethical
standard, and a purified religion.
Since the period when Björnson began to merge the artist in the thinker and
prophet, his work has given a strong impetus to progress in religious,
educational, and political affairs. As regards the first of these matters, it
must be remembered that the sort of intolerance with which he has had to
contend more resembles that of eighteenth-century New England
puritanism than anything we are familiar with in our own time. As for the
second matter, all of his work may in a sense be called educational, while
such a book as 'Det Flager' shows how closely he has considered the subject
of education in its special and even technical aspects. Finally, as a political
thinker, he has identified himself indissolubly with the movement for the
establishment of an independent Norwegian Republic, although he is not
sanguine of the near realization of this aim. But if time should justify his
prophetic attitude and give birth to a republic in the north of Europe,
however remote may be the event, the name of Björnson will be
remembered as that of one of the founders, although as the Mazzini rather
than as the Cavour of the Norse Risorgimento. And whatever may be the
future of the land that claims him for her own, his spirit will walk abroad
long after he has ceased to live among men. His large, genial, optimistic
personality is of the sort that cannot fail to stamp itself upon other
generations than the one that actually counts him among its members.
[The following selections are given in translations of my own, excepting
'The Princess,' which was made by Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole, and the last
two, for which I am indebted to the edition of Björnson's novels translated
by Professor Rasmus B. Anderson, and published by Messrs. Houghton,
Mifflin & Co. The extracts from 'Sigurd Slembe' are taken from my
translation of that work published by the same firm.--W.M.P.]

OVER THE LOFTY MOUNTAINS

(From 'Arne')

Often I wonder what there may be
Over the lofty mountains.
Here the snow is all I see,
Spread at the foot of the dark green tree;
Sadly I often ponder,
Would I were over yonder.

Strong of wing soars the eagle high
Over the lofty mountains;
Glad of the new day, soars to the sky,
Wild in pursuit of his prey doth fly;
Pauses, and, fearless of danger,
Scans the far coasts of the stranger.

The apple-tree, whose thoughts ne'er fly
Over the lofty mountains,
Leaves when the summer days draw nigh,
Patiently waits for the time when high
The birds in its bough shall be swinging,
Yet will know not what they are singing.

He who has yearned so long to go
Over the lofty mountains--
He whose visions and fond hopes grow
Dim, with the years that so restless flow--
Knows what the birds are singing,
Glad in the tree-tops swinging.

Why, O bird, dost thou hither fare
Over the lofty mountains?

Surely it must be better there,
Broader the view and freer the air;
Com'st thou these longings to bring me--
These only, and nothing to wing me?

Oh, shall I never, never go
Over the lofty mountains?
Must all my thoughts and wishes so
Held in these walls of ice and snow
Here be imprisoned forever?
Till death shall escape be never?

Hence! I will hence! Oh, so far from here,
Over the lofty mountains!
Here 'tis so dull, so unspeakably drear;
Young is my heart and free from fear--
Better the walls to be scaling
Than here in my prison lie wailing.

One day, I know, shall my free soul roam
Over the lofty mountains.
O my God, fair is thy home,
Ajar is the door for all who come;
Guard it for me yet longer,
Till my soul through striving grows stronger.

THE CLOISTER IN THE SOUTH

From 'Arnljot Gelline'

"Who would enter so late the cloister in?"
"A maid forlorn from the land of snow."
"What sorrow is thine, and what thy sin?"
"The deepest sorrow the heart can know.

I have nothing done,
Yet must still endeavor,
Though my strength is none,
To wander ever.
Let me in, to seek for my pain surcease;--
I can find no peace."

"From what far-off land hast thou taken flight?"
"From the land of the North, a weary way."
"What stayed thy feet at our gate this night?"
"The chant of the nuns, for I heard them pray,
And the song gave peace
To my soul, and blessed me;
It offered release
From the grief that oppressed me.
Let me in, so if peace to give be thine,
I may make it mine."

"Name me the grief that thy life hath crossed."
"Rest may I never, never know."
"Thy father, thy lover, thou hast then lost?"
"I lost them both at a single blow,
And all I held dear
In my deepest affection,
Ay, all that was near
To my heart's recollection.
Let me in, I am failing, I beg, I implore,
I can bear no more."

"How was it that thou thy father lost?"
"He was slain, and I saw the deed."
"How was it that thou thy lover lost?"
"My father he slew, and I saw the deed.
I wept so bitterly
When he roughly would woo me,
He at last set me free,
And forbore to pursue me.

Let me in, for the horror my soul doth fill
That I love him still."

CHORUS OF NUNS WITHIN THE CHURCH

Come child, come bride,
To God's own side.
From grief find rest
On Jesus' breast.
Rest thy burden of sorrow
On Horeb's height;
Like the lark, with to-morrow
Shall thy soul take flight.

Here stilled is all yearning,
No passion returning,
No terror come near thee
Where the Saviour can hear thee!
For He, if in need be
Thy storm-beaten soul,
Though it bruised as a reed be,
Shall raise it up whole.

THE PLEA OF KING MAGNUS

From 'Sigurd Slembe'

"But once more let me the heavens see,
When the stars their watch are keeping,"
Young Magnus begged, and fell on his knee;

It was sad to see,
And the women away turned weeping.

"Let me once more the mountains see,
And the blue of the ocean far-reaching,
Only once more, and then let it be!"
And he fell on his knee,
While his friends were for pity beseeching.

"Let me go to the church, that the sacred sight
Of the blood of God may avail me;
That my eyes may bathe in its holy light,
Ere the day take flight,
And my vision forever shall fail me!"

But the sharp steel sped, and the shadows fell,
As the darkness the day o'erpowers.
"Magnus our king, farewell, farewell!"
"So farewell, farewell,
All my friends of so many glad hours."

Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin and Company,
Boston.

SIN AND DEATH

From 'Sigurd Slembe'

Sin and Death, at break of day,
Day, day,
Spoke together with bated breath;
Marry thee, sister, that I may stay,
Stay, stay,
In thy house, quoth Death.

Death laughed aloud when Sin was wed,
Wed, wed,
And danced on the bridal day;
But bore that night from the bridal bed,
Bed, bed,
The groom in a shroud away.

Death came to her sister at break of day,
Day, day,
And Sin drew a weary breath;
He whom thou lovest is mine for aye,
Aye, aye,
Mine he is, quoth Death.

Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin and Company,
Boston.

THE PRINCESS

The Princess sat lone in her maiden bower,
The lad blew his horn at the foot of the tower.
"Why playest thou alway? Be silent, I pray,
It fetters my thoughts that would flee far away,
As the sun goes down."

In her maiden bower sat the Princess forlorn,
The lad had ceased to play on his horn.
"Oh, why art thou silent? I beg thee to play!
It gives wings to my thoughts that would flee far
away,
As the sun goes down."

In her maiden bower sat the Princess forlorn,
Once more with delight played the lad on his horn.
She wept as the shadows grew long, and she sighed:
"Oh, tell me, my God, what my heart doth betide,
Now the sun has gone down."

Copyrighted by T.Y. Crowell and Company.

SIGURD SLEMBE'S RETURN

The scene is at first empty. Then Sigurd Slembe enters, climbing over a
rock; he comes forward in silence, but powerfully agitated.

The Danes forsake me! The battle is lost! Thus far--and no farther!

Escape to the mountains to-night! Exchange my ships for freedom! There
are herds of horses on the mountains: we will climb up there and then fall
upon the valleys like a snowstorm.
But when winter comes? To begin at the beginning: the outlaw's life--never
more! I have made my last effort; had it been successful, men would have
wondered at me. It has failed, and vengeance is loose. I cannot gather
another force in Norway!
All over? Thus far and no farther? No! The Danes sail, but we will sail with
them! This night, this very night we will raise our yards and follow them to
the open sea.
But whither shall we turn our prows? To Denmark? We may raise no third
force in Denmark. Start out again as merchant? No! Serve in foreign lands?
No! Crusade? No! Hither and no farther! Sigurd, the end has come!
[Almost sobbing.] Death! The thought sprang up in my mind as a door
swings open, clashing upon its hinges; light, air, receive me! [He draws his
sword.] No; I will fall fighting in the cause I have lived for--my men shall
have a leader!
Is there no chance of victory? no trick? Can I not get them ashore? Can I
not get them in the toils? try them in point-blank fight, man to man, all the
strength of despair fighting with me? Ah, could they but hear me, could I
but find some high place and speak to them; tell them how clear as the sun
is my right, how monstrous the wrongs I have borne, what a crime is theirs
in withstanding me! You murder not me alone, but thousands upon
thousands of thoughts for my fatherland's welfare; I have carried nothing
out, I have not sown the least grain, or laid one stone upon another to
witness that I have lived. Ah, I have strength for better things than strife; it
was the desire to work that drove me homewards; it was impatience that
wrought me ill! Believe me, try me, give me but half what Harald Gille
promised me, even less; I ask but very little, if I may still live and strive to
accomplish something! Jesus, my God, it was ever the little that thou didst
offer me, and that I ever scorned!
Where am I? I stand upon my own grave, and hear the great bell ring. I
tremble as the tower beneath its stroke, for where now are the aims that

were mine? The grave opens its mouth and makes reply. But life lies behind
me like a dried-up stream, and these eighteen years are lost as in a desert.
The sign, the sign that was with me from my birth! In lofty flight I have
followed it hither with all the strength of my soul, and here I am struck by
the arrow of death. I fall, and behold the rocks beneath, upon which I shall
be crushed. Have I, then, seen a-wrong? Ah, how the winds and currents of
my life stood yonder, where it was warm and fruitful, while I toiled up
where it grew ever colder, and my ship is now clasped by the drifting
icebergs; a moment yet, and it must sink. Then let it sink, and all will be
over. [On his knees.] But in thy arms, All-Merciful, I shall find peace!
What miracle is this? For in the hour I prayed the prayer was granted!
Peace, perfect peace! [Rises.] Then will I go to-morrow to my last battle as
to the altar; peace shall at last be mine for all my longings.
[Holds his head bowed and covered by his hands. As he, after a time, slowly
removes them, he looks around.]
How this autumn evening brings reconciliation to my soul! Sun and wave
and shore and sea flow all together, as in the thought of God all others;
never yet has it seemed so fair to me! Yet it is not mine to reign over this
lovely land. How greatly I have done it ill! But how has it all come so to
pass? for in my wanderings I saw thy mountains in every sky, I yearned for
home as a child longs for Christmas, yet I came no sooner, and when at last
I came--I gave thee wound upon wound.
But thou, in contemplative mood, now gazest upon me, and givest me at
parting this fairest autumn night of thine. I will ascend yonder rock and take
a long farewell. [Mounts up.]
And even thus I stood eighteen years ago,--thus looked out upon the sea,
blue beneath the rising sun. The fresh breezes of morning seemed wafted to
me from a high future; through the sky's light veil a vision of strange lands
was mine; in the glow of the morning sun, wealth and honor shone upon
me; and to all this, the white sails of the Crusaders should swiftly bear me.
Farewell, dreams of my youth! Farewell, my sweet country! Ah, to what
sorrow thou hast brought me forth! But now it will soon be over. [
He descends.]

If these ships should sail up to me this very night bearing the fulfillment of
all my dreams! Could any one of them be now in truth mine,--or may a tree
bear fruit twice in one year?
I give way to make room for some better man. But be thou gracious to me,
and let death be mine with these feelings in my heart, for strength to be
faithful might not long be vouchsafed me.
"Thou shalt die to-morrow!" How sure a father-confessor is that word! Now
for the first time I speak truth to myself.
Ivar [climbing' over a rock]--Yes, here he is. [Gives his hand to the nun.]
The Nun [without seeing]--Sigurd! [Mounts up.] Yes, there he is!
Sigurd--Mother!
The Nun--My child, found once more! [They remain long clasped in each
other's arms.] My son, my son, now shalt thou no more escape me!
Sigurd--O my mother!
The Nun--Thou wilt keep away from this battle, is it not so? We two will
win another kingdom,--a much better one.
Sigurd--I understand thee, mother. [Leads her to a seat, and falls upon his
knee.]
The Nun--Yes, dost thou not? Thou art not so bad as all men would have it.
I knew that well, but wanted so much to speak with thee,--and since thou art
wearied and hast lost thy hopes for this world, thou hast come back to me,
for even now there is time! And of all thy realm they must leave thee some
little plot, and there we will live by the church, so that when the bells ring
for vespers we shall be near the blessed Olaf, and with him seek the
presence of the Almighty. And there we will heal thy wounds with holy
water, and thoughts of love, more than thou canst remember ever to have
had, shall come back to thee robed in white, and wondering recollection
shall have no end. For the great shall be made small and the small great, and
there shall be questionings and revelations and eternal happiness. Thou wilt
come and thus live with me, my son, wilt thou not? Thou wilt stay from this
battle and come quickly?

Sigurd--Mother, I have not wept till now since I lay upon the parched earth
of the Holy Land.
The Nun--Thou wilt follow me?
Sigurd--To do thus were to escape the pledges I have made but by breaking
them.
The Nun--To what art thou now pledged?
Sigurd--Pledged to the blind king I took from the cloister; pledged to the
men I have led hither.
The Nun--And these pledges thou shalt redeem--how?
Sigurd--By fighting and falling at their head.
The Nun [springs to her feet. Sigurd also rises.]--No! No! No! Shall I now,
after a lifetime of sorrow, behold thy death?
Sigurd--Yes, mother. The Lord of life and death will have it so.
The Nun--Ah! what sufferings a moment's sin may bring! [She falls upon
his breast, then sinks, with outstretched arms.] O my son, spare me!
Sigurd--Do not tempt me, mother!
The Nun--Hast thou taken thought of what may follow? Hast thou thought
of capture, of mutilation?
Sigurd--I have some hymns left me from childhood. I can sing them.
The Nun--But I--thy mother--spare me!
Sigurd--Make not to me this hour more bitter than death itself.
The Nun--But why now die? We have found one another.
Sigurd--We two have nothing more to live for.
The Nun--Wilt thou soon leave me?

Sigurd--Till the morning sun appear we will sit together. Let me lift thee
upon this rock. [He does so, and casts himself at her feet.] It was fair that
thou shouldst come to me. All my life is now blotted out, and I am a child
with thee once more. And now we will seek out together the land of our
inheritance. I must away for a moment to take my leave, and then I shall be
ready, and I think that thou too art ready.
Ivar Ingemundson [falling on his knee]--My lord, now let me be your
friend.
Sigurd [extending his hand]--Ivar, thou wilt not leave her to-morrow?
Ivar Ingemundson--Not until she is set free.
Sigurd--And now sing me the Crusader's song. I may joyfully go hence
after that.

Ivar Ingemundson [rises and sings]--

Fair is the earth,
Fair is God's heaven;
Fair is the pilgrim-path of the soul.
Singing we go
Through the fair realms of earth,
Seeking the way to our heavenly goal.

Races shall come,
And shall pass away:
And the world from age to age shall roll;
But the heavenly tones
Of our pilgrim song
Shall echo still in the joyous soul.

First heard of shepherds,
By angels sung,
Wide it has spread since that glad morn:
Peace upon earth!
Rejoice all men,
For unto us is a Savior born[1].

[The mother places both her hands on Sigurd's head, and they look into one
another's eyes; he then rests his head upon her breast.]

[1] This song is borrowed by Björnson from the
Danish poet B.S. Ingemann, although it is slightly
altered for its present use.

Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston.

HOW THE MOUNTAIN WAS CLAD

From 'Arne'

There was a deep gorge between two mountains. Through this gorge a large,
full stream flowed heavily over a rough and stony bottom. Both sides were
high and steep, and so one side was bare; but close to its foot, and so near
the stream that the latter sprinkled it with moisture every spring and
autumn, stood a group of fresh-looking trees, gazing upward and onward,
yet unable to advance this way or that.
"What if we should clothe the mountain?" said the juniper one day to the
foreign oak, to which it stood nearer than all the others. The oak looked
down to find out who it was that spoke, and then it looked up again without
deigning a reply. The river rushed along so violently that it worked itself
into a white foam; the north wind had forced its way through the gorge and
shrieked in the clefts of the rocks; the naked mountain, with its great
weight, hung heavily over and felt cold. "What if we should clothe the
mountain?" said the juniper to the fir on the other side. "If anybody is to do
it, I suppose it must be we," said the fir, taking hold of its beard and
glancing toward the birch. "What do you think?" But the birch peered
cautiously up, at the mountain, which hung over it so threateningly that it

seemed as if it could scarcely breathe. "Let us clothe it, in God's name!"
said the birch. And so, though there were but these three, they undertook to
clothe the mountain. The juniper went first.
When they had gone a little way, they met the heather. The juniper seemed
as though about to go past it. "Nay, take the heather along," said the fir. And
the heather joined them. Soon it began to glide on before the juniper. "Catch
hold of me," said the heather. The juniper did so, and where there was only
a wee crevice, the heather thrust in a finger, and where it first had placed a
finger, the juniper took hold with its whole hand. They crawled and crept
along, the fir laboring on behind, the birch also. "This is well worth doing,"
said the birch.
But the mountain began to ponder on what manner of insignificant objects
these might be that were clambering up over it. And after it had been
considering the matter a few hundred years, it sent a little brook down to
inquire. It was yet in the time of the spring freshets, and the brook stole on
until it reached the heather. "Dear, dear heather, cannot you let me pass? I
am so small." The heather was very busy; only raised itself a little and
pressed onward. In, under, and onward went the brook. "Dear, dear juniper,
cannot you let me pass? I am so small." The juniper looked sharply at it; but
if the heather had let it pass, why, in all reason, it must do so too. Under it
and onward went the brook; and now came to the spot where the fir stood
puffing on the hill-side. "Dear, dear fir, cannot you let me pass? I am really
so small," said the brook,--and it kissed the fir's feet and made itself so very
sweet. The fir became bashful at this, and let it pass. But the birch raised
itself before the brook asked it. "Hi, hi, hi!" said the brook, and grew. "Ha,
ha, ha!" said the brook, and grew. "Ho, ho, ho!" said the brook, and flung
the heather and the juniper and the fir and the birch flat on their faces and
backs, up and down these great hills. The mountain sat up for many
hundred years musing on whether it had not smiled a little that day.
It was plain enough: the mountain did not want to be clad. The heather
fretted over this until it grew green again, and then it started forward.
"Fresh courage!" said the heather.
The juniper had half raised itself to look at the heather, and continued to
keep this position, until at length it stood upright. It scratched its head and

set forth again, taking such a vigorous foothold that it seemed as though the
mountain must feel it. "If you will not have me, then I will have you." The
fir crooked its toes a little to find out whether they were whole, then lifted
one foot, found it whole, then the other, which proved also to be whole,
then both of them. It first investigated the ground it had been over, next
where it had been lying, and finally where it should go. After this it began
to wend its way slowly along, and acted just as though it had never fallen.
The birch had become most wretchedly soiled, but now rose up and made
itself tidy. Then they sped onward, faster and faster, upward and on either
side, in sunshine and in rain. "What in the world can this be?" said the
mountain, all glittering with dew, as the summer sun shone down on it. The
birds sang, the wood-mouse piped, the hare hopped along, and the ermine
hid itself and screamed.
Then the day came when the heather could peep with one eye over the edge
of the mountain. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" said the heather, and away it
went. "Dear me! what is it the heather sees?" said the juniper, and moved on
until it could peer up. "Oh dear, oh dear!" it shrieked, and was gone. "What
is the matter with the juniper to-day?" said the fir, and took long strides
onward in the heat of the sun. Soon it could raise itself on its toes and peep
up. "Oh dear!" Branches and needles stood on end in wonderment. It
worked its way forward, came up, and was gone. "What is it all the others
see, and not I?" said the birch; and lifting well its skirts, it tripped after. It
stretched its whole head up at once. "Oh,--oh!--is not here a great forest of
fir and heather, of juniper and birch, standing upon the table-land waiting
for us?" said the birch; and its leaves quivered in the sunshine so that the
dew trembled. "Ay, this is what it is to reach the goal!" said the juniper.

THE FATHER

The man whose story is here to be told was the wealthiest and most
influential person in his parish; his name was Thord Overaas. He appeared
in the priest's study one day, tall and earnest.
"I have gotten a son," said he, "and I wish to present him for baptism."
"What shall his name be?"
"Finn,--after my father."
"And the sponsors?"
They were mentioned, and proved to be the best men and women of Thord's
relations in the parish.
"Is there anything else?" inquired the priest, and looked up.
The peasant hesitated a little.
"I should like very much to have him baptized by himself," said he, finally.
"That is to say, on a week-day?"
"Next Saturday, at twelve o'clock noon."
"Is there anything else?" inquired the priest.
"There is nothing else;" and the peasant twirled his cap, as though he were
about to go.
Then the priest rose. "There is yet this, however," said he, and walking
toward Thord, he took him by the hand and looked gravely into his eyes:
"God grant that the child may become a blessing to you!"
One day sixteen years later, Thord stood once more in the priest's study.
"Really, you carry your age astonishingly well, Thord," said the priest; for
he saw no change whatever in the man.
"That is because I have no troubles," replied Thord.
To this the priest said nothing, but after a while he asked, "What is your
pleasure this evening?"

"I have come this evening about that son of mine who is to be confirmed to-
morrow."
"He is a bright boy."
"I did not wish to pay the priest until I heard what number the boy would
have when he takes his place in church to-morrow."
"He will stand Number One."
"So I have heard; and here are ten dollars for the priest."
"Is there anything else I can do for you?" inquired the priest, fixing his eyes
on Thord.
"There is nothing else."
Thord went out.
Eight years more rolled by, and then one day a noise was heard outside of
the priest's study, for many men were approaching, and at their head was
Thord, who entered first.
The priest looked up and recognized him.
"You come well attended this evening, Thord," said he.
"I am here to request that the banns may be published for my son: he is
about to marry Karen Storliden, daughter of Gudmund, who stands here
beside me."
"Why, that is the richest girl in the parish."
"So they say," replied the peasant, stroking back his hair with one hand.
The priest sat awhile as if in deep thought, then entered the names in his
book, without making any comments, and the men wrote their signatures
underneath. Thord laid three dollars on the table.
"One is all I am to have," said the priest.
"I know that very well, but he is my only child; I want to do it handsomely."

The priest took the money.
"This is now the third time, Thord, that you have come here on your son's
account."
"But now I am through with him," said Thord, and folding up his pocket-
book he said farewell and walked away.
The men slowly followed him.
A fortnight later, the father and son were rowing one calm, still day, across
the lake to Storliden to make arrangements for the wedding.
"This thwart is not secure," said the son, and stood up to straighten the seat
on which he was sitting.
At the same moment the board he was standing on slipped from under him;
he threw out his arms, uttered a shriek, and fell overboard.
"Take hold of the oar!" shouted the father, springing to his feet and holding
out the oar.
But when the son had made a couple of efforts he grew stiff.
"Wait a moment!" cried the father, and began to row toward his son.
Then the son rolled over on his back, gave his father one long look, and
sank.
Thord could scarcely believe it; he held the boat still, and stared at the spot
where his son had gone down, as though he must surely come to the surface
again. There rose some bubbles, then some more, and finally one large one
that burst; and the lake lay there as smooth and bright as a mirror again.
For three days and three nights people saw the father rowing round and
round the spot, without taking either food or sleep; he was dragging the lake
for the body of his son. And toward morning of the third day he found it,
and carried it in his arms up over the hills to his gård.
It might have been about a year from that day, when the priest, late one
autumn evening, heard some one in the passage outside of the door,
carefully trying to find the latch. The priest opened the door, and in walked

a tall, thin man, with bowed form and white hair. The priest looked long at
him before he recognized him. It was Thord.
"Are you out walking so late?" said the priest, and stood still in front of
him.
"Ah, yes! it is late," said Thord, and took a seat.
The priest sat down also, as though waiting. A long, long silence followed.
At last Thord said:--
"I have something with me that I should like to give to the poor; I want it to
be invested as a legacy in my son's name."
He rose, laid some money on the table, and sat down again. The priest
counted it.
"It is a great deal of money," said he.
"It is half the price of my gård. I sold it to-day."
The priest sat long in silence. At last he asked, but gently:
"What do you propose to do now, Thord?"
"Something better."
They sat there for awhile, Thord with downcast eyes, the priest with his
eyes fixed on Thord. Presently the priest said, slowly and softly:--
"I think your son has at last brought you a true blessing."
"Yes, I think so myself," said Thord, looking up, while two big tears
coursed slowly down his cheeks.

WILLIAM BLACK
(1841-)

n view of Mr. Black's accurate and picturesque descriptions of natural
phenomena, it is interesting to know that of his varied youthful studies,
botany most attracted him, and that he followed it up as an art pupil in the
government schools. But his bent was rather for journalism than for art or
science. Before he was twenty-one he had written critical essays for a local
newspaper on Ruskin, Carlyle, and Kingsley; and shortly afterward he
wrote a series of sketches, after Christopher North, that at this early age
gave evidence of his peculiar talent, the artistic use of natural effects in the
development of character, the pathos of the gray morning or the melancholy
of the evening mist when woven in with tender episode or tragic
occurrence.
William Black was born in Glasgow, Scotland,
November 6th, 1841, and received his early
education there. He settled in London in 1864, and
was a special correspondent of the Morning Star in
the Franco-Prussian war, but after about ten years of
the life of a newspaper man, during which he was
an editor of the London News, he abandoned
William Black journalism for novel-writing in 1875. In the
intervals of his work he traveled much, and devoted
himself with enthusiasm to out-door sports, of which he writes with a
knowledge that inspires a certain confidence in the reader. A Scotch skipper
once told him he need never starve, because he could make a living as pilot
in the western Highlands; and the fidelity of his descriptions of northern
Scotland have met with the questionable reward of converting a poet's haunt
into a tourist's camp. Not that Mr. Black's is a game-keeper's catalogue of
the phenomena of forest or stream, or the poetic way of depicting nature by
similes. The fascination of his writing lies in our conviction that it is the

result of minute observation, with a certain atmospheric quality that makes
the picture alive. More, one is conscious of a sensitive, pathetic thrill in his
writing; these sights and sounds, when they are unobtrusively chronicled,
are penetrated by a subtle human sympathy, as if the writer bent close to the
earth and heard the whispers of the flowers and stones, as well as the
murmur of the forest and the roar of the sea.
He is eminently a popular writer, a vivacious delineator of life and manners,
even when he exhibits his versatility at the cost of some of his most
attractive characteristics. In 'Sunrise' we have a combination of romance
and politics, its motive supplied by the intrigues of a wide-spread
communistic society. 'Kilmeny' is the story of a painter, 'Shandon Bells' of a
literary man, 'The Monarch of Mincing Lane' tells of the London streets, the
heroine of 'The Handsome Humes' is an actress, the scenes in 'Briseis' are
played in Athens, Scotland, and England. All these novels have tragic and
exceptional episodes, the humor is broad, as the humor of a pessimist
always is, and the reader finds himself laughing at a practical joke on the
heels of a catastrophe. Mr. Black knows his London, especially the
drawing-room aspect of it, and his latest novel is sure to have the latest
touch of fad and fashion, although white heather does not cease to grow nor
deer to be stalked, nor flies to be cast in Highland waters. We cannot admit
that he is exceptionally fortunate in the heroines of these novels, however,
for they are perfectly beautiful and perfectly good, and nature protests
against perfection as a hurt to vanity. Our real favorites are the dark-eyed
Queen Titania, the small imperious person who drives in state in 'Strange
Adventures of a Phaeton,' and sails with such high courage in 'White
Wings,' and the half-sentimental, half-practical, wholly self-seeking siren
Bonny Leslie in 'Kilmeny' who develops into something a little more than
coquettish in the Kitty of 'Shandon Bells.'
These and half a dozen other novels by Mr. Black entitle him to his place as
a popular novelist; they are alternately gay and sad, they are spirited and
entertaining; certain characters, like the heroine of 'Sunrise,' cast a bright
effulgence over the dark plots of intrigue. But Mr. Black is at his best as the
creator of the special school of fiction that has Highland scenery and
Highland character for its field. He has many followers and many imitators,
but he remains master on his own ground. The scenes of his most successful
stories, 'The Princess of Thule,' 'A Daughter of Heth,' 'In Far Lochaber,'

'Macleod of Dare,' and 'Madcap Violet,' are laid for the most part in remote
rural districts, amid lake and moorland and mountain wilds of northern
Scotland, whose unsophisticated atmosphere is invaded by airs from the
outer world only during the brief season of hunting and fishing.
But the visit of the worldling is long enough to furnish incident both poetic
and tragic; and when he enters the innocent and primitive life of the native,
as Lavender entered that of the proud and beautiful Princess of Thule
sailing her boat in the far-off waters of Skye, or the cruel Gertrude in the
grim castle of Dare, he finds all the potencies of passion and emotion.
The temperament of the Highlander is a melancholy one. The narrow life,
with its isolation and its hardships, makes him pessimistic and brooding,
though endowed with the keen instinct and peculiar humor of those who are
far removed from the artificialities of life. But Mr. Black ascribes this
temperament, not to race or hardship or isolation, but to the strange sights
and sounds of the sea and land on which he dwells, to the wild nights and
fierce sunsets, to the dark ocean plains that brood over the secrets that lie in
their depths.
Under his treatment nature is subjective, and plays the part of fate. Natural
scenery is as the orchestra to a Wagnerian opera. The shifting of the clouds,
the voice of the sea, the scent of the woods, are made the most important
factors in the formation of character. He whose home is in mountain
fastnesses knows the solemn glory of sunrise and sunset, and has for his
heritage the high brave temper of the warrior, with the melancholy of the
poet. The dweller on tawny sands, where the waves beat lazily on summer
afternoons and where wild winds howl in storm, is of like necessity
capricious and melancholy. The minor key, in which Poe thought all true
poetry is written, is struck in these his earlier novels. Let the day be ever so
beautiful, the air ever so clear, the shadows give back a sensitive, luminous
darkness that reveals tragedies within itself.
Not that the sentient background, as he has painted it, is to be confounded
with the "sympathy of nature with character" of the older school, in which
hysterical emotion is accentuated by wild wind storms, and the happiness of
lovers by a sunshiny day. But character, as depicted by him in these early
novels, is so far subordinate to nature that nature assumes moral

responsibility. When Macleod of Dare commits murder and then suicide, we
accept it as the result of climatic influences; and the tranquil-conscienced
Hamish, the would-be homicide, but obeys the call of the winds. Especially
in the delightful romances of Skye, Mr. Black reproduces the actual speech
and manners of the people.
And as romance of motive clothes barren rocks in rich hues and waste
bogland in golden gorse, it does like loving service for homely characters.
The dialect these people talk, without editorial comment, delights and
amuses from its strangeness, and also from the conviction that it is as real as
the landscape. They tell wonderful tales of moor and fen as they tramp the
woods or sail on moonlit waters, and sitting by a peat fire of a stormy night,
discuss, between deep pulls of Scotch whisky, the Erastianism that vitiates
modern theology. We must look in the pages of Scott for a more charming
picture of the relation of clansman to chief.
But Mr. Black is his own most formidable rival. He who painted the
sympathetic landscapes of northern Scotland has taught the reader the
subtle distinction between these delicate scenes and those in which nature's
moods are obtrusively chronicled. There are novels by Mr. Black in reading
which we exclaim, with the exhausted young lady at the end of her week's
sight-seeing, "What! another sunset!" And he set himself a difficult task
when he attempted to draw another character so human and so lovable as
the Princess of Thule, although the reader were ungracious indeed did he
not welcome the beautiful young lady with the kind heart and the proud,
hurt smile, whom he became familiar with through frequent encounters in
the author's other novels. And if Earlscope, who has a dim sort of kinship
with the more vigorous hero of 'Jane Eyre,' has been succeeded by well-
bred young gentlemen who never smoke in the presence of their female
relatives, though they are master hands at sailing a boat and knocking down
obtrusive foreigners, Mr. Black has not since 'A Daughter of Heth' done so
dramatic a piece of writing as the story of the Earl's death and Coquette's
flight. The "Daughter of Heth," with her friendly simplicity and innocent
wiles, and Madcap Violet, the laughter-loving, deserve perhaps a kinder fate
than a broken heart and an early grave.
But what the novelist Gogol said of himself and his audience fifty years ago
is as true as ever: "Thankless is the task of whoever ventures to show what

passes every moment before his eyes." When he is heart-breaking, and
therefore exceptional, Mr. Black is most interesting. A sad ending is not
necessarily depressing to the reader. "There is something," says La
Rochefoucauld, "in the misfortunes of our best friends that doth not
displease us."
In Mr. Black's later novels, the burden of tradition has been too heavy for
him, and he has ended them all happily, as if they were fairy tales. He chose
a more artistic as well as a more faithful part when they were in keeping
with life.

THE END OF MACLEOD OF DARE

"DUNCAN." said Hamish in a low whisper,--for Macleod had gone below,
and they thought he might be asleep in the small hushed state-room--"this is
a strange-looking day, is it not? And I am afraid of it in this open bay, with
an anchorage no better than a sheet of paper for an anchorage. Do you see
now how strange-looking it is?"
Duncan Cameron also spoke in his native tongue, and he said:--
"That is true, Hamish. And it was a day like this there was when the Solan
was sunk at her moorings in Loch Hourn. Do you remember, Hamish? And
it would be better for us now if we were in Loch Tua, or Loch-na-Keal, or
in the dock that was built for the steamer at Tiree. I do not like the look of
this day."
Yet to an ordinary observer it would have seemed that the chief
characteristic of this pale, still day was extreme and settled calm. There was
not a breath of wind to ruffle the surface of the sea; but there was a slight
glassy swell, and that only served to show curious opalescent tints under the

suffused light of the sun. There were no clouds; there was only a thin veil of
faint and sultry mist all across the sky: the sun was invisible, but there was
a glare of yellow at one point of the heavens. A dead calm; but heavy,
oppressed, sultry. There was something in the atmosphere that seemed to
weigh on the chest.
"There was a dream I had this morning," continued Hamish, in the same
low tones. "It was about my little granddaughter Christina. You know my
little Christina, Duncan. And she said to me, 'What have you done with Sir
Keith Macleod? Why have you not brought him back? He was under your
care, grandfather.' I did not like that dream."
"Oh, you are becoming as bad as Sir Keith Macleod himself!" said the
other. "He does not sleep. He talks to himself. You will become like that if
you pay attention to foolish dreams, Hamish."
Hamish's quick temper leaped up.
"What do you mean, Duncan Cameron, by saying 'as bad as Sir Keith
Macleod'? You--you come from Ross: perhaps they have not good masters
there. I tell you there is not any man in Ross, or in Sutherland either, is as
good a master and as brave a lad as Sir Keith Macleod--not any one,
Duncan Cameron!"
"I did not mean anything like that, Hamish," said the other, humbly. "But
there was a breeze this morning. We could have got over to Loch Tua. Why
did we stay here, where there is no shelter and no anchorage? Do you know
what is likely to come after a day like this?"
"It is your business to be a sailor on board this yacht; it is not your business
to say where she will go," said Hamish.
But all the same the old man was becoming more and more alarmed at the
ugly aspect of this dead calm. The very birds, instead of stalking among the
still pools, or lying buoyant on the smooth waters, were excitedly calling,
and whirring from one point to another.
"If the equinoctials were to begin now," said Duncan Cameron, "this is a
fine place to meet the equinoctials! An open bay, without shelter; and a

ground that is no ground for an anchorage. It is not two anchors or twenty
anchors would hold in such a ground."
Macleod appeared: the men were suddenly silent. Without a word to either
of them--and that was not his wont--he passed to the stern of the yacht.
Hamish knew from his manner that he would not be spoken to. He did not
follow him, even with all this vague dread on his mind.
The day wore on to the afternoon. Macleod, who had been pacing up and
down the deck, suddenly called Hamish. Hamish came aft at once.
"Hamish," said he, with a strange sort of laugh, "do you remember this
morning, before the light came? Do you remember that I asked you about a
brass-band that I heard playing?"
Hamish looked at him, and said with an earnest anxiety:--
"O Sir Keith, you will pay no heed to that! It is very common; I have heard
them say it is very common. Why, to hear a brass-band, to be sure! There is
nothing more common than that. And you will not think you are unwell
merely because you think you can hear a brass-band playing!"
"I want you to tell me, Hamish," said he, in the same jesting way, "whether
my eyes have followed the example of my ears, and are playing tricks. Do
you think they are bloodshot, with my lying on deck in the cold? Hamish,
what do you see all around?"
The old man looked at the sky, and the shore, and the sea. It was a
marvelous thing. The world was all enshrouded in a salmon-colored mist:
there was no line of horizon visible between, the sea and the sky.
"It is red, Sir Keith," said Hamish.
"Ah! Am I in my senses this time? And what do you think of a red day,
Hamish? That is not a usual thing."
"Oh, Sir Keith, it will be a wild night this night! And we cannot stay here,
with this bad anchorage!"
"And where would you go, Hamish--in a dead calm?" Macleod asked, still
with a smile on the wan face.

"Where would I go?" said the old man, excitedly. "I--I will take care of the
yacht. But you, Sir Keith; oh! you--you will go ashore now. Do you know,
sir, the sheiling that the shepherd had? It is a poor place--oh yes; but
Duncan Cameron and I will take some things ashore. And do you not think
we can look after the yacht? She has met the equinoctials before, if it is the
equinoctials that are beginning. She has met them before; and cannot she
meet them now? But you, Sir Keith, you will go ashore!"
Macleod burst out laughing, in an odd sort of fashion.
"Do you think I am good at running away when there is any kind of danger,
Hamish? Have you got into the English way? Would you call me a coward
too? Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense, Hamish! I--why, I am going to drink a
glass of the coal-black wine, and have done with it. I will drink it to the
health of my sweetheart, Hamish!"
"Sir Keith," said the old man, beginning to tremble, though he but half
understood the meaning of the scornful mirth, "I have had charge of you
since you were a young lad."
"Very well!"
"And Lady Macleod will ask of me, 'Such and such a thing happened: what
did you do for my son?' Then I will say, 'Your ladyship, we were afraid of
the equinoctials; and we got Sir Keith to go ashore; and the next day we
went ashore for him; and now we have brought him back to Castle Dare!'"
"Hamish, Hamish, you are laughing at me! Or you want to call me a
coward? Don't you know I should be afraid of the ghost of the shepherd
who killed himself? Don't you know that the English people call me a
coward?"
"May their souls dwell in the downmost hall of perdition!" said Hamish,
with his cheeks becoming a gray white; "and every woman that ever came
of the accursed race!"
He looked at the old man for a second, and he gripped his hand.
"Do not say that, Hamish--that is folly. But you have been my friend. My
mother will not forget you--it is not the way of a Macleod to forget--

whatever happens to me."
"Sir Keith!" Hamish cried, "I do not know what you mean! But you will go
ashore before the night?"
"Go ashore?" Macleod answered, with a return to this wild bantering tone,
"when I am going to see my sweetheart? Oh no! Tell Christina, now! Tell
Christina to ask the young English lady to come into the saloon, for I have
something to say to her. Be quick, Hamish!"
Hamish went away; and before long he returned with the answer that the
young English lady was in the saloon. And now he was no longer haggard
and piteous, but joyful, and there was a strange light in his eyes.
"Sweetheart," said he, "are you waiting for me at last? I have brought you a
long way. Shall we drink a glass now at the end of the voyage?"
"Do you wish to insult me?" said she; but there was no anger in her voice:
there was more of fear in her eyes as she regarded him.
"You have no other message for me than the one you gave me last night,
Gerty?" said he, almost cheerfully. "It is all over, then? You would go away
from me forever? But we will drink a glass before we go!"
He sprang forward, and caught both her hands in his with the grip of a vise.
"Do you know what you have done, Gerty?" said he, in a low voice. "Oh,
you have soft, smooth, English ways; and you are like a rose-leaf; and you
are like a queen, whom all people are glad to serve. But do you know that
you have killed a man's life? And there is no penalty for that in the South,
perhaps; but you are no longer in the South. And if you have this very night
to drink a glass with me, you will not refuse it? It is only a glass of the coal-
black wine!"
She struggled back from him, for there was a look in his face that frightened
her. But she had a wonderful self-command.
"Is that the message I was to hear?" said she, coldly.
"Why, sweetheart, are you not glad? Is not that the only gladness left for
you and for me, that we should drink one glass together, and clasp hands,

and say good-by? What else is there left? What else could come to you and
to me? And it may not be this night, or to-morrow night; but one night I
think it will come; and then, sweetheart, we will have one more glass
together, before the end."
He went on deck. He called Hamish.
"Hamish," said he, in a grave, matter-of-fact way, "I don't like the look of
this evening. Did you say the sheiling was still on the island?"
"Oh yes, Sir Keith," said Hamish, with great joy; for he thought his advice
was going to be taken, after all.
"Well, now, you know the gales, when they begin, sometimes last for two or
three or four days; and I will ask you to see that Christina takes a good store
of things to the sheiling before the darkness comes on. Take plenty of things
now, Hamish, and put them in the sheiling, for I am afraid this is going to
be a wild night."
Now indeed all the red light had gone away; and as the sun went down there
was nothing but a spectral whiteness over the sea and the sky; and the
atmosphere was so close and sultry that it seemed to suffocate one.
Moreover, there was a dead calm; if they had wanted to get away from this
exposed place, how could they? They could not get into the gig and pull this
great yacht over to Loch Tua.
It was with a light heart that Hamish set about this thing; and Christina
forthwith filled a hamper with tinned meats, and bread, and whisky, and
what not. And fuel was taken ashore, too; and candles, and a store of
matches. If the gales were coming on, as appeared likely from this
ominous-looking evening, who could tell how many days and nights the
young master--and the English lady, too, if he desired her company--might
not have to stay ashore, while the men took the chance of the sea with this
yacht, or perhaps seized the occasion of some lull to make for some place of
shelter? There was Loch Tua, and there was the bay at Bunessan, and there
was the little channel called Polterriv, behind the rocks opposite Iona. Any
shelter at all was better than this exposed place, with the treacherous
anchorage.
Hamish and Duncan Cameron returned to the yacht.

"Will you go ashore now, Sir Keith?" the old man said.
"Oh no; I am not going ashore yet. It is not yet time to run away, Hamish."
He spoke in a friendly and pleasant fashion, though Hamish, in his
increasing alarm, thought it no proper time for jesting. They hauled the gig
up to the davits, however, and again the yacht lay in dead silence in this
little bay.
The evening grew to dusk; the only change visible in the spectral world of
pale yellow-white mist was the appearance in the sky of a number of small,
detached bulbous-looking clouds of a dusky blue-gray. They had not drifted
hither, for there was no wind. They had only appeared. They were
absolutely motionless. But the heat and the suffocation in this atmosphere
became almost insupportable. The men, with bare heads, and jerseys
unbuttoned at the neck, were continually going to the cask of fresh water
beside the windlass. Nor was there any change when the night came on. If
anything, the night was hotter than the evening had been. They waited in
silence what might come of this ominous calm.
Hamish came aft.
"I beg your pardon, Sir Keith," said he, "but I am thinking we will have an
anchor-watch to-night."
"You will have no anchor-watch to-night," Macleod answered slowly, from
out of the darkness. "I will be all the anchor-watch you will need, Hamish,
until the morning."
"You, sir!" Hamish cried. "I have been waiting to take you ashore; and
surely it is ashore that you are going!"
Just as he had spoken, there was a sound that all the world seemed to stand
still to hear. It was a low, murmuring sound of thunder; but it was so remote
as almost to be inaudible. The next moment an awful thing occurred. The
two men standing face to face in the dark suddenly found themselves in a
blaze of blinding steel-blue light, and at the very same instant the thunder-
roar crackled and shook all around them like the firing of a thousand
cannon. How the wild echoes went booming over the sea!

Then they were in the black night again. There was a period of awed
silence.
"Hamish," Macleod said, quickly, "do as I tell you now! Lower the gig; take
the men with you, and Christina, and go ashore and remain in the sheiling
till the morning."
"I will not!" Hamish cried. "O Sir Keith, would you have me do that?"
Macleod had anticipated his refusal. Instantly he went forward and called
up Christina. He ordered Duncan Cameron and John Cameron to lower
away the gig. He got them all in but Hamish.
"Hamish," said he, "you are a smaller man than I. Is it on such a night that
you would have me quarrel with you? Must I throw you into the boat?"
The old man clasped his trembling hands together as if in prayer; and he
said, with an agonized and broken voice:--
"O Sir Keith, you are my master, and there is nothing I will not do for you;
but only this one night you will let me remain with the yacht? I will give
you the rest of my life; but only this one night--"
"Into the gig with you!" Macleod cried, angrily. "Why, man, don't you think
I can keep anchor-watch?" But then he added very gently, "Hamish, shake
hands with me now. You were my friend, and you must get ashore before
the sea rises."
"I will stay in the dingy, then?" the old man entreated.
"You will go ashore, Hamish; and this very instant, too. If the gale begins,
how will you get ashore? Good-by, Hamish--good-night!"
Another white sheet of flame quivered all around them, just as this black
figure was descending into the gig; and then the fierce hell of sounds broke
loose once more. Sea and sky together seemed to shudder at the wild
uproar, and far away the sounds went thundering through the hollow night.
How could one hear if there was any sobbing in that departing boat, or any
last cry of farewell? It was Ulva calling now, and Fladda answering from
over the black water; and the Dutchman is surely awake at last!

There came a stirring of wind from the east, and the sea began to moan.
Surely the poor fugitives must have reached the shore now. And then there
was a strange noise in the distance: in the awful silence between the peals
of thunder it would be heard; it came nearer and nearer--a low murmuring
noise, but full of a secret life and thrill--it came along like the tread of a
thousand armies--and then the gale struck its first blow. The yacht reeled
under the stroke, but her bows staggered up again like a dog that has been
felled, and after one or two convulsive plunges she clung hard at the
strained cables. And now the gale was growing in fury, and the sea rising.
Blinding showers of rain swept over, hissing and roaring; the white tongues
of flame were shooting this way and that across the startled heavens; and
there was a more awful thunder than even the falling of the Atlantic surge
booming into the great sea-caves. In the abysmal darkness the spectral arms
of the ocean rose white in their angry clamor; and then another blue gleam
would lay bare the great heaving and wreathing bosom of the deep. What
devil's dance is this? Surely it cannot be Ulva--Ulva the green-shored--Ulva
that the sailors, in their love of her, call softly Ool-a-va--that is laughing
aloud with wild laughter on this awful night? And Colonsay, and Lunga,
and Fladda--they were beautiful and quiet in the still summer-time; but now
they have gone mad, and they are flinging back the plunging sea in white
masses of foam, and they are shrieking in their fierce joy of the strife. And
Staffa--Staffa is far away and alone; she is trembling to her core: how long
will the shuddering caves withstand the mighty hammer of the Atlantic
surge? And then again the sudden wild gleam startles the night, and one
sees, with an appalling vividness, the driven white waves and the black
islands; and then again a thousand echoes go booming, along the iron-
bound coast. What can be heard in the roar of the hurricane, and the hissing
of rain, and the thundering whirl of the waves on the rocks? Surely not the
one glad last cry: SWEETHEART! YOUR HEALTH! YOUR HEALTH IN
THE COAL-BLACK WINE!

The poor fugitives crouching in among the rocks--is it the blinding rain or
the driven white surf that is in their eyes? But they have sailors' eyes; they
can see through the awful storm; and their gaze is fixed on one small green
point far out there in the blackness--the starboard light of the doomed ship.
It wavers like a will-o'-the-wisp, but it does not recede; the old Umpire still
clings bravely to her chain cables.

And amidst all the din of the storm they hear the voice of Hamish lifted
aloud in lamentation:--
"Oh, the brave lad! the brave lad! And who is to save my young master
now? and who will carry this tale back to Castle Dare? They will say to me,
'Hamish, you had charge of the young lad; you put the first gun in his hand;
you had charge of him; he had the love of a son for you: what is it you have
done with him this night?' He is my Absalom; he is my brave young lad: oh,
do you think that I will let him drown and do nothing to try to save him? Do
you think that? Duncan Cameron, are you a man? Will you get into the gig
with me and pull out to the Umpire?"
"By God," said Duncan Cameron, solemnly, "I will do that! I have no wife;
I do not care. I will go into the gig with you, Hamish; but we will never
reach the yacht--this night or any night that is to come."
Then the old woman Christina shrieked aloud, and caught her husband by
the arm.
"Hamish! Hamish! Are you going to drown yourself before my eyes?"
He shook her hand away from him.
"My young master ordered me ashore: I have come ashore. But I myself, I
order myself back again. Duncan Cameron, they will never say that we
stood by and saw Macleod of Dare go down to his grave!"
They emerged from the shelter of this great rock; the hurricane was so
fierce that they had to cling to one bowlder after another to save themselves
from being whirled into the sea. But were these two men by themselves?
Not likely! It was a party of five men that now clambered along the slippery
rocks to the shingle up which they had hauled the gig, and one wild
lightning-flash saw them with their hands on the gunwale, ready to drag her
down to the water. There was a surf raging there that would have swamped
twenty gigs: these five men were going of their own free will and choice to
certain death--so much had they loved the young master.
But a piercing cry from Christina arrested them. They looked out to sea.
What was this sudden and awful thing? Instead of the starboard green light,
behold! the port red light--and that moving! Oh, see! how it recedes,

wavering, flickering through the whirling vapor of the storm! And there
again is the green light! Is it a witch's dance, or are they strange death-fires
hovering over the dark ocean-grave? But Hamish knows too well what it
means; and with a wild cry of horror and despair, the old man sinks on his
knees and clasps his hands, and stretches them out to the terrible sea.
"O, Macleod, Macleod! are you going away from me forever? and we will
go up the hills together and on the lochs together no more--no more--no
more! Oh, the brave lad that he was! and the good master! And who was not
proud of him--my handsome lad--and he the last of the Macleods of Dare?"
Arise, Hamish, and have the gig hauled up into shelter; for will you not
want it when the gale abates, and the seas are smooth, and you have to go
away, to Dare, you and your comrades, with silent tongues and sombre
eyes? Why this wild lamentation in the darkness of the night? The stricken
heart that you loved so well has found peace at last; the coal-black wine has
been drunk: there is an end! And you, you poor, cowering fugitives, who
only see each other's terrified faces when the wan gleam of the lightning
blazes through the sky, perhaps it is well that you should weep and wail for
the young master; but that is soon over, and the day will break. And this is
what I am thinking of now: when the light comes and the seas are smooth,
then which of you--oh, which of you all will tell this tale to the two women
at Castle Dare?

So fair shines the morning sun on the white sands of Iona! The three-days'
gale is over. Behold how Ulva--Ulva the green-shored--the Ool-a-va that
the sailors love--is laughing out again to the clear skies! And the great
skarts on the shores of Erisgeir are spreading abroad their dusky wings to
get them dried in the sun; and the seals are basking on the rocks in Loch-na-
Keal; and in Loch Scridain the white gulls sit buoyant on the blue sea.
There go the Gometra men in their brown-sailed boat to look after the
lobster traps at Staffa, and very soon you will see the steamer come round
the far Cailleach Point; over at Erraidh they are signaling to the men at
Dubh-Artach, and they are glad to have a message from them after the
heavy gale. The new, bright day has begun; the world has awakened again
to the joyous sunlight; there is a chattering of the sea-birds all along the

shores. It is a bright, eager, glad day for all the world. But there is silence in
Castle Dare!

SHEILA IN LONDON

From 'A Princess of Thule'

She asked if they were lords who owned those beautiful houses built up on
the hill, and half-smothered among lilacs and ash-trees and rowan-trees and
ivy.
"My darling," Lavender had said to her, "if your papa were to come and live
here, he could buy half a dozen of these cottages, gardens and all. They are
mostly the property of well-to-do shopkeepers. If this little place takes your
fancy, what will you say when you go South--when you see Wimbledon and
Richmond and Kew, with their grand old commons and trees? Why, you
could hide Oban in a corner of Richmond Park!"
"And my papa has seen all these places?"
"Yes. Don't you think it strange he should have seen them all, and known he
could live in any of them, and then gone away back to Borva?"
"But what would the poor people have done if he had never gone back?"
"Oh, some one else would have taken his place."
"And then, if he were living here, or in London, he might have got tired,
and he might have wished to go back to the Lewis and see all the people he
knew; and then he would come among them like a stranger, and have no
house to go to."
Then Lavender said, quite gently:--

"Do you think, Sheila, you will ever tire of living in the South?"
The girl looked up quickly, and said with a sort of surprised questioning in
her eyes:--
"No, not with you. But then we shall often go to the Lewis?"
"Oh, yes," her husband said, "as often as we can conveniently. But it will
take some time at first, you know, before you get to know all my friends,
who are to be your friends, and before you get properly fitted with your
social circle. That will take you a long time, Sheila, and you may have
many annoyances or embarrassments to encounter; but you won't be very
much afraid, my girl?"
Sheila merely looked up to him; there was no fear in the frank, brave eyes.
The first large town she saw struck a cold chill to her heart. On a wet and
dismal afternoon they sailed into Greenock. A heavy smoke hung about the
black building-yards and the dirty quays; the narrow and squalid streets
were filled with mud, and only the poorer sections of the population waded
through the mire or hung disconsolately about the corners of the thorough-
fares. A gloomier picture could not well be conceived; and Sheila, chilled
with the long and wet sail and bewildered by the noise and bustle of the
harbor, was driven to the hotel with a sore heart and a downcast face.
"This is not like London, Frank?" she said, pretty nearly ready to cry with
disappointment.
"This? No. Well, it is like a part of London, certainly, but not the part you
will live in."
"But how can we live in the one place without passing the other and being
made miserable by it? There was no part of Oban like this."
"Why, you will live miles away from the docks and quays of London. You
might live for a lifetime in London without ever knowing it had a harbor.
Don't you be afraid, Sheila. You will live in a district where there are far
finer houses than any you saw in Oban, and far finer trees; and within a few
minutes' walk you will find great gardens and parks, with lakes in them and

wild fowls, and you will be able to teach the boys about how to set the helm
and the sails when they are launching their small boats."
"I should like that," said Sheila, her face brightening.
"Perhaps you would like a boat yourself?"
"Yes," she said, frankly. "If there were not many people there, we might go
out sometimes in the evening--"
Her husband laughed and took her hand: "You don't understand, Sheila. The
boats the boys have are little things a foot or two long--like the one in your
papa's bedroom in Borva. But many of the boys would be greatly obliged to
you if you would teach them how to manage the sails properly, for
sometimes dreadful shipwrecks occur."
"You must bring them to our house. I am very fond of little boys, when they
begin to forget to be shy, and let you become acquainted with them."
"Well," said Lavender, "I don't know many of the boys who sail boats in the
Serpentine: you will have to make their acquaintance yourself. But I know
one boy whom I must bring to the house. He is a German-Jew boy, who is
going to be another Mendelssohn, his friends say. He is a pretty boy, with
ruddy-brown hair, big black eyes, and a fine forehead; and he really sings
and plays delightfully. But you know, Sheila, you must not treat him as a
boy, for he is over fourteen, I should think; and if you were to kiss him--"
"He might be angry," said Sheila, with perfect simplicity.
"I might," said Lavender; and then, noticing that she seemed a little
surprised, he merely patted her head and bade her go and get ready for
dinner.
Then came the great climax of Sheila's southward journey--her arrival in
London. She was all anxiety to see her future home; and as luck would have
it, there was a fair spring morning shining over the city. For a couple of
hours before, she had sat and looked out of the carriage-window as the train
whirled rapidly through the scarcely awakened country, and she had seen
the soft and beautiful landscapes of the South lit up by the early sunlight.
How the bright little villages shone, with here and there a gilt weathercock

glittering on the spire of some small gray church, while as yet in many
valleys a pale gray mist lay along the bed of the level streams or clung to
the dense woods on the upland heights! Which was the more beautiful--the
sharp, clear picture, with its brilliant colors and its awakening life, or the
more mystic landscape over which was still drawn the tender veil of the
morning haze? She could not tell. She only knew that England, as she then
saw it, seemed a great country that was very beautiful, that had few
inhabitants, and that was still and sleepy and bathed in sunshine. How
happy must the people be who lived in those quiet green valleys by the side
of slow and smooth rivers, and amid great woods and avenues of stately
trees, the like of which she had not imagined even in her dreams!
But from the moment that they got out at Euston Square she seemed a trifle
bewildered, and could only do implicitly as her husband bade her--clinging
to his hand, for the most part, as if to make sure of guidance. She did indeed
glance somewhat nervously at the hansom into which Lavender put her,
apparently asking how such a tall and narrow two-wheeled vehicle could be
prevented toppling over. But when he, having sent on all their luggage by a
respectable old four-wheeler, got into the hansom beside her, and put his
hand inside her arm, and bade her be of good cheer that she should have
such a pleasant morning to welcome her to London, she said "Yes,"
mechanically, and only looked out in a wistful fashion at the great houses
and trees of Euston Square, the mighty and roaring stream of omnibuses,
the droves of strangers, mostly clad in black, as if they were going to
church, and the pale blue smoke that seemed to mix with the sunshine and
make it cold and distant.
They were in no hurry, these two, on that still morning; and so, to impress
Sheila all at once with a sense of the greatness and grandeur of London, he
made the cabman cut down by Park Crescent and Portland Place to Regent
Circus. Then they went along Oxford Street; and there were crowded
omnibuses taking young men into the city, while all the pavements were
busy with hurrying passers-by. What multitudes of unknown faces,
unknown to her and unknown to each other! These people did not speak:
they only hurried on, each intent upon his own affairs, caring nothing,
apparently, for the din around them, and looking so strange and sad in their
black clothes in the pale and misty sunlight.

"You are in a trance, Sheila," he said.
She did not answer. Surely she had wandered into some magical city, for
now the houses on one side of the way suddenly ceased, and she saw before
her a great and undulating extent of green, with a border of beautiful
flowers, and with groups of trees that met the sky all along the southern
horizon. Did the green and beautiful country she had seen, shoot in thus into
the heart of the town, or was there another city far away on the other side of
the trees? The place was almost as deserted as those still valleys she had
passed by in the morning. Here in the street there was the roar of a passing
crowd; but there was a long and almost deserted stretch of park, with
winding roads and umbrageous trees, on which the wan sunlight fell from
between loose masses of half-golden cloud.
Then they passed Kensington Gardens, and there were more people walking
down the broad highways between the elms.
"You are getting nearly home now, Sheila," he said. "And you will be able
to come and walk in these avenues whenever you please."
Was this, then, her home? this section of a barrack-row of dwellings, all
alike in steps, pillars, doors, and windows? When she got inside, the servant
who had opened the door bobbed a courtesy to her: should she shake hands
with her and say. "And are you ferry well?" But at this moment Lavender
came running up the steps, playfully hurried her into the house and up the
stairs, and led her into her own drawing-room. "Well, darling, what do you
think of your home, now that you see it?"
Sheila looked around timidly. It was not a big room, but it was a palace in
height and grandeur and color compared with that little museum in Borva in
which Sheila's piano stood. It was all so strange and beautiful--the split
pomegranates and quaint leaves on the upper part of the walls, and
underneath a dull slate-color where the pictures hung; the curious painting
on the frames of the mirrors; the brilliant curtains, with their stiff and
formal patterns. It was not very much like a home as yet; it was more like a
picture that had been carefully planned and executed; but she knew how he
had thought of pleasing her in choosing these things, and without saying a
word she took his hand and kissed it. And then she went to one of the three
tall French windows and looked out on the square. There, between the trees,

was a space of beautiful soft green; and some children dressed in bright
dresses, and attended by a governess in sober black, had just begun to play
croquet. An elderly lady with a small white dog was walking along one of
the graveled paths. An old man was pruning some bushes.
"It is very still and quiet here," said Sheila. "I was afraid we should have to
live in that terrible noise always."
"I hope you won't find it dull, my darling," he said.
"Dull, when you are here?"
"But I cannot always be here, you know."
She looked up.
"You see, a man is so much in the way if he is dawdling about a house all
day long. You would begin to regard me as a nuisance, Sheila, and would be
for sending me to play croquet with those young Carruthers, merely that
you might get the rooms dusted. Besides, you know I couldn't work here: I
must have a studio of some sort--in the neighborhood, of course. And then
you will give me your orders in the morning as to when I am to come round
for luncheon or dinner."
"And you will be alone all day at your work?"
"Yes."
"Then I will come and sit with you, my poor boy," she said.
"Much work I should do in that case!" he said. "But we'll see. In the mean
time go up-stairs and get your things off: that young person below has
breakfast ready, I dare say."
"But you have not shown me yet where Mr. Ingram lives," said Sheila
before she went to the door.
"Oh, that is miles away. You have only seen a little bit of London yet.
Ingram lives about as far away from here as the distance you have just
come, but in another direction."

"It is like a world made of houses," said Sheila, "and all filled with
strangers. But you will take me to see Mr. Ingram?"
"By-and-by, yes. But he is sure to drop in on you as soon as he fancies you
are settled in your new home."
And here at last was Mr. Ingram come; and the mere sound of his voice
seemed to carry her back to Borva, so that in talking to him and waiting on
him as of old, she would scarcely have been surprised if her father had
walked in to say that a coaster was making for the harbor, or that Duncan
was going over to Stornoway, and Sheila would have to give him
commissions.
Her husband did not take the same interest in the social and political affairs
of Borva that Mr. Ingram did. Lavender had made a pretense of assisting
Sheila in her work among the poor people, but the effort was a hopeless
failure. He could not remember the name of the family that wanted a new
boat, and was visibly impatient when Sheila would sit down to write out for
some aged crone a letter to her grandson in Canada. Now Ingram, for the
mere sake of occupation, had qualified himself during his various visits to
Lewis, so that he might have become the home minister of the King of
Borva; and Sheila was glad to have one attentive listener as she described
all the wonderful things that had happened in the island since the previous
summer.
But Ingram had got a full and complete holiday on which to come up and
see Sheila; and he had brought with him the wild and startling proposal that
in order that she should take her first plunge into the pleasures of civilized
life, her husband and herself should drive down to Richmond and dine at
the Star and Garter.
"What is that?" said Sheila.
"My dear girl," said her husband, seriously, "your ignorance is something
fearful to contemplate. It is quite bewildering. How can a person who does
not know what the Star and Garter is, be told what the Star and Garter is?"
"But I am willing to go and see," said Sheila.
"Then I must look after getting a brougham," said Lavender, rising.

"A brougham on such a day as this?" exclaimed Ingram. "Nonsense! Get an
open trap of some sort; and Sheila, just to please me, will put on that very
blue dress she used to wear in Borva, and the hat and the white feather, if
she has got them."
"Perhaps you would like me to put on a sealskin cap and a red handkerchief
instead of a collar," observed Lavender, calmly.
"You may do as you please. Sheila and I are going to dine at the Star and
Garter."
"May I put on that blue dress?" said the girl, going up to her husband.
"Yes, of course, if you like," said Lavender meekly, going off to order the
carriage, and wondering by what route he could drive those two maniacs
down to Richmond so that none of his friends should see them.
When he came back again, bringing with him a landau which could be shut
up for the homeward journey at night, he had to confess that no costume
seemed to suit Sheila so well as the rough sailor dress; and he was so
pleased with her appearance that he consented at once to let Bras go with
them in the carriage, on condition that Sheila should be responsible for him.
Indeed, after the first shiver of driving away from the square was over, he
forgot that there was much unusual about the look of this odd pleasure
party. If you had told him eighteen months before that on a bright day in
May, just as people were going home from the Park for luncheon, he would
go for a drive in a hired trap with one horse, his companions being a man
with a brown wide-awake, a girl dressed as though she were the owner of a
yacht, and an immense deerhound, and that in this fashion he would dare to
drive up to the Star and Garter and order dinner, he would have bet five
hundred to one that such a thing would never occur so long as he preserved
his senses. But somehow he did not mind much. He was very much at home
with those two people beside him; the day was bright and fresh; the horse
went a good pace; and once they were over Hammersmith Bridge and out
among fields and trees, the country looked exceedingly pretty, and all the
beauty of it was mirrored in Sheila's eyes.
"I can't quite make you out in that dress, Sheila," he said. "I am not sure
whether it is real and business-like or a theatrical costume. I have seen girls

on Ryde Pier with something of the same sort on, only a good deal more
pronounced, you know, and they looked like sham yachtsmen; and I have
seen stewardesses wearing that color and texture of cloth--"
"But why not leave it as it is," said Ingram--"a solitary costume produced
by certain conditions of climate and duties, acting in conjunction with a
natural taste for harmonious coloring and simple form? That dress, I will
maintain, sprang as naturally from the salt sea as Aphrodite did; and the
man who suspects artifice in it, or invention, has had his mind perverted by
the skepticism of modern society."
"Is my dress so very wonderful?" said Sheila, with a grave complacence. "I
am pleased that the Lewis has produced such a fine thing, and perhaps you
would like me to tell you its history. It was my papa bought a piece of blue
serge in Stornoway: it cost three shillings sixpence a yard, and a dressmaker
in Stornoway cut it for me, and I made it myself. That is all the history of
the wonderful dress."
Suddenly Sheila seized her husband's arm. They had got down to the river
by Mortlake; and there, on the broad bosom of the stream, a long and
slender boat was shooting by, pulled by four oarsmen clad in white flannel.
"How can they go out in such a boat?" said Sheila, with great alarm visible
in her eyes. "It is scarcely a boat at all; and if they touch a rock, or if the
wind catches them--"
"Don't be frightened, Sheila," said her husband. "They are quite safe. There
are no rocks in our rivers, and the wind does not give us squalls here like
those on Loch Roag. You will see hundreds of those boats by and by, and
perhaps you yourself will go out in one."
"Oh, never, never!" she said, almost with a shudder.
"Why, if the people here heard you they would not know how brave a sailor
you are. You are not afraid to go out at night by yourself on the sea, and you
won't go on a smooth inland river--"
"But those boats: if you touch them they must go over."

She seemed glad to get away from the river. She could not be persuaded of
the safety of the slender craft of the Thames; and indeed, for some time
after seemed so strangely depressed that Lavender begged and prayed of her
to tell him what was the matter. It was simple enough. She had heard him
speak of his boating adventures. Was it in such boats as that she had just
seen? and might he not be some day going out in one of them and an
accident--the breaking of an oar, a gust of wind--
There was nothing for it but to reassure her by a solemn promise that in no
circumstances whatever would he, Lavender, go into a boat without her
express permission, whereupon Sheila was as grateful to him as though he
had dowered her with a kingdom.
This was not the Richmond Hill of her fancy--this spacious height; with its
great mansions, its magnificent elms, and its view of all the westward and
wooded country, with the blue-white streak of the river winding through the
green foliage. Where was the farm? The famous Lass of Richmond Hill
must have lived on a farm; but here surely were the houses of great lords
and nobles, which had apparently been there for years and years. And was
this really a hotel that they stopped at--this great building that she could
only compare to Stornoway Castle?
"Now, Sheila," said Lavender, after they had ordered dinner and gone out,
"mind you keep a tight hold on that leash, for Bras will see strange things in
the Park."
"It is I who will see strange things," she said; and the prophecy was amply
fulfilled. For as they went along the broad path, and came better into view
of the splendid undulation of woodland and pasture and fern, when on the
one hand they saw the Thames far below them flowing through the green
and spacious valley, and on the other hand caught some dusky glimpse of
the far white houses of London, it seemed to her that she had got into a new
world, and that this world was far more beautiful than the great city she had
left. She did not care so much for the famous view from the hill. She had
cast one quick look to the horizon, with one throb of expectation that the
sea might be there. There was no sea there--only the faint blue of long lines
of country, apparently without limit. Moreover, over the western landscape
a faint haze prevailed, that increased in the distance and softened down the

more distant woods into a sober gray. That great extent of wooded plain,
lying sleepily in its pale mists, was not so cheerful as the scene around her,
where the sunlight was sharp and clear, the air fresh, the trees flooded with
a pure and bright color. Here indeed was a cheerful and beautiful world, and
she was full of curiosity to know all about it and its strange features. What
was the name of this tree? and how did it differ from that? Were not these
rabbits over by the fence? and did rabbits live in the midst of trees and
bushes? What sort of wood was the fence made of? and was it not terribly
expensive to have such a protection? Could not he tell the cost of a wooden
fence? Why did they not use wire netting? Was not that a loch away down
there? and what was its name? A loch without a name! Did the salmon
come up to it? and did any sea-birds ever come inland and build their nests
on its margin?
"O, Bras, you must come and look at the loch. It is a long time since you
will see a loch."
And away she went through the thick bracken, holding on to the swaying
leash that held the galloping greyhound, and running swiftly as though she
had been making down for the shore to get out the Maighdean-mhara.
"Sheila," called her husband, "don't be foolish!"
"Sheila," called Ingram, "have pity on an old man!"
Suddenly she stopped. A brace of partridges had sprung up at some
distance, and with a wild whirr of their wings were now directing their low
and rapid flight toward the bottom of the valley.
"What birds are those?" she said peremptorily.
She took no notice of the fact that her companions were pretty nearly too
blown to speak. There was a brisk life and color in her face, and all her
attention was absorbed in watching the flight of the birds. Lavender fancied
he saw in the fixed and keen look something of old Mackenzie's gray eye: it
was not the first trace of a likeness to her father he had seen.
"You bad girl!" he said, "they are partridges."

She paid no heed to this reproach, for what were those other things over
there underneath the trees? Bras had pricked up his ears, and there was a
strange excitement in his look and in his trembling frame.
"Deer!" she cried, with her eyes as fixed as were those of the dog beside
her.
"Well," said her husband calmly, "what although they are deer?"
"But Bras--" she said; and with that she caught the leash with both her
hands,
"Bras won't mind them if you keep him quiet. I suppose you can manage
him better than I can. I wish we had brought a whip."
"I would rather let him kill every deer in the Park than touch him with a
whip," said Sheila proudly.
"You fearful creature, you don't know what you say. That is high treason. If
George Ranger heard you, he would have you hanged in front of the Star
and Garter."
"Who is George Ranger?" said Sheila with an air as if she had said, "Do you
know that I am the daughter of the King of Borva, and whoever touches me
will have to answer to my papa, who is not afraid of any George Ranger?"
"He is a great lord who hangs all persons who disturb the deer in this Park."
"But why do they not go away?" said Sheila impatiently. "I have never seen
any deer so stupid. It is their own fault if they are disturbed: why do they
remain so near to people and to houses?"
"My dear child, if Bras wasn't here you would probably find some of those
deer coming up to see if you had any bits of sugar or pieces of bread about
your pockets."
"Then they are like sheep--they are not like deer," she said with some
contempt. "If I could only tell Bras that it is sheep he will be looking at, he
would not look any more. And so small they are! They are as small as the
roe, but they have horns as big as many of the red-deer. Do people eat
them?"

"I suppose so."
"And what will they cost?"
"I am sure I can't tell you."
"Are they as good as the roe or the big deer?"
"I don't know that either. I don't think I ever ate fallow-deer. But you know
they are not kept here for that purpose. A great many gentlemen in this
country keep a lot of them in their parks merely to look pretty. They cost a
great deal more than they produce."
"They must eat up a great deal of fine grass," said Sheila almost
sorrowfully. "It is a beautiful ground for sheep--no rushes, no peat moss,
only fine good grass and dry land. I should like my papa to see all this
beautiful ground."
"I fancy he has seen it."
"Was my papa here?"
"I think he said so."
"And did he see those deer?"
"Doubtless."
"He never told me of them."
By this time they had pretty nearly got down to the little lake, and Bras had
been alternately coaxed and threatened into a quiescent mood.
Sheila evidently expected to hear a flapping of sea-fowls' wings when they
got near the margin; and looked all round for the first sudden dart from the
banks. But a dead silence prevailed; and as there were neither fish nor birds
to watch, she went along to a wooden bench and sat down there, one of her
companions on each hand. It was a pretty scene that lay before her--the
small stretch of water ruffled with the wind, but showing a dash of blue sky
here and there--the trees in the inclosure beyond, clad in their summer
foliage, the smooth greensward shining in the afternoon sunlight. Here at
least was absolute quiet after the roar of London; and it was somewhat

wistfully that she asked her husband how far this place was from her home,
and whether, when he was at work, she could not come down here by
herself.
"Certainly," he said, never dreaming that she would think of doing such a
thing.
By-and-by they returned to the hotel; and while they sat at dinner a great
fire of sunset spread over the west; and the far woods became of a rich
purple, streaked here and there with lines of pale white mist. The river
caught the glow of the crimson clouds above, and shone duskily red amid
the dark green of the trees. Deeper and deeper grew the color of the sun as it
sank to the horizon, until it disappeared behind one low bar of purple cloud;
and then the wild glow in the west slowly faded away; the river became
pallid and indistinct; the white mists over the distant woods seemed to grow
denser; and then, as here and there a lamp was lit far down in the valley, one
or two pale stars appeared in the sky overhead, and the night came on
apace.
"It is so strange," Sheila said, "to find the darkness coming on, and not to
hear the sound of the waves. I wonder if it is a fine night at Borva."
Her husband went over to her and led her back to the table, where the
candles, shining over the white cloth and the colored glasses, offered a more
cheerful picture than the darkening landscape outside. They were in a
private room; so that when dinner was over, Sheila was allowed to amuse
herself with the fruit, while her two companions lit their cigars. Where was
the quaint old piano now; and the glass of hot whisky and water; and the
'Lament of Monaltrie,' or 'Love in thine eyes forever plays'? It seemed, but
for the greatness of the room, to be a repetition of one of those evenings at
Borva that now belonged to a far-off past. Here was Sheila, not minding the
smoke, listening to Ingram as of old, and sometimes saying something in
that sweetly inflected speech of hers; here was Ingram, talking, as it were,
out of a brown study, and morosely objecting to pretty nearly everything
Lavender said, but always ready to prove Sheila right; and Lavender
himself, as unlike a married man as ever, talking impatiently, impetuously,
and wildly, except at such times as he said something to his young wife, and
then some brief smile and look, or some pat on the hand, said more than

words. But where, Sheila may have thought, was the one wanting to
complete the group? Has he gone down to Borvabost to see about the
cargoes of fish to be sent off in the morning? Perhaps he is talking to
Duncan outside about the cleaning of the guns, or making up cartridges in
the kitchen. When Sheila's attention wandered away from the talk of her
companions, she could not help listening for the sound of the waves; and as
there was no such message coming to her from the great wooded plain
without, her fancy took her away across that mighty country she had
traveled through, and carried her up to the island of Loch Roag, until she
almost fancied she could smell the peat-smoke in the night air, and listen to
the sea, and hear her father pacing up and down the gravel outside the
house, perhaps thinking of her as she was thinking of him.
This little excursion to Richmond was long remembered by those three. It
was the last of their meetings before Sheila was ushered into the big world
to busy herself with new occupations and cares. It was a pleasant little
journey throughout; for as they got into the landau to drive back to town,
the moon was shining high up in the southern heavens, and the air was mild
and fresh, so that they had the carriage opened, and Sheila, well wrapped
up, lay and looked around her with a strange wonder and joy as they drove
underneath the shadow of the trees and out again into the clear sheen of the
night. They saw the river, too, flowing smoothly and palely down between
its dark banks; and somehow here the silence checked them, and they
hummed no more those duets they used to sing up at Borva. Of what were
they thinking, then, as they drove through the clear night along the lonely
road? Lavender at least was rejoicing at his great good fortune that he had
secured for ever to himself the true-hearted girl who now sat opposite to
him, with the moonlight touching her face and hair; and he was laughing to
himself at the notion that he did not properly appreciate her or understand
her or perceive her real character. If not he, who then? Had he not watched
every turn of her disposition, every expression of her wishes, every grace of
her manner and look of her eyes? and was he not overjoyed to find that the
more he knew of her the more he loved her? Marriage had increased rather
than diminished the mystery and wonder he had woven about her. He was
more her lover now than he had been before his marriage. Who could see in
her eyes what he saw? Elderly folks can look at a girl's eyes, and see that
they are brown or blue or green, as the case may be; but the lover looks at

them and sees in them the magic mirror of a hundred possible worlds. How
can he fathom the sea of dreams that lies there, or tell what strange fancies
and reminiscences may be involved in an absent look? Is she thinking of
starlit nights on some distant lake, or of the old bygone days on the hills?
All her former life is told there, and yet but half told, and he longs to
become possessed of all the beautiful past that she has seen. Here is a
constant mystery to him, and there is a singular and wistful attraction for
him in those still deeps where the thoughts and dreams of an innocent soul
lie but half revealed. He does not see those things in the eyes of women he
is not in love with; but when in after years he is carelessly regarding this or
the other woman, some chance look, some brief and sudden turn of
expression, will recall to him, as with a stroke of lightning, all the old
wonder-time, and his heart will go nigh to breaking to think that he has
grown old, and that he has forgotten so much, and that the fair, wild days of
romance and longing are passed away forever.

RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
(1825-)

he literary success of Blackmore came late in life. He was born in
Longworth, Berkshire, England, in 1825, was graduated at Exeter College,
Oxford, and afterwards studied law in the Middle Temple, practicing his
profession as a conveyancer.
But his heart was in an outdoor life. Like his own John Ridd, the hero of
'Lorna Doone,' he is a man of the moors and fields, with a fresh breeze
blowing over him and a farmer's cares in his mind. In 1854-5 he published
several volumes of poems under the pen-name of "Melanter." 'The Bugle of
the Black Sea' and a complete translation of Virgil's 'Georgics' appeared in
1871.
Other volumes of verse followed, of which it may be said that he is a poet
more sensitive to influence than fertile in original impulse; although some
of his prose, in which even rhythm is observed in what seems to be an
unconscious manner, displays high original quality. It is therefore fair to say
of him as a poet that while his works did not gain him the reputation that
has placed him among the foremost literary men of the day, the subtle
influence rural nature exerts on man, and the part it bears in the sweet
harmonies of life, are told in passages that are resonant with melody.
The poet's delight is in the prosperity of the fields, as if they were his
friends, and in the dumb loving motherhood with which all nature seems, to
his eyes, to surround him.
As the precursor of a summer that yielded such a mellow harvest, the spring
of Mr. Blackmore's fiction was slow and intermittent. The plot of his stories
is never probable, but in his first novel, 'Clara Vaughan,' published in 1864,
it impairs belief in the general reality of the book; and though there is hint
of the power to excite sympathy of which his latter novels prove him so

great a master, the intelligence refuses such shrieking melodrama. 'Lorna
Doone' therefore came unheralded. It was published in London in 1869 and
slowly grew in favor, then leaped into popularity. In 1878 twenty-two
editions had been printed.
Other novels followed. 'The Maid of Sker,' 'Alice Lorraine,' 'Cripps the
Carrier,' 'Erema,' 'Mary Anerley,' 'Christowell,' 'Sir Thomas Upton,' came in
rapid succession. The paternity of no novel of Mr. Blackmore's is doubtful.
All have marked characteristics. They are long and exceedingly minute in
detail. With all his finish, he tells his story almost with a child's
elaborateness of incident. Every change of the seasons, the history of every
walk is set down. He is in love with every feature of the landscape, be it the
wild doons of Exmoor or the wilder Yorkshire coast, or, across the seas, the
plains of the Sierras. He is a story-teller of the days in which it was quite
unimportant whether tales should come to an end or not. He would have
saved Scheherazade all her trouble and enjoyed the task. He cannot pass
carelessly by the slightest incident; it is his nature to approfondir all his
surroundings: if the hero breaks his stirrup and stops at the blacksmith's to
have it mended, the blacksmith will appear at the end of the story united to
the rider, from the third and fourth generation, by a subtle thread of
connection. But all these details, while they encumber the tale, contribute to
a harmonious whole; for he has in a peculiar degree an instinct for the
judicious introduction of telling human characters that are as much a part of
the detail of the scene as the trees and stones. Upon these characters he
expends a wealth of humor, and his humor is characteristic of Blackmore
alone. It is full of unexpected turns and twists of fancy, quiet fun when we
expect grave comment. Friendly old people appear, full of innumerable
quips of individuality, and breezy fields and wealthy orchards and a general
mellow fruitfulness form the background of the play.
Especially in his prodigality is Blackmore characteristic of Blackmore.
Other writers keep their quaint reflections for their dialogue, and confer
immortality on their principal characters. But Blackmore has no sense of
economy. As Mr. Saintsbury says of Thackeray, he could not introduce a
personage, however subordinate, without making him a living creature. He
does little with a character he has described in such powerful lines as
Stephen Anerley. The fisher village folks, wild and hardy, with their slow
speech and sly sagacity, the men at sea and the women at home; the maimed

and broken-down yet jolly old tars; the anxious little merchants, and the
heavy coast-guardsmen, we learn to know as we know the rocks and caves,
the fishing cobbles in their bright colors, the slow-tongued gossips pouring
out their long-voweled speech. All these characters, although they have a
general resemblance to each other, have also a peculiar, quaint simplicity
and wisdom that is Blackmoreish, as Thackeray's characters are
Thackeraian. The author steps in and gives his puppets his little twist, the
characteristic obliquity each possesses, his quips and cranks. If he would
but confine the abundant tide of his flowing and leisurely utterances, he
would have more time to bestow on really exciting and dramatic episodes,
instead of going off into a little corner and carefully embellishing it, while
the denouement waits and the interest grows cold. Neither can he write a
page without sending a sly bolt of amused perception through it, in which
he discovers some foible or pricks some bubble of pretension, but always
tenderly, as if he loved his victim. To the fact that Mr. Blackmore's success
came late in life, we have perhaps to be thankful for the softened and
indulgent maturity which finds a hundred excuses, and knows that nothing
is as good or as bad as it seems.

The best expression of his genius in the delineation of character is not--with
perhaps the exception of John Ridd--in his heroes and heroines. The former
are drawn with the stronger hand. The maidens are pretty girls, sweet and
good and brave for the sake of their fathers, and cunning for their lovers.
His young men are gallant and true; but as exemplary love is apt to run
smooth, it is not here that the drama finds the necessary amount of difficulty
and pain. The interest centres in such delicious conceptions as Parson Short,
full of muscular energy and sound doctrine, in Dr. Uperandown, his salt-
water parish rival, the carrier Cripps, Parson Chowne, and the renowned
highwayman Tom Faggus, of whom they were immensely proud. These
people, before he has done with them, get hold of our sympathies, while the
author keeps perennially fresh his enjoyment of human follies. His rustics

do not talk with elaborate humor, nor are they amiable, but they are racy of
the soil.
One cannot dismiss a novelist without a reference to his plots, unless indeed
he discards plots as an article of faith. Mr. Blackmore has no such intention.
His stories are full of adventure and dramatic situations, and his melodrama
is of the lurid kind on which the calcium light is thrown. Sometimes, as in
'The Maid of Sker' and 'Cripps' they violate every probability. In others, as
in 'Mary Anerley,' the mystery is childishly simple, the oft-repeated plot of a
lost child recovered by certain strangely wrought gold buttons. In 'Erema,'
the narrative suffers for want of vraisemblance, and loses by being related
by a very young girl who has had no opportunity of becoming familiar with
the world she describes. He is constantly guilty of that splendid mendacity
which fiction loves, but which is nearly impossible to actual life. Self-
sacrifice as depicted in 'Christowell,' involving much suffering to little
purpose, is unsatisfactory; and it is a sin against the verities to make
unreasonable generosity the basis of fiction representing life.
But while the reader quarrels with a waste of precious material, Mr.
Blackmore pursues his meditative way, with his smile of genial observation,
himself the best of all his personages. The smell of the heather and the wild
moorland odors, the honeyed grass and the fragrant thyme, the darker
breathings of the sea, get into his pages and render them fragrant. A few
villages lie on the edge of that wild region, and a living trout stream darts
by, but the landscape does not obtrude itself nor interrupt the story. The
quaint philosophy flows on spontaneously, with a tender humanity and
cheerful fun. A writer like this may be pardoned if he is an indifferent
builder of a tale.
The scene of 'Lorna Doone,' the novelist's masterpiece, is laid in
Devonshire; and what Wordsworth did for the lake country, Blackmore has
done for the fairest county in England. The time is that of Charles II. The
book is historical, it is very long, it is minute in detail, and it is
melodramatic: but it is alive. The strange adventures may or may not have
happened, but we believe in them, for it is real life that is set before us; and
whatever the author may tell us of robber caves and black-hearted villains,
there is nothing incredible in any of his confidences. Nothing in recent
novel writing is more vivid than the contrast between these outcast nobles

the Doones, robbers and brigands, living in the wilds of Bagworthy Forest,
locked fast in the hills,--and the peaceful farm-house of the yeoman Ridd
who lives on the Downs. This home is not idealized. From the diamond-
paned kitchen come savory smells of cooking and substantial fare. Pretty
Annie, whose "like has never been seen for making a man comfortable,"
Lizzie, who was undersized and loved books, "but knew the gift of cooking
had not been vouchsafed her by God," the sweet homely mother, and above
all the manly figure of the young giant John, make a picture of which the
gloomy castle of the Doones is the shadow. And what more charming than
the story of the love that takes possession of the young boy, making a poet,
a soldier, a knight of him, through a chance encounter with Lorna, the
queen of the wild band, the grandchild of old Sir Ensor Doone?
With John Ridd,--"Grit Jan"--the author dwelt till he possessed him with
human attributes and made him alive. Around him the interest of the story
centres. He is full of mother-wit and observation of men and things,
especially of every changing mood of the nature he regards as his true
mother. He is brave and resourceful, and rescues Lorna and himself from
numberless difficulties by his native shrewdness. And his love is a poem, an
idyl that crowns him a shepherd king in his own green pastures. Nothing
that he does in his plodding, sturdy way wearies us. His size, his strength,
his good farming, the way he digs his sheep out of the snow, entertain us as
well as his rescue of Lorna from the clan.
The texture of this novel is close, the composition elaborate. It is impossible
to escape from it, the story having been once begun. 'Lorna Doone' is
Blackmore at his highest point, full of truest nature and loveliest thoughts.

A DESPERATE VENTURE

From 'Lorna Doone'

The journey was a great deal longer to fetch around the southern hills, and
enter by the Doone gate, than to cross the lower land and steal in by the
water-slide. However, I durst not take a horse (for fear of the Doones, who
might be abroad upon their usual business), but started betimes in the
evening, so as not to hurry, or waste any strength upon the way. And thus I
came to the robbers' highway, walking circumspectly, scanning the sky-line
of every hill, and searching the folds of every valley, for any moving figure.
Although it was now well on toward dark, and the sun was down an hour or
so, I could see the robbers' road before me, in a trough of the winding hills,
where the brook plowed down from the higher barrows, and the coving
banks were roofed with furze. At present there was no one passing, neither
post nor sentinel, so far as I could descry; but I thought it safer to wait a
little, as twilight melted into night; and then I crept down a seam of the
highland, and stood upon the Doone track.
As the road approached the entrance, it became more straight and strong,
like a channel cut from rock, with the water brawling darkly along the
naked side of it. Not a tree or bush was left, to shelter a man from bullets;
all was stern, and stiff, and rugged, as I could not help perceiving, even
through the darkness: and a smell as of churchyard mold, a sense of being
boxed in and cooped, made me long to be out again.
And here I was, or seemed to be, particularly unlucky; for as I drew near the
very entrance, lightly of foot, and warily, the moon (which had often been
my friend) like an enemy broke upon me, topping the eastward ridge of
rock, and filling all the open spaces with the play of wavering light. I
shrank back into the shadowy quarter on the right side of the road, and
gloomily employed myself to watch the triple entrance, on which the
moonlight fell askew.
All across and before the three rude and beetling archways hung a felled
oak overhead, black and thick and threatening. This, as I heard before,
could be let fall in a moment, so as to crush a score of men, and bar the
approach of horses. Behind this tree the rocky mouth was spanned, as by a
gallery, with brushwood and piled timber, all upon a ledge or stone, where
thirty men might lurk unseen, and fire at any invader. From that rampart it
would be impossible to dislodge them, because the rock fell sheer below

them twenty feet, or it may be more; while overhead it towered three
hundred, and so jutted over that nothing could be cast upon them, even if a
man could climb the height. And the access to this portcullis place--if I may
so call it, being no portcullis there--was through certain rocky chambers
known to the tenants only.
But the cleverest of their devices, and the most puzzling to an enemy, was
that, instead of one mouth only, there were three to choose from, with
nothing to betoken which was the proper access, all being pretty much
alike, and all unfenced and yawning. And the common rumor was that in
times of any danger, when any force was known to be on muster in their
neighborhood, they changed their entrance every day, and diverted the other
two, by means of sliding-doors, to the chasm and dark abysses.
Now I could see those three rough arches, jagged, black, and terrible, and I
knew that only one of them could lead me to the valley; neither gave the
river now any further guidance, but dived underground with a sullen roar,
where it met the cross-bar of the mountain. Having no means at all of
judging which was the right way of the three, and knowing that the other
two would lead to almost certain death, in the ruggedness and darkness--for
how could a man, among precipices and bottomless depths of water,
without a ray of light, have any chance to save his life?--I do declare that I
was half inclined to go away, and have done with it.
However, I knew one thing for certain, to wit, that the longer I stayed
debating, the more would the enterprise pall upon me, and the less my relish
be. And it struck me that, in times of peace, the middle way was the
likeliest; and the others diverging right and left in their further parts might
be made to slide into it (not far from the entrance) at the pleasure of the
warders. Also I took it for good omen that I remembered (as rarely
happened) a very fine line in the Latin grammar, whose emphasis and
meaning is, "Middle road is fastest."
Therefore, without more hesitation, I plunged into the middle way, holding
a long ash-staff before me, shodden at the end with iron. Presently I was in
black darkness, groping along the wall, and feeling a deal more fear than I
wished to feel; especially when, upon looking back, I could no longer see
the light, which I had forsaken. Then I stumbled over something hard, and

sharp, and very cold; moreover, so grievous to my legs that it needed my
very best doctrine and humor to forbear from swearing in the manner they
use in London. But when I arose, and felt it, and knew it to be a culverin, I
was somewhat reassured thereby, inasmuch as it was not likely that they
would plant this engine except in the real and true entrance.
Therefore I went on again, more painfully and wearily, and presently found
it to be good that I had received that knock, and borne it with such patience;
for otherwise I might have blundered full upon the sentries, and been shot
without more ado. As it was, I had barely time to draw back, as I turned a
corner upon them; and if their lantern had been in its place, they could
scarce have failed to descry me, unless indeed I had seen the gleam before I
turned the corner.
There seemed to be only two of them, of size indeed and stature as all the
Doones must be; but I need not have feared to encounter them both, had
they been unarmed, as I was. It was plain, however, that each had a long
and heavy carbine, not in his hands (as it should have been), but standing
close beside him. Therefore it behooved me now to be exceeding careful;
and even that might scarce avail, without luck in proportion. So I kept well
back at the corner, and laid one cheek to the rock face, and kept my outer
eye round the jut in the wariest mode I could compass, watching my
opportunity; and this is what I saw:
The two villains looked very happy--which villains have no right to be, but
often are, meseemeth; they were sitting in a niche of rock, with the lantern
in the corner, quaffing something from glass measures, and playing at
pushpin, or shepherd's chess, or basset, or some trivial game of that sort.
Each was smoking a long clay pipe, quite of new London shape, I could
see, for the shadow was thrown out clearly; and each would laugh from
time to time as he fancied he got the better of it. One was sitting with his
knees up, and left hand on his thigh; and this one had his back to me, and
seemed to be the stouter. The other leaned more against the rock, half sitting
and half astraddle, and wearing leathern overalls, as if newly come from
riding. I could see his face quite clearly by the light of the open lantern, and
a handsomer or a bolder face I had seldom if ever set eyes upon; insomuch
that it made me very unhappy to think of his being so near my Lorna.

"How long am I to stay crouching here?" I asked of myself at last, being
tired of hearing them cry, "Score one," "Score two," "No, by ----, Charlie!"
"By ----, I say it is, Phelps."
And yet my only chance of slipping by them unperceived was to wait till
they quarreled more, and came to blows about it. Presently, as I made up
my mind to steal along towards them (for the cavern was pretty wide just
there), Charlie, or Charleworth Doone, the younger and taller man, reached
forth his hand to seize the money, which he swore he had won that time.
Upon this the other jerked his arm, vowing that he had no right to do it;
whereupon Charlie flung at his face the contents of the glass he was
sipping, but missed him and hit the candle, which sputtered with a flare of
blue flame (from the strength, perhaps, of the spirit), and then went out
completely. At this one swore and the other laughed; and before they had
settled what to do, I was past them and round the corner.
And then, like a giddy fool as I was, I needs must give them a startler--the
whoop of an owl, done so exactly, as John Fry had taught me, and echoed
by the roof so fearfully, that one of them dropped the tinder-box, and the
other caught up his gun and cocked it--at least as I judged by the sounds
they made. And then, too late, I knew my madness: for if either of them had
fired, no doubt but what all the village would have risen and rushed upon
me. However, as the luck of the matter went, it proved for my advantage;
for I heard one say to the other:--
"Curse it, Charlie, what was that? It scared me so, I have dropped my box;
my flint is gone, and everything. Will the brimstone catch from your pipe,
my lad?"
"My pipe is out, Phelps, ever so long. D--n it, I am not afraid of an owl,
man. Give me the lantern, and stay here. I'm not half done with you yet, my
friend."
"Well said, my boy, well said! Go straight to Carver's, mind you. The other
sleepy-heads be snoring, as there is nothing up to-night. No dallying now
under captain's window: Queen will have naught to say to you, and Carver
will punch your head into a new wick for your lantern."
"Will he, though? Two can play at that."

And so, after some rude jests and laughter, and a few more oaths, I heard
Charlie (or at any rate somebody) coming toward me, with a loose and not
too sober footfall. As he reeled a little in his gait, and I would not move
from his way one inch, after his talk of Lorna, but only longed to grasp him
(if common sense permitted it), his braided coat came against my thumb,
and his leathern gaiters brushed my knee. If he had turned or noticed it, he
would have been a dead man in a moment; but his drunkenness saved him.
So I let him reel on unharmed; and thereupon it occurred to me that I could
have no better guide, passing as he would exactly where I wished to be--
that is to say, under Lorna's window. Therefore I followed him, without any
special caution; and soon I had the pleasure of seeing his form against the
moonlit sky.
Down a steep and winding path, with a hand-rail at the corners (such as
they have at Ilfracombe), Master Charlie tripped along--and indeed there
was much tripping, and he must have been an active fellow to recover as he
did--and after him walked I, much hoping (for his own poor sake) that he
might not turn and espy me.
But Bacchus (of whom I read at school, with great wonder about his
meaning--and the same I may say of Venus), that great deity, preserved
Charlie, his pious worshiper, from regarding consequences. So he led me
very kindly to the top of the meadow-land where the stream from
underground broke forth, seething quietly with a little hiss of bubbles.
Hence I had fair view and outline of the robbers' township, spread with
bushes here and there, but not heavily overshadowed. The moon,
approaching now the full, brought the forms in manner forth, clothing each
with character, as the moon (more than the sun) does to an eye accustomed.
I knew that the captain's house was first, both from what Lorna had said of
it, and from my mother's description, and now again from seeing Charlie
halt there for a certain time, and whistle on his fingers, and hurry on,
fearing consequence. The tune that he whistled was strange to me, and
lingered in my ears, as having something very new and striking and
fantastic in it. And I repeated it softly to myself, while I marked the position
of the houses and the beauty of the village. For the stream, in lieu of the
street, passing between the houses, and affording perpetual change and

twinkling and reflections--moreover, by its sleepy murmur, soothing all the
dwellers there--this, and the snugness of the position, walled with rock and
spread with herbage, made it look in the quiet moonlight like a little
paradise. And to think of all the inmates there sleeping with good
consciences, having plied their useful trade of making others work for them,
enjoying life without much labor, yet with great renown!
Master Charlie went down the village, and I followed him carefully,
keeping as much as possible in the shadowy places, and watching the
windows of every house, lest any light should be burning. As I passed Sir
Ensor's house, my heart leaped up, for I spied a window, higher than the rest
above the ground, and with a faint light moving. This could hardly fail to be
the room wherein my darling lay; for here that impudent young fellow had
gazed while he was whistling. And here my courage grew tenfold, and my
spirit feared no evil; for lo! if Lorna had been surrendered to that scoundrel
Carver, she would not have been at her grandfather's house, but in Carver's
accursed dwelling.
Warm with this idea, I hurried after Charleworth Doone, being resolved not
to harm him now, unless my own life required it. And while I watched from
behind a tree, the door of the furthest house was opened; and, sure enough,
it was Carver's self, who stood bareheaded, and half undressed, in the
doorway. I could see his great black chest and arms, by the light of the lamp
he bore.
"Who wants me this time of night?" he grumbled, in a deep, gruff voice;
"any young scamp prowling after the maids shall have sore bones for his
trouble."
"All the fair maids are for thee, are they, Master Carver?" Charlie answered,
laughing; "we young scamps must be well content with coarser stuff than
thou wouldst have."
"Would have? Ay, and will have," the great beast muttered, angrily. "I bide
my time; but not very long. Only one word for thy good, Charlie. I will
fling thee senseless into the river if ever I catch thy girl-face here again."
"Mayhap, Master Carver, it is more than thou couldst do. But I will not
keep thee; thou art not pleasant company to-night. All I want is a light for

my lantern, and a glass of schnapps, if thou hast it."
"What is become of thy light, then? Good for thee I am not on duty."
"A great owl flew between me and Phelps as we watched beside the
culverin, and so scared was he at our fierce bright eyes that he fell and
knocked the light out."
"Likely tale, or likely lie, Charles! We will have the truth to-morrow. Here,
take thy light, and be gone with thee. All virtuous men are in bed now."
"Then so will I be; and why art thou not? Ha! have I earned my schnapps
now?"
"If thou hast, thou hast paid a bad debt! there is too much in thee already.
Be off! my patience is done with."
Then he slammed the door in the young man's face, having kindled his
lantern by this time; and Charlie went up the watch-place again, muttering,
as he passed me, "Bad lookout for all of us when that surly old beast is
captain. No gentle blood in him, no hospitality, not even pleasant language,
nor a good new oath in his frowzy pate! I've a mind to cut the whole of it;
and but for the girls I would do so."
My heart was in my mouth, as they say, when I stood in the shade by
Lorna's window, and whispered her name gently. The house was of one
story only, as the others were, with pine-ends standing forth the stone, and
only two rough windows upon that western side of it, and perhaps those two
were Lorna's. The Doones had been their own builders, for no one should
know their ins and outs; and of course their work was clumsy. As for their
windows, they stole them mostly from the houses round about. But though
the window was not very close, I might have whispered long enough before
she would have answered me, frightened as she was, no doubt, by many a
rude overture. And I durst not speak aloud, because I saw another
watchman posted on the western cliff, and commanding all the valley. And
now this man (having no companion for drinking or for gambling) espied
me against the wall of the house, and advanced to the brink, and challenged
me.
"Who are you there? Answer. One, two, three and I fire at thee."

The nozzle of his gun was pointed full upon me, as I could see, with the
moonlight striking on the barrel; he was not more than fifty yards off, and
now he began to reckon. Being almost desperate about it, I began to
whistle, wondering how far I should get before I lost my windpipe; and as
luck would have it, my lips fell into that strange tune I had practiced last;
the one I had heard from Charlie. My mouth would hardly frame the notes,
being parched with terror; but to my surprise, the man fell back, dropped his
gun, and saluted. Oh, sweetest of all sweet melodies!
That tune was Carver Doone's passport (as I heard long afterward), which
Charleworth Doone had imitated, for decoy of Lorna. The sentinel took me
for that vile Carver, who was like enough to be prowling there for private
talk with Lorna, but not very likely to shout forth his name, if it might be
avoided. The watchman, perceiving the danger, perhaps, of intruding on
Carver's privacy, not only retired along the cliff, but withdrew himself to
good distance.
Meanwhile he had done me the kindest service; for Lorna came to the
window at once to see what the cause of the shout was, and drew back the
curtain timidly. Then she opened the rough lattice, and then she watched the
cliff and trees, and then she sighed very sadly.
"O Lorna, don't you know me?" I whispered from the side, being afraid of
startling her by appearing over-suddenly.
Quick though she always was of thought, she knew me not from my
whisper, and was shutting the window hastily, when I caught it back and
showed myself.
"John!" she cried, yet with sense enough not to speak aloud; "oh, you must
be mad, John!"
"As mad as a March hare," said I, "without any news of my darling. You
knew I would come--of course you did."

A WEDDING AND A REVENGE

From 'Lorna Doone'

However humble I might be, no one knowing anything of our part of the
country would for a moment doubt that now here was a great to-do and talk
of John Ridd and his wedding. The fierce fight with the Doones so lately,
and my leading of the combat (though I fought not more than need be), and
the vanishing of Sir Counselor, and the galloping madness of Carver, and
the religious fear of the women that this last was gone to hell,--for he
himself had declared that his aim, while he cut through the yeomanry,--also
their remorse that he should have been made to go thither, with all his
children left behind--these things, I say (if ever I can again contrive to say
anything), had led to the broadest excitement about my wedding of Lorna.
We heard that people meant to come from more than thirty miles around,
upon excuse of seeing my stature and Lorna's beauty, but in good truth out
of sheer curiosity and the love of meddling.
Our clerk had given notice that not a man should come inside the door of
his church without shilling fee, and women (as sure to see twice as much)
must every one pay two shillings. I thought this wrong; and as
churchwarden, begged that the money might be paid into mine own hands
when taken. But the clerk said that was against all law; and he had orders
from the parson to pay it to him without any delay. So, as I always obey the
parson when I care not much about a thing, I let them have it their own way,
though feeling inclined to believe sometimes that I ought to have some of
the money.
Dear mother arranged all the ins and outs of the way in which it was to be
done; and Annie and Lizzie, and all the Snowes, and even Ruth Huckaback
(who was there, after great persuasion), made such a sweeping of dresses
that I scarcely knew where to place my feet, and longed for a staff to put by
their gowns. Then Lorna came out of a pew half-way, in a manner which

quite astonished me, and took my left hand in her right, and I prayed God
that it were done with.
My darling looked so glorious that I was afraid of glancing at her, yet took
in all her beauty. She was in a fright, no doubt, but nobody should see it;
whereas I said (to myself, at least), "I will go through it like a grave-
digger."
Lorna's dress was of pure white, clouded with faint lavender (for the sake of
the old Earl Brandir), and as simple as need be, except for perfect
loveliness. I was afraid to look at her, as I said before, except when each of
us said, "I will;" and then each dwelt upon the other.
It is impossible for any who have not loved as I have to conceive my joy
and pride when, after ring and all was done, and the parson had blessed us,
Lorna turned to look at me with her glances of subtle fun subdued by this
great act.
Her eyes, which none on earth may ever equal or compare with, told me
such a depth of comfort, yet awaiting further commune, that I was almost
amazed, thoroughly as I knew them. Darling eyes, the sweetest eyes, the
loveliest, the most loving eyes--the sound of a shot rang through the church,
and those eyes were filled with death.
Lorna fell across my knees when I was going to kiss her, as the bridegroom
is allowed to do, and encouraged, if he needs it: a flood of blood came out
upon the yellow wood of the altar steps; and at my feet lay Lorna, trying to
tell me some last message out of her faithful eyes. I lifted her up, and petted
her, and coaxed her, but it was no good; the only sign of life remaining was
a spurt of bright red blood.
Some men know what things befall them in the supreme time of their life--
far above the time of death--but to me comes back as a hazy dream, without
any knowledge in it, what I did, or felt, or thought, with my wife's arms
flagging, flagging, around my neck, as I raised her up, and softly put them
there. She sighed a long sigh on my breast, for her last farewell to life, and
then she grew so cold, and cold, that I asked the time of year.
It was now Whit-Tuesday, and the lilacs all in blossom; and why I thought
of the time of year, with the young death in my arms, God or his angels may

decide, having so strangely given us. Enough that so I did, and looked, and
our white lilacs were beautiful. Then I laid my wife in my mother's arms,
and begging that no one would make a noise, went forth for my revenge.
Of course I knew who had done it. There was but one man in the world, or
at any rate in our part of it, who could have done such a thing--such a thing.
I use no harsher word about it, while I leaped upon our best horse, with
bridle, but no saddle, and set the head of Kickums toward the course now
pointed out to me. Who showed me the course I cannot tell. I only know
that I took it. And the men fell back before me.
Weapon of no sort had I. Unarmed, and wondering at my strange attire
(with a bridal vest wrought by our Annie, and red with the blood of the
bride), I went forth just to find out this--whether in this world there be or be
not a God of justice.
With my vicious horse at a furious speed, I came up Black Barrow Down,
directed by some shout of men, which seemed to me but a whisper. And
there, about a furlong before me, rode a man on a great black horse, and I
knew that man was Carver Doone.
"Your life, or mine," I said to myself; "as the will of God may be. But we
two live not upon this earth one more hour together."
I knew the strength of this great man; and I knew that he was armed with a
gun--if he had time to load again, after shooting my Lorna--or at any rate
with pistols, and a horseman's sword as well. Nevertheless, I had no more
doubt of killing the man before me than a cook has of spitting a headless
fowl.
Sometimes seeing no ground beneath me, and sometimes heeding every
leaf, and the crossing of the grass-blades, I followed over the long moor,
reckless whether seen or not. But only once the other man turned round and
looked back again, and then I was beside a rock, with a reedy swamp
behind me.
Although he was so far before me, and riding as hard as ride he might, I
saw that he had something on the horse in front of him; something which
needed care, and stopped him from looking backward. In the whirling of
my wits, I fancied first that this was Lorna; until the scene I had been

through fell across hot brain and heart, like the drop at the close of a
tragedy. Rushing there through crag and quag at utmost speed of a
maddened horse, I saw, as of another's fate, calmly (as on canvas laid), the
brutal deed, the piteous anguish, and the cold despair.
The man turned up the gully leading from the moor to Cloven Rocks,
through which John Fry had tracked Uncle Ben, as of old related. But as
Carver entered it, he turned round, and beheld me not a hundred yards
behind; and I saw that he was bearing his child, little Ensie, before him.
Ensie also descried me, and stretched his hands and cried to me; for the face
of his father frightened him.
Carver Doone, with a vile oath, thrust spurs into his flagging horse, and laid
one hand on a pistol-stock, whence I knew that his slung carbine had
received no bullet since the one that pierced Lorna. And a cry of triumph
rose from the black depths of my heart. What cared I for pistols? I had no
spurs, neither was my horse one to need the rowel; I rather held him in than
urged him, for he was fresh as ever; and I knew that the black steed in front,
if he breasted the steep ascent, where the track divided, must be in our reach
at once.
His rider knew this, and having no room in the rocky channel to turn and
fire, drew rein at the crossways sharply, and plunged into the black ravine
leading to the Wizard's Slough. "Is it so?" I said to myself, with brain and
head cold as iron: "though the foul fiend come from the slough to save thee,
thou shalt carve it, Carver."
I followed my enemy carefully, steadily, even leisurely; for I had him as in a
pitfall, whence no escape might be. He thought that I feared to approach
him, for he knew not where he was; and his low disdainful laugh came
back. "Laugh he who wins," thought I.
A gnarled and half-starved oak, as stubborn as my own resolve, and smitten
by some storm of old, hung from the crag above me. Rising from my
horse's back, although I had no stirrups, I caught a limb, and tore it (like a
mere wheat-awn) from the socket. Men show the rent even now with
wonder; none with more wonder than myself.

Carver Doone turned the corner suddenly on the black and bottomless bog;
with a start of fear he reined back his horse, and I thought he would have
turned upon me. But instead of that, he again rode on, hoping to find a way
round the side.
Now there is a way between cliff and slough for those who know the
ground thoroughly, or have time enough to search it; but for him there was
no road, and he lost some time in seeking it. Upon this he made up his
mind; and wheeling, fired, and then rode at me.
His bullet struck me somewhere, but I took no heed of that. Fearing only his
escape, I laid my horse across the way, and with the limb of oak struck full
on the forehead his charging steed. Ere the slash of the sword came nigh
me, man and horse rolled over and well-nigh bore my own horse down with
the power of their onset.
Carver Doone was somewhat stunned, and could not arise for a moment.
Meanwhile I leaped on the ground and awaited, smoothing my hair back,
and baring my arms, as though in the ring for wrestling. Then the little boy
ran to me, clasped my leg, and looked up at me, and the terror in his eyes
made me almost fear myself.

"Ensie dear," I said quite gently, grieving that he should see his wicked
father killed, "run up yonder round the corner, and try to find a pretty bunch
of bluebells for the lady." The child obeyed me, hanging back, and looking
back, and then laughing, while I prepared for business. There and then I
might have killed mine enemy with a single blow while he lay unconscious,
but it would have been foul play.
With a sullen and black scowl, the Carver gathered his mighty limbs and
arose, and looked round for his weapons; but I had put them well away.
Then he came to me and gazed, being wont to frighten thus young men.
"I would not harm you, lad," he said, with a lofty style of sneering: "I have
punished you enough for most of your impertinence. For the rest I forgive
you, because you have been good and gracious to my little son. Go and be
contented."

For answer I smote him on the cheek, lightly, and not to hurt him, but to
make his blood leap up. I would not sully my tongue by speaking to a man
like this.
There was a level space of sward between us and the slough. With the
courtesy derived from London, and the procession I had seen, to this place I
led him. And that he might breathe himself, and have every fibre cool, and
every muscle ready, my hold upon his coat I loosed, and left him to begin
with me whenever he thought proper.
I think he felt that his time was come. I think he knew from my knitted
muscles, and the firm arch of my breast, and the way in which I stood, but
most of all from my stern blue eyes, that he had found his master. At any
rate, a paleness came, an ashy paleness on his cheeks, and the vast calves of
his legs bowed in, as if he were out of training.
Seeing this, villain as he was, I offered him first chance. I stretched forth
my left hand as I do to a weaker antagonist, and I let him have the hug of
me. But in this I was too generous; having forgotten my pistol-wound, and
the cracking of one of my short lower ribs. Carver Doone caught me round
the waist with such a grip as never yet had been laid upon me.
I heard my rib go; I grasped his arm and tore the muscle out of it[2] (as the
string comes out of an orange); then I took him by the throat, which is not
allowed in wrestling, but he had snatched at mine; and now was no time of
dalliance. In vain he tugged and strained and writhed, dashed his bleeding
fist into my face, and flung himself on me with gnashing jaws. Beneath the
iron of my strength--for God that day was with me--I had him helpless in
two minutes, and his fiery eyes lolled out.

[2]A far more terrible clutch than this is handed
down, to weaker ages, of the great John Ridd.--ED.
L.D.

"I will not harm thee any more," I cried, so far as I could for panting, the
work being very furious: "Carver Doone, thou art beaten; own it, and thank
God for it; and go thy way, and repent thyself."

It was all too late. Even if he had yielded in his ravening frenzy--for his
beard was like a mad dog's jowl--even if he would have owned that for the
first time in his life he had found his master, it was all too late.
The black bog had him by the feet; the sucking of the ground drew on him,
like the thirsty lips of death. In our fury we had heeded neither wet nor dry,
nor thought of earth beneath us. I myself might scarcely leap, with the last
spring of o'erlabored legs, from the engulfing grave of slime. He fell back,
with his swarthy breast (from which my grip had rent all clothing), like a
hummock of bog-oak, standing out the quagmire; and then he tossed his
arms to heaven, and they were black to the elbow, and the glare of his eyes
was ghastly. I could only gaze and pant; for my strength was no more than
an infant's from the fury and the horror. Scarcely could I turn away, while,
joint by joint, he sank from sight.

LANDING THE TROUT

From 'Alice Lorraine'

The trout knew nothing of all this. They had not tasted a worm for a month,
except when a sod of the bank fell in, through cracks of the sun, and the way
cold water has of licking upward. And even the flies had no flavor at all; when
they fell on the water, they fell flat, and on the palate they tasted hot, even
under the bushes.
Hilary followed a path through the meadows, with the calm bright sunset
casting its shadow over the shorn grass, or up in the hedge-road, or on the
brown banks where the drought had struck. On his back he carried a fishing-
basket, containing his bits of refreshment; and in his right hand a short springy
rod, the absent sailor's favorite. After long council with Mabel, he had made up
his mind to walk up-stream as far as the spot where two brooks met, and
formed body enough for a fly flipped in very carefully to sail downward. Here
he began, and the creak of his reel and the swish of his rod were music to him,
after the whirl of London life.
The brook was as bright as the best cut-glass, and the twinkles of its shifting
facets only made it seem more clear. It twisted about a little, here and there;
and the brink was fringed now and then with something, a clump of
loosestrife, a tuft of avens, or a bed of flowering water-cress, or any other of
the many plants that wash and look into the water. But the trout, the main
object in view, were most objectionably too much in view. They scudded up
the brook at the shadow of a hair, or even the tremble of a blade of grass; and
no pacific assurance could make them even stop to be reasoned with, "This
won't do," said Hilary, who very often talked to himself, in lack of a better
comrade. "I call this very hard upon me. The beggars won't rise till it is quite
dark. I must have the interdict off my tobacco, if this sort of thing is to go on.
How I should enjoy a pipe just now! I may just as well sit on a gate and think.

No, hang it, I hate thinking now. There are troubles hanging over me, as sure
as the tail of that comet grows. How I detest that comet! No wonder the fish
won't rise. But if I have to strip, and tickle them in the dark, I won't go back
without some for her."
He was lucky enough to escape the weight of such horrible poaching upon his
conscience; for suddenly to his ears was borne the most melodious of all
sounds, the flop of a heavy fish sweetly jumping after some excellent fly or
grub.
"Ha, my friend!" cried Hilary, "so you are up for your supper, are you? I
myself will awake right early. Still I behold the ring you made. If my right
hand forget not its cunning, you shall form your next ring in the frying-pan."
He gave that fish a little time to think of the beauty of that mouthful, and get
ready for another, the while he was putting a white moth on, in lieu of his blue
upright. He kept the grizzled palmer still for tail-fly, and he tried his knots, for
he knew that this trout was a Triton.
Then, with a delicate sidling and stooping, known only to them that fish for
trout in very bright water of the summer-time,--compared with which art the
coarse work of the salmon-fisher is as that of a scene-painter to Mr. Holman
Hunt's--with, or in, or by, a careful manner, not to be described to those who
have never studied it, Hilary won access of the water, without any doubt in the
mind of the fish concerning the prudence of appetite. Then he flipped his short
collar in, not with a cast, but a spring of the rod, and let his flies go quietly
down a sharpish run into that good trout's hole. The worthy trout looked at
them both, and thought; for he had his own favorite spot for watching the
world go by, as the rest of us have. So he let the grizzled palmer pass, within
an inch of his upper lip; for it struck him that the tail turned up in a manner not
wholly natural, or at any rate unwholesome. He looked at the white moth also,
and thought that he had never seen one at all like it. So he went down under his
root again, hugging himself upon his wisdom, never moving a fin, but oaring
and helming his plump, spotted sides with his tail.
"Upon my word, it is too bad," said Hilary, after three beautiful throws, and
exquisite management down-stream; "everything Kentish beats me hollow.
Now, if that had been one of our trout, I would have laid my life upon catching
him. One more throw, however. How would it be if I sunk my flies? That
fellow is worth some patience."

While he was speaking, his flies alit on the glassy ripple, like gnats in their
love-dance; and then by a turn of the wrist, he played them just below the
surface, and let them go gliding down the stickle, into the shelfy nook of
shadow where the big trout hovered. Under the surface, floating thus, with the
check of ductile influence, the two flies spread their wings and quivered, like a
centiplume moth in a spider's web. Still the old trout, calmly oaring, looked at
them both suspiciously. Why should the same flies come so often, and why
should they have such crooked tails, and could he be sure that he did not spy
the shadow of a human hat about twelve yards up the water? Revolving these
things, he might have lived to a venerable age but for that noble ambition to
teach, which is fatal to even the wisest. A young fish, an insolent whipper-
snapper, jumped in his babyish way at the palmer, and missed it through over-
eagerness. "I'll show you the way to catch a fly," said the big trout to him:
"open your mouth like this, my son."
With that he bolted the palmer, and threw up his tail, and turned to go home
again. Alas! his sweet home now shall know him no more. For suddenly he
was surprised by a most disagreeable sense of grittiness, and then a keen stab
in the roof of his month. He jumped, in his wrath, a foot out of the water, and
then heavily plunged to the depths of his hole.
"You've got it, my friend," cried Hilary, in a tingle of fine emotions; "I hope
the sailor's knots are tied with professional skill and care. You are a big one,
and a clever one too. It is much if I ever land you. No net, or gaff, or anything.
I only hope that there are no stakes here. Ah, there you go! Now comes the
tug."
Away went the big trout down the stream, at a pace very hard to exaggerate,
and after him rushed Hilary, knowing that his line was rather short, and that if
it ran out, all was over. Keeping his eyes on the water only, and the headlong
speed of the fugitive, headlong over a stake he fell, and took a deep wound
from another stake. Scarcely feeling it, up he jumped, lifting his rod, which
had fallen flat, and fearing to find no strain on it. "Aha, he is not gone yet!" he
cried, as the rod bowed like a springle-bow.
He was now a good hundred yards down the brook from the corner where the
fight began. Through his swiftness of foot, and good management, the fish had
never been able to tighten the line beyond yield of endurance. The bank had
been free from bushes, or haply no skill could have saved him; but now they
were come to a corner where a nut-bush quite overhung the stream.

"I am done for now," said the fisherman; "the villain knows too well what he is
about. Here ends this adventure."
Full though he was of despair, he jumped anyhow into the water, kept the point
of his rod close down, reeled up a little as the fish felt weaker, and just cleared
the drop of the hazel boughs. The water flapped into the pockets of his coat,
and he saw red streaks flow downward. And then he plunged out to an open
reach of shallow water and gravel slope.
"I ought to have you now," he said, "though nobody knows what a rogue you
are; and a pretty dance you have led me!"
Doubting the strength of his tackle to lift even the dead weight of the fish, and
much more to meet his despairing rally, he happily saw a little shallow gut, or
back-water, where a small spring ran out. Into this by a dexterous turn he
rather led than pulled the fish, who was ready to rest for a minute or two; then
he stuck his rod into the bank, ran down stream, and with his hat in both hands
appeared at the only exit from the gut. It was all up now with the monarch of
the brook. As he skipped and jumped, with his rich yellow belly, and chaste
silver sides, in the green of the grass, joy and glory of the highest merit, and
gratitude, glowed in the heart of Lorraine. "Two and three quarters you must
weigh. And at your very best you are! How small your head is! And how bright
your spots are!" he cried, as he gave him the stroke of grace. "You really have
been a brave and fine fellow. I hope they will know how to fry you."
While he cut his fly out of this grand trout's mouth, he felt for the first time a
pain in his knee, where the point of the stake had entered it. Under the buckle
of his breeches blood was soaking away inside his gaiters; and then he saw
how he had dyed the water. After washing the wound and binding it with dock-
leaves and a handkerchief, he followed the stream through a few more
meadows, for the fish began to sport pretty well as the gloom of the evening
deepened; so that by the time the gables of the old farm-house appeared, by the
light of a young moon, and the comet, Lorraine had a dozen more trout in his
basket, silvery-sided and handsome fellows, though none of them over a pound
perhaps, except his first and redoubtable captive.

A DANE IN THE DIKE

From 'Mary Anerley'

Now, whether spy-glass had been used by any watchful mariner, or whether
only blind chance willed it, sure it is that one fine morning Mary met with
somebody. And this was the more remarkable, when people came to think of it,
because it was only the night before that her mother had almost said as much.
"Ye munna gaw doon to t' sea be yersell," Mistress Anerley said to her
daughter: "happen ye mought be one too many."
Master Anerley's wife had been at "boarding-school," as far south as Suffolk,
and could speak the very best of southern English (like her daughter Mary)
upon polite occasion. But family cares and farm-house life had partly cured
her of her education, and from troubles of distant speech she had returned to
the ease of her native dialect.
"And if I go not to the sea by myself," asked Mary, with natural logic, "why,
who is there now to go with me?" She was thinking of her sadly missed
comrade, Jack.
"Happen some day, perhaps, one too many."
The maiden was almost too innocent to blush; but her father took her part as
usual.
"The little lass sall gaw doon," he said, "wheniver sha likes." And so she went
down the next morning.
A thousand years ago the Dane's Dike must have been a very grand
intrenchment, and a thousand years ere that perhaps it was still grander; for
learned men say that it was a British work, wrought out before the Danes had
ever learned to build a ship. Whatever, however, may be argued about that, the
wise and the witless do agree about one thing--the stronghold inside it had
been held by Danes, while severed by the Dike from inland parts, and these
Danes made a good colony of their own, and left to their descendants distinct

speech and manners, some traces of which are existing even now. The Dike,
extending from the rough North Sea to the calmer waters of Bridlington Bay, is
nothing more than a deep dry trench, skillfully following the hollows of the
ground, and cutting off Flamborough Head and a solid cantle of high land from
the rest of Yorkshire. The corner so intercepted used to be and is still called
"Little Denmark"; and the in-dwellers feel a large contempt for all their outer
neighbors. And this is sad, because Anerley Farm lies wholly outside of the
Dike, which for a long crooked distance serves as its eastern boundary.
Upon the morning of the self-same day that saw Mr. Jellicorse set forth upon
his return from Scargate Hall, armed with instructions to defy the devil, and to
keep his discovery quiet--upon a lovely August morning of the first year of a
new century, Mary Anerley, blithe and gay, came riding down the grassy
hollow of this ancient Dane's Dike. This was her shortest way to the sea, and
the tide would suit (if she could only catch it) for a take of shrimps, and
perhaps even prawns, in time for her father's breakfast. And not to lose this,
she arose right early, and rousing Lord Keppel, set forth for the spot where she
kept her net covered with sea-weed. The sun, though up and brisk already upon
sea and foreland, had not found time to rout the shadows skulking in the
dingles. But even here, where sap of time had breached the turfy ramparts, the
hover of the dew-mist passed away, and the steady light was unfolded.
For the season was early August still, with beautiful weather come at last; and
the green world seemed to stand on tiptoe to make the extraordinary
acquaintance of the sun. Humble plants which had long lain flat stood up with
a sense of casting something off; and the damp heavy trunks which had
trickled for a twelvemonth, or been only sponged with moss, were hailing the
fresher light with keener lines and dove-colored tints upon their smoother
boles. Then, conquering the barrier of the eastern land crest, rose the glorious
sun himself, strewing before him trees and crags in long steep shadows down
the hill. Then the sloping rays, through furze and brush-land, kindling the
sparkles of the dew, descended to the brink of the Dike, and scorning to halt at
petty obstacles, with a hundred golden hurdles bridged it wherever any
opening was.
Under this luminous span, or through it where the crossing gullies ran, Mary
Anerley rode at leisure, allowing her pony to choose his pace. That privilege
he had long secured, in right of age, and wisdom, and remarkable force of
character. Considering his time of life, he looked well and sleek, and almost
sprightly; and so, without any reservation, did his gentle and graceful rider.

The maiden looked well in a place like that, as indeed in almost any place; but
now she especially set off the color of things, and was set off by them. For
instance, how could the silver of the dew-cloud, and golden weft of sunrise,
playing through the dapples of a partly wooded glen, do better (in the matter of
variety) than frame a pretty moving figure in a pink checked frock, with a skirt
of russet murrey, and a bright brown hat? Not that the hat itself was bright,
even under the kiss of sunshine, simply having seen already too much of the
sun, but rather that its early lustre seemed to be revived by a sense of the
happy position it was in; the clustering hair and the bright eyes beneath it
answering the sunny dance of life and light. Many a handsomer race, no doubt,
more perfect, grand and lofty, received--at least if it was out of bed--the
greeting of that morning sun; but scarcely any prettier one, or kinder, or more
pleasant, so gentle without being weak, so good-tempered without looking
void of all temper at all.
Suddenly the beauty of the time and place was broken by sharp, angry sound.
Bang! bang! came the roar of muskets fired from the shore at the mouth of the
Dike, and echoing up the winding glen. At the first report the girl, though
startled, was not greatly frightened; for the sound was common enough in the
week when those most gallant volunteers entitled the "Yorkshire Invincibles"
came down for their annual practice of skilled gunnery against the French.
Their habit was to bring down a red cock, and tether him against a chalky cliff,
and then vie with one another in shooting at him. The same cock had tested
their skill for three summers, but failed hitherto to attest it, preferring to return
in a hamper to his hens, with a story of moving adventures.
Mary had watched those Invincibles sometimes from a respectful distance, and
therefore felt sure (when she began to think) that she had not them to thank for
this little scare. For they always slept soundly in the first watch of the
morning; and even supposing they had jumped up with nightmare, where was
the jubilant crow of the cock? For the cock, being almost as invincible as they
were, never could deny himself the glory of a crow when the bullet came into
his neighborhood. He replied to every volley with an elevated comb, and a
flapping of his wings, and a clarion peal, which rang along the foreshore ere
the musket roar died out. But before the girl had time to ponder what it was, or
wherefore, round the corner came somebody, running very swiftly.
In a moment Mary saw that this man had been shot at, and was making for his
life away; and to give him every chance she jerked her pony aside, and called
and beckoned; and without a word he flew to her. Words were beyond him, if

his breath should come back, and he seemed to have no time to wait for that.
He had outstripped the wind, and his own wind, by his speed.
"Poor man!" cried Mary Anerley, "what a hurry you are in. But I suppose you
cannot help it. Are they shooting at you?"
The runaway nodded, for he could not spare a breath, but was deeply inhaling
for another start, and could not even bow without hindrance. But to show that
he had manners, he took off his hat. Then he clapped it on his head and set off
again.
"Come back!" cried the maid; "I can show you a place. I can hide you from
your enemies forever."
The young fellow stopped. He was come to that pitch of exhaustion in which a
man scarcely cares whether he is killed or dies. And his face showed not a sign
of fear.
"Look! That little hole--up there--by the fern. Up at once, and this cloth over
you!"
He snatched it, and was gone, like the darting lizard, up a little puckering side
issue of the Dike, at the very same instant that three broad figures and a long
one appeared at the lip of the mouth. The quick-witted girl rode on to meet
them, to give the poor fugitive time to get into his hole and draw the brown
skirt over him. The dazzle of the sun, pouring over the crest, made the hollow
a twinkling obscurity; and the cloth was just in keeping with the dead stuff
around. The three broad men, with heavy fusils cocked, came up from the sea-
mouth of the Dike, steadily panting, and running steadily with a long-enduring
stride. Behind them a tall bony man with a cutlass was swinging it high in the
air, and limping, and swearing with great velocity.
"Coast-riders," thought Mary, "and he a free-trader [smuggler]! Four against
one is cowardice."
"Halt!" cried the tall man, while the rest were running past her; "halt! ground
arms; never scare young ladies." Then he flourished his hat, with a grand bow
to Mary. "Fair young Mistress Anerley, I fear we spoil your ride. But his
Majesty's duty must be done. Hats off, fellows, at the name of your king!
Mary, my dear, the most daring villain, the devil's own son, has just run up
here--scarcely two minutes--you must have seen him. Wait a minute; tell no

lies--excuse me, I mean fibs. Your father is the right sort. He hates those
scoundrels. In the name of his Majesty, which way is he gone?"
"Was it--oh, was it a man, if you please? Captain Carroway, don't say so."
"A man? Is it likely that we shot at a woman? You are trifling. It will be the
worse for you. Forgive me--but we are in such a hurry. Whoa! whoa! pony."
"You always used to be so polite, sir, that you quite surprise me. And those
guns look so dreadful! My father would be quite astonished to see me not even
allowed to go down to the sea, but hurried back here, as if the French had
landed."
"How can I help it, if your pony runs away so?" For Mary all this time had
been cleverly contriving to increase and exaggerate her pony's fear, and so
brought the gunners for a long way up the Dike, without giving them any time
to spy at all about. She knew that this was wicked from a loyal point of view;
not a bit the less she did it. "What a troublesome little horse it is!" she cried.
"O Captain Carroway, hold him just a moment. I will jump down, and then you
can jump up, and ride after all his Majesty's enemies."
"The Lord forbid! He slews all out of gear, like a carronade with rotten
lashings. If I boarded him, how could I get out of his way? No, no, my dear,
brace him up sharp, and bear clear."
"But you wanted to know about some enemy, captain. An enemy as bad as my
poor Lord Keppel?"
"Mary, my dear, the very biggest villain! A hundred golden guineas on his
head, and half for you. Think of your father, my dear, and Sunday gowns. And
you must have a young man--by-and-by, you know--such a beautiful maid as
you are. And you might get a leather purse, and give it to him. Mary, on your
duty, now?"
"Captain, you drive me so, what can I say? I cannot bear the thought of
betraying anybody."
"Of course not, Mary dear; nobody asks you. He must be half a mile off by this
time. You could never hurt him now; and you can tell your father that you have
done your duty to the king."

"Well, Captain Carroway, if you are quite sure that it is too late to catch him, I
can tell you all about him. But remember your word about the fifty guineas."
"Every farthing, every farthing, Mary, whatever my wife may say to it. Quick!
quick! Which way did he run, my dear?"
"He really did not seem to me to be running at all; he was too tired."
"To be sure, to be sure, a worn-out fox. We have been two hours after him; he
could not run; no more can we. But which way did he go, I mean?"
"I will not say anything for certain, sir; even for fifty guineas. But he may have
come up here--mind, I say not that he did--and if so, he might have set off
again for Sewerby. Slowly, very slowly, because of being tired. But perhaps,
after all, he was not the man you mean."
"Forward, double-quick! We are sure to have him!" shouted the lieutenant--for
his true rank was that--flourishing his cutlass again, and setting off at a
wonderful pace, considering his limp. "Five guineas every man Jack of you.
Thank you, young mistress--most heartily thank you. Dead or alive, five
guineas!"
With gun and sword in readiness, they all rushed off; but one of the party,
named John Cadman, shook his head and looked back with great mistrust at
Mary, having no better judgment of women than this, that he never could
believe even his own wife. And he knew that it was mainly by the grace of
womankind that so much contraband work was going on. Nevertheless, it was
out of his power to act upon his own low opinions now.
The maiden, blushing deeply with the sense of her deceit, was informed by her
guilty conscience of that nasty man's suspicions, and therefore gave a smack
with her fern whip to Lord Keppel, impelling him to join, like a loyal little
horse, the pursuit of his Majesty's enemies. But no sooner did she see all the
men dispersed, and scouring the distance with trustful ardor, than she turned
the pony's head toward the sea again, and rode back round the bend of the
hollow. What would her mother say if she lost the murrey skirt, which had cost
six shillings at Bridlington fair? And ten times that money might be lost much
better than for her father to discover how she lost it. For Master Stephen
Anerley was a straight-backed man, and took three weeks of training in the
Land Defense Yeomanry, at periods not more than a year apart, so that many
people called him "Captain" now; and the loss of his suppleness at knee and

elbow had turned his mind largely to politics, making him stiffly patriotic, and
especially hot against all free-traders putting bad bargains to his wife, at the
cost of the king and his revenue. If the bargain were a good one, that was no
concern of his.
Not that Mary, however, could believe, or would even have such a bad mind as
to imagine, that any one, after being helped by her, would be mean enough to
run off with her property. And now she came to think of it, there was
something high and noble, she might almost say something downright honest,
in the face of that poor persecuted man. And in spite of all his panting, how
brave he must have been, what a runner, and how clever, to escape from all
those cowardly coast-riders shooting right and left at him! Such a man steal
that paltry skirt that her mother made such a fuss about! She was much more
likely to find it in her clothes-press filled with golden guineas.
Before she was as certain as she wished to be of this (by reason of shrewd
nativity), and while she believed that the fugitive must have seized such a
chance and made good his escape toward North Sea or Flamborough, a quick
shadow glanced across the long shafts of the sun, and a bodily form sped after
it. To the middle of the Dike leaped a young man, smiling, and forth from the
gully which had saved his life. To look at him, nobody ever could have
guessed how fast he had fled, and how close he had lain hid. For he stood there
as clean and spruce and careless as ever a sailor can be wished to be. Limber
yet stalwart, agile though substantial, and as quick as a dart while as strong as
a pike, he seemed cut out by nature for a true blue-jacket; but condition had
made him a smuggler, or, to put it more gently, a free-trader. Britannia, being
then at war with all the world, and alone in the right (as usual), had need of
such lads, and produced them accordingly, and sometimes one too many. But
Mary did not understand these laws. This made her look at him with great
surprise, and almost doubt whether he could be the man, until she saw her skirt
neatly folded in his hand, and then she said, "How do you do, sir?"
The free-trader looked at her with equal surprise. He had been in such a hurry,
and his breath so short, and the chance of a fatal bullet after him so sharp, that
his mind had been astray from any sense of beauty, and of everything else
except the safety of the body. But now he looked at Mary, and his breath again
went from him.
"You can run again now; I am sure of it," said she; "and if you would like to do
anything to please me, run as fast as possible."

"What have I to run away from now?" he answered, in a deep sweet voice. "I
run from enemies, but not from friends."
"That is very wise. But your enemies are still almost within call of you. They
will come back worse than ever when they find you are not there."
"I am not afraid, fair lady, for I understand their ways. I have led them a good
many dances.... When they cannot take another step, they will come back to
Anerley for breakfast."
"I dare say they will; and we shall be glad to see them. My father is a soldier,
and his duty is to nourish and comfort the forces of the King."
"Then you are young Mistress Anerley? I was sure of it before. There are no
two such. And you have saved my life. It is something to owe it so fairly."
The young sailor wanted to kiss Mary's hand; but not being used to any
gallantry, she held out her hand in the simplest manner to take back her riding
skirt; and he, though longing in his heart to keep it, for a token or pretext for
another meeting, found no excuse for doing so. And yet he was not without
some resource.
For the maiden was giving him a farewell smile, being quite content with the
good she had done, and the luck of recovering her property; and that sense of
right which in those days formed a part of every good young woman said to
her plainly that she must be off. And she felt how unkind it was to keep him
any longer in a place where the muzzle of a gun, with a man behind it, might
appear at any moment. But he, having plentiful breath again, was at home with
himself to spend it.
"Fair young lady," he began, for he saw that Mary liked to be called a lady,
because it was a novelty, "owing more than I ever can pay you already, may I
ask a little more? Then it is that on your way down to the sea, you would just
pick up (if you should chance to see it) the fellow ring to this, and perhaps you
will look at this to know it by. The one that was shot away flew against a stone
just on the left of the mouth of the Dike, but I durst not stop to look for it, and I
must not go back that way now. It is more to me than a hatful of gold, though
nobody else would give a crown for it."
"And they really shot away one of your earrings? Careless, cruel, wasteful
men! What could they have been thinking of?"

"They were thinking of getting what is called 'blood-money.' One hundred
pounds for Robin Lyth. Dead or alive--one hundred pounds."...
"Then are you the celebrated Robin Lyth--the new Robin Hood, as they call
him? The man who can do almost anything?"
"Mistress Anerley, I am Robin Lyth; but, as you have seen, I cannot do
much.... They have missed the best chance they ever had at me; it will make
their temper very bad. If they shot at me again, they could do no good.
Crooked mood makes crooked mode."
"You forget that I should not see such things. You may like very much to be
shot at; but--but you should think of other people."
"I shall think of you only--I mean of your great kindness, and your promise to
keep my ring for me. Of course you will tell nobody. Carroway will have me
like a tiger if you do. Farewell, young lady--for one week, fare well." With a
wave of his hat he was gone, before Mary had time to retract her promise; and
she thought of her mother.

WILLIAM BLAKE
(1757-1827)

oet-painter, visionary, and super-mystic in almost all capacities, William Blake
was born in London in 1757. He was the second son of humble people--his
father but a stocking merchant. An "odd little boy," he was destined to be
recognized as "one of the most curious and abnormal personages of the later
eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries." Allan Cunningham describes him
by saying that Blake at ten years of age was an artist and at twelve a poet. He
seems really to have shown in childhood his double gift. But the boy's
education was rudimentary, his advantages not even usual, it would seem. To
the end of his life, the mature man's works betray a defective common-
schooling, a lamentable lack of higher intellectual training--unless we suspect
that the process would have disciplined his mind, to the loss of bizarre
originality. Most of what Blake learned he taught himself, and that at
haphazard. The mistiness and inexplicability of his productions is part of such
a process, as well as of invincible temperament.
In 1767 Blake was studying drawing with Mr.
Pars, at the sometime famous Strand Academy,
where he was reckoned a diligent but egotistical
pupil. At fourteen he became apprenticed, for a
livelihood,--afterward exchanged for the painter's
and illustrator's freer career,--to James Basire, an
academic but excellent engraver, whose manner
is curiously traceable through much of Blake's William Blake
after work. Even in the formal atmosphere of the
Royal Academy's antique school, Blake remained an opinionated and curiously
"detached" scholar, with singular critical notions, with half-expressed or very
boldly expressed theories as to art, religion, and most other things. In 1782 he
married a young woman of equally humble derivation, who could not even
sign the marriage register. He developed her character, educated her mind, and
made her a devoted and companionable wife, full of faith in him. Their curious

and retired ménage was as happy in a practical and mundane aspect as could
be hoped from even a normal one.
In 1780 he began to exhibit, his first picture being 'The Death of Earl Godwin.'
After exhibiting five others, however, ending with 'Jacob's Dream,' he
withdrew altogether from public advertisement. Several devoted patrons--
especially Mr. Linnell, and a certain Mr. Thomas Butts, who bought
incessantly, anything and everything,--seized upon all he drew and painted. In
his literary undertakings he was for the most part his own editor and printer
and publisher. His career in verse and prose began early. In 1783 came forth
the charming collection 'Poetical Sketches,' juvenile as the fancies of his
boyish days, but full of a sensitive appreciation of nature worthy of a mature
heart, and expressed with a diction often exquisite. The volume was not really
public nor published, but printed by the kindly liberality of two friends, one of
them Flaxman. In 1787, "under the direction of the spirit of his dead brother,"
Robert, he decided on publishing a new group of lyrics and fancies, 'Songs of
Innocence,' by engraving the text of the poems and its marginal
embellishments on copper--printing the pages in various tints, coloring or
recoloring them by hand, and even binding them, with his wife's assistance.
The medium for mixing his tints, by the by, was "revealed to him by Saint
Joseph."
With this volume--now a rarity for the bibliophile--began Blake's system of
giving his literary works and many of his extraordinary artistic productions
their form and being. Like a poet-printer of our own day, Mr. William Morris,
Blake insisted that each page of text, all his delicate illustrations, every cover
even, should pass through his own fingers, or through those of his careful and
submissive helpmeet. The expense of their paper was the chief one to the light
purse of the queerly assorted, thrifty pair.
In 1789 appeared another little volume of verses, 'Songs of Innocence.' This
also was ushered into existence as a dual book of pictures and of poetry. In
1794 came the 'Songs of Experience,' completing that brief lyrical trio on
which rests Blake's poetical reputation and his claim on coming generations of
sympathetic readers. To these early and exquisite fruits of Blake's feeling
succeeded a little book 'For Children,' the mystic volume 'The Gates of
Paradise,' 'The Visions of the Daughters of Albion,' 'America, a Prophecy,' Part
First of his 'Book of Urizen,' and a collection of designs without text, treated in
the methods usual with him, besides other labors with pencil and pen.

But the wonderful and disordered imagination of the artist and poet now
embodied itself in a strange group of writings for which no parallel exists. To
realize them, one must imagine the most transcendent notions of Swedenborg
mingled with the rant of a superior kind of Mucklewrath. Such poems as 'The
Book of Thel,' in spite of beautiful allegoric passages; 'The Gates of Paradise';
'Tiriel,' an extended narrative-fantasy in irregular unrhymed verses; even the
striking 'Marriage of Heaven and Hell,'--may be reckoned as mere prologues to
such productions as 'Jerusalem,' 'The Emanation of the Giant Albion.' 'Milton,'
and the "prophecies" embodied in the completed 'Urizen,' the 'Europe,'
'Ahania,' and 'The Book of Los.' Such oracular works Blake put forth as
dictated to him by departed spirits of supreme influence and intellectuality, or
by angelic intelligences, quite apart from his own volition; indeed, only with
his "grateful obedience." Such claims are not out of place in the instance of
one who "saw God"; who often "conversed familiarly with Jesus Christ"; who
"was" Socrates; who argued conclusions for hours at a time with Moses, with
Milton, with Dante, with the Biblical prophets, with Voltaire; who could "see
Satan" almost at will--all in vivid conceptions that sprang up in his mind with
such force as to set seemingly substantial and even speaking beings before
him. In his assumption of the seer, Blake was not a charlatan: he believed fully
in his supernatural privileges. To him his modest London lodging held great
company, manifest in the spirit.
Blake's greater "prophetic" writings ended, he busied himself with painting
and illustration. He was incessant in industry; indeed, his ordinary recreation at
any time was only a change of work from one design to another. So were
wrought out the (incomplete) series of plates for Young's 'Night Thoughts'; the
drawings for Hayley's 'Life of Cowper,' and for the same feeble author's
'Ballads on Anecdotes relating to Animals'; the 'Dante' designs: the 'Job' series
of prints; a vast store of aquarelle and distemper paintings and plates, and a
whole gallery of "portraits" derived from sitters of distinction in past universal
history. These sitters, it is needless to say, were wholly invisible to other eyes
than Blake's. The subjects vary from likenesses of Saint Joseph and the Virgin
Mary to those of Mahomet and Shakespeare. Sundry of the old masters, Titian
included, reviewed his efforts and guided his brush! Such assertions do not ill
accord with the description of his once seeing a fairy's funeral, or that he first
beheld God when four years old.
But all his fantasies did not destroy his faith in the fundamentals of orthodoxy.
He never ceased to be a believer in Christianity. His convictions of a revealed

religion were reiterated. While incessant in asserting that he had a solemn
message-spiritual to his day and generation, he set aside nothing significant in
the message of the Scriptures. There is something touching in the anecdote of
him and his devoted Kate told by the portrait-painter Richmond. Himself
discouraged with his imperfect work, Richmond one day visited Blake and
confessed his low mood. To his astonishment, Blake turned to his wife
suddenly, and said, "It is just so with us, is it not, for weeks together, when the
visions forsake us! What do we do then, Kate?" "We kneel down and pray, Mr.
Blake."
So passed Blake's many years, between reality and dream, labors and
chimeras. The painter's life was not one of painful poverty. He and his Kate
needed little money; and the seer-husband's pencils and burin, or the private
kindness so constantly shown him, provided daily bread. Despite the visions
and inspirations and celestial phenomena that filled his head, Blake withal was
sane enough in everyday concerns. He lived orderly, even if he thought chaos.
Almost his last strokes were on the hundred water-colors for the 'Divina
Commedia,' the 'Job' cycle, the 'Ancient of Days' drawing, or a "frenzied
sketch" of his wife which he made, exclaiming in beginning it, "Stay! Keep as
you are! You have ever been an angel to me. I will draw you." Natural decay
and painful chronic ailments increased. He seldom left his rooms in Fountain
Court, Strand, except in a visit to the Linnells, at Hampstead. He died gently in
1827, "singing of the things he saw in Heaven." His grave, to-day unknown,
was a common one in Bunhill Fields Cemetery. Many friends mourned him.
With all his eccentricities and the extravagances of his "visions" and
"inspirations," he was loved. His ardor of temperament was balanced by
meekness, his aggressiveness by true politeness. He was frank, abstemious, a
lover of children,--who loved him,--devout in prayer, devoid of vice. Yet
whenever he was in contact with his fellow-men, he was one living and
walking apart. As an influence in literature he is less considerable than in
painting. In the latter art, a whole group of contemporary notables,
intellectualists, and rhapsodists of greater or less individuality have to do with
him, among whom Dante Gabriel Rossetti was in much his literary child, still
more his child in art.
A brief and early 'Life' of Blake, prepared by his intimate friend Allan
Cunningham, appeared in 1829. In 1839, for the first time, his works were
really given to the public. Mr. Gilchrist's invaluable biography and study
appeared in 1863; revised and enlarged in an edition of 1880. Mr. Swinburne's

critical essay on him is a notable aid to the student. The artist-poet's complete
works were edited by Mr. William Michael Rossetti in 1874, with a complete
and discriminating memoir. More recent contributions to Blake literature are
the Ellis and Yeats edition of his works, also with a Memoir and an
Interpretation; and Mr. Alfred J. Story's volume on 'The Life, Character, and
Genius of William Blake.' Some of the rarest of his literary productions, as
well as the scarcest among his drawings, are owned in America, chiefly by two
private collectors in the Eastern States.

SONG

My silks and fine array,
My smiles and languished air,
By love are driven away,
And mournful lean Despair
Brings me yew to deck my grave:
Such end true lovers have.

His face is fair as heaven
When springing buds unfold;
Oh, why to him was 't given,
Whose heart is wintry cold?
His breast is Love's all-worshiped tomb,
Where all Love's pilgrims come.

Bring me an axe and spade,
Bring me a winding-sheet;
When I my grave have made,
Let winds and tempests beat:
Then down I'll lie, as cold as clay:
True love doth never pass away.

SONG

Love and harmony combine
And around our souls entwine,
While thy branches mix with mine
And our roots together join.

Joys upon our branches sit,
Chirping loud and singing sweet;
Like gentle streams beneath our feet,
Innocence and virtue meet.

Thou the golden fruit dost bear,
I am clad in flowers fair;
Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,
And the turtle buildeth there.

There she sits and feeds her young;
Sweet I hear her mournful song;
And thy lovely leaves among,
There is Love: I hear his tongue.

There his charmed nest he doth lay,
There he sleeps the night away,
There he sports along the day,
And doth among our branches play.

THE TWO SONGS

I HEARD an Angel singing
When the day was springing:
"Mercy, pity, and peace,

Are the world's release."

So he sang all day
Over the new-mown hay,
Till the sun went down,
And the haycocks looked brown.

I heard a devil curse
Over the heath and the furse:
"Mercy could be no more
If there were nobody poor,

And pity no more could be
If all were happy as ye:
And mutual fear brings peace.
Misery's increase
Are mercy, pity, peace."

At his curse the sun went down,
And the heavens gave a frown.

NIGHT

From 'Songs of Innocence'

The sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine,
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine.
The moon, like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles in the night.

Farewell, green fields and happy groves
Where flocks have ta'en delight;
Where lambs have nibbled, silent move
The feet of angels bright;
Unseen they pour blessing,
And joy without ceasing,
On each bud and blossom,
And each sleeping bosom.

They look in every thoughtless nest,
Where birds are covered warm;
They visit caves of every beast,
To keep them all from harm;
If they see any weeping
That should have been sleeping,
They pour sleep on their head,
And sit down by their bed.

When wolves and tigers howl for prey,
They pitying stand and weep;
Seeking to drive their thirst away,
And keep them from the sheep.
But if they rush dreadful,
The angels most heedful
Receive each wild spirit,
New worlds to inherit.

And there the lion's ruddy eyes
Shall flow with tears of gold;
And pitying the tender cries,
And walking round the fold,
Saying, "Wrath by His meekness,
And by His health, sickness,
Are driven away
From our immortal day.

"And now beside thee, bleating lamb,
I can lie down and sleep,

Or think on Him who bore thy name,
Graze after thee and weep.
For washed in life's river,
My bright mane forever
Shall shine like the gold,
As I guard o'er the fold."

THE PIPER AND THE CHILD

Introduction to 'Songs of Innocence'

Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:--

"Pipe a song about a lamb."
So I piped with merry cheer.
"Piper, pipe that song again:"
So I piped; he wept to hear.

"Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer:"
So I sang the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.

"Piper, sit thee down and write,
In a book that all may read."
So he vanished from my sight;
And I plucked a hollow reed;

And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,

And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.

HOLY THURSDAY

From 'Songs of Innocence'

'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
Came children walking two and two, in red and blue
and green:
Gray-headed beadles walked before, with wands as
white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames
waters flow.

Oh, what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of
London town!
Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their
own.
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of
lambs,
Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent
hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice
of song,
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven
among:
Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the
poor.
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your
door.

A CRADLE SONG

From 'Songs of Experience'

Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming in the joys of night;
Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.

As thy softest limbs I feel,
Smiles as of the morning steal
O'er thy cheek and o'er thy breast,
Where thy little heart doth rest.

Oh, the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep!
When thy little heart shall wake,
Then the dreadful light shall break.

THE LITTLE BLACK BOY

From 'Songs of Innocence'

My Mother bore me in the Southern wild,
And I am black, but oh, my soul is white!
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.

My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And, pointing to the East, began to say:--

"Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
And gives his light, and gives his heat away,
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

"And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love;
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

"For when our souls have learned the heat to bear,
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear his voice,
Saying, 'Come out from the grove, my love and care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.'"

Thus did my mother say, and kissèd me,
And thus I say to little English boy:
When I from black, and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,

I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.

THE TIGER

From 'Songs of Experience'

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye
Framed thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burned that fire within thine eyes?
On what wings dared he aspire?
What the hand dared seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
When thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand formed thy dread feet?

What the hammer, what the chain,
Knit thy strength and forged thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dared thy deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

CHARLES BLANC
(1813-1882)

e have few personal details of Charles Blanc. We know that he lived in a
luminous world of form and thought, a life in harmony with his work; we have
books containing his conception of art; we know that art was his one absorbing
passion: and this should satisfy us, for it was his own opinion that all which
does not tend to illustrate an artist's conception of art is of but secondary
importance in his life.
Of Franco-Italian extraction, Charles Blanc was born in Castres, France, on the
15th of November, 1813. When in 1830 he and his brother Louis, youths of
eighteen and nineteen, came to Paris, their aged father, an ex-inspector of
finance whose career had been ruined by the fall of Napoleon, was dependent
on them for support. Louis soon procured work on a newspaper; but Charles,
whose ambition from his earliest years was to become a painter, spent his days
in the Louvre, or wandering about Paris looking in the old-print-shop
windows, and he thus learned much that he afterwards developed in his works.
As his brother's position improved, he was enabled to study drawing with
Delaroche and engraving with Calamatta. His masters gave him but little
encouragement, however, and he soon turned his thoughts to literature, his
maiden effort being a description of the Brussels Salon of 1836 for his
brother's paper.
Exquisite sensitiveness and responsiveness to beauty eminently fitted Charles
Blanc for the position of art critic, and gave a charm to his earliest writings. He
brought to his new task the technical knowledge of an artist, and a penetrating
critical insight which, aided by study, ripened rapidly. The evidence of talent
afforded by his first art criticism induced Louis Blanc to confide to him
successively the editorship of several provincial papers. But Charles's
inclinations were toward the calm atmosphere of art; he was, and ever
remained, indifferent to politics, and looked upon the fiery, active Louis with
astonishment, even while catching his energy and ambition. On his return to
Paris he began a history of the 'French Painters of the Nineteenth Century,' but

one volume of which appeared; and the 'Painters of All Schools,' completed in
1876. Very little was then known of the lives of the painters. By illustrating
each biographical sketch with engravings of the artists' pictures, Blanc met a
long-felt want. As the work was intended for the general reader, it was not
overloaded with erudition: but numerous anecdotes, combined with vivacity of
style, aroused interest in painting and created a public for the more purely
technical works which followed. Though assisted by others in this undertaking,
Blanc himself planned the method of treatment, and wrote the history of the
Dutch and French schools; and the work justly retains his name.
The Socialists had taken a prominent part in the events of February, 1848,
which led to the overthrow of Louis Philippe; and they yielded to the universal
desire by appointing Charles Blanc Director of Fine Arts--a position which he
had prophesied to his friends several years before that he would one day fill.
When he assumed office, the position of artists was critical; as, owing to social
convulsions, government and private orders had dwindled into insignificance.
Thanks to his energy, work was resumed on public monuments, and the greater
part of the sum of 900,000 francs, voted by the National Assembly for the
Champs de Mars festival, was devoted to work which gave employment to a
legion of decorative painters and sculptors. After the Salon of 1848, as the
government coffers were depleted, he obtained 80,000 francs' worth of Sèvres
porcelain from the Minister of Commerce, to give as prizes. He combated a
proposition made by the Committee on Finance to suppress the Louvre studios
of molding; he opposed the motion to reduce the corps of professors at the
School of Fine Arts, and defended the School of Rome, threatened with
suppression.
While Director of Fine Arts, Blanc fought his first and only duel, in defence of
his brother, although he had never fired a pistol in his life. During the political
agitation of 1848, Louis was condemned by the National Assembly, and fled to
London. After his departure, he was abused in very insulting language by one
Lacombe, and Charles called the latter to account. In the duel which followed,
Lacombe was hit, but the ball struck his pocket-book and glanced off, when
Méry, one of the seconds, exclaimed, "That was money well invested!" and
there the matter ended.
Another event, which occurred several years previous, has a certain
psychological significance. One evening Charles Blanc was visiting a friend
who resided a distance of one hundred and fifty miles from Paris. In the midst
of conversation, he suddenly grew pale and exclaimed that he had received a

shock, adding that something must have happened to Louis. The next day his
fears were confirmed by the receipt of a letter, telling him that the latter had
been knocked down in the streets of Paris by a blow across the forehead. When
Dumas père heard of this coincidence, he utilized it in his 'Corsican Brothers.'
Notwithstanding his fine record as an administrator and his encouragement of
talent, Blanc was sacrificed to the spirit of reaction which set in about 1850.
His removal displeased the entire art world, so highly was he esteemed for his
integrity, his progressive ideas, and his unerring taste. On his return to private
life he resumed his 'History of the Painters.' 'L'Oeuvres de Rembrandt' (1853 to
1863), containing also a life of the artist, was illustrated by the first
photographic plates which ever appeared in a book.
The name 'Peintres des Fêtes Galantes' was derived by Blanc from the title
conferred on Watteau by the French Academy. Of the artists therein mentioned,
Watteau occupied the realm of poetry; Lancret that of the conventional, the
fashionable; Pater that of vulgar, jovial reality; Boucher, the most distinctively
French of artists, that of brilliancy, dash, and vivacity. These painters are a
curious study for the historian interested in the external forms of things.
With the exception of Dupré, Blanc knew all the painters of whom he writes in
the 'Artistes de mon Temps' (Artists of My Time). The work is therefore
replete with personal recollections. Here again the general interest is deepened
by the warm interest which the author takes in the men and events of the time.
There are many charming pages devoted to Félix Duban, Delacroix, and
Calamatta; to the contemporary medallions of David d'Angers; to Henri Leys,
Chenavard, and Troyon; to Corot, the lover of nature who saw her through a
veil of poetry; to Jules Dupré and Rousseau, who saw the poetry innate in her.
He introduces us to the caricaturists Grandville and Gavarni; to Barye's lifelike
animals. On reading the lives of these men, one is struck by the fact that they
produced their masterpieces at about the age of twenty years.
The 'Treasures of Art in Manchester,' and 'From Paris to Vienna,' were
published in 1857. The latter contained curious information about the sale of
art works during the seventeenth century, with the prices they brought, and is
enlivened with short spirited sketches of artists and amateurs. In 1867 Blanc
became a member of the Academic des Beaux Arts. The 'Treasures of
Curiosity' is a catalogue of pictures and engravings sold between 1830 and the
date of the appearance of the book.

Devoted to purely artistic subjects, the Journal des Beaux Arts, founded by
Blanc, rendered great service to art by spreading a taste for it among the
cultivated classes. The 'Grammar of Painting and Engraving' first appeared in
this periodical. Though given up to a consideration of technical subjects, the
work abounds in poetic touches and has great interest for the general reader. In
1875 it was discussed in the French Academy, when its author competed for
the chair left vacant by the death of Vitel. He was not elected until the
following year, though his book met with great success, and led to the revival
of engraving in France.
When he began his studies for the life of Ingres, which appeared in 1867, he
found many letters of the artist, which enabled him to follow the latter through
the various phases of his life: to know the changes of his temper, the
inflexibility of his character; his emotions day by day; his momentary
discouragements, his great will-power; the heroic efforts he made to reach the
heights; his ideas on art, his opinions of others as well as himself: and thanks
to these documents, he was enabled to reproduce one of the most remarkable
personalities, if not the most original one, of the French school.
In 1870 he was again made Director of Fine Arts. He introduced several
reforms in the organization of the Salon, and founded a 4,000-franc prize. But
the spirit of reaction could not forgive his political antecedents; and in 1873,
on the fall of Thiers, he was removed before he could complete his plan for
establishing a museum of copies to reproduce the masterpieces of painting.
One well-deserved satisfaction was granted him in 1878 by the creation of a
chair of Æsthetics and Art History in the College of France, which he was
called by special decree to fill; and there he taught for three years.
The first part of the 'Grammar of the Decorative Arts' appeared in 1881; the
second part, dealing with interior decorations, in 1882. The third part, 'The
Decoration of Cities,' was not completed, owing to his sudden death. Elected
President of the French Academy in 1882, he did not enjoy this well-deserved
honor long. A few weeks before his death--which occurred on February 17th,
1882, from the effects of an operation for cancer--he began a catalogue of the
collection presented by Thiers to the Louvre. This was the last work of a pen
wielded with unimpaired vigor to the end.
"The great artist," wrote Blanc, "is he who guides us into the region of his own
thoughts, into the palaces and fields of his own imagination, and while there,
speaks to us the language of the gods;" and to none are these words more

applicable than to himself. In the world of thought he was a man of great
originality, though neither architect, painter, nor sculptor. He had all the artist
nature from a boy, and never lost the tender sensibility and naïf admiration for
the beautiful in nature and art which give such glow of enthusiasm to his
writings. His 'Grammar of Painting and Engraving' founded the scientific
method of criticism. In this work he brought his intellectual qualifications and
extensive reading to bear upon a subject until then treated either by
philosophical theorizers or eloquent essayists. He has left one of the purest
literary reputations in France. He was above all an idealist, and made the
World Beautiful more accessible to us.

Rembrandt and his Wife
Photogravure from the original Painting by Rembrandt.
Dresden Gallery.

REMBRANDT

From 'The Dutch School of Painters'

Rembrandt has taken great pains to transmit to us paintings of his person, or at
least of his face, from the time of his youth up to that of shrunken old age. He
was a man at once robust and delicate. His broad and slightly rounded
forehead presented a development that indicated a powerful imagination. His
eyes were small, deep-set, bright, intelligent, and full of fire. His hair, of a
warm color bordering on red and curling naturally, may possibly have
indicated a Jewish extraction. His head had great character, in spite of the
plainness of his features; a large flat nose, high cheek-bones, and a copper-
colored complexion imparted to his face a vulgarity which, however, was
relieved by the form of his mouth, the haughty outline of his eyebrows, and the
brilliancy of his eyes. Such was Rembrandt; and the character of the figures he
painted partakes of that of his own person. That is to say, they have great
expression, but are not noble; they possess much pathos, while deficient in
what is termed style.
An artist thus constituted could not but be exceedingly original, intelligent, and
independent, though selfish and entirely swayed by caprice. When he began to
study nature, he entered upon his task not with that good nature which is the
distinctive characteristic of so many of the Dutch painters, but with an innate
desire to stamp upon every object his own peculiarity, supplementing
imagination by an attentive observation of real life. Of all the phenomena of
nature, that which gave him most trouble was light; the difficulty he most
desired to conquer was that of expression.

ALBERT DÜRER'S 'MELANCHOLIA'

From 'The Dutch School of Painters'

The love of the extravagant and fantastic observable in Dürer's first pictures
never abandoned him. He has probably expressed the inspiration of his own
soul in the figure of Melancholy, who, seated on the sea-shore, seems trying to
penetrate with her gaze into infinite space. For my part, I have this picture
always before me. How could it be possible to forget an engraving of Dürer's,
even though seen but once? I can see her proud and noble head resting
thoughtfully upon one hand, her long hair falling in disheveled tresses upon
her shoulders; her folded wings emblematic of that impotent aspiration which
directs her gaze towards heaven; a book, closed and useless as her wings,
resting upon her knee. Nothing can be more gloomy, more penetrating, than
the expression of this figure. From the peculiar folds of her dress, one would
suppose she was enveloped in iron draperies. Near her is a sun-dial with a bell
which marks the hours as they glide away. The sun is sinking beneath the
ocean, and darkness will soon envelop the earth. Above hovers a strange-
looking bat with spreading wings, and bearing a pennon on which is written
the word "Melancholia."
All is symbolical in this composition, of which the sentiment is sublime.
Melancholy holds in her right hand a pair of compasses and a circle, the
emblem of that eternity in which her thoughts are lost. Various instruments
appertaining to the arts and sciences lie scattered around her; after having
made use of them, she has cast them aside and has fallen into a profound
revery. As typical of the mistrust which has crept into her heart with avarice
and doubt, a bunch of keys is suspended to her girdle; above her is an hour-
glass, the emblem of her transitory existence. Nothing could be more
admirable than the face of Melancholy, both in the severe beauty of her
features and the depth of her gaze.
Neither the sentiment of melancholy nor the word which expresses it had
appeared in art before the time of Albert Dürer.

INGRES

From the 'Life of Ingres'

Small of stature, square of figure, rough of manner, devoid of distinction,
Ingres's personality afforded a great contrast to the refinement of his taste and
the charm of his feminine figures. I can hardly conceive how a man thus built
could show such delicacy in the choice of his subjects; how those short, thick
fingers could draw such lovely, graceful forms.
Ingres hated academic conventionality; he mingled the Florentine and Greek
schools; he sought the ideal not outside of reality but in its very essence, in the
reconciliation of style with nature. Color he considered of secondary
importance; he not only subordinated it voluntarily to drawing, but he did not
have a natural gift for it. Ingres is the artist who has best expressed the
voluptuousness not of flesh but of form; who has felt feminine beauty most
profoundly and chastely.

CALAMATTA'S STUDIO

From 'Contemporary Artists'

I can still see Lamennais, with his worn-out coat, his round back, his yellow,
parchment-like face, his eyes sparkling beneath a forehead imprinted with
genius, and resembling somewhat Hoffmann's heroes. George Sand sometimes
visited us, and it seemed to me that her presence lighted up the whole studio.
She always spoke to me, for she knew that I was the brother of a distinguished
writer, and when she looked over my plate I trembled like a leaf.
Thus our calm sedentary life was enlivened by an occasional sunbeam; and
when I was hard at work with my graver, my mind was nourished by the minds
of others. Giannone, the poet, read his commentaries on Shakespeare to us, and
Mercure always had a witty retort in that faulty French which is so amusing in
an Italian mouth. Calamatta would listen in silence, his eyes glued to his
drawing of the 'Joconde,' at which he worked on his good days.

BLANC'S DÉBUT AS ART CRITIC

From 'Contemporary Artists'

In those days things happened just as they do now; the criticism is almost
invariably the work of beginners. A youth who has acquired a smattering of
learning, who has caught up the slang of the studios, and pretends to have a
system or to defend a paradox, is chosen to write an account of the Salon. I
was that youth, that novice. And after all, how become a workman unless you
work? how become expert if you do not study, recognize your mistakes and
repair them? Beneath our mistakes truth lies hidden.
So I arrived at Brussels to exercise the trade of critic, and found myself in the
presence of two men who were then making a brilliant debut as painters: De
Keyser and Henri Leys. I hope I shall be forgiven if I reproduce my criticism
of the latter's 'Massacre of the Magistrates of Louvain.'

"Imagine to yourself a small public square, such as
might have existed in Louvain in the fourteenth
century; this square filled with angry people
demanding satisfaction for the death of their chief,
Gautier de Lendes, assassinated by the nobles; the
approach to the palace of justice crowded with men
armed to the teeth; at the top of the stairs the city
magistrates on their way to execution, some as calm as
if about to administer justice, others bewailing that the
people know not what they do; peasants awaiting them
at the foot of the stairs, dagger in hand, a smile upon
their lips; here and there fainting women, dead bodies
being stripped, dying men being tortured, and an
inextricable confusion of monks, burghers, soldiers,
children and horses. Then if you fancy this scene

painted with the warmth and impetuosity of a
Tintoretto, or as Hugo would have written it, you will
have an idea of Leys's picture. It may not be prudent to
trust an enthusiastic criticism; but my opinion is shared
by every one. I may be rash in praising a young man
whose wings may melt in the sun; but when, as is the
case with M. Leys, the artist possesses exact
knowledge of the times and manners, when he has
verve, dash, and deep feeling, he needs only to
moderate ardor by reflection, and to ripen inspiration
by study, in order to become great."

One must admit that the above was not a bad beginning for an apprentice-
connoisseur, and that I was fortunate in praising an unknown artist destined to
make a great reputation.... There is something more real than reality in what
passes in the soul of a great artist!

DELACROIX'S 'BARK OF DANTE'

From 'Contemporary Artists'

An admirable and altogether new quality is the weird harmony of color which
makes the painting vibrate like a drama; or in other words, that sombre
harmony itself is the foundation of the tragedy. Lyricism is expressed by mere
difference in tones, which, heightened by their contrasts and softened by their
analogy, become harmonious while clashing with each other. A new poetry was
born of the French school, until then so sober of color, so little inclined to avail
itself of the material resources of painting. And yet the expression thus
achieved by Delacroix appeals to the soul as much as to the eyes. It is not
merely optical beauty, but spiritual beauty of the highest order, that is produced
by his superb coloring. In this picture the young painter's genius was revealed
unto himself. He then knew that he had guessed the secret of an art which he
was to carry to a perfection undreamed of before,--the orchestration of color....
Delacroix was the hero of Romanticism. His life was one long revolt in the
name of color against drawing, of flesh against marble, of freedom of attitude

against traditionary precision. He is an essentially modern genius inflamed by
the poetry of Christianity, and he added tumultuous passions and feverish
emotions to the antique serenity of art.
In those days youth was entirely given up to noble aspirations, to dreams of
glory, to enthusiasm for beauty of expression and feeling, to an ardent love of
liberty. Men were indifferent to stock quotations, but they rated spiritual values
high. Mere theories inspired passion; quarrels on the subject of style and
painting were common; men became enthusiastic over poetry and beauty--the
ideal!

GENESIS OF THE 'GRAMMAR'

At dinner one day with the dignitaries of one of the largest cities of France,
conversation turned upon the arts. All of the guests spoke of them, and well;
but each intrenched himself behind his own personal views, in virtue of the
adage "One cannot argue about tastes." I protested in vain against this false
principle, saying that it was inadmissible, and that the classic Brillat-Savarin
would have been shocked at such blasphemy. Even his name had no weight,
and the guests separated gayly, after uttering heresies that made you shiver.
Among the eminent men present there was one, however, who seemed
somewhat mortified that he had not the most elementary idea of art; and he
asked me if there was not some book in which its principles were presented in
a clear and brief form. I replied that no such book existed, and that on leaving
college I should have been only too happy to find such a work; and thereupon
determined to write one.

MORAL INFLUENCE OF ART

From 'Grammar of Painting and Engraving'

Painting purifies people by its mute eloquence. The philosopher writes his
thoughts for those who can think and read. The painter shows his thought to all
who have eyes to see. That hidden and naked virgin, Truth, the artist finds
without seeking. He throws a veil over her, encourages her to please, proves to
her that she is beautiful, and when he has reproduced her image he makes us
take her, and takes her himself, for Beauty.
In communicating to us what has been seen and felt by others, the painter
gives new strength and compass to the soul. Who can say of how many
apparently fugitive impressions a man's morality is composed, and upon what
depends the gentleness of his manners, the correctness of his habits, the
elevation of his thoughts? If the painter represents acts of cruelty or injustice,
he inspires us with horror. The 'Unhappy Family' of Proudhon moves the fibres
of charity better than the homilies of a preacher.... Examples of the sublime are
rare in painting, as the painter is compelled to imprison every idea in a form. It
may happen, nevertheless, that moved by thoughts to which he has given no
form, the artist strikes the soul as a thunderbolt would the ear. It is then by
virtue of the thought perceived, but not formulated, that the picture becomes
sublime.

POUSSIN'S 'SHEPHERDS OF ARCADIA'

From 'Grammar of Painting and Engraving'

In a wide, heavily wooded country, the sojourning-place of that happiness sung
by the poets, some peasants have discovered a tomb hidden by a thicket of
trees, and bearing this brief inscription: "Et in Arcadia ego" (I too lived in
Arcadia). These words, issuing from the tomb, sadden their faces, and the

smiles die upon their lips. A young girl, carelessly leaning upon the shoulder of
her lover, seems to listen, mute and pensive, to this salutation from the dead.
The thought of death has also plunged into reverie a youth who leans over the
tomb with bowed head, while the oldest shepherd points out the inscription he
has just discovered. The landscape that completes this quiet picture shows
reddened leaves upon arid rocks; hillocks that melt in the vague horizon, and
in the distance, something ill-defined that resembles the sea. The sublime in
this painting is that which we cannot see; it is the thought that hovers over it,
the unexpected emotion that fills the soul of the spectator, transported suddenly
beyond the tomb into the infinite unknown.

LANDSCAPE

From 'Grammar of Painting and Engraving'

The poetry of the fields and forests is inseparable from truth. But the painter
must idealize this truth by making it express some sentiment; faithfulness of
imitation alone would not suffice. The artist, master of reality, enlightens it
with his eyes, transfigures it according to his heart, and makes it utter what is
not in it--sentiment; and that which it neither possesses nor understands--
thought.

STYLE

From 'Grammar of Painting and Engraving'

Drawing is a work of the mind; every drawing is the expression of a thought or
sentiment, and is charged with showing us something superior to the apparent
truth when that reveals neither sentiment nor thought. But what is this superior
truth? It is sometimes the character of the object drawn, sometimes the
character of the designer, and in high art is what we call style.
The artist sees in the creations of nature what he himself carries in the depth of
his soul, tints them with the colors of his imagination, lends them the witchery

of his genius. The temperament of the artist modifies the character of objects,
and even that of living figures. But this power of taking possession is the
appanage of great hearts, of great artists, of those whom we call masters,--who,
instead of being the slaves of reality, dominate it. These have a style; their
imitators have only a manner.
Aside from the style peculiar to every great master, there is in art something
still superior and impersonal, which is style proper. Style is truth aggrandized,
simplified, freed from all insignificant details, restored to its original essence,
its typical aspect. This "style" par excellence, in which instead of recognizing
the soul of an artist we feel the breath of the universal soul, was realized in the
Greek sculpture of the time of Pericles.

THE LAW OF PROPORTION IN ARCHITECTURE

From 'Grammar of Painting and Engraving'

Man, from the fact that he is the only intelligent being in creation, desires to
show his intelligence in his works. In order to do so he makes them resemble
himself in a measure, by impressing upon them the characteristic of his
intelligence, which is logic, and that of his body, which is proportion.
Architecture employs inorganic matter alone--stone, marble, brick, iron, wood,
when the sap has been dried out of it and it ceases to be an organic substance;
and yet, under the hand of the architect, this inert matter expresses sentiments
and feelings. By subjecting it to the laws of order, symmetry, and proportion,
in a manner which appeals to the eye, he lends them a semblance of life and an
organism conceived after his own image. By this artificial proportion, inert
matter is raised to the dignity of the animal kingdom; it is rendered eloquent
and capable of expressing the soul of the artist, and often that of a race.
But human monuments have still another point in common with the body.
Order, symmetry, and proportion are needed rigorously only on the exterior.
Within, general beauty no longer dominates, but individual life. If we look at

the interior of the human body we find no symmetry, no arrangement but that
demanded by the function of the organs. The brain, it is true, has two
symmetrical lobes, because the brain is destined to a life of relation, to the life
of intelligence. But in their individual functions the life of the internal organs
presents another aspect. The stomach is a shapeless bag; the heart is a single
muscle which is not even placed in the centre; the left lung is longer and
narrower than the right; the spleen is a ganglion placed on the left side without
any corresponding organ; but all this mechanism, which scientists consider
wonderful in its irregularity, is hidden beneath a layer of similar members
which repeat each other and correspond at equal distances from a central line,
and constitute symmetry in animals, beauty in man. Similar in this respect to
the human body, architectural monuments have a double life and a double
aspect.
On the exterior, it is meet that they should be regular, symmetrical--but
symmetrical from left to right like man, not from top to bottom nor from face
to back. Their resemblance to man is further shown by openings, which are as
the eyes and ears of the persons who inhabit them; their entrance occupies the
centre of the edifice, as the mouth is placed on the central line of the face; they
have rounded or angular forms according as they have been built to express
strength, a virile idea, or grace, a feminine one; lastly, they have proportion,
for there is a harmonious relation between their apparent members, and a
mutual dependence which subordinates the variety of the parts to the unity of
the whole, and which constitutes the necessary conditions of the beautiful in
art.
The interior is not subjected to the necessity for duplicate members, to
regularity of façade, nor to unity of appearance. Thus when the artist who has
designed the monument performs its autopsy,--so to say,--we see, as in the
human body, unequal dimensions, irregular shapes, disparities which resemble
disorder to the eye, but which constitute the individuality of the edifice. Within
reigns relative beauty, free, with fixed rule; without reigns a necessary beauty
subjected to its own laws.
In man, character is the soul's expression. In architecture, character is the
moral physiognomy o£ a building. As a portrait without character is but a vain
shadow of the person represented, so a monument which does not appeal to the
intelligence, which evokes no thought, is merely a pile of stones, a body
without a soul. The soul of architecture is the thought it expresses.

Character tends towards beauty in man as well as in his works. If we glance at
human society, we see faces which appear to be nothing more than a sketch.
Parsimonious nature has given them only sufficient life to move in a narrow
circle; they are mere individuals; they represent nothing but themselves.
However, in the midst of the crowd, some men are noticeable for an abundance
of vitality, whom favorable events have developed along their natural
tendencies: they impersonate many individuals in one; their unity is equal to
numbers; for good or evil, they have a character. In proportion as an
individuality becomes more enriched, more pronounced, it attains character; in
proportion as character loses its roughness it becomes beauty. This is also true
of architecture.

STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER
(1782-1848)

mong the men nearest to the heart of the Danish people is Steen Steensen
Blicher, who was born in 1782 on the border of the Jutland heath with which
his name is so inseparably linked. The descendant of a line of country parsons,
he was destined like them to the ministry, and while awaiting his appointment
he supported his family by teaching and by farming.
When after years of hardship he finally obtained a parish on the Jutland heath,
the salary was too small to support his large family. It was only during the very
last years of his life that he was freed from harassing cares by the generosity of
three friends, who, grateful for his literary work, paid off his debts.
While he was in college at Copenhagen he heard the lectures of the Norwegian
Henrik Steffens, an interpreter of the German philosophic and romantic school.
Steffens aroused a reaction against the formalism of the eighteenth century,
and introduced romanticism into the North by his powerful influence over men
like Oehlenschläger, Grundtvig, and Mynster in Denmark, and Ling and the
"Phosphorists" in Sweden. Through these lectures Blicher became much
interested in the Ossianic poems, of which he made an. Excellent Danish
translation.
The poems and dramas with which he followed this work were of no great
importance. It was not until he began to look into the old Danish traditions that
he found his true sphere. The study of these quaint and simple legends led him
to write those national peasant stories which he began to publish in 1826. They
are not only the best of their kind in Danish, but they bear favorable
comparison with the same kind of work in other literatures. They are not
written as a study of social problems, or of any philosophy of life or moods of
nature as they are reflected in human existence; they are merely a reproduction
of what the country parson's own eyes beheld--the comedy and tragedy of the
commonplace. What a less sensitive observer might have passed in silence--the
brown heath, the breakers of the North Sea, the simple heart and life of the

peasant--revealed to him the poesy, now merry, now sad, which he renders
with so much art and so delicate a sympathy. Behind the believer in
romanticism stands the lover of nature and of humanity.
Among his works the best known are 'E Bindstouw' (The Knitting-room), a
collection of stories and poems, full of humor, simple and naive, told by the
peasants themselves in their own homely Jutland dialect. These, as well as
some of his later poems, especially 'Sneklokken' (The Snowbell), and
'Trækfuglene' (Birds of Passage), possess a clear, true, and national lyric
quality.
Dying in 1848, Blicher was buried in Jutland, near the heath on which he spent
whole days and nights of happy solitude. On one side of the stone above his
grave is engraved a golden plover, on the other a pair of heath-larks, and
around the foot a garland of heather, in memory of that intimate life with
nature which, through his own great love for it, he endeared to all his readers.

A PICTURE

From the 'Poems'

I lay on my heathery hills alone;
The storm-winds rushed o'er me in turbulence loud;
My head rested lone on the gray moorland stone;
My eyes wandered skyward from cloud unto cloud.

There wandered my eyes, but my thoughts onward
passed,
Far beyond cloud-track or tempest's career;
At times I hummed songs, and the desolate waste
Was the first the sad chimes of my spirit to hear.

Gloomy and gray are the moorlands where rest
My fathers, yet there doth the wild heather bloom,
And amid the old cairns the lark buildeth her nest,
And sings in the desert, o'er hill-top and tomb.

From Hewitt's 'Literature of Northern Europe.'

THE KNITTING-ROOM

It was the eve before Christmas Eve--no, stop! I am lying--it was the eve
before that, come to think of it, that there was a knitting-bee going on at the
schoolmaster's, Kristen Kornstrup's,--you know him? There were plenty that
knew him, for in the winter he was schoolmaster, and in the summer he was
mason, and he was alike clever at both. And he could do more than that, for he
could stop the flow of blood, and discover stolen goods, and make the wind
turn, and read prayers over felons, and much more too. But at this exorcising
he was not so good as the parson, for he had not been through the black school.
So we had gathered there from the whole town,--oh, well, Lysgaard town is not
so mighty big: there are only six farms and some houses, but then they were
there too from Katballe and Testrup, and I think the lads from Knakkeborg had
drifted over too--but that doesn't matter. We had got it measured off at last, and
all of us had got our yarn over the hook in the ceiling above the table, and had
begun to let the five needles work. Then the schoolmaster says, "Isn't there one
of you that will sing something or tell something? then it will go so nicely with
the work here." Then she began to speak, Kirsten Pedersdatter from Paps,--for
she is always forward about speaking:--"I could sing you a little ditty if you
cared to hear it--" "That we do," said I, "rattle it off!"--And she sang a ditty--I
had never heard it before, but I remember it well enough, and it ran this way:--

But now I will tell you a story about a Poorman [gipsy] and what happened to
him.
"If," said he--Mads Ur--"if you have been in Herning or thereabout, you know
that there is a great marsh south of it. That same marsh is not so very nice to
cross for those that don't know it well.

"It was the summer I was working for Kristens that a cow sank down out there,
and it was one of those I was watching. I took her by the horns and I took her
by the tail, but she would not help herself at all, and when one won't do a little
bit, what is going to become of one? As I stand there pulling at that same
refractory cow, up comes a Poorman from over at Rind, one of those they call
knackers. 'I'll have to help you,' said he: 'you take hold of the horns, and I'll lift
the tail.' That worked, for he pricked her under the tail with his pikestaff, and
she was of a mind to help herself too. 'What do you give me for that now?' said
he. 'I have nothing to give you,' said I, 'nothing but thanks.' 'I won't have them,'
answered he, 'but if ever I should sink down on one road or another, will you
lend me a hand if you are near by?' 'That I will do, indeed,' answered I; and
then he tramped up to town, and that was all.
"How was it now that I came to work in Sund's parsonage?--well, that doesn't
matter--I could swing a scythe, but how old I was I don't remember, for I don't
rightly know how old I am now. The parson was a mighty good man, but God
help us for the wife he had! She was as bad to him as any woman could be,
and he hadn't a dog's chance with her. I have saved him twice from her grip,
for he was a little scared mite of a thing, and she was big and strong, but I was
stronger still, and I could get the better of her. Once she chased him around the
yard with a knife in her hand, and cried that she would be even with him. I did
not like that, so I took the knife from her and warned her to behave herself,--
but that wasn't what I meant to say. Well, once while I was working there I
stood near the pond looking at the aftermath. And up comes this same
customer--this Poorman--drifting along the road toward me, and he had two
women following him, and they each had a cradle on their backs and a child in
each cradle. 'Good day to you,' said I. 'Same to you,' said he; 'how is your cow?
Have you let her get into the marsh since?' 'Oh, no,' said I, 'and here is another
thank-ye to you.' 'Are you working in this here bit of a parsonage?' said he.
'That I am,' said I. 'Well, now listen,' said he; 'couldn't you hide me these two
with their little ones a day or so? for to-morrow there is to be a raid on our
people, and I wouldn't like to have these in Viborghouse; I can stow myself
away easy enough.' 'I'll see what I can do,' answered I; 'let them come, say a
little after bedtime, to the West house there, and I'll get a ladder ready and help
them up on the hayloft,--but have you food and drink yourself?' 'Oh, I shall do
well enough,' said he, 'and now farewell to you until the sun is down.' So then
they drifted along the road to a one-horse farm, and that evening they came,
sure enough, and I hid the two women and the children until the second night;
then they slipped away again. Before I parted with them, the Poorman said, 'I'd

like to repay you this piece of work: isn't there something you want very
much?' 'Yes,' said I.--'What might it be?'--'Hm! The only thing is Morten's Ane
Kirstine at the farm where you went last night. But her parents won't let me
have her; they say I have too little, and that is true too.' 'Hm, man,' says he,
'you look as if you had a pair of strong arms of your own; that is a good
heirloom, and she has some pennies,--in a couple of days you might go and see
what the old man's mind is. I'll help along the best I know how.' I listened to
that, for evil upon them, those gipsies--they are not such fools. They can tell
fortunes and discover stolen goods, and they can do both good and evil as it
may happen.
"I thought over this thing a couple of days and some of the nights too, and then
the third day I drifted over to Morten's. Ane Kirstine stood alone outside the
gate with her back turned, for she was busy whitewashing a wall, so I came
upon her before she knew it. 'Mercy on us! is that you?' she cried, 'where have
you been all these many days?'--'I have been at home, and in the field, and on
the heath, as it happened, and now I come to take a look at you.'--'I am not
worth looking at,' said she, and thrust her clay-covered hands down into the
pail to rinse off the clay. 'I don't care,' says I, 'whether you are yellow or gray,
for you are the best friend I've got in this world; but I suppose I shall never be
worthy of taking you in my arms in all honor and virtue.'--'It would be bad if
that couldn't be,' said she, 'but it may happen we have got to wait awhile.'--'I
can't wait over-long,' said I, 'for my mother will have no roof over her head,
and either I shall have to take the farm or else a sister; that is how it stands,
and it cannot be otherwise.'--Then she began to sniffle, and dried her eyes and
sighed, but said nothing. I felt sorry for her, but what was there for one to do?
"Well, some one came who could tell us what to do, and it was none other than
that same Poorman. Along he tramps with one of his women, and had his glass
case on his back and wanted to get into the farm." Then he turned toward us
and said:--'Well, well! what are you two doing there? Come along in with me,
little girl, and I'll see if I can't manage it for you; but you stay out here, my
little man! then we'll see what may come of it.'--They went, and I sat down on
a stone that was lying there and folded my hands. I was not over-happy. I don't
know how long I sat there, for I had fallen asleep; but then I was waked by
some one kissing me, and it was no other than Ane Kirstine. 'Are you sitting
there sleeping?' said she; 'come along in now, it is as it ought to be. The
knacker has spoken a good word for us to mother, and when nothing could
change her he said, "There is a black cock sitting on the perch: maybe a red

one will crow over you if you don't do as I say." At this she got a little bit
scared, and said, "Then let it be! but this I tell you, Ane Kirstine, I'll keep the
black-headed cow for milking, and I'll have all the hay that is my share."--
"That is no more than reasonable," said I, "and now we have no more to
quarrel about, I suppose." Now you can let them publish the banns when you
please.' 'And now, Ane Kirstine,' said I, 'this tramp here, he must have a
reward, and I'll give it with a good will; and if we can get hold of him when we
have our feast, he shall have a pot of soup and a hen to himself and those
women and children.'--'That is right enough,' said she; 'and I will give them a
rag or so, or a few more of my half-worn clothes.'
"Well, then my mother-in-law made a splendid feast, and there was plenty of
everything. The Poorman was there, too, with all his following; but they had
theirs by themselves, as you might know, seeing that they were of the knacker
kind. Him I gave a coat, and Ane Kirstine gave the women each a cap and a
kerchief and a piece of homespun for a petticoat for each of the young ones,
and they were mighty well pleased.
"I and Ane Kirstine had lived happily together for about four years, as we do
still, and all that time we had seen nothing of that Poorman, although we had
spoken of him now and again. Sometimes we thought he had perished, and
sometimes that they had put him into Viborghouse. Well, then it was that we
were to have our second boy christened, him we called Sören, and I went to
the parson to get this thing fixed up. As I came on the marsh to the selfsame
place where I saw that Poor-customer the first time, there was somebody lying
at one edge of the bog, on his back in the heather and with his legs in the ditch.
I knew him well enough. 'Why are you lying here alone?' said I: 'is anything
the matter with you?' 'I think I am dying,' said he, but he gasped so I could
hardly understand him. 'Where are those women,' said I, 'that you used to have
with you? Have they left you to lie here by the road?' He nodded his head and
whispered, 'A drop of water.' 'That I will give you,' said I, and then I took some
of the rainwater that stood in the ditch, in the hollow of my hat, and held it to
his mouth. But that was of no use, for he could drink no longer, but drew up
his legs and opened his mouth wide, and then the spirit left him. I felt so sorry
for him that when I came to the parson's I begged that his poor ghost might be
sheltered in the churchyard. That he gave me leave to do, and then I fetched
him on my own wagon and nailed a couple of boards together and laid him
down in the northwestern corner, and there he lies."

"Well now, that was it," said Kristen Katballe, "but why do you sit there so
still, Marie Kjölvroe? Can you neither sing nor tell us something?" "That is not
impossible," said she, and heaved a sigh, and sang so sadly that one might
almost think it had happened to her.

THE HOSIER

"The greatest sorrow of all down here,
Is to lose the one we hold most dear."

Sometimes, when I have wandered far out on the wide heath, where I have had
nothing but the brown heather around me and the blue sky above me; when I
walked far away from mankind and the monuments of its busy doings here
below,--which after all are only molehills to be leveled by time or by some
restless Tamerlane;--when I drifted, light-hearted, free, and proud, like the
Bedouin, whom no house, no narrowly bounded field chains to the spot, but
who owns, possesses, all he sees,--who does not dwell, but who goes wherever
he pleases; when my far-hovering eye caught a glimpse of a house in the
horizon, and was thus disagreeably arrested in its airy flight, sometimes there
came (God forgive me this passing thought, it was no more than that) the wish-
-would that this dwelling of man were not! there too is trouble and sorrow;
there too they quarrel and fight about mine and thine!--Oh! the happy desert is
mine, is thine, is everybody's, is nobody's.--It is said that a forester has
proposed to disturb the settlements, to plant forests on the fields of the
peasants and in place of their torn-down villages; the far more inhuman
thought has taken possession of me at times--what if the heather-grown heath
were still here the same as it was centuries ago, undisturbed, untouched by the
hand of man! But as I have said, I did not mean it seriously. For when tired and
weary, suffering from hunger and thirst, I thought longingly of the Arab's tent
and coffee-pot, I thanked God that a heather-thatched roof--be it even miles
away--promised me shelter and refreshment.

On a still, warm September day, several years ago, I found myself walking on
this same heath, which, Arabically speaking, I call mine. No wind stirred the
blushing heather; the air was heavy and misty with heat. The far-off hills that
limited the horizon seemed to hover like clouds around the immense plain, and
took many wonderful shapes: houses, towers, castles, men and animals; but all
of dark uncertain outline, changing like dream pictures; now a cottage grew
into a church, and that in turn into a pyramid; here a spire arose, there another
sank; a man became a horse, and this in turn an elephant; here floated a boat,
there a ship with all sails set.
My eye found its pleasure for quite a while in watching these fantastic figures-
-a panorama which only the sailor and the desert-dweller have occasion to
enjoy--when finally I began to look for a real house among the many false
ones; I wanted right ardently to exchange all my beautiful fairy palaces for a
single human cottage.
Success was mine; I soon discovered a real farm without spires and towers,
whose outlines became distincter and sharper the nearer I came to it, and
which, flanked by peat-stacks, looked much larger than it really was. Its
inmates were unknown to me. Their clothes were poor, their furniture simple,
but I knew that the heath-dweller often hides noble rental in an unpainted box
or in a miserable wardrobe, and a fat pocketbook inside a patched coat; when
therefore my eyes fell on an alcove packed full of stockings, I concluded, and
quite rightly, that I was in the house of a rich hosier. (In parenthesis it may be
said that I do not know any poor ones.)
A middle-aged, gray-haired, but still strong man rose from his slice and offered
me his hand with these words: "Welcome!--with permission to ask, where does
the good friend come from?"
Do not jeer at so ill-mannered and straightforward a question! the heath
peasant is quite as hospitable as the Scotch laird, and but a little more curious;
after all, he cannot be blamed for wanting to know who his guest is.
When I had told him who I was and whence I came, he called his wife, who
immediately put all the delicacies of the house before me and begged me
insistently, with good-hearted kindness, to eat and drink, although my hunger
and thirst made all insistence unnecessary.
I was in the midst of the repast and a political talk with my host, when a young
and exceedingly beautiful peasant girl came in, whom I should undoubtedly

have declared a lady who had fled from cruel parents and an unwished-for
marriage, had not her red hands and unadulterated peasant dialect convinced
me that no disguise had taken place. She nodded in a friendly way, cast a
passing glance under the table, went out and came in soon again with a dish of
milk and water, which she put down on the floor with the words, "Your dog
may need something too."
I thanked her for her attention; but this was fully given to the big dog, whose
greediness soon made the dish empty, and who now in his way thanked the
giver by rubbing himself up against her; and when she raised her arms, a little
intimidated, Chasseur misunderstood the movement, put himself on the alert,
and forced the screaming girl backwards toward the alcove. I called the dog
back and explained his good intentions.
I would not have invited the reader's attention to so trivial a matter, but to
remark that everything is becoming to the beautiful; for indeed this peasant girl
showed, in everything she said and did, a certain natural grace which could not
be called coquetry unless you will so call an innate unconscious instinct.
When she had left the room I asked the parents if this was their daughter. They
answered in the affirmative, adding that she was an only child.
"You won't keep her very long," I said.
"Dear me, what do you mean by that?" asked the father; but a pleased smile
showed that he understood my meaning.
"I think," I answered, "that she will hardly lack suitors."
"Hm!" grumbled he, "of suitors we can get a plenty; but if they are worth
anything, that is the question. To go a-wooing with a watch and a silver-
mounted pipe does not set the matter straight; it takes more to ride than to say
'Get up!' Sure as I live," he went on, putting both clenched hands on the table
and bending to look out of the low window, "if there is not one of them--a
shepherd's boy just out of the heather--oh yes, one of these customers' who run
about with a couple of dozen hose in a wallet--stupid dog! wooes our daughter
with two oxen and two cows and a half--yes, I am on to him!--Beggar!"
All this was not addressed to me, but to the new-comer, on whom he fastened
his darkened eyes as the other came along the heather path toward the house.

The lad was still far enough away to allow me time to ask my host about him,
and I learned that he was the son of the nearest neighbor--who, by the way,

MATHILDE BLIND
(1847-1896)

athilde Blind was born at Mannheim, Germany, March 21st, 1847. She was
educated principally in London, and subsequently in Zurich. Since her early
school days, with the exception of this interval of study abroad, and numerous
journeys to the south of Europe and the East, she has lived in London. Upon
her return from Zurich she was thrown much into contact with Mazzini, in
London, and her first essay in literature was a volume of poems (which she
published in 1867 under the pseudonym Claude Lake) dedicated to him. She
was also in close personal relationship with Madox Brown, W.M. Rossetti, and
Swinburne. Her first literary work to appear under her own name was a critical
essay on the poetical works of Shelley in the Westminster Review in 1870,
based upon W.M. Rossetti's edition of the poet. In 1872 she wrote an account
of the life and writings of Shelley, to serve as an introduction to a selection of
his poems in the Tauchnitz edition. She afterwards edited a selection of the
letters of Lord Byron with an introduction, and a selection of his poems with a
memoir. A translation of Strauss's 'The Old Faith and the New' appeared in
1873, which contained in a subsequent edition a biography of the author. In
1883, Miss Blind wrote the initial volume, 'George Eliot,' for the 'Eminent
Women Series,' which she followed in 1886 in the same series with 'Madame
Roland.' Her first novel, 'Tarantella,' appeared in 1885. Besides these prose
works, she has made frequent contributions of literary criticism to the
Athenaeum and other reviews, and of papers and essays to the magazines;
among them translations of Goethe's 'Maxims and Reflections' in Fraser's
Magazine, and 'Personal Recollections of Mazzin' in the Fortnightly Review.
Her principal claim to literary fame is however based upon her verse. This is
from all periods of her productivity. In addition to the book of poems already
noticed, she has written 'The Prophecy of St. Oran, and other Poems,' 1882;
'The Heather on Fire,' a protest against the wrongs of the Highland crofters,
1886; 'The Ascent of Man,' her most ambitious work, 1889; 'Dramas in

Miniature' 1892; 'Songs and Sonnets,' 1893; and
'Birds of Passage: Songs of the Orient and
Occident,' 1895.
'The Ascent of Man' is a poetical treatment of the
modern idea of evolution, and traces the progress
of man from his primitive condition in a state of
savagery to his present development. Miss Blind
has been an ardent advocate of the betterment of Mathilde Blind.
the position of woman in society and the State. To this end she has worked and
written for an improved education, and against a one-sided morality for the
sexes. In her verse she shows characteristically a keen appreciation of nature.
Her minor poems particularly, many of which are strong in feeling and
admirable in form, entitle her to a distinguished place among the lyric poets of
England.
She died in London near the end of November, 1896.

FROM 'LOVE IN EXILE'

I charge you, O winds of the West, O winds with the
wings of the
dove,
That ye blow o'er the brows of my Love, breathing low
that I
sicken for love.

I charge you, O dews of the Dawn, O tears of the star
of the morn,
That ye fall at the feet of my Love with the sound of
one weeping
forlorn.

I charge you, O birds of the Air, O birds flying home to
your nest,
That ye sing in his ears of the joy that for ever has fled
from my

breast.

I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of
things, and most
fair,
That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels,
consumed by
despair.

O Moon, when he lifts up his face, when he seeth the
waning of thee,
A memory of her who lies wan on the limits of life let
it be.

Many tears cannot quench, nor my sighs extinguish,
the flames of
love's fire,
Which lifteth my heart like a wave, and smites it, and
breaks its
desire.

I rise like one in a dream when I see the red sun flaring
low,
That drags me back shuddering from sleep each
morning to life with
its woe.

I go like one in a dream; unbidden my feet know the
way
To that garden where love stood in blossom with the
red and white
hawthorn of May.

The song of the throstle is hushed, and the fountain is
dry to its
core;
The moon cometh up as of old; she seeks, but she finds
him no more.

The pale-faced, pitiful moon shines down on the grass
where I weep,
My face to the earth, and my breast in an anguish ne'er
soothed
into sleep.

The moon returns, and the spring; birds warble, trees
burst into
leaf;
But Love, once gone, goes for ever, and all that
endures is the
grief.

SEEKING

In many a shape and fleeting apparition,
Sublime in age or with clear morning eyes,
Ever I seek thee, tantalizing Vision,
Which beckoning flies.

Ever I seek Thee, O evasive Presence,
Which on the far horizon's utmost verge,
Like some wild star in luminous evanescence,
Shoots o'er the surge.

Ever I seek Thy features ever flying,
Which, ne'er beheld, I never can forget:
Lightning which flames through love, and mimics
dying
In souls that set.

Ever I seek Thee through all clouds of error;
As when the moon behind earth's shadow slips,
She wears a momentary mask of terror
In brief eclipse.

Ever I seek Thee, passionately yearning;
Like altar fire on some forgotten fane,

My life flames up irrevocably burning,
And burnt in vain.

THE SONGS OF SUMMER

The songs of summer are over and past!
The swallow's forsaken the dripping eaves;
Ruined and black 'mid the sodden leaves
The nests are rudely swung in the blast:
And ever the wind like a soul in pain
Knocks and knocks at the window-pane.

The songs of summer are over and past!
Woe's me for a music sweeter than theirs--
The quick, light bound of a step on the stairs,
The greeting of lovers too sweet to last:
And ever the wind like a soul in pain
Knocks and knocks at the window-pane.

A PARABLE

Between the sandhills and the sea
A narrow strip of silver sand,
Whereon a little maid doth stand,
Who picks up shells continually,
Between the sandhills and the sea.

Far as her wondering eyes can reach,
A vastness heaving gray in gray
To the frayed edges of the day
Furls his red standard on the breach
Between the sky-line and the beach.

The waters of the flowing tide
Cast up the sea-pink shells and weed;
She toys with shells, and doth not heed
The ocean, which on every side
Is closing round her vast and wide.

It creeps her way as if in play,
Pink shells at her pink feet to cast;
But now the wild waves hold her fast,
And bear her off and melt away,
A vastness heaving gray in gray.

LOVE'S SOMNAMBULIST

Like some wild sleeper who alone, at night
Walks with unseeing eyes along a height,
With death below and only stars above,
I, in broad daylight, walk as if in sleep
Along the edges of life's perilous steep,
The lost somnambulist of love.

I, in broad day, go walking in a dream,
Led on in safety by the starry gleam
Of thy blue eyes that hold my heart in thrall;
Let no one wake me rudely, lest one day,
Startled to find how far I've gone astray,
I dash my life out in my fall.

THE MYSTIC'S VISION

Ah! I shall kill myself with dreams!
These dreams that softly lap me round
Through trance-like hours, in which meseems

That I am swallowed up and drowned;
Drowned in your love, which flows o'er me
As o'er the seaweed flows the sea.

In watches of the middle night,
'Twixt vesper and 'twixt matin bell,
With rigid arms and straining sight,
I wait within my narrow cell;
With muttered prayers, suspended will,
I wait your advent--statue-still.

Across the convent garden walls
The wind blows from the silver seas;
Black shadow of the cypress falls
Between the moon-meshed olive-trees;
Sleep-walking from their golden bowers,
Flit disembodied orange flowers.

And in God's consecrated house,
All motionless from head to feet,
My heart awaits her heavenly Spouse,
As white I lie on my white sheet;
With body lulled and soul awake,
I watch in anguish for your sake.

And suddenly, across the gloom,
The naked moonlight sharply swings;
A Presence stirs within the room,
A breath of flowers and hovering wings:
Your presence without form and void,
Beyond all earthly joys enjoyed.

My heart is hushed, my tongue is mute,
My life is centred in your will;
You play upon me like a lute
Which answers to its master's skill,
Till passionately vibrating,
Each nerve becomes a throbbing string.

Oh, incommunicably sweet!
No longer aching and apart,
As rain upon the tender wheat,
You pour upon my thirsty heart;
As scent is bound up in the rose,
Your love within my bosom glows.

FROM 'TARANTELLA'

Sounds of human mirth and laughter from somewhere among them were borne
from time to time to the desolate spot I had reached. It was a Festa day, and a
number of young people were apparently enjoying their games and dances, to
judge by the shouts and laughter which woke echoes of ghostly mirth in the
vaults and galleries that looked as though they had lain dumb under the
pressure of centuries.
There was I know not what of weird contrast between this gaping ruin, with its
fragments confusedly scattered about like the bleaching bones of some
antediluvian monster, and the clear youthful ring of those joyous voices.
I had sat down on some fragment of wall directly overhanging the sea. In my
present mood it afforded me a singular kind of pleasure to take up stones or
pieces of marble and throw them down the precipice. From time to time I
could hear them striking against the sharp projections of the rocks as they
leaped down the giddy height. Should I let my violin follow in their wake?
I was in a mood of savage despair; a mood in which my heart turned at bay on
what I had best loved. Hither it had led me, this art I had worshiped! After
years of patient toil, after sacrificing to it hearth and home, and the security of
a settled profession, I was not a tittle further advanced than at the
commencement of my career. For requital of my devoted service, starvation
stared me in the face. My miserable subsistence was barely earned by giving

lessons to females, young and old, who, while inflicting prolonged tortures on
their victim, still exacted the tribute of smiles and compliments.
Weakened and ill, I shuddered to think of returning and bowing my neck once
more to that detested yoke.
"No! I'll never go back to that!" I cried, jumping up. "I'll sooner earn a
precarious livelihood by turning fisherman in this island! Any labor will be
preferable to that daily renewing torture." I seized my violin in a desperate
clutch, and feverishly leant over the wall, where I could hear the dirge-like
boom of the breakers in the hollow caves.
Only he who is familiar with the violin knows the love one may bear it--a love
keen as that felt for some frail human creature of exquisitely delicate mold.
Caressingly I passed my fingers over its ever-responsive strings, thinking,
feeling rather, that I could endure no hand to handle it save mine!
No! rather than that it should belong to another, its strings should for ever
render up the ghost of music in one prolonged wail, as it plunged shivering
from this fearful height.
For the last time, I thought, my fingers erred over its familiar chords. A thrill of
horrid exultation possessed me, such as the fell Tiberius may have experienced
when he bade his men hurl the shrinking form of a soft-limbed favorite from
this precipice.
Possibly my shaken nerves were affected by the hideous memories clinging to
these unhallowed ruins; possibly also by the oppressive heat of the day.
Sea and sky, indeed, looked in harmony with unnatural sensations; as though
some dread burst of passion were gathering intensity under their apparently
sluggish calm.
Though the sky overhead was of a sultry blue, yet above the coast-line of
Naples, standing out with preternatural distinctness, uncouth, livid clouds
straggled chaotically to the upper sky, here and there reaching lank, shadowy
films, like gigantic arms, far into the zenith. Flocks of sea-birds were uneasily
flying landward; screaming, they wheeled round the sphinx-like rocks, and
disappeared by degrees in their red clefts and fissures.
All at once I was startled in my fitful, half-mechanical playing by a piercing
scream; this was almost immediately followed by a confused noise of sobs and

cries, and a running of people to and fro, which seemed, however, to be
approaching nearer. I was just going to hurry to the spot whence the noise
proceeded, when some dozen of girls came rushing towards me.
But before I had time to inquire into the cause of their excitement, or to
observe them more closely, a gray-haired woman, with a pale, terror-stricken
face, seized hold of my hand, crying:
"The Madonna be praised, he has a violin! Hasten, hasten! Follow us or she
will die!"
And then the girls, beckoning and gesticulating, laid hold of my arm, my coat,
my hand, some pulling, some pushing me along, all jabbering and crying
together, and repeating more and more urgently the only words that I could
make out--"Musica! Musica!"
But while I stared at them in blank amazement, thinking they must all have
lost their wits together, I was unconsciously being dragged and pulled along
till we came to a kind of ruined marble staircase, down which they hurried me
into something still resembling a spacious chamber; for though the wild fig-
tree and cactus pushed their fantastic branches through gaps in the walls, these
stood partly upright as yet, discovering in places the dull red glow of weather-
stained wall-paintings.
The floor, too, was better preserved than any I had seen; though cracked and in
part overrun by ivy, it showed portions of the original white and black
tessellated work.
On this floor, with her head pillowed on a shattered capital, lay a prostrate
figure without life or motion, and with limbs rigidly extended as in death.
The old woman, throwing herself on her knees before this lifeless figure,
loosened the handkerchief round her neck, and then, as though to feel whether
life yet lingered, she put her hand on the heart of the unconscious girl, when,
suddenly jumping up again, she ran to me, panting:--
"O sir, good sir, play, play for the love of the Madonna!" And the others all
echoed as with one voice, "Musica! Musica!"
"Is this a time to make music?" cried I, in angry bewilderment. "The girl seems
dying or dead. Run quick for a doctor--or stay, if you will tell me where he
lives I will go myself and bring him hither with all speed."

For all answer the gray-haired woman, who was evidently the girl's mother,
fell at my feet, and clasping my knees, cried in a voice broken by sobs, "O
good sir, kind sir, my girl has been bitten by the tarantula! Nothing in the
world can save her but you, if with your playing you can make her rise up and
dance!"
Then darting back once more to the girl, who lay as motionless as before, she
screamed in shrill despair, "She's getting as cold as ice; the death-damps will
be on her if you will not play for my darling."
And all the girls, pointing as with one accord to my violin, chimed in once
again, crying more peremptorily than before, "Musica! Musica!"
There was no arguing with these terror-stricken, imploring creatures, so I took
the instrument that had been doomed to destruction, to call the seemingly dead
to life with it.
What possessed me then I know not: but never before or since did the music
thus waken within the strings of its own demoniacal will and leap responsive
to my fingers.
Perhaps the charm lay in the devout belief which the listeners had in the
efficacy of my playing. They say your fool would cease to be one if nobody
believed in his folly.
Well, I played, beginning with an andante, at the very first notes of which the
seemingly lifeless girl rose to her feet as if by enchantment, and stood there,
taller by the head than the ordinary Capri girls her companions, who were
breathlessly watching her. So still she stood, that with her shut eyes and face of
unearthly pallor she might have been taken for a statue; till, as I slightly
quickened the tempo, a convulsive tremor passed through her rigid, exquisitely
molded limbs, and then with measured gestures of inexpressible grace she
began slowly swaying herself to and fro. Softly her eyes unclosed now, and
mistily as yet their gaze dwelt upon me. There was intoxication in their fixed
stare, and almost involuntarily I struck into an impassioned allegro.
No sooner had the tempo changed than a spirit of new life seemingly entered
the girl's frame. A smile, transforming her features, wavered over her
countenance, kindling fitful lightnings of returning consciousness in her dark,
mysterious eyes. Looking about her with an expression of wide-eyed surprise,
she eagerly drank in the sounds of the violin; her graceful movements became

more and more violent, till she whirled in ever-widening circles round about
the roofless palace chamber, athwart which flurried bats swirled noiselessly
through the gathering twilight. Hither and thither she glided, no sooner
completing the circle in one direction than, snapping her fingers with a
passionate cry, she wheeled round in an opposite course, sometimes clapping
her hands together and catching up snatches of my own melody, sometimes
waving aloft or pressing to her bosom the red kerchief or mucadore she had
worn knotted in her hair, which, now unloosened, twined about her ivory-like
neck and shoulders in a serpentine coil.
Fear, love, anguish, and pleasure seemed alternately to possess her mobile
countenance. Her face indicated violent transitions of passion; her hands
appeared as if struggling after articulate expression of their own; her limbs
were contorted with emotion: in short, every nerve and fibre in her body
seemed to translate the music into movement.
As I looked on, a demon seemed to enter my brain and fingers, hurrying me
into a Bacchanalian frenzy of sound; and the faster I played, the more furiously
her dizzily gliding feet flashed hither and thither in a bewildering, still-
renewing maze, so that from her to me and me to her an electric impulse of
rhythmical movement perpetually vibrated to and fro.
Ever and anon the semicircle of eagerly watching girls, sympathetically
thrilled by the spectacle, clapped their hands, shouting for joy; and balancing
themselves on tiptoe, joined in the headlong dance. And as they glided to and
fro, the wild roses and ivy and long tendrils of the vine, flaunting it on the
crumbling walls, seemed to wave in unison and dance round the dancing girls.
As I went on playing the never-ending, still-beginning tune, night overtook us,
and we should have been in profound obscurity but for continuous brilliant
flashes of lightning shooting up from the horizon, like the gleaming lances
hurled as from the vanguard of an army of Titans.
In the absorbing interest, however, with which we watched the deliriously
whirling figure, unconscious of aught but the music, we took but little note of
the lightning. Sometimes, when from some black turreted thunder-cloud, a
triple-pronged dart came hissing and crackling to the earth as though launched
by the very hand of Jove, I saw thirteen hands suddenly lifted, thirteen fingers
instinctively flying from brow to breast making the sign of the cross, and heard

thirteen voices mutter as one, "Nel nome del Padre, e del Figlio, e dello Spirito
Santo."
But the ecstatic dancer paused not nor rested in her incredible exertions; the
excited girls alternately told their beads and then joined in the dance again,
while the gray-haired mother, kneeling on the marble pediment of what might
have been the fragment of a temple of Bacchus, lifted her hands in prayer to a
little shrine of the Madonna, placed there, strangely enough, amidst the relics
of paganism.
All of a sudden, however, a horrific blaze, emitted from a huge focus of
intolerable light, set the whole heavens aflame. As from a fresh-created baleful
sun, blue and livid and golden-colored lightnings were shivered from it on all
sides; dull, however, in comparison to the central ball, which, bursting
instantaneously, bathed the sky, earth, and air in one insufferable glare of
phosphorescent light. The deadly blue flame lit up everything with a livid
brightness unknown to day.
Walls and faded wall-paintings, limbs of decapitated goddesses gleaming
white through the grass and rioting weeds, tottering columns, arches, and
vaults, and deserted galleries receding in endless perspective, leaped out
lifelike on a background of night and storm.
With piercing shrieks the horrified maidens scattered and fled to the remotest
corner of the ruin, where they fell prone on their faces, quivering in a heap. In
a voice strangled by fear, the kneeling mother called for protection on the
Virgin and all the saints! The violin dropped from my nerveless grasp, and at
the self-same moment the beautiful dancer, like one struck by a bullet, tottered
and dropped to the ground, where she lay without sense or motion.
At that instant a clap of thunder so awful, so heaven-rending, rattled overhead,
so roared and banged and clattered among the clouds, that I thought the
shadowy ruin, tottering and rocking with the shock, would come crashing
about us and bury us under its remains.
But as the thunder rolled on farther and farther, seemingly rebounding from
cloud to cloud, I recovered my self-possession, and in mortal fear rushed to the
side of the prostrate girl. I was trembling all over like a coward as I bent down
to examine her. Had the lightning struck her when she fell so abruptly to the
ground? Had life forever forsaken that magnificent form, those divinest limbs?
Would those heavy eyelashes never again be raised from those dazzling eyes?

Breathlessly I moved aside the dusky hair covering her like a pall. Breathlessly
I placed my hand on her heart; a strange shiver and spark quivered through it
to my heart. Yet she was chill as ice and motionless as a stone. "She is dead,
she is dead!" I moaned; and the pang for one I had never known exceeded
everything I had felt in my life.
"You mistake, signor," some one said close beside me; and on looking up I saw
the mother intently gazing down on her senseless child. "My Tolla is not hurt,"
she cried: "she only fell when you left off playing the tarantella; she will arise
as soon as you go on."
Pointing to the lightning still flickering and darting overhead, I cried, "But you
are risking your lives for some fantastic whim, some wild superstition of
yours. You are mad to brave such a storm! You expose your child to undoubted
peril that you may ward off some illusory evil. Let me bear her to the inn, and
follow me thither." And I was going to lift the senseless form in my arms when
the woman sternly prevented me.
In vain I argued, pleaded, reasoned with her. She only shook her head and
cried piteously, "Give her music, for the love of the dear Madonna!" And the
girls, who by this time had plucked up courage and gathered round us, echoed
as with one voice, "Musica! Musica!"
What was I to do? I could not drag them away by force, and certainly, for
aught I knew, she might have been in equal danger from the poison or the
storm, wherever we were. As for peril to myself, I cared not. I was in a devil of
a mood, and all the pent-up bitter passion of my soul seemed to find a vent and
safety-valve in that stupendous commotion of the elements.
So I searched for my instrument on the ground, and now noticed, to my
astonishment, that although the storm had swept away from us, the whole ruin
was nevertheless brightly illuminated. On looking up I saw the topmost
branches of a solitary stone-pine one dazzle of flames. Rising straight on high
from a gap in the wall which its roots had shattered, it looked a colossal
chandelier on which the lightning had kindled a thousand tapers. There was not
a breath of air, not a drop of rain, so that the flames burned clear and steady as
under cover of a mighty dome.
By this brilliant light, by which every object, from a human form to a marble
acanthus leaf, cast sharp-edged shadows, I soon discovered my violin on a
tangle of flowering clematis, and began tuning its strings.

No sooner had I struck into the same lively tune, than the strange being rose
again as by magic, and, slowly opening her intoxicating eyes, began swaying
herself to and fro with the same graceful gestures and movements that I had
already observed.
Thus I played all through the night, long after the rear-guard of the thunder-
storm had disappeared below the opposite horizon whence it first arose--
played indefatigably on and on like a man possessed, and still, by the torch of
the burning pine, I saw the beautiful mænad-like figure whirling to and fro
with miraculous endurance. Now and then, through the deep silence, I heard a
scarred pine-bough come crackling to the earth; now and then I heard the
lowing of the stabled cattle in some distant part of the ruin; once and again,
smiting like a cry, I heard one string snapping after another under my pitiless
hands.
Still I played on, though a misty quiver of sparks was dancing about my eyes,
till the fallow-tinted dawn gleamed faintly in the east.
At last, at last, a change stole over the form and features of the indefatigable
dancer. Her companions, overcome with fatigue, had long ago sunk to the
ground, where, with their little ruffled heads resting on any bit of marble, they
lay sleeping calmly like little children. Only the mother still watched and
prayed for her child, the unnatural tension of whose nerves and muscles now
seemed visibly to relax; for the mad light of exaltation in her eyes veiled itself
in softness, her feet moved more and more slowly, and her arms, which had
heretofore been in constant motion, dropped languidly to her side. I too relaxed
in my tempo, and the thrilling, vivacious tune melted away in a dying strain.
At the expiring notes, when I had but one string left, her tired eyes closed as in
gentlest sleep, a smile hovered about her lips, her head sank heavily forward
on her bosom, and she would have fallen had not her mother received the
swooning form into her outstretched arms.
At the same moment my last string snapped, a swarming darkness clouded my
sight, the violin fell from my wet, burning hands, and I reeled back, faint and
dizzy, when I felt soft arms embracing me, and somebody sobbed and laughed,
"You have saved her, Maestro; praise be to God and all His saints in heaven!
May the Madonna bless you forever and ever--" I heard no more, but fell into a
death-like swoon.

"O MOON, LARGE GOLDEN SUMMER
MOON!"

O MOON, large golden summer moon,
Hanging between the linden trees,
Which in the intermittent breeze
Beat with the rhythmic pulse of June!

O night-air, scented through and through
With honey-colored flower of lime,
Sweet now as in that other time
When all my heart was sweet as you!

The sorcery of this breathing bloom
Works like enchantment in my brain,
Till, shuddering back to life again,
My dead self rises from its tomb.

And lovely with the love of yore,
Its white ghost haunts the moon-white ways;
But when it meets me face to face,
Flies trembling to the grave once more.

GREEN LEAVES AND SERE

Three tall poplars beside the pool
Shiver and moan in the gusty blast;
The carded clouds are blown like wool,
And the yellowing leaves fly thick and fast.

The leaves, now driven before the blast,
Now flung by fits on the curdling pool,
Are tossed heaven-high and dropped at last

As if at the whim of a jabbering fool.

O leaves, once rustling green and cool!
Two met here where one moans aghast
With wild heart heaving towards the past:
Three tall poplars beside the pool.

GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
(1313-1375)

BY W.J. STILLMAN

t has been justly observed, and confirmed by all that we know of the early
history of literature, that the first forms of it were in verse. This is in
accordance with a principle which is stated by Herbert Spencer on a different
but related theme, that "Ornament was before dress," the artistic instincts
underlying and preceding the utilitarian preoccupations. History indeed was
first poetry, as we had Homer before Thucydides, and as in all countries the
traditions of the past take the form of metrical, and generally musical,
recitation. An excellent and polished school of prose writers is the product of a
tendency in national life of later origin than that which calls out the bards and
ballad-singers, and is proof of a more advanced culture. The Renaissance in
Italy was but the resumption of a life long suspended, and the succession of the
phenomena in which was therefore far more rapid than was possible in a
nation which had to trace the path without any survivals of a prior awakening;
and while centuries necessarily intervened between Homer and the "Father of
History," a generation sufficed between Dante and Boccaccio, for Italian
literature had only to throw off the leaden garb of Latin form to find its new
dress in the vernacular. Dante certainly wrote Italian prose, but he was more at
ease in verse; and while the latter provoked in him an abundance of those
happy phrases which seem to have been born with the thought they express,
and which pass into the familiar stock of imagery of all later time, the prose of
the 'Convito' and the 'Vita Nuova' hardly ever recalls itself in common speech
by any parallel of felicity.
And Boccaccio too wrote poetry of no ignoble type, but probably because he
was part of an age when verse had become the habitual form of culture, and all
who could write caught the habit of versification,--a habit easier to fall into in
Italian than in any other language. But while the consecration of time has been
given to the 'Commedia,' and the 'Convito' passes into the shadow and

perspective of lesser things, so the many verses of Boccaccio are overlooked,
and his greatest prose work, the 'Decameron,' is that with which his fame is
mostly bound up.
Born in 1313, at seven years of age he showed signs of a literary facility, and
his father, a merchant of Florence, put him to school with a reputable
grammarian; but afterward, deciding to devote him to merchandise, sent him to
study arithmetic,--restive and profitless in which, he was sent to study canon
law, and finding his level no better there, went back to traffic and to Naples in
his father's business when he was about twenty. The story runs that the sight of
the tomb of Virgil turned his thoughts to poetry; but this confusion of the post
hoc with the propter hoc is too common in remote and romantic legend to
value much. The presence of Petrarch in the court of Robert, King of Naples, is
far more likely to have been the kindling of his genius to its subsequent
activity: and the passion he acquired while there for the illegitimate daughter
of the King, Maria,--the Fiammetta of his later life,--furnished the fuel for its
burning; his first work, the 'Filocopo,' being written as an offering to her. It is a
prose love story, mixed with mythological allusions,--after the fashion of the
day, which thought more of the classics than of nature; and like all his earlier
works, prolix and pedantic.
The 'Theseide,' a purely classic theme, the war of Theseus with the Amazons,
is in verse; and was followed by the 'Ameto,' or 'Florentine Nymphs,' a story of
the loves of Ameto, a rustic swain, with one of the nymphs of the valley of the
Affrico, a stream which flows into the Arno not far from where the poet was
born, or where at least he passed his youth; and to which valley he seems
always greatly attached, putting there the scene of most of his work, including
the 'Decameron.' 'Ameto' is a mythological fiction, in which the characters
mingle recitations of verse with the prose narration, and in which the gods of
Greece and Rome masque in the familiar scenes. Following these came the
'Amorosa Visione,' and 'Filostrato,' in verse; 'Fiammetta' in prose, being the
imaginary complaint of his beloved at their separation; 'Nimfale Fiesolano,' in
verse, the scene also laid on the Affrico; and then the 'Decameron,' begun in
1348 and finished in 1353, after which he seems to have gradually acquired a
disgust for the world he had lived in as he had known it, and turned to more
serious studies. He wrote a life of Dante, 'II Corbaccio,' a piece of satirical
savagery, the 'Genealogy of the Gods,' and various minor works; and spent
much of his time in intercourse with Petrarch, whose conversation and
influence were of a different character from that of his earlier life.

Boccaccio died at Certaldo in the Val d'Elsa, December 2d, 1375. Of the
numerous works he left, that by which his fame as a writer is established is
beyond any question the 'Decameron,' or Ten Days' Entertainment; in which a
merry company of gentlemen and ladies, appalled by the plague raging in their
Florence, take refuge in the villas near the city, and pass their time in story-
telling and rambles in the beautiful country around, only returning when the
plague has to a great extent abated. The superiority of the 'Decameron' is not
only in the polish and grace of its style, the first complete departure from the
stilted classicism of contemporary narrative, the happy naturalness of good
story-telling,--but in the conception of the work as a whole, and the marvelous
imagination of the filling-in between the framework of the story of the plague
by the hundred tales from all lands and times, with the fine thread of the
narrative of the day-by-day doings of the merry and gracious company, their
wanderings, the exquisite painting of the Tuscan landscape (in which one
recognizes the Val d'Arno even to-day), and the delicate drawing of their

various characters. It is only when all these elements have been taken into
consideration, and the unity wrought through such a maze of interest and mass
of material without ever becoming dull or being driven to repetition, that we
understand the power of Boccaccio as an artist.
We must take the ten days' holiday as it is painted: a gay and entrancing record
of a fortunate and brilliant summer vacation, every one of its hundred pictures
united with the rest by a delicate tracery of flowers and landscape, with bird-
songs and laughter, bits of tender and chaste by-play--for there were
recognized lovers in the company; and when this is conceived in its entirety,
we must set it in the massive frame of terrible gloom of the great plague,
through which Boccaccio makes us look at his picture. And then the frame
itself becomes a picture; and its ghastly horror--the apparent fidelity of the
descriptions, which makes one feel as if he had before him the evidence of an
eye-witness--gives a measure of the power of the artist and the range of his
imagination, from an earthly inferno to an earthly paradise, such as even the
'Commedia' does not give us. In this stupendous ensemble, the individual tales
become mere details, filling in of the space or time; and, taken out of it, the
whole falls into a mere story-book, in which the only charm is the polish of the
parts, the shine of the fragments that made the mosaic. The tales came from all
quarters, and only needed to be amusing or interesting enough to make one
suppose that they had been listened to with pleasure: stories from the 'Gesta
Romanorum,' the mediæval chronicles, or any gossip of the past or present,
just to make a whole; the criticism one might pass on them, I imagine, never
gave Boccaccio a thought, only the way they were placed being important. The
elaborate preparation for the story-telling; the grouping of them as a whole, in
contrast with the greater story he put as their contrast and foil; the solemn
gloom, the deep chiaroscuro of this framing, painted like a miniature; the artful
way in which he prepares for his lieta brigata the way out of the charnel-
house: these are the real 'Decameron.' The author presents it in a prelude which
has for its scope only to give the air of reality to the whole, as if not only the
plague, but the 'Decameron,' had been history; and the proof of his perfect
success is in the fact that for centuries the world has been trying to identify the
villas where the merry men and maidens met, as if they really had met.

"Whenever, most gracious ladies, I reflect how pitiful
you all are by nature, I recognize that this work will in
your opinion have a sad and repulsive beginning, as
the painful memory of the pestilence gone by, fraught

with loss to all who saw or knew of it, and which
memory the work will bear on its front. But I would
not that for this you read no further, through fear that
your reading should be always through sighs and tears.
This frightful beginning I prepare for you as for
travelers a rough and steep mountain, beyond which
lies a most beautiful and delightful plain, by so much
the more pleasurable as the difficulty of the ascent and
passage of the mountain had been great. And as the
extreme of pleasure touches pain, so suffering is
effaced by a joy succeeding. To this brief vexation (I
call it brief, as contained in few words) follow closely
the sweets and pleasures I have promised, and which
would not be hoped for from such a beginning if it
were not foretold. And to tell the truth, if I had been
able frankly to bring you where I wished by other way
than this rough one, I had willingly done so; but
because I could not, without these recollections, show
what was the occasion of the incidents of which you
will read, I was obliged to write of them."

The elaborate description of the plague which follows, shows not only
Boccaccio's inventive power,--as being, like that of Defoe of the plague of
London (which is a curious parallel to this) altogether imaginary, since the
writer was at Naples during the whole period of the pestilence,--but also that it
was a part indispensable of the entire scheme, and described with all its ghastly
minuteness simply to enhance the value of his sunshine and merriment. He
was in Naples from 1345 until 1350, without any other indication of a visit to
Florence than a chronological table of his life, in which occurs this item:--
"1348, departs in the direction of Tuscany with Louis of Taranto:" as if either a
prince on his travels would take the plague in the course of them, or a man so
closely interested in the events of the time at Naples, and in the height of his
passion for Fiammetta,--the separation from whom he had hardly endured
when earlier (1345) he was separated from her by his duty to his aged father,--
would have chosen the year of the pestilence, when every one who could, fled
Florence, to return there; and we find him in May, 1349, in Naples, in the full
sunshine of Fiammetta's favor, and remaining there until his father's death in
1350.

There is indeed in Boccaccio's description of the plague that which convicts it
of pure invention, quickened by details gathered from eye-witnesses,--the very
minuteness of the description in certain points not in accord with the character
of the disease, as when he narrates that the hogs rooting in the garments of the
dead thrown out into the streets "presently, as if they had taken poison, after a
few dizzy turns, fell dead"; and this, which he says he saw with his own eyes,
is the only incident of which he makes this declaration (the incident on which
the unity of his work hinges, the meeting of the merry troupe in the church of
S. Maria Novella, being recorded on the information of a person "worthy of
belief"). Nor does he in his own person intrude anywhere in the story; so that
this bit of intense realization thrown into the near foreground of his picture, as
it were by chance, and without meaning, yet certified by his own signature, is
the point at which he gets touch of his reader and convinces him of actuality
throughout the romance.
And to my mind this opening chapter, with all its horrors and charnel-house
realization, its slight and suggestive delineation of character, all grace and
beauty springing out of the chaos and social dissolution, is not only the best
part of the work, but the best of Boccaccio's. The well-spun golden cord on
which the "Novelle" are strung is ornamented, as it were, at the divisions of the
days by little cameos of crafty design; but the opening, the portico of this
hundred-chambered palace of art, has its own proportions and design, and may
be taken and studied alone. Nothing can, it seems to me, better convey the idea
of the death-stricken city, "the surpassing city of Florence, beyond every other
in Italy most beautiful,"--a touch to enhance the depth of his shade, than the
way he brings out in broad traits the greatness of the doom: setting in the
heavens that consuming sun; the paralysis of the panic; the avarice of men not
daunted by death; the helplessness of all flesh before--

"the just wrath of God for our correction sent upon
men; for healing of such maladies neither counsel of
physician nor virtue of any medicine whatever seemed
to avail or have any effect--even as if nature could not
endure this suffering or the ignorance of the medical
attendants (of whom, besides regular physicians, there
was a very great number, both men and women, who
had never had any medical education whatever), who
could discover no cause for the malady and therefore
no appropriate remedy, so that not only very few

recovered, but almost every one attacked died by the
third day-after the appearance of the above-noted
signs, some sooner and some later, and mostly without
any fever or violent symptoms. And this pestilence was
of so much greater extent that by merely
communicating with the sick the well were attacked,
just as fire spreads to dry or oiled matter which
approaches it.... Of the common people, and perhaps in
great part of the middle classes, the situation was far
more miserable, as they, either through hope of
escaping the contagion or poverty, mostly kept to their
houses and sickened by thousands a day, and not being
aided or attended in any respect, almost without
exception died. And many there were who ended their
lives in the public streets by day or night, and many
who, dying in their houses, were only discovered by
the stench of their dead bodies; and of these and others
that died everywhere the city was full. These were
mainly disposed of in the same way by their neighbors,
moved more by the fear that the corruption of the dead
bodies should harm them than by any charity for the
deceased. They by themselves or with the aid of
bearers, when they could find any, dragged out of their
houses the bodies of those who had died, and laid them
before the doors, where, especially in the morning,
whoever went about the streets could have seen them
without number,--even to that point had matters come
that no more was thought of men dying than we think
of goats; more than a hundred thousand human beings
are believed to have been taken from life within the
walls of Florence, which before the mortal pestilence
were not believed to have contained so many souls.
Oh! how many great palaces, how many beautiful
houses, how many noble dwellings, once full of
domestics, of gentlemen and ladies, became empty
even to the last servant! How many historical families,
how many immense estates, what prodigious riches
remained without heirs! How many brave men, how
many beautiful women, how many gay youths whom

not only we, but Galen, Hippocrates, or Esculapius
would have pronounced in excellent health, in the
morning dined with their relatives, companions and
friends, and the coming night supped with those who
had passed away."

The ten companions, meeting in the church of S. Maria Novella, seven ladies
and three gentlemen, agree to escape this doom, and, repairing to one of the
deserted villas in the neighborhood, to pass the time of affliction in merry
doings and sayings; and with four maids and three men-servants, move
eastward out of the gloomy city. Their first habitation is clearly indicated as
what is known to-day as the Poggio Gherardi, under Maiano. After the second
day they return towards the city a short distance and establish themselves in
what seems a more commodious abode, and which I consider incontrovertibly
identified as the Villa Pasolini, or Rasponi, and which was in their day the
property of the Memmi family, the famous pupils of Giotto. The site of this
villa overlooks the Valley of the Ladies, which figures in the framework of the
"Novelle," and in which then there was a lake to which Boccaccio alludes, now
filled up by the alluvium of the Affrico, the author's beloved river, and which
runs through the valley and under the villa. The valley now forms part of the
estate of Professor Willard Fiske. As the entire adventure is imaginary, and the
"merry company" had no existence except in the dreams of Boccaccio, it is
useless to seek any evidence of actual occupation; but the care he put in the
description of the localities and surroundings, distances, etc., shows that he
must have had in his mind, as the framework of the story, these two localities.
The modern tradition ascribing to the Villa Palmieri the honor of the second
habitation has no confirmation of any kind.
The house-flitting is thus told:--

"The dawn had already, under the near approach of the
sun, from rosy become golden: when on Sunday, the
Queen[3] arising and arousing all her company, and the
chamberlain--having long before sent in advance to the
locality where they were to go, enough of the articles
required so that he might prepare what was necessary--
seeing the Queen on the way, quickly loading all other
things as if it were the moving of the camp, went off
with the baggage, leaving the servants with the Ladies

and the Gentlemen. The Queen, then, with slow steps,
accompanied and followed by her Ladies and the three
Gentlemen, with the escort of perhaps twenty
nightingales and other birds, by a little path not too
frequented, but full of green plants and flowers which
by the rising sun began to open, took the road towards
the west; and gossiping, laughing, and exchanging
witticisms with her brigade, arrived before having
gone two thousand steps at a most beautiful and rich
palace, which, somewhat raised above the plain, was
posted on a hill."

[3] Each day a Queen or King was chosen to rule over
the doings of the company and determine all questions.

As the description of the surroundings of the villa into which the gay assembly
now entered is one of the most vivid and one of the gayest pieces of
description in the brilliant counterfoil which the author has contrived, to set off
the gloom of the city, it is worth giving entire; being as well a noble example
of the prose of the 'Decameron':--

"Near to which [the balcony on which they had
reposed after their walk] having ordered to open a
garden which was annexed to the palace, being all
inclosed in a wall, they entered in; and as it appeared to
them on entering to be of a marvelous beauty
altogether, they set themselves to examine it in detail.
It had within, and in many directions through it, broad
paths, straight as arrows and covered with arbors of
vine which gave indications of having that year an
excellent vintage, and they all giving out such odors to
the garden, that, mingled with those of many other
things which perfumed it, they seemed to be in the
midst of all the perfumeries that the Orient ever knew;
the sides of the paths being closed in by red and white
roses and jasmine, so that not only in the morning, but
even when the sun was high, they could wander at
pleasure under fragrant and odoriferous shade, without
entanglement. How many, of what kind, and how

planted were the plants in that place, it were long to
tell; but there is nothing desirable which suits our
climate which was not there in abundance. In the midst
of which (which is not less delightful than other things
that were there, but even more so) was a meadow of
the most minute herbs, and so green that it seemed
almost black, colored by a thousand varieties of
flowers, and closed around by green and living orange
and lemon trees, which, having the ripe and the young
fruit and the flowers together, gave not only grateful
shade for the eyes, but added the pleasures of their
odors. In the midst of that meadow was a fountain of
the whitest marble with marvelous sculptures. From
within this, I know not whether by a natural vein or
artificial, through a figure which stood on a column in
the midst of it, sprang so much water, and so high,
falling also into the fountain with delightful sound, that
it would at least have driven a mill. This, then (I mean
the water which ran over from the fountain), through
hidden channels went out of the meadow, and by little
canals beautiful and artfully made becoming visible
outside of it, ran all around it; and then by similar
canals into every part of the garden, gathering together
finally in that part of it where from the beautiful garden
it escaped, and thence descending limpid to the plain,
and before reaching it, with great force and not a little
advantage to the master, turned two mills. To see this
garden, its beautiful orderliness, the plants and the
fountain with the brooks running from it, was so
pleasing to the ladies and the three youths that all
commenced to declare that if Paradise could be found
on earth, they could not conceive what other form than
that of this garden could be given to it, nor what beauty
could be added to it. Wandering happily about it,
twining from the branches of various trees beautiful
garlands, hearing everywhere the songs of maybe
twenty kinds of birds as it were in contest with each
other, they became aware of another charm of which,
to the others being added, they had not taken note: they

saw the garden full of a hundred varieties of beautiful
animals, and pointing them out one to the other, on one
side ran out rabbits, on another hares, here lying roe-
deer and there feeding stags, and besides these many
other kinds of harmless beasts, each one going for his
pleasure as if domesticated, wandering at ease; all
which, beyond the other pleasures, added a greater
pleasure. And when, seeing this or that, they had gone
about enough, the tables being set around the beautiful
fountain, first singing six songs and dancing six
dances, as it pleased the Queen, they went to eat, and
being with great and well-ordered service attended, and
with delicate and good dishes, becoming gayer they
arose and renewed music and song and dance, until the
Queen on account of the increasing heat judged that
whoever liked should go to sleep. Of whom some
went, but others, conquered by the beauty of the place,
would not go, but remained, some to read romances,
some to play at chess and at tables, while the others
slept. But when passed the ninth hour, they arose, and
refreshing their faces with the fresh water, they came
to the fountain, and in their customary manner taking
their seats, waited for the beginning of the story-telling
on the subject proposed by the Queen."

Of the character of the Novelle I have need to say little: they were the shaping
of the time, and made consonant with its tastes, and nobody was then disturbed
by their tone. Some are indelicate to modern taste, and some have passed into
the classics of all time. The story of 'Griselda'; that of 'The Stone of
Invisibility,' put into shape by Irving; 'Frederick of the Alberighi and his
Falcon'; 'The Pot of Basil'; and 'The Jew Abraham, Converted to Christianity
by the Immorality of the Clergy,' are stories which belong to all subsequent
times, as they may have belonged to the ages before. Those who know what
Italian society was then, and in some places still is, will be not too censorious,
judging lightness of tongue and love of a good story as necessarily involving
impurity. And Boccaccio has anticipated his critics in this vein, putting his
apology in the mouth of Filomena, who replies to Neifile, when the latter
speaks of scandal growing out of their holiday, "This amounts to nothing

where I live virtuously and my conscience in no wise reproaches me--let them
who will, speak against me: I take God and the truth for my defense."

FREDERICK OF THE ALBERIGHI AND HIS FALCON

You must know that Coppo di Borghese Domenichi--who was in our city, and
perhaps still is, a man of reverence and of great authority amongst us, both for
his opinions and for his virtues, and much more for the nobility of his family,
being distinguished and wealthy and of enduring reputation, being full of years
and experience--was often delighted to talk with his neighbors and others of
the things of the past, which he, better than anybody else, could do with
excellent order and with unclouded memory. Amongst the pleasant stories
which he used to tell was this:--
In Florence there was a young man called Frederick, son of Master Philip
Alberighi, who for military ability and for courteous manners was reputed
above all other gentlemen of Tuscany, He, as often happens with gentlemen,
became enamored of a gentle lady called Madonna Giovanni, in her time
considered the most beautiful and most graceful woman in Florence. In order
that he might win her love he tilted and exercised in arms, made feasts and
donations, and spent all his substance without restraint. But Madonna
Giovanni, no less honest than beautiful, cared for none of these things which
he did for her, nor for him. Frederick then spent more than his means admitted,
and gaining nothing, as easily happens, his money disappeared, and he
remained poor and without any other property than a poor little farm, by the
income of which he was barely able to live; besides this, he had his falcon, one
of the best in the world. On this account, and because unable to remain in the
city as he desired, though more than ever devoted, he remained at Campi,

where his little farm was; and there, as he might hunt, he endured his poverty
patiently.
Now it happened one day when Frederick had come to extreme poverty, that
the husband of Madonna Giovanni became ill, and seeing death at hand, made
his will; and being very rich, in this will left as his heir his son, a well-grown
boy; and next to him, as he had greatly loved Madonna Giovanni, he made her
his heir if his son should die without legitimate heirs, and then died.
Remaining then a widow, as the custom is amongst our women, Madonna
Giovanni went that summer with her son into the country on an estate of hers
near to that of Frederick, so that it happened that this boy, beginning to become
friendly with Frederick and to cultivate a liking for books and birds, and
having seen many times the falcon of Frederick fly, took an extreme pleasure
in it and desired very greatly to have it, but did not dare to ask it, seeing that it
was so dear to Frederick.
In this state of things it happened that the boy became ill, and on this account
the mother sorrowing greatly, he being that which she loved most of
everything which she had, tended him constantly and never ceased comforting
him; and begged him that if there was anything that he wanted, to tell her, so
that she certainly, if it were possible to get it, would obtain it for him. The
young man, hearing many times this proposal, said: "Mother, if you can
manage that I should have the falcon of Frederick, I believe that I should get
well at once." The mother, hearing this, reflected with herself and began to
study what she might do. She knew that Frederick had long loved her, and that
he had never received from her even a look; on this account she said, How can
I send to him or go to him, to ask for this falcon, which is, by what I hear, the
thing that he most loves, and which besides keeps him in the world; and how
can I be so ungrateful as to take from a gentleman what I desire, when it is the
only thing that he has to give him pleasure? Embarrassed by such thoughts,
and feeling that she was certain to have it if she asked it of him, and not
knowing what to say, she did not reply to her son, but was silent. Finally, the
love of her son overcoming her, she decided to satisfy him, whatever might
happen, not sending but going herself for the falcon; and she replied, "My son,
be comforted and try to get well, for I promise you that the first thing that I do
to-morrow will be to go and bring to you the falcon;" on which account the son
in his joy showed the same day an improvement. The lady the next day took as
companion another lady, and as if for pleasure went to the house of Frederick
and asked for him. It being early, he had not been hawking, and was in his

garden attending to certain little operations; and hearing that Madonna
Giovanni asked for him at the door, wondering greatly, joyfully went. She,
seeing him coming, with a ladylike pleasure went to meet him, and Frederick
having saluted her with reverence, she said, "I hope you are well, Frederick,"
and then went on, "I have come to recompense you for the losses which you
have already had on my account, loving me more than you need; and the
reparation is, then, that I intend with this my companion to dine with you
familiarly to-day." To this Frederick humbly replied, "Madonna, I do not
remember ever to have suffered any loss on your account, but so much good
that if I ever was worth anything, it is due to your worth, and to the love which
I have borne you; and certainly your frank visit is dearer to me than would
have been the being able to spend as much more as I have already spent, for
you have come to a very poor house." So saying, he received them into his
house in humility and conducted them into his garden; and then, not having
any person to keep her company he said, "Madonna, since there is no one else,
this good woman, the wife of my gardener, will keep you company while I go
to arrange the table."
He, although his poverty was so great, had not yet realized how he had,
without method or pleasure, spent his fortune; but this morning, finding
nothing with which he could do honor to the lady for whose love he had
already entertained so many men, made him think and suffer extremely; he
cursed his fortune, and as a man beside himself ran hither and thither, finding
neither money nor anything to pawn. It being late, and his desire to honor the
gentle lady in some manner, and not wishing to call on anybody else, but rather
to do all himself, his eyes fell upon his beloved falcon, which was in his cage
above the table. He therefore took it, and finding it fat, and not having any
other resource, he considered it to be a proper food for such a woman; and
without thinking any further, he wrung its neck and ordered his servant that, it
being plucked and prepared, it should be put on the spit and roasted
immediately. And setting the table with the whitest of linen, of which he had
still a little left, with a delighted countenance he returned to the lady and told
her that such dinner as he was able to prepare for her was ready. Thereupon,
the lady with her companion, rising, went to dinner, and without knowing what
she ate or what Frederick served, ate the good falcon.
Then leaving the table, and after pleasant conversation with him, it appeared to
the lady that it was time to say what she had come for, and so she began
amiably to say to Frederick:--"Frederick, recalling your past life and my

honesty, which perhaps you considered cruelty and severity, I do not doubt in
the least that you will be astonished at my presumption, hearing what I have
come for; but if you had ever had children, through whom you might know
how great is the love which one bears them, it seems to me certain that in part
you would excuse me. But as you have not, I, who have one, cannot escape the
law common to all mothers; obeying which, I am obliged, apart from my own
pleasure and all other convention and duty, to ask of you a gift which I know is
extremely dear, and reasonably so, because no other delight and no other
amusement and no other consolation has your exhausted fortune left you; this
gift is your falcon, which my boy has become so strongly enamored of, that if I
do not take it to him I fear that his illness will become so much aggravated that
I may lose him in consequence; therefore I pray you, not on account of the
love which you bear me, but because of your nobility, which has shown greater
courtesy than that of any other man, that you would be so kind, so good, as to
give it to me, in order that by this gift the life of my son may be preserved, and
I be forever under obligation to you."
Frederick, hearing what the lady demanded, and knowing that he could not
serve her, because he had already given it to her to eat, commenced in her
presence to weep so that he could not speak a word in reply; which weeping
the lady first believed to be for sorrow at having to give up his good falcon
more than anything else, and was about to tell him that she did not want it, but,
hesitating, waited the reply of Frederick until the weeping ceased, when he
spoke thus:--"Madonna, since it pleased God that I bestowed my love upon
you, money, influence, and fortune have been contrary to me, and have given
me great trouble; but all these things are trivial in respect to what fortune
makes me at present suffer, from which I shall never have peace, thinking that
you have come here to my poor house--to which while I was rich you never
deigned to come--and asked of me a little gift, and that fortune has so decreed
that I shall not be able to give it to you; and why I cannot do so I will tell you
in a few words. When I heard that you in your kindness wished to dine with
me, having regard for your excellence and your worth, I considered it worthy
and proper to give you the dearest food in my power, and therefore the falcon
for which you now ask me was this morning prepared for you, and you have
had it roasted on your plate and I had prepared it with delight; but now, seeing
that you desire it in another manner, the sorrow that I cannot so please you is
so great that never again shall I have peace;" and saying this, the feathers and
the feet and the beak were brought before them in evidence; which thing the
lady seeing and hearing, first blamed him for having entertained a woman with

such a falcon, and then praised the greatness of his mind, which his poverty
had not been able to diminish. Then, there being no hope of having the falcon
on account of which the health of her son was in question, in melancholy she
departed and returned to her son; who either for grief at not being able to have
the falcon, or for the illness which might have brought him to this state, did not
survive for many days, and to the great sorrow of his mother passed from this
life.
She, full of tears and of sorrow, and remaining rich and still young, was urged
many times by her brothers to remarry, which thing she had never wished; but
being continually urged, and remembering the worth of Frederick and his last
munificence, and that he had killed his beloved falcon to honor her, said to her
brothers:--"I would willingly, if it please you, remain as I am; but if it please
you more that I should take a husband, certainly I will never take any other if I
do not take Frederick degli Alberighi." At this her brothers, making fun of her,
said, "Silly creature, what do you say? Why do you choose him? He has
nothing in the world." To this she replied, "My brothers, I know well that it is
as you say; but I prefer rather a man who has need of riches, than riches that
have need of a man." The brothers, hearing her mind, and knowing Frederick
for a worthy man,--although poor,--as she wished, gave her with all her wealth
to him; who, seeing this excellent woman whom he had so much loved become
his wife, and besides that, being most rich, becoming economical, lived in
happiness with her to the end of his days.

THE JEW CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY BY GOING TO
ROME

As I, gracious ladies, have heard said, there was in Paris a great merchant, a
very good man, who was called Gianotto di Chevigné, a man most loyal and
just, who had a great business in stuffs, and who had a singular friendship with
a rich Jew named Abraham, who also was a merchant and also an honest and

loyal man. Gianotto, seeing his justice and loyalty, began to feel great sorrow
that the soul of so worthy and good a man should go to perdition through want
of religion, and on that account he began to beg in a friendly way that he
would abandon the errors of the Jewish faith and become converted to
Christian truth, in which he could see, being holy and good, that he would
always prosper and enrich himself; while in his own faith, on the contrary, he
might see that he would diminish and come to nothing, The Jew replied that he
did not believe anything either holy or good outside of Judaism; that he in that
was born and intended therein to live, and that nothing would ever move him
out of it.
Gianotto did not cease on this account to repeat after a few days similar
exhortations, showing him in a coarse manner, which merchants know how to
employ, for what reasons our faith was better than the Jewish; and though the
Jew was a great master in the Jewish law, nevertheless either the great
friendship which he had with Gianotto moved him, or perhaps the words
which the Holy Spirit put on the tongue of the foolish man accomplished it,
and the Jew began finally to consider earnestly the arguments of Gianotto; but
still, tenacious in his own faith, he was unwilling to change. As he remained
obstinate, so Gianotto never ceased urging him, so that finally the Jew by this
continual persistence was conquered, and said:--"Since, Gianotto, it would
please you that I should become a Christian and I am disposed to do so, I will
first go to Rome and there see him whom you call the vicar of God on earth,
and consider his manners and his customs, and similarly those of his brother
cardinals; and if they seem to me such that I can, between your words and
them, understand that your religion is better than mine, as you have undertaken
to prove to me, I will do what I have said; but if this should not be so, I will
remain a Jew as I am." When Gianotto heard this he was very sorrowful,
saying to himself: I have lost all my trouble which it seemed to me I had very
well employed, believing that I had converted this man; because if he goes to
the court at Rome and sees the wicked and dirty life of the priests, he not only,
being a Jew, will not become a Christian, but if he had become a Christian he
would infallibly return to Judaism.
Therefore Gianotto said to Abraham:--"Alas, my friend, why do you desire to
take this great trouble and expense of going from here to Rome? By land and
by sea, even to a rich man as you are, it is full of trouble. Do you not believe
that here we can find one who will baptize you? and if perchance you have still
some doubts as to the religion which I show you, where are there better

teachers and wiser men in this faith than there are here, to immediately tell you
what you want to know or may ask? On which account my opinion is that this
voyage is superfluous: the prelates whom you would see there are such as you
can see here, and besides they are much better, as they are near to the chief
Shepherd; and therefore this fatigue you will, by my counsel, save for another
time,--for some indulgence in which I may perhaps be your companion." To
this the Jew replied:--"I believe, Gianotto, that it is as you say to me; but
summing up the many words in one, I am altogether, if you wish that I should
do what you have been constantly begging me to do, disposed to go there;
otherwise I will do nothing." Gianotto seeing his determination said, "Go, and
good luck go with you;" but he thought to himself that Abraham never would
become a Christian if he had once seen the court of Rome, but as he would
lose nothing he said no more.
The Jew mounted his horse, and as quickly as possible went to the court of
Rome, where arriving, he was by his fellow Jews honorably received; and
living there without saying to anybody why he came, began cautiously to study
the manners of the Pope and the cardinals and the prelates and all the other
courtesans; and he learned, being the honest man that he was, and being
informed by other people, that from the greatest to the lowest they sinned most
dishonestly, not only in natural but in unnatural ways, without any restraint or
remorse to shame them; so much so that for the poor and the dissolute of both
sexes to take part in any affair was no small thing. Besides this he saw that
they were universally gluttons, wine-drinkers, and drunkards, and much
devoted to their stomachs after the manner of brute animals; given up to luxury
more than to anything else. And looking further, he saw that they were in the
same manner all avaricious and desirous of money, so that human blood, even
that of Christians, and sacred interests, whatever they might be, even
pertaining to the ceremonies or to the benefices, were sold and bought with
money; making a greater merchandise out of these things and having more
shops for them than at Paris of stuffs or any other things, and to the most open
simony giving the name and support of procuration, and to gluttony that of
sustentation: as if God, apart from the signification of epithets, could not know
the intentions of these wretched souls, but after the manner of men must permit
himself to be deceived by the names of things. Which, together with many
other things of which we will say nothing, so greatly displeased the Jew, that
as he was a sober and modest man it appeared to him that he had seen enough,
and proposed to return to Paris. Accordingly he did so; upon which Gianotto,
seeing that he had returned, and hoping nothing less than that he should have

become a Christian, came and rejoiced greatly at his return, and after some
days of rest asked him what he thought of the Holy Father, the cardinals, and
the other courtesans; to which the Jew promptly replied:--"It seems to me evil
that God should have given anything to all those people, and I say to you that
if I know how to draw conclusions, there was no holiness, no devotion, no
good work or good example of life in any other way, in anybody who was a
priest; but luxury, avarice, and gluttony,--such things and worse, if there could
be worse things in anybody; and I saw rather liberty in devilish operations than
in divine: on which account I conclude that with all possible study, with all
their talent and with all their art, your Shepherd, and consequently all the rest,
are working to reduce to nothing and to drive out of the world the Christian
religion, there where they ought to be its foundation and support. But from
what I see, what they are driving at does not happen, but your religion
continually increases; and therefore it becomes clearer and more evident that
the Holy Spirit must be its foundation and support, as a religion more true and
holy than any other. On which account, where I was obstinate and immovable
to your reasoning and did not care to become a Christian, now I say to you
distinctly that on no account would I fail to become a Christian. Therefore let
us go to church, and there according to the custom of your holy religion let me
be baptized."
Gianotto, who had expected exactly the opposite conclusion to this, when he
heard these things was more satisfied than ever a man was before, and with
him he went to Notre Dame of Paris and requested the priest there to give
Abraham baptism: who, hearing what he asked, immediately did so; and
Gianotto was his sponsor and named him Giovanni, and immediately caused
him by competent men to be completely instructed in our religion, which he at
once learned and became a good and worthy man and of a holy life.

THE STORY OF SALADIN AND THE JEW USURER

Saladin, whose valor was so great that he not only became from an
insignificant man Sultan of Babylon, but also gained many victories over the
Saracen and Christian kings, having in many wars and in his great
magnificence spent all his treasure, and on account of some trouble having
need of a great quantity of money, nor seeing where he should get it quickly as
he had need to, was reminded of a rich Jew whose name was Melchisedech,
who loaned at interest at Alexandria; and thinking to make use of him if he
could, though he was so avaricious that of his own good-will he would do
nothing, the Sultan, not wishing to compel him, but driven by necessity, set
himself to devise means by which the Jew should satisfy him, and to find some
manner of compelling him to do so with a good pretext. Thus thinking, he
called him, and receiving him familiarly, said to him: "My good man, I hear
from many here that you are the wisest and in divine affairs the most profound
of men, and on that account I would like to know from you which of the three
good religions you consider the true one: the Jewish, the Saracenic, or the
Christian?" The Jew, who really was a wise man, saw too clearly that the
Sultan desired to catch him in his words in order to raise against him some
question, and decided not to praise any one of the religions more than the
other, so that the Sultan should not accomplish his purpose; on account of
which, as one who seemed to have need of a reply as to which there could not
be any reasoning, and his wits being sharpened, there quickly came to him
what he ought to say, and he said:--
"My lord, the question which you have put to me is important, and in order to
explain to you what I think, it is necessary to tell you a fable which you will
hear. If I do not mistake, I have heard tell many times of a great and rich man
who lived once, and who amongst other jewels had a beautiful and valuable
ring, the most precious in his treasury, which on account of its value and its
beauty he desired to honor and to leave in perpetuity to his descendants; and he
ordered that that one of his sons to whom this ring should be left, as it had
been to him, should be considered his heir and be by all the others honored and
reverenced. The one to whom this ring should be left should give a similar
order to his descendants, and do as had done his predecessor. In short, this ring
went from hand to hand to many successors, and finally came to the hands of
one who had three sons, honest men, virtuous and all obedient to their father,
on which account he loved all three equally; and the young men, who knew the
custom of the ring, as each one desired to be the most honored amongst them,
each one to the utmost of his power urged the father to leave the ring to him
when death should take him. The worthy man, who loved them all alike, not

knowing himself how to choose to whom he should leave it, decided, having
promised each one, to satisfy all three: and secretly ordered from a good
workman two others, which were so similar to the first that he himself who
had made them could scarcely tell which was the true one; and death
approaching, he secretly gave to each one of his sons his ring. After the death
of the father, each one wishing to enjoy the heritage and denying it to the
others, each produced a ring in evidence of his rights, and finding them so
similar that no one could tell which was the true one, the question which was
the real heir of the father remained undecided, and it is still undecided. And so
I say to you, my lord, of the three religions given to the three people by God
the Father, concerning which you put me this question, that each one believes
that he has as his heritage the true law; but as it is with the three rings, the
question is still quite undecided."
Saladin, recognizing how this man had most cleverly escaped from the trap
which had been set before his feet, decided on that account to expose to him
his necessities and see if he was willing to help him; and so he did, saying that
which he had intended to say if the Jew had not replied so wisely as he had
done. The Jew freely accorded to Saladin whatever he asked, and Saladin gave
him entire security, and besides that he gave him great gifts and retained him
always as his friend, and kept him in excellent and honorable condition always
near to himself.

THE STORY OF GRISELDA

A long time ago, in the family of the Marquis Saluzzo, the head of the house
was a young man called Walter, who, having neither wife nor children, spent
his time entirely in hunting and hawking, and never troubled himself to marry
or to have a family,--on account of which he was considered very wise. This
thing not being pleasing to his retainers, they many times begged of him that
he should take a wife, in order that he should not be without an heir and they

without a master, offering to find him one descended from such a father and
mother that he might hope to have successors and they be satisfied. To which
Walter replied:--"My friends, you urge me to what I have never been disposed
to do, considering how grave a matter it is to find a woman who adapts herself
to one's ways, and on the contrary how great are the burdens and how hard the
lives of those who happen on wives who do not suit them. And to say that you
know daughters from the fathers and mothers, and from that argue that you can
give me what will satisfy me, is a foolishness; since I do not know how you
can learn the fathers or know the secrets of the mothers of these girls, since
even knowing them oft-times we find the daughters very different from the
fathers and mothers: but since you desire to entangle me in these chains, I wish
to be satisfied; and in order that I should not have to suffer through others than
myself if any mistake should be made, I wish myself to be the finder, assuring
you that if I do not take this responsibility and the woman should not be
honorable, you would find out to your very great loss how much opposed to
my desire it was to have taken a wife at your supplication."
The good men were satisfied, so long as he would take a wife. For a long time
the ways of a poor young woman who belonged to a little house near his own
had attracted Walter, and as she was sufficiently beautiful, he considered that
with her he might have a life peaceful enough; and on that account, without
going any further, he proposed to marry this one, and calling upon her father,
who was very poor, arranged with him to marry her. This being arranged, he
convoked his friends and said to them: "My friends! it has pleased and pleases
you that I should dispose myself to marry, and I am so disposed more to please
you than for the desire that I should have a wife. You know what you promised
me,--that is, to be satisfied with and to honor as your lady whoever I should
select; and, for that the time has come that I should keep my promise to you,
and I wish you to keep yours to me, I have found very near here a young
woman according to my heart, whom I intend to take for my wife and to bring
her in a few days to my house; and for this you must think how the
entertainment of the day shall be attractive and how you will honorably receive
her, in order that I may show myself satisfied with the fulfillment of your
promise as you may consider yourselves with mine."
The good men, joyful, all replied that that gave them pleasure, and whoever it
might be, they would accept her for lady and would honor her in everything as
their lady. This being arranged, all set themselves to making a magnificent,
joyful, and splendid festa, which also did Walter. He prepared for the wedding

festivities very abundantly and magnificently, and invited many of his friends,
great gentlemen, his relatives and others from all around. And beyond this he
had dresses cut and made up by the figure of a young woman who, he thought,
had the same figure as the woman he proposed to marry. And besides this, he
arranged girdles and rings and a rich and beautiful coronet, and everything that
a newly married bride should demand.
On the day settled for the wedding, Walter, about the third hour, mounted his
horse, as did all those who had come to honor him, and having arranged
everything conveniently, said, "Gentlemen, it is time to go to take the bride;"
and starting with his company he arrived at the little villa, and going to the
house of the father of the girl, and finding her returning in great haste with
water from the spring, in order to go with the other women to see the bride of
Walter, he called her by name,--that is, Griselda,--and asked her where her
father was, to which she modestly replied, "My lord, he is in the house." Then
Walter, dismounting and commanding his men that they should wait for them,
went along into the little house, where he found her father, whose name was
Giannucoli, and said to him, "I have come to marry Griselda, but I wish to
learn certain things in your presence." He then asked her if, should he take her
for his wife, she would do her best to please him, and at nothing that he should
do or say would she trouble herself, and if she would be obedient, and many
such-like questions, to all of which she replied "yes." Then Walter took her by
the hand, and in the presence of all his company and all the other persons had
her stripped naked, and calling for the dresses which he had had made,
immediately had her dressed and shod, and on her hair, disheveled as it was,
had the crown put; and all this being done while everybody marveled, Walter
said:--"Gentlemen, this is she whom I intend shall be my wife if she wishes me
for husband" and then, turning to her, who stood by herself abashed and
confused, said to her, "Griselda, will you take me for your husband?" To which
Griselda replied, "Yes, my lord;" and he said, "I desire her for my wife, and in
the presence of the assembly to marry her;" and mounting her on a palfrey he
led her, honorably accompanied, to his house. There the marriage ceremonies
were fine and great, and the festivities were not less than if he had married the
daughter of the king of France.

The Decameron

This is a collection of 100 tales written by Boccaccio, and published in 1353.
Seven ladies and three gentlemen of Florence, during the plague of 1348, are
supposed to be enjoying themselves in a garden telling stories--ten each day
for ten days.

Photogravure from a Painting by Jacques Wagrez.

It seemed as if the young bride, in changing her vestments, changed her mind
and her manners. She was, as we have said, in figure and face beautiful; and as
she was beautiful she became so attractive, so delightful, and so accomplished,
that she did not seem to be the daughter of Giannucoli the keeper of sheep, but
of some noble lord, which made every man who had known her astonished;
and besides this, she was so obedient to her husband and so ready in service
that he was most contented and delighted; and similarly, toward the subjects of
her husband she was so gracious and so kind that there was no one who did not
love her more than himself; and gentlemen honored her with the best good-
will, and all prayed for her welfare and her health and advancement.

Whereupon they who had been accustomed to say that Walter had done a
foolish thing in marrying her, now said that he was the wisest and the most far-
seeing man in the world, because no other than he would have been able to see
her great virtue hidden under the poor rags of a peasant's costume. In a short
time, not only in his own dominions but everywhere, she knew so well how to
comport herself that she made the people talk of his worth and of his good
conduct, and to turn to the contrary anything that was said against her husband
on account of his having married her.
She had not long dwelt with Walter when she bore a daughter, for which
Walter made great festivities; but a little afterwards, a new idea coming into
his mind, he wished with long experience and with intolerable proofs to try her
patience. First he began to annoy her with words, pretending to be disturbed,
and saying that his men were very discontented with her low condition, and
especially when they saw that she had children; and of the daughter, that she
was born most unfortunately; and he did nothing but grumble. But the lady,
hearing these words, without changing countenance or her demeanor in any
way, said, "My lord, do with me what you think your honor and your comfort
demand, and I shall be satisfied with everything, as I know that I am less than
they, and that I was not worthy of this honor to which you in your courtesy
called me." This reply pleased Walter much, knowing that she was not in any
arrogance raised on account of the honor which he or others had done her.
A little while afterwards, having often repeated to his wife that his subjects
could not endure this daughter born of her, he instructed one of his servants
and sent him to her, to whom with sorrowful face he said, "My lady, if I do not
wish to die, I am obliged to do what my lord commands me; he has
commanded that I should take your daughter and that I--" and here he stopped.
The lady, seeing the face of the servant and hearing the words that he said, and
the words said by her husband, bethinking herself, understood that this man
had been ordered to kill the child; upon which, immediately taking her from
the cradle, kissing her, and placing her as if in great sorrow to her heart,
without changing countenance she placed her in the arms of the servant and
said, "Take her and do exactly what your and my lord has imposed on you to
do, but do not leave her so that the beasts and the birds shall devour her, unless
he should have commanded you that." The servant having taken the child and
having repeated to Walter what his wife had said, he, marveling at her
constancy, sent him with her to Bologna to one of his relatives, beseeching him
that without ever saying whose daughter she might be, he should carefully rear

her and teach her good manners. It happened that the lady again in due time
bore a son, who was very dear to Walter. But not being satisfied with what he
had done, with greater wounds he pierced his wife, and with a countenance of
feigned vexation one day he said to her, "My lady, since you have borne this
male child I have in no way been able to live with my people, so bitterly do
they regret that a grandchild of Giannucoli should after me remain their lord;
and I make no question that if I do not wish to be deposed, it will be necessary
to do what I did before, and in the end leave you and take another wife." The
lady with patience heard him, and only replied, "My lord! think of your own
content, and do your own pleasure, and have no thought of me; because
nothing is so agreeable to me as to see you satisfied." A little after, Walter, in
the same manner as he had sent for the daughter, sent for the son, and in the
same way feigned to have ordered it to be killed, and sent him to nurse in
Bologna as he had sent the daughter. On account of which thing the lady
behaved no otherwise and said no other word than she had done for the
daughter. At this Walter marveled greatly, and declared to himself that no other
woman could have done what she did; and had it not been that he found her
most affectionate to her children, as he saw her to be, he would have believed
that she could only do so because she did not care for them, although he knew
her to be very prudent. His subjects, believing that he had had the child killed,
blamed him greatly and considered him a most cruel man, and had great
compassion for the lady, who, with the women who came to condole with her
on the death of her children, never said other thing than that that pleased her
which pleased her lord who had begotten them.
But many years having passed since the birth of the daughter, it seemed time to
Walter to make the last proof of her patience; and so he said to many of his
people that in no way could he endure any longer to have Griselda for his wife,
and that he recognized that he had done badly and like a boy when he took her
for wife, and that on that account he intended to apply to the Pope for a
dispensation that he might take another wife and leave Griselda. On which
account he was much reproved by very good men, to which he replied in no
other wise than that it was convenient that he should do so. The lady, hearing
these things, and seeing that it was necessary for her to look forward to
returning to her father's house, and perhaps to watch the sheep as she had in
other times done, and to see that another should have him to whom she wished
nothing but good, suffered greatly in her own mind; but also, as with the other
injuries which she had endured from fortune, so with a firm countenance she
disposed herself to support even this. Not long afterwards, Walter had caused

to be sent to him counterfeit letters from Rome, which he showed to all his
subjects to inform them that the Pope had given him the dispensation to take
another wife and leave Griselda. After which, having called her to him, in the
presence of many people he said:--"Lady, by the dispensation made to me by
the Pope I may take another wife and leave you; and because my ancestors
were great gentlemen and lords in this country, whereas yours have always
been workmen, I mean that you shall not longer be my wife, but that you shall
return to the house of your father with the dowry which you brought me, and
that I shall take another wife whom I have found more fitting for me." The
lady, hearing these words, not without great difficulty and contrary to the
nature of women kept back her tears, and replied:--"I knew always my low
condition not to suit in any way your nobility, and what I have done, by you
and by God will be recognized: nor have I ever acted or held it as given to me,
but simply always had it as a loan; it pleases you to take it back, and to me it
ought to give pleasure to return it to you. Here is your ring with which you
married me; take it. You command me to take back the dowry which I brought
you; to do which neither of you to pay it nor of me to receive it will demand
either a purse or a beast of burden, because it has escaped your mind that you
took me naked: and if you consider it honest that this body by which I have
borne the children begotten by you shall be seen by everybody, I will go away
naked; but I pray you in consideration of my virginity, which I brought to you
and which I cannot take away, that at least a single shirt more than my dowry it
will please you that I shall take." Walter, who had more desire to weep than
anything else, remained with a hard face and said, "You may take with you a
shirt." He was prayed by all who were about him that one garment more he
should give, that it should not be seen that she who had been his wife for
thirteen years or more should leave his house so poorly and shamefully as to
go away in her shirt; but in vain were the prayers made. On which account the
lady in her shirt, and barefoot, and without anything on her head, went out of
the house and returned to the house of her father with the tears and
lamentations of all who saw her.
Giannucoli, who had never been able to consider it a reality that Walter should
have taken his daughter for a wife, and expected every day this end, had kept
the clothes which had been taken from her that morning that Walter married
her; so that bringing them to her, she dressed herself in them and returned to
the little service of her father's house as she had been accustomed, supporting
with a strong mind these savage attacks of fortune. When Walter had done this,
he gave his people to understand that he had taken the daughter of one of the

Counts of Panago for a wife, and having great preparations made for the
marriage, sent for Griselda that she should come; to whom, having come, he
said:--"I bring this lady whom I have now taken, and intend on her arrival to
honor her, and you know that I have not in the house women who know how to
arrange the chambers and to do many things that pertain to such festivities; on
which account you, who better than anybody else know the things in this
house, shall put in order whatever there is to be done, and cause to be invited
the ladies whom you see fit, as if you were mistress here; then, after the
marriage ceremony, you can go back to your house." Although these words
were like so many knives in the heart of Griselda, as she had not been able to
divest herself of the love which she bore him as she had of her good fortune,--
she replied, "My lord, I am ready and prepared;" and so entered with her
coarse peasant's clothing in the house from which she had shortly before gone
in her shirt, and began to sweep and put in order the rooms, the hangings and
carpets for the halls, and to put the kitchen in order, and in every respect as if
she had been a little servant in the house, did she put her hand. Nor did she
pause until she had put everything in order and arranged it as it was most
convenient. And having done this, and Walter at her indications having invited
all the ladies of the country, she began to arrange the festivities; and when the
day of the marriage came, with the apparel which she had on her back, but
with the mind and manner of a lady, received with a cheerful countenance all
the ladies who came. Walter, who had had his children educated carefully by a
relative in Bologna who had married into the house of the Counts of Panago,--
the girl being already of the age of twelve years and the most beautiful creature
that ever was seen, and the boy being of six,--had written to his relative at
Bologna, praying him that he would be kind enough to come with this his
daughter to Saluzzo, and to arrange to bring with him a fine and honorable
company, and to say to all that these things were brought for his wife, without
telling anything to anybody that it was otherwise. Having done what the
Marquis asked of him, the Count started on his way after several days with the
girl and her brother and with a noble company, and arrived at Saluzzo at the
hour of dinner, when all the peasants and many neighbors were present waiting
for the new bride of Walter; who being received by the ladies and going into
the hall where the tables were set, Griselda came forward joyfully to meet her,
saying, "Welcome, my lady." The ladies (who had much, but in vain, prayed
Walter that he would arrange that Griselda should remain in the chamber, or
that he would give her some one of the dresses which had been hers, in order
that she should not appear in this way before his strangers) were set at the table
and had begun to be served. The girl was looked at by every man, and

everybody said that Walter had made a good exchange: but amongst the others
Griselda praised her most; both her and her little brother.
Walter, who seemed to have finally learned as much as he desired of the
patience of his lady, and seeing that the enduring of these things produced no
change in her, and being certain that this did not happen from hypocrisy,
because he knew that she was very wise, considered it time to lighten her of
the bitterness which he felt that she held hidden in her heart under her strong
self-control. Therefore, calling her in presence of all the company, and smiling,
he said, "What do you think of our bride?" "My lord," replied Griselda, "she
seems to me very good, and if she is as wise as she is beautiful, as I believe, I
do not doubt in the least that you will live with her the most comfortable
gentleman in the world. But I pray you as much as I can that these cruelties
which you bestowed on the other which was yours you will not give to this
one, because I believe that she could not support them; partly because she is
young, and again because she has been brought up delicately, while the other
has been always accustomed to hardships from a child." Walter, seeing that she
firmly believed that this one was his wife, nor on that account spoke otherwise
than well, made her sit down at his side and said:--"Griselda, it is time now
that you should feel the rewards of your long patience, and that those who
have considered me a cruel, wicked, and brutal man should know that that
which I have done was done for a purpose, wishing to teach you to be a wife,
and them to know how to take and to keep one, and for myself for the
establishment of unbroken quiet while I live with you. Because when I came to
take a wife I had great fear that this could not be the case, and on that account,
and to assure myself in all the ways which you know, I have tried to pain you.
And yet I have never perceived that either in thought or deed have you ever
contradicted my pleasure: convinced that I shall have from you that comfort
which I desire, I now intend to return to you all at once what I took from you
on several occasions; and with the greatest tenderness to heal the wounds
which I have given you; and so with a happy soul know this one whom you
believed to be my bride, and this one her brother, as your and my children;
they are those whom you and many others have long believed that I had
cruelly caused to be killed; and I am your husband who above all things loves
you, believing that I may boast that there is no other man who may be as well
satisfied with his wife as I am." And so saying he embraced her and kissed her,
and with her, who wept for joy, rising, went where the daughter sat stupefied,
hearing these things; and, embracing her tenderly and her brother as well,
undeceived her and as many as were there. The ladies, joyfully rising, went

with Griselda to her chamber, and with the most joyful wishes dressed her as a
lady,--which even in her rags she had seemed,--and then brought her back to
the hall; and there, making with the children a wonderful festivity, every
person being most joyful over these things, the rejoicings and the festivities
were kept up for many days, and they all considered Walter the wisest of men,
as they had considered bitter and intolerable the proofs which he had imposed
on his wife; and especially they considered Griselda most discreet.
The Count of Panago returned after a few days to Bologna, and Walter, having
taken Giannucoli from his work, settled him in the condition of his father-in-
law, so that he lived with great honor and with great comfort and so finished
his old age. And Walter afterwards, having married his daughter excellently,
long and happily lived with Griselda, honoring her always as much as he
could. And here we may say that as in royal houses come those who are much
more worthy to keep the hogs than to have government over men, so even into
poor houses there sometimes come from Heaven divine spirits besides
Griselda, who could have been able to suffer with a countenance not merely
tearless but cheerful the severe, unheard-of proofs imposed on her by Walter;
to whom it would perhaps not have been unjust that he should have happened
on one who, when he turned her out of his house in her shirt, should have
become unfaithful with another, as his actions would have made fitting.

FRIEDRICH MARTIN VON BODENSTEDT
(1819-1892)

odenstedt was born at Peine, Hanover, April 22d, 1819. From his earliest years
his poetic nature broke through the barriers of his prosaic surroundings; but in
spite of these significant manifestations, the young poet was educated to be a
merchant. He was sent to a commercial school in Brunswick, and then put to
serve an apprenticeship in business. His inclinations, however, were not to be
repressed; and he devoted all of his holidays and many hours of the night to
study and writing. At last he conquered his adverse fate, and at the age of
twenty-one entered the University. He studied at Göttingen, Munich, and
Berlin, and then through a fortunate chance went to Moscow as tutor in the
family of Prince Galitzin. Here he remained three years, during which time he
diligently studied the Slavonic languages and literature.
The first fruits of these studies were translations from
the poems of Kaslow, Pushkin, and Lermontoff
(1843); which were considered equal to the originals
in poetic merit. In Stuttgart, two years later, appeared
his 'Poetische Ukraine' (Poetical Ukraine). He went
to Tiflis in 1842 as instructor in Latin and French in
the Gymnasium. Here he studied the Tartar and
Bodenstedt. Persian languages, under the direction of the "wise
man" Mirza-Schaffy (Scribe Schaffy), and began to
translate Persian poems. "It was inevitable," he afterwards said, "that with such
occupations and influences many Persian strains crept into my own poetry."
Here he wrote his first poems in praise of wine. Later he became an extensive
traveler, and made long tours through the Caucasus and the East. The fruit of
these journeys was the book 'Die Völker des Caucasus und ihre
Freiheitskämpfe gegen die Russen' (The People of the Caucasus and their
Struggle for Freedom against the Russians), published in 1848. After his return
to Germany he settled in Münich to study political economy in the University.

Two years later, in 1850, appeared his delightful book in prose and poetry,
'Tausend und ein Tag im Orient' (Thousand and One Days in the East), a
reminiscence of his Eastern wanderings and his sojourn at Tiflis, The central
figure is his Oriental friend Mirza-Schaffy. "It occurred to me," he says, "to
portray with poetic freedom the Caucasian philosopher as he lived in my
memory, with all his idiosyncrasies, and at the same time have him stand as the
type of an Eastern scholar and poet; in other words, to have him appear more
important than he really was, for he never was a true poet, and of all the songs
which he read to me as being his own, I could use only a single one, the little
rollicking song, 'Mullah, pure is the wine, and it's sin to despise it.' For his
other verse I substituted poems of my own, which were in keeping with his
character and the situations in which he appeared." The poems by themselves,
together with others written at different times and places, Bodenstedt published
in 1856 under the title 'Lieder des Mirza-Schaffy' (Songs of Mirza-Schaffy).
Quite unintentionally they have occasioned one of the most amusing of literary
mystifications. For a long time they were supposed to be real translations; and
even to-day, despite the poet's own words, the "Sage of Tiflis" is considered by
some a very great poet. A Tartar by birth, who had absorbed Persian culture, he
was a skillful versifier, and could with facility translate simple songs from the
Persian into the Tartar language. Bodenstedt put into Mirza-Schaffy's mouth
the songs which were written during his intercourse with the Eastern sage, to
give vividness to the picture of an Eastern divan of wisdom.
They portray Oriental life on its more sensuous, alluring side. In most musical,
caressing verse they sing of wine and love, of the charms of Zuleika and
Hafisa, of earthly bliss and the delights of living. Yet with all their warm
Eastern imagery and rich foreign dress they are essentially German in spirit,
and their prevailing note of joyousness is now and again tempered by more
serious strains.
The book was received with universal applause, and on it Bodenstedt's fame as
poet rests. It has been translated into all the European languages, even into
Hebrew and Tartar, and is now in its one hundred and forty-third German
edition. Twenty-four years later Bodenstedt followed it with a similar
collection, 'Aus dem Nachlass des Mirza-Schaffy' (From the Posthumous
Works of Mirza-Schaffy: 1874), where he shows the more serious, philosophic
aspect of Eastern life. Bodenstedt's poems and his translations of Persian
poetry are the culmination of the movement, begun by the Romantic School, to
bring Eastern thought and imagery home to the Western world. Other well-

known examples are Goethe's 'West-Eastern Divan,' and the poems and
paraphrases of Rückert and others; but the 'Songs of Mirza-Schaffy' are the
only poems produced under exotic influences which have been thoroughly
acclimatized on German soil.
Bodenstedt was for a time director of the court theatre at Meiningen; and
though he held this difficult position for only a short time, he did much to lay
the foundation of the success which the Meininger, as the best German stock
company of actors, achieved later on their starring tours through the country.
He was ennobled in 1867, while in this position. He spent the last year of his
life at Wiesbaden, where he died in 1892.
Bodenstedt was a voluminous writer; his work includes poems, romances,
novels, and dramas. 'Vom Atlantischen zum Stillen Ocean' (From the Atlantic
to the Pacific Ocean: 1882) is a description of his lecturing tour to the United
States the year before. His autobiography, 'Erinnerungen aus Meinem Leben'
(Recollections of my Life), gives interesting glimpses into his eventful career.
His mind was more receptive than creative, and this, combined with his great
technical skill and his quick intuition, fitted him peculiarly to be a translator
and adapter. His translation of Shakespeare's works, in conjunction with Paul
Heyse, Kurz, and others (fifth edition, Leipzig, 1890), is especially
noteworthy, as also his rendering of Shakespeare's sonnets. But he will live in
German literature as the poet Mirza-Schaffy.

TWO

To one exalted aim we both are tending,
I and thou!
To one captivity we both are bending,
I and thou!
In my heart thee I close--thou me in thine;
In twofold life, yet one, we both are blending,
I and thou!
Thee my wit draws--and me thine eye of beauty;
Two fishes, from one bait we are depending,
I and thou!
Yet unlike fishes--through the air of Heaven,
Like two brave eagles, we are both ascending,
I and thou!

WINE

In THE goblet's magic measure,
In the wine's all-powerful spirit,
Lieth poison and delight:
Lieth purest, basest pleasure,
E'en according to the merit
Of the drinker ye invite.

Lo, the fool in baseness sunken,
Having drunk till he is tired,
When he drinks, behold him drunken;
When we drink, we are inspired.

SONG

Down on the vast deep ocean
The sun his beams doth throw,
Till every wavelet trembles
Beneath their ruddy glow.

How like thou to those sunbeams
Upon my song's wild sea;
They tremble all and glitter,
Reflecting only thee.

UNCHANGING

In early days methought that all must last;
Then I beheld all changing, dying, fleeting;

But though my soul now grieves for much that's past,
And changeful fortunes set my heart oft beating,
I yet believe in mind that all will last,
Because the old in new I still am meeting.

THE POETRY OF MIRZA-SCHAFFY

From the 'Thousand and One Days in the East'

ABBAS KULI KHAN was one of those gifted ambiguous natures who,
without inspiring confidence, always know how to work an imposing effect,
inasmuch as they hold to the principle of displeasing no one, as a first rule of
prudence.
It so happened then that even Mirza-Schaffy, bribed by the flattery which the
Khan of Baku, when he once surprised us in the Divan of Wisdom, lavished
upon him, declared him to be a great Wise Man.
The mutual praise, so overflowing in its abundance, which they bestowed on
one another put them both in a very happy humor. From the Koran, from
Saadi, Hafiz, and Fizuli, each authenticated the other to be the moving
embodiment of all the wisdom of earth.
A formal emulation in old and original songs took place between them; for
every piece of flattery was overlaid with a tuneful quotation. Unfortunately,
however, the entertainment flowed so swiftly that I was unable to note down
any coherent account of it.
Nevertheless, being unwilling to let the long session go by without any gain on
my part, I requested the Khan to write for me one of his artistic songs in
remembrance. He nodded with an approving look, and promised to write the
most beautiful song that ever the mouth of man had uttered; a song in praise of
his Fatima, playing on her stringed instrument.

Whilst Mirza-Schaffy raised a questioning look on hearing the praise which
the Khan expended on himself, the latter took the kalem (reed-pen) and wrote
what follows:--

FATIMA PLAYING ON HER STRINGED INSTRUMENT

"O'er the strings thy fingers are straying,
O'er my heart stray the tones;
And it wanders obeying,
Far away from the zones;
Up tending,
Round thee bending,
Round thy heart to be growing
And clinging,
Round thee flinging,
Its glad mirth overflowing--
Oh! thou Spirit from me springing,
Life on me bestowing!
Dazzled, blinded, confounded,
I see in thy glances
The whole world and its rounded
Unbounded expanses;
And round us it dances
In drunken confusion,
Like floating illusion;
Around thee I'm reeling,
All round me is wheeling--
And Heaven and Ocean,
In flashing commotion,
Round us both as thou singest,
Roll reeling and rushing--
Thou Joy to me that wingest,
Thou Soul from me outgushing!"

Fatima
Photogravure from a Painting by G.C. Saintpierre.

"O'er the strings thy fingers are straying,
O'er my heart stray the tones."
"On the following evening," said Mirza-Schaffy, "I appeared at the appointed
hour. During the day I had written a love song which none of womankind
could resist. I had sung it over about twenty times to myself, in order to be sure
of success. Then I had been into the bath, and had had my head shaved so
perfectly that it might have vied in whiteness with the lilies of the vale of
Senghi. The evening was calm and clear; from the garden-side where I stood, I
could distinctly see my Zuléikha; she was alone with Fatima on the roof, and
had her veil put a little back, as a sign of her favor. I took courage, and pushed
my cap down behind to show my white head, just fresh shaved, to the maiden's
eyes. Thou canst comprehend what an impression that would make on a
woman's heart! Alas! my head was much whiter then than it is now. But that is
more than ten years since!" he said sorrowfully, and would have continued in
this digression if I had not interposed the words:--

"Thy head is quite white enough now to fascinate the most maidenly heart; but
thou hast not yet told me how thou sangest thy love song, and what impression
it made upon Zuléikha."
"I had folded the song," said the Mirza, "round a double almond kernel, and
thrown it on the roof, as a keepsake for the Beauty, before I began to sing it;
and then I began with clear voice:--

"What is the eye of wild gazelle, the slender pine's
unfolding,
Compared with thy delightful eyes, and thine ethereal
molding?
What is the scent from Shiraz' fields, wind-borne, that's
hither
straying,
Compared with richer scented breath from thy sweet
mouth
out-playing?

What is Ghazel and Rubajat, as Hafiz ere was singing,
Compared with one word's mellow tone, from thy
sweet mouth
outwinging?

What is the rosy-chaliced flower, where nightingales
are quaffing,
Compared with thy sweet rosy mouth, and thy lips'
rosy laughing?
What is the sun, and what the moon, and all heaven's
constellations?
Love-glancing far for thee they glow with trembling
scintillations!
And what am I myself, my heart, my songful
celebration,
But slaves of royal loveliness, bright beauty's
inspiration!"

"Allah, how beautiful!" I cried. "Mirza-Schaffy, thy words sound as sweet as
the songs of the Peris, in the world of spirits! What is Hafiz to thee? What is a

drop to the ocean?"

MIRZA-SCHAFFY

From the 'Thousand and One Days in the East'

My first object in Georgia was to secure an instructor in Tartar, that I might
learn as quickly as possible a language so indispensably necessary in the
countries of the Caucasus. Accident favored my choice, for my learned teacher
Mirza-Schaffy, the Wise Man of Gjändsha, as he styles himself, is, according
to his own opinion, the wisest of men.
With the modesty peculiar to his nation, he only calls himself the first wise
man of the East; but as according to his estimation the children of the West are
yet living in darkness and unbelief, it is a matter of course with him that he
soars above us in wisdom and knowledge. Moreover, he indulges the hope
that, thanks to his endeavors, the illumination and wisdom of the East will
also, in the progress of years, actually spread amongst us. I am already the fifth
scholar, he tells me, who has made a pilgrimage to him for the purpose of
participating in his instructions. He argues from this that the need of traveling
to Tiflis and listening to Mirza-Schaffy's sayings of wisdom is ever becoming
more vividly felt by us. My four predecessors, he is further of opinion, have,
since their return into the West, promoted to the best of their ability the
extension of Oriental civilization amongst their races. But of me he formed
quite peculiar hopes; very likely because I paid him a silver ruble for each
lesson, which I understand is an unusually high premium for the Wise Man of
Gjändsha.
It was always most incomprehensible to him how we can call ourselves wise or
learned, and travel over the world with these titles, before we even understand
the sacred languages. Nevertheless he very readily excused these pretensions
in me, inasmuch as I was at least ardently endeavoring to acquire these
languages, but above all because I had made the lucky hit of choosing him for
my teacher.

The advantages of this lucky hit he had his own peculiar way of making
intelligible to me. "I, Mirza-Schaffy," said he, "am the first wise man of the
East! consequently thou, as my disciple, art the second. But thou must not
misunderstand me: I have a friend, Omar-Effendi, a very wise man, who is
certainly not the third among the learned of the land. If I were not alive, and
Omar-Effendi were thy teacher, then he would be the first, and thou, as his
disciple, the second wise man!" After such an effusion, it was always the
custom of Mirza-Schaffy to point with his forefinger to his forehead, at the
same time giving me a sly look; whereupon, according to rule, I nodded
knowingly to him in mute reciprocation.
That the Wise Man of Gjändsha knew how to render his vast superiority in the
highest degree palpable to any one who might have any misgiving on the
point, he once showed me by a striking example.
Among the many learned rivals who envied the lessons of Mirza-Schaffy, the
most conspicuous was Mirza-Jussuf, the Wise Man of Bagdad. He named
himself after this city, because he had there pursued his studies in Arabic; from
which he inferred that he must possess more profound accomplishments than
Mirza-Schaffy, whom he told me he considered a "Fschekj," an ass among the
bearers of wisdom. "The fellow cannot even write decently," Jussuf informed
me of my reverend Mirza, "and he cannot sing at all! Now I ask thee: What is
knowledge without writing? What is wisdom without song? What is Mirza-
Schaffy in comparison with me?"
In this way he was continually plying me with perorations of confounding
force, wherein he gave especial prominence to the beauty of his name Jussuf,
which Moses of old had celebrated, and Hafiz sung of in lovely strains; he
exerted all his acuteness to evince to me that a name is not an empty sound,
but that the significance attached to a great or beautiful name is inherited in
more or less distinction by the latest bearers of this name. He, Jussuf, for
example, was a perfect model of the Jussuf of the land of Egypt, who walked
in chastity before Potiphar, and in wisdom before the Lord.

THE SCHOOL OF WISDOM

From the 'Thousand and One Days in the East'