The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878, by Various.

If it were not for the people, the journey by steamer from Belgrade to Pesth would be rather unromantic. When the Servian capital is reached in ascending the great stream from Galatz and Rustchuk, the picturesque [Pg 650]cliffs, the mighty forests, the moss-grown ruins overhanging the rushing waters, are all left behind. Belgrade is not very imposing. It lies along a low line of hills bordering the Sava and the Danube, and contains only a few edifices which are worthy even of the epithet creditable. The white pinnacle from which it takes its name—for the city grouped around the fort was once called Beograd ("white city")—now looks grimy and gloomy. The Servians have placed the cannon which they took from the Turks in the recent war on the ramparts, and have become so extravagantly vain in view of their exploits that their conceit is quite painful to contemplate. Yet it is impossible to avoid sympathizing to some extent with this little people, whose lot has been so hard and whose final emancipation has been so long in arriving. The intense affection which the Servian manifests for his native land is doubtless the result of the struggles and the sacrifices which he has been compelled to make in order to remain in possession of it. One day he has been threatened by the Austrian or the jealous and unreasonable Hungarian: another he has received news that the Turks were marching across his borders, burning, plundering and devastating. There is something peculiarly pathetic in the lot of these small Danubian states. Nearly every one of them has been the cause of combats in which its inhabitants have shed rivers of blood before they could obtain even a fragment of such liberty and peace as have long been the possessions of Switzerland and Belgium. It is not surprising that the small countries which once formed part of Turkey-in-Europe are anxious to grow larger and stronger by annexation of territory and consolidation of populations. They are tired of being feeble: it is not amusing. Servia once expected that she would be allowed to gain a considerable portion of Bosnia, her neighbor province, but the Austrians are there, and would speedily send forces to Belgrade if it were for a moment imagined that Prince Milan and his counsellors were still greedy for Serapevo and other fat towns of the beautiful Bosnian lands. Now and then, when a Servian burgher has had an extra flask of Negotin, he vapors about meeting the Austrians face to face and driving them into the Sava; but he never mentions it when he is in a normal condition.

The country which Servia has won from the Turks in the neighborhood of Nisch, and the quaint old city of Nisch itself, were no meagre prizes, and ought to content the ambition of the young prince for some time. It was righteous that the Servians should possess Nisch, and that the Turks should be driven out by violence. The cruel and vindictive barbarian had done everything that he could to make himself feared and loathed by the Servians. To this day, not far from one of the principal gates of the city, on the Pirot road, stands the "Skull Tower," in the existence of which, I suppose, an English Tory would refuse to believe, just as he denied his credence to the story of the atrocities at Batak. The four sides of this tower are completely covered, as with a barbarous mosaic, with the skulls of Servians slain by their oppressors in the great combat of 1809. The Turks placed here but a few of their trophies, for they slaughtered thousands, while the tower's sides could accommodate only nine hundred and fifty-two skulls. It is much to the credit of the Servians that when they took Nisch in 1877 they wreaked no vengeance on the Mussulman population, but simply compelled them to give up their arms, and informed them that they could return to their labors. The presence of the Servians at Nisch has already been productive of good: decent roads from that point to Sophia are already in process of construction, and the innumerable brigands who swarmed along the country-side have been banished or killed. Sophia still lies basking in the mellow sunlight, lazily refusing to be cleansed or improved. Nowhere else on the border-line of the Orient is there a town which so admirably illustrates the reckless and stupid negligence of the Turk. Sophia looks enchanting from a distance, but when one enters its narrow streets, choked with rubbish and filled[Pg 651] with fetid smells, one is only too glad to retire hastily. It would take a quarter of a century to make Sophia clean. All round the city are scattered ancient tumuli filled with the remains of the former lords of the soil, and they are almost as attractive as the hovels in which live the people of to-day. What a desolate waste the Turk has been allowed to make of one of the finest countries in Europe! He must be thrust out before improvement can come in. Lamartine, who was one of the keenest observers that ever set foot in Turkey, truly said "that civilization, which is so fine in its proper place, would prove a mortal poison to Islamism. Civilization cannot live [Pg 652]where the Turks are: it will wither away and perish more quickly whenever it is brought near them. With it, if you could acclimate it in Turkey, you could not make Europeans, you could not make Christians: you would simply unmake Turks."

The enemies of progress and of the "Christian dogs" are receding, and railways and sanitary improvements will come when they are gone. Belgrade was a wretched town when the Turks had it: now it is civilized. Its history is romantic and picturesque, although its buildings are not. Servia's legends and the actual recitals of the adventurous wars which have occurred within her limits would fill volumes. The White City has been famous ever since the Ottoman conquest. Its dominant position at the junction of two great rivers, at the frontier of Christian Europe, at a time when turbans were now and then seen in front of the walls of Vienna, gave it a supreme importance. The Turks exultingly named it "the Gate of the Holy War." Thence it was that they sallied forth on incursions through the fertile plains where now the Hungarian shepherd leads his flock and plays upon his wooden pipe, undisturbed by the bearded infidel. The citadel was fought over until its walls cracked beneath the successive blows of Christian and Mussulman. Suleiman the Lawgiver, the elector of Bavaria, Eugene of Savoy, have trod the ramparts which frown on the Danube's broad current. The Austrians have many memories of the old fortress: they received it in 1718 by the treaty of Passarowitz, but gave it up in 1749, to take it back again in 1789. The treaty of[Pg 653] Sistova—an infamy which postponed the liberation of the suffering peoples in Turkey-in-Europe for nearly a hundred years—compelled the Austrians once more to yield it, this time to the Turks. In this century how often has it been fought over—from the time of the heroic Kara George, the Servian liberator, to the bloody riots in our days which resulted in driving Mussulmans definitely from the territory!

Everywhere along the upper Servian banks of the Danube traces of the old epoch are disappearing. The national costume, which was graceful, and often very rich, is yielding before the prosaic—the ugly garments imported from Jewish tailoring establishments in Vienna and Pesth. The horseman with his sack-coat, baggy velvet trousers and slouch hat looks not unlike a rough rider along the shores of the Mississippi River. In the interior patriarchal costumes and customs are still preserved. On the Sava river-steamers the people from towns in the shadows of the primeval forests which still cover a large portion of the country are to be found, and they are good studies for an artist. The women, with golden ducats braided in their hair; the priests, with tall brimless hats and long yellow robes; the men, with round skull-caps, leathern girdles with knives in them, and waistcoats ornamented with hundreds of glittering buttons,—are all unconscious of the change which is creeping in by the Danube, and to which they will presently find themselves submitting. The railway will take away the lingering bits of romance from Servia; the lovely and lonely monasteries high among the grand peaks in the mountain-ranges will be visited by tourists from Paris, who will scrawl their names upon the very altars; and Belgrade will be rich in second-class caravanserais kept by Moses and Abraham. After the Austrians who have gone over into Bosnia will naturally follow a crowd of adventurers from Croatia and from the neighborhood of Pesth, and it would not be surprising should many of them find it for their interest to settle in Servia, although the government would probably endeavor to keep them out. Should the movement which Lord Beaconsfield is pleased to call the "Panslavic conspiracy" assume alarming proportions within[Pg 654] a short time, the Servians would be in great danger of losing, for years at least, their autonomy.

The arrival by night at Belgrade, coming from below, is interesting, and one has a vivid recollection ever afterward of swarms of barefooted coal-heavers, clad in coarse sacking, rushing tumultuously up and down a gang-plank, as negroes do when wooding up on a Southern river; of shouting and swaggering Austrian customs officials, clad in gorgeous raiment, but smoking cheap cigars; of Servian gendarmes emulating the bluster and surpassing the rudeness of the Austrians; of Turks in transit from the Constantinople boat to the craft plying to Bosnian river-ports; of Hungarian peasants in white felt jackets embroidered with scarlet thread, or mayhap even with yellow; and of various Bohemian beggars, whose swart faces remind one that he is still in the neighborhood of the East. I had on one occasion, while a steamer was lying at Belgrade, time to observe the manners of the humbler sort of folk in a species of cabaret near the river-side and hard by the erratic structure known as the custom-house. There was a serious air upon the faces of the men which spoke well for their characters. Each one seemed independent, and to a certain extent careless, of his neighbor's opinion. It would have been impossible, without some knowledge of the history of the country, to have supposed that these people, or even their ancestors, had ever been oppressed. Gayety did not prevail, nor is there anywhere among the Danubian Slavs a tendency to the innocent and spontaneous jollity so common in some sections of Europe. The Servian takes life seriously. I was amused to see that each one of this numerous company of swineherds or farmers, who had evidently come in to Belgrade to market, drank his wine as if it were a duty, and on leaving saluted as seriously as if he were greeting a distinguished company gathered to do him honor. That such men are cowards, as the English would have us believe, is impossible; and in 1877 they showed that the slander was destitute of even the slightest foundation in fact.

Morals in Belgrade among certain classes perhaps leave something to desire in the way of strictness; but the Danubian provinces are not supposed to be the abodes of all the virtues and graces. The Hungarians could not afford to throw stones at the Servians on the score of morality, and the Roumanians certainly would not venture to try the experiment. In the interior of Servia the population is pure, and the patriarchal manner in which the people live tends to preserve them so. There is as much difference between the sentiment in Belgrade and that in the provinces as would be found between Paris and a French rural district.

But let us drop details concerning Servia, for the brave little country demands more serious attention than can be given to it in one or two brief articles. The boat which bears me away from the Servian capital has come hither from Semlin, the Austrian town on the other side of the Sava River. It is a jaunty and comfortable craft, as befits such vessels as afford Servians their only means of communication with the outer world. If any but Turks had been squatted in Bosnia there would have been many a smart little steamer running down the Sava and around up the Danube; but the baleful Mussulman has checked all enterprise wherever he has had any foothold. We go slowly, cleaving the dull-colored tide, gazing, as we sit enthroned in easy-chairs on the upper deck, out upon the few public institutions of Belgrade—the military college and the handsome road leading to the garden of Topschidere, where the Lilliputian court has its tiny summer residence. Sombre memories overhang this "Cannoneer's Valley," this Topschidere, where Michael, the son and successor of good Milosch as sovereign prince of the nation, perished by assassination in 1868. In a few minutes we are whisked round a corner, and a high wooded bluff conceals the White City from our view.

The Servian women—and more especially those belonging to the lower classes—have[Pg 655] a majesty and dignity which are very imposing. One is inclined at first to believe these are partially due to assumption, but he speedily discovers that such is not the case. Blanqui, the French revolutionist, who made a tour through Servia in 1840, has given the world a curious and interesting account of the conversations which he held with Servian women on the subject of the oppression from which the nation was suffering. Everywhere among the common people he found virile sentiments expressed by the women, and the princess Lionbitza, he said, was "the prey of a kind of holy fever." M. Blanqui described her as a woman fifty years old, with a martial, austere yet dreamy physiognomy, with strongly-marked features, a proud and sombre gaze, and her head crowned with superb gray hair braided and tied with red ribbon. "Ah!" said this woman to him, with an accent in her voice which startled him, "if all these men round about us here were not women, or if they were women like me, we should soon be free from our tormentors!" It was the fiery words of such women as this which awoke the Servian men from the lethargy into which they were falling after Kara George had exhausted himself in heroic efforts, and which sent them forth anew to fight for their liberties.

At night, when the moon is good enough to shine, the voyage up the river has charms, and tempts one to remain on deck all night, in spite of the sharp breezes which sweep across the stream. The harmonious accents of the gentle Servian tongue echo all round you: the song of the peasants grouped together, lying in a heap like cattle to keep warm, comes occasionally to your ears; and if there be anything disagreeable, it is the loud voices and brawling manners of some Austrian troopers on transfer. From time to time the boat slows her speed as she passes through lines or streets of floating mills anchored securely in the river. Each mill—a small house with sloping roof, and with so few windows that one wonders how the millers ever manage to see their grist—is built upon two boats.The musical hum of its great wheel is heard for a long distance, and warns one of the approach toward these pacific industries. The miller is usually on the lookout, and sometimes, when a large[Pg 656] steamer is coming up, and he anticipates trouble from the "swell" which she may create, he may be seen madly gesticulating and dancing upon his narrow platform in a frenzy of anxiety for the fruits of his toil. A little village on a neck of land or beneath a grove shows where the wives and children of these millers live. The mills are a source of prosperity for thousands of humble folk, and of provocation to hurricanes of profanity on the part of the Austrian, Italian and Dalmatian captains who are compelled to pass them. Stealing through an aquatic town of this kind at midnight, with the millers all holding out their lanterns, with the steamer's bell ringing violently, and with rough voices crying out words of caution in at least four languages, produces a curious if not a comical effect on him who has the experience for the first time.

Peaceable as the upper Danube shores look, Arcadian as seems the simplicity of their populations, the people are torn by contending passions, and are watched by the lynx-eyed authorities of two or three governments. The agents of the Omladina, the mysterious society which interests itself in the propagation of Pan-slavism, have numerous powerful stations in the Austrian towns, and do much to discontent the Slavic subjects of Francis Joseph with the rule of the Hapsburgs. There have also been instances of conspiracy against the Obrenovich dynasty, now in power in Servia, and these have frequently resulted in armed incursions from the Hungarian side of the stream to the other bank, where a warm reception was not long awaited. In the humblest hamlet there are brains hot with ambitious dreams daringly planning some scheme which is too audacious to be realized.

The traveller can scarcely believe this when, as the boat stops at some little pier which is half buried under vines and blossoms, he sees the population indulging in an innocent festival with the aid of red and white wine, a few glasses of beer, and bread and cheese. Families mounted in huge yellow chariots drawn by horses ornamented with gayly-decorated harnesses, come rattling into town and get down before a weatherbeaten inn, the signboard above which testifies to respect and love for some emperor of long ago. Youths and maidens wander arm[Pg 657] in arm by the foaming tide or sit in the little arbors crooning songs and clinking glasses. Officers strut about, calling each other loudly by their titles or responding to the sallies of those of their comrades who fill the after-deck of the steamer. The village mayor in a braided jacket, the wharfmaster in semi-military uniform, and the agent of the steamboat company, who appears to have a remarkable penchant for gold lace and buttons, render the throng still more motley. There is also, in nine cases out of ten, a band of tooting musicians, and as the boat moves away national Hungarian and Austrian airs are played. He would be indeed a surly fellow who should not lift his cap on these occasions, and he would be repaid for his obstinacy by the very blackest of looks.

Carlowitz and Slankamen are two historic spots which an Hungarian, if he feels kindly disposed toward a stranger, will point out to him. The former is known to Americans by name only, as a rule, and that because they have seen it upon bottle-labels announcing excellent wine; but the town, with its ancient cathedral, its convents, and its "chapel of peace" built on the site of the structure in which was signed the noted peace of 1699, deserves a visit. Rumor says that the head-quarters of the Omladina are very near this town, so that the foreign visitor must not be astonished if the local police seem uncommonly solicitous for his welfare while he remains. At Slankamen in 1691 the illustrious margrave of Baden administered such a thrashing to the Turks that they fled in the greatest consternation, and it was long before they rallied again.

Thus, threading in and out among the floating mills, pushing through reedy channels in the midst of which she narrowly escapes crushing the boats of fishers, and carefully avoiding the moving banks of sand which render navigation as difficult as on the Mississippi, the boat reaches Peterwardein, high on a mighty mass of rock, and Neusatz opposite, connected with its neighbor fortress-town by a bridge of boats. Although within the limits of the Austria-Hungarian empire, Neusatz is almost entirely Servian in aspect and population, and Peterwardein, which marks the military confines of Slavonia, has a large number of Servian inhabitants. It was the proximity and the earnestness in[Pg 658] their cause of these people which induced the Hungarians to agree to the military occupation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina. At one time the obstinate Magyars would have liked to refuse their adhesion to the decisions of the Berlin Congress, but they soon thought better of that. Peterwardein is the last really imposing object on the Danube before reaching Pesth. It is majestic and solemn, with its gloomy castle, its garrison which contains several thousand soldiers, and its prison of state. The remembrance that Peter the Hermit there put himself at the head of the army with which the Crusades were begun adds to the mysterious and powerful fascination of the place. I fancied that I could see the lean and fanatical priest preaching before the assembled thousands, hurling his words down upon them from some lofty pinnacle. No one can blame the worthy Peter for undertaking his mission if the infidels treated Christians in the Orient as badly then as they do to-day. Centuries after Peter slept in consecrated dust the Turks sat down before Peterwardein to besiege it, but they had only their labor for their pains, for Prince Eugene drove them away. This was in 1716. It seems hard to believe that a hostile force of Turks was powerful enough to wander about Christendom a little more than a century and a half ago.

After passing Peterwardein and Neusatz the boat's course lies through the vast Hungarian plain, which reminds the American of some of the rich lands in the Mississippi bottom. Here is life, lusty, crude, seemingly not of Europe, but rather of the extreme West or East. As far as the eye can reach on either hand stretch the level acres, dotted with herds of inquisitive swine, with horses wild and beautiful snorting and gambolling as they hear the boat's whistle, and peasants in white linen jackets and trousers and immense black woollen hats. Fishers by hundreds balance in their little skiffs on the small whirlpool of waves made by the steamer, and sing gayly. For a stretch of twenty miles the course may lie near an immense forest, where millions of stout trees stand in regular rows, where thousands of oaks drop acorns every year to fatten thousands upon thousands of pigs. Cattle stray in these woods, and sometimes the peasant-farmer has a veritable hunt before he can find his own. Afar in the wooded recesses of Slavonia many convents of the Greek religion are hidden. Their inmates lead lives which have little or no relation to anything in the nineteenth century. For them wars and rumors of wars, Russian aggression, Austrian annexation, conspiracies by Kara Georgewitch, Hungarian domination in the Cabinet at Vienna, and all such trivial matters, do not exist. The members of these religious communities are not like the more active members of the clergy of their Church, who unquestionably have much to do with promoting war and supporting it when it is in aid of their nationality and their religion.

One of the most remarkable sights in this region is a herd of the noble "cattle of the steppes," the beasts in which every Hungarian takes so much pride. These cattle are superb creatures, and as they stand eying the passers-by one regrets that he has not more time in which to admire their exquisite white skins, their long symmetrical horns and their shapely limbs. They appear to be good-tempered, but it would not be wise to risk one's self on foot in their immediate neighborhood.

As for the fishermen, some of them seem to prefer living on the water rather than on dry land. Indeed, the marshy borders of the Danube are not very healthy, and it is not astonishing that men do not care to make their homes on these low lands. There are several aquatic towns between Pesth and the point at which the Drava (or Drau), a noble river, empties its waters into the Danube. Apatin is an assemblage of huts which appear to spring from the bosom of the current, but as the steamer approaches one sees that these huts are built upon piles driven firmly into the river-bed, and between these singular habitations are other piles upon which nets are stretched. So the fisherman,[Pg 659] without going a hundred yards from his own door, traps the wily denizens of the Danube, prepares them for market, and at night goes peacefully to sleep in his rough bed, lulled by the rushing of the strong current beneath him. I am bound to confess that the fishermen of Apatin impressed me as being rather rheumatic, but perhaps this was only a fancy.

Besdan, with its low hills garnished with windmills and its shores lined with silvery willows, is the only other point of interest, save Mohacz, before reaching Pesth. Hour after hour the traveller sees the same panorama of steppes covered with swine, cattle and horses, with occasional farms—their outbuildings protected against brigands and future wars by stout walls—and with pools made by inundations of the impetuous Danube. Mohacz is celebrated for two tremendous battles in the past, and for a fine cathedral, a railway and a coaling-station at present. Louis II., king of Hungary, was there undone by Suleiman in 1526; and there, a hundred and fifty years later, did the Turks come to sorrow by the efforts of[Pg 660] the forces under Charles IV. of Lorraine.

Just as I was beginning to believe that the slow-going steamer on which I had embarked my fortunes was held back by enchantment—for we were half a day ascending the stream from Mohacz—we came in sight of a huge cliff almost inaccessible from one side, and a few minutes later could discern the towers of Buda and the mansions of Pesth. While nearing the landing-place and hastening hither and yon to look after various small bundles and boxes, I had occasion to address an Hungarian gentleman. In the course of some conversation which followed I remarked that Pesth seemed a thriving place, and that one would hardly have expected to find two such flourishing towns as Vienna and Pesth so near each other.

"Oh," said he with a little sneer which his slight foreign accent (he was speaking French) rendered almost ludicrous, "Vienna is a smart town, but it is nothing to this!" And he pointed with pride to his native city.

Although I could not exactly agree with this extravagant estimate of the extent of Pesth, I could not deny that it was vastly superior to my idea of it. When one arrives there from the south-east, after many wanderings among semi-barbaric villages and little cities on the outskirts of civilization, he finds Pesth very impressive. The Hungarian shepherds and the boatmen who ply between the capital and tiny forts below fancy that it is the end of the world. They have vaguely heard of Vienna, but their patriotism is so intense and their round of life so circumscribed that they never succeed in forming a definite idea of its proportions or its location. Communication between the two chief towns of the Austria-Hungarian empire is also much less frequent than one would imagine. The Hungarians go but little to Vienna, even the members of the nobility preferring to consecrate their resources to the support of the splendors of their own city rather than to contribute them to the Austrian metropolis. Seven hours' ride in what the Austrians are bold enough to term an express-train covers the distance between Vienna and Pesth, yet there seems to be an abyss somewhere on the route which the inhabitants are afraid of. Pride, a haughty determination not to submit to centralization, and content with their surroundings make the Hungarians sparing of intercourse with their Austrian neighbors. "We send them prime ministers, and now and then we allow them a glimpse of some of our beauties in one of their palaces, but the latter does not happen very often," once said an Hungarian friend to me.

An American who should arrive in Pesth fancying that he was about to see a specimen of the dilapidated towns of "effete and decaying Europe" would find himself vastly mistaken. The beautiful and costly modern buildings on every principal street, the noble bridges across the vast river, the fine railway-stations, the handsome theatres, the palatial hotels, would explain to him why it is that the citizens of Pesth speak of their town as the "Chicago of the East." There was a time when it really seemed as if Pesth would rival, if not exceed, Chicago in the extent of her commerce, the vivacity and boldness of her enterprises and the rapid increase of her population. Austria and Hungary were alike the prey of a feverish agitation which pervaded all classes. In a single day at Vienna as many as thirty gigantic stock companies were formed; hundreds of superb structures sprang up monthly; people who had been beggars but a few months before rode in carriages and bestowed gold by handfuls on whoever came first. The wind or some mysterious agency which no one could explain brought this financial pestilence to Pesth, where it raged until the Krach—the Crash, as the Germans very properly call it—came. After the extraordinary activity which had prevailed there came gloom and stagnation; but at last, as in America, business in Pesth and in Hungary generally is gradually assuming solidity and contains itself within proper bounds. The exciting period had one beneficial feature: it made Pesth a handsome[Pg 661] city. There are no quays in Europe more substantial and elegant than those along the Danube in the Hungarian capital, and no hotels, churches and mansions more splendid than those fronting on these same quays. At eventide, when the whole population comes out for an airing and loiters by the parapets which overlook the broad rushing river, when innumerable lights gleam from the boats anchored on either bank, and when the sound of music and song is heard from half a hundred windows, no city can boast a spectacle more animated. At ten o'clock the streets are deserted. Pesth is exceedingly proper and decorous as soon as the darkness has fallen, although I do remember to have seen a torchlight procession there during the Russo-Turkish war. The inhabitants were so enthusiastic over the arrival of a delegation of Mussulman students from Constantinople that they put ten thousand torches in line and marched until a late hour, thinking, perhaps, that the lurid light on the horizon might be seen as far as Vienna, and might serve as a warning to the Austrian government[Pg 662] not to go too far in its sympathy with Russia.

Buda-Pesth is the name by which the Hungarians know their capital, and Buda is by no means the least important portion of the city. It occupies the majestic and rugged hill directly opposite Pesth—a hill so steep that a tunnel containing cars propelled upward and downward by machinery has been arranged to render Buda easy of access. Where the hill slopes away southward there are various large villages crowded with Servians, Croatians and Low Hungarians, who huddle together in a rather uncivilized manner. A fortress where there were many famous fights and sieges in the times of the Turks occupies a summit a little higher than Buda, so that in case of insurrection a few hot shot could be dropped among the inhabitants. Curiously enough, however, there are thousands of loyal Austrians, German by birth, living in Buda—or Ofen, as the Teutons call it—whereas in Pesth, out of the two hundred thousand inhabitants, scarcely three thousand are of Austrian birth. As long as troops devoted to Francis Joseph hold Buda there is little chance for the citizens of Pesth to succeed in revolt. Standing on the terrace of the rare old palace on Buda's height, I looked down on Pesth with the same range of vision that I should have had in a balloon. Every quarter of the city would be fully exposed to an artillery fire from these gigantic hills.

Buda is not rich in the modern improvements which render Pesth so noticeable. I found no difficulty in some of the nooks and corners of this quaint town in imagining myself back in the Middle Ages. Tottering churches, immensely tall houses overhanging yawning and precipitous alleys, markets set on little shelves in the mountain, hovels protesting against sliding down into the valley, whither they seemed inevitably doomed to go, succeeded one another in rapid panorama. Here were costume, theatrical effect, artistic grouping: it was like Ragusa, Spalatro and Sebenico. Old and young women sat on the ground in the markets, as our negroes do in Lynchburg in Virginia: they held up fruit and vegetables and shrieked out the prices in a dialect which seemed a compound of Hungarian and German. Austrian soldiers and Hungarian recruits, the former clad in brown jackets and blue hose, the latter in buff doublets and red trousers, and wearing feathers in their caps, marched and countermarched, apparently going nowhere in particular, but merely keeping up discipline by means of exercise.

The emperor comes often to the fine palace on Buda hill, and sallies forth from it to hunt with some of the nobles on their immense estates. The empress is passionately fond of Hungary, and spends no small portion of her time there. The Hungarians receive this consideration from their sovereign lady as very natural, and speak of her as a person of great good sense. The German and Slavic citizens of Austria say that there are but two failings of which Her Imperial Majesty can be accused—she loves the Hungarians and she is too fond of horses. Nothing delights the citizens of Pesth so much as to find that the Slavs are annoyed, for there is no love lost between Slav and Magyar. A natural antipathy has been terribly increased by the fear on the part of Hungary that she may lose her influence in the composite empire one day, owing to the Slavic regeneration.

At Pesth they do not speak of the "beautiful blue Danube," because there the river ceases to be of that color, which Johann Strauss has so enthusiastically celebrated. But between Vienna and Pesth the blue is clearly perceptible, and the current is lovely even a few miles from the islands in the stream near the Hungarian capital. The Margarethen-Insel, which is but a short distance above Pesth, is a little paradise. It has been transformed by private munificence into a rich garden full of charming shaded nooks and rare plants and flowers. In the middle of this pleasure-ground are extensive bath-houses and mineral springs. Morning, noon and night gypsy bands make seductive music, and the notes of their melodies recall the strange[Pg 663] lands far away down the stream—Roumania, the hills and valleys of the Banat and the savage Servian mountains. Along the river-side there are other resorts in which, in these days, when business has not yet entirely recovered from the Krach, there are multitudes of loungers. In midsummer no Hungarian need go farther than these baths of Pesth to secure rest and restore[Pg 664] health. The Romans were so pleased with the baths in the neighborhood that they founded a colony on the site of Buda-Pesth, although they had no particular strategic reasons for doing so. As you sit in the pleasant shade you will probably hear the inspiring notes of the Rakoczy, the march of which the Hungarians are so passionately fond, which recalls the souvenirs of their revolutions and awakens a kind of holy exaltation in their hearts. The Rakoczy has been often enough fantastically described: some hear in it the gallop of horsemen, the clashing of arms, the songs of women and the cries of wounded men. A clever Frenchman has even written two columns of analysis of the march, and he found in it nearly as much as there is in Goethe's Faust. These harmless fancies are of little use in aiding to a veritable understanding of the wonderful march. It suffices to say that one cannot hear it played, even by a strolling band of gypsies, without a strange fluttering of the heart, an excitement and an enthusiasm which are beyond one's control. A nation with such a Marseillaise as the Rakoczy certainly ought to go far in time of war.

The Hungarians are a martial people, and are fond of reciting their exploits. Every old guide in Pesth will tell you, in a variegated English which will provoke your smiles, all the incidents of the Hungarian revolution, the events of 1848 and 1849—how the Austrians were driven across the great bridge over the Danube, etc.—with infinite gusto. The humblest wharf-laborer takes a vital interest in the welfare of his country, even if he is not intelligent enough to know from what quarter hostilities might be expected. There is a flash in an Hungarian's eye when he speaks of the events of 1848 which is equalled only by the lightnings evoked from his glance by the magic echoes of the Rakoczy.

The peasantry round about Pesth, and the poor wretches, Slavic and Hungarian, who work on the streets, seem in sad plight. A friend one day called my attention to a number of old women, most miserably clad, barefooted and bent with age and infirmities, carrying stones and bricks to a new building. The spectacle was enough to make one's heart bleed, but my friend assured me that the old women were happy, and that they lived on bread and an occasional onion, with a little water for drink or sometimes a glass of adulterated white wine. The men working with them looked even worse fed and more degraded than the women. In the poor quarters of Pesth, and more especially those inhabited by the Jews, the tenements are exceedingly filthy, and the aroma is so uninviting that one hastens away from the streets where these rookeries abound. The utmost civility, not to say servility, may always be expected of the lower classes: some of them seize one's hand and kiss it as the Austrian servants do. Toward strangers Hungarians of all ranks are unfailingly civil and courteous. A simple letter of introduction will procure one a host of attentions which he would not have the right to expect in England or America.

The mound of earth on the bank of the Danube near the quays of Pesth represents the soil of every Hungarian province; and from that mound the emperor of Austria, when he was crowned king of Hungary, was forced to shake his sword against the four quarters of the globe, thus signifying his intention of defending the country from any attack whatsoever. Thus far he has succeeded in doing it, and in keeping on good terms with the legislative bodies of the country, without whose co-operation he cannot exercise his supreme authority. These bodies are a chamber of peers, recruited from the prelates, counts and such aristocrats as sit there by right of birth, and a second chamber, which is composed of four hundred and thirteen deputies elected from as many districts for the term of three years, and thirty-four delegates from the autonomous province of Croatia-Slavonia. The entrance to the diet is guarded by a frosty-looking servitor in an extravagant Hungarian uniform, jacket and hose profusely covered with brilliant braids, and varnished jack-boots. The deputies when in session are quiet,[Pg 665] orderly and dignified, save when the word "Russian" is pronounced. It is a word which arouses all their hatred.

Buda-Pesth is about to undergo a formidable series of improvements notwithstanding the illusions which were dispersed by the Krach. One of the most conspicuous and charming municipal displays in the Paris Exposition is the group of charts and plans sent from Pesth. The patriot Deak is to have a colossal monument; the quays are to be rendered more substantial against inundations than they are at present; and many massive public edifices are to be erected. The Danube is often unruly, and once nearly destroyed the city of Pesth, also doing much damage along the slopes of Buda. If an inundation should come within the next two or three years millions of florins' worth of property might be swept away in a single night. The opera, the principal halls of assembly and the hotels of Pesth will challenge comparison with those of any town of two hundred thousand population in the world; and the Grand Hotel Hungaria has few equals in cities of the largest size.

The Hungarians are a handsome race, and the people of Pesth and vicinity have especial claims to attention for their beauty. The men of the middle and upper classes are tall, slender, graceful, and their features are exceedingly regular and pleasing. The women are so renowned that a description of their charms is scarcely necessary. Beautiful as are the Viennese ladies in their early youth, they cannot rival their fellow-subjects of Hungary. The Austrian woman grows fat, matronly and rather coarse as she matures: the Hungarian lady of forty is still as willowy, graceful and capricious as she was at twenty. The peasant-women, poor things! are ugly, because they work from morning till night in the vineyards, toiling until their backs are broken. The wine which the beauties drink costs their humbler sisters their life-blood, their grace, their happiness. The sunshine of a thousand existences is imprisoned in the vintages of Pressburg and Carlowitz. Poor, homely toilers in the fields! Poor human creatures transformed into beasts of burden! The Hungarian nation owes it to itself to emancipate these struggling women and show them the way to better things.

"FOR PERCIVAL."

CHAPTER XLVIII ENGAGEMENTS—HOSTILE AND OTHERWISE.

The fairest season of the year, the debatable ground between spring and summer, had come round once more. There were leaves on the trees and flowers in the grass. The sunshine was golden and full, not like the bleak brightness of March. The winds were warm, the showers soft. Percival, always keenly affected by such influences, felt as if a new life had come to him with the spring. Now that the evenings had grown long and light, he could escape into the country, breathe a purer air and wander in fields and lanes. And as he wandered, musing, it seemed to him that he had awakened from a dream.

He looked back upon the past year, and he was more than half inclined to call himself a fool. He had taken up work for which he was not fit. He could see that now. He knew very well that his life was almost intolerable, and that it would never be more tolerable unless help came from without. He could never grow accustomed to his drudgery. He could work honestly, but he could never put his heart into it. And even if he could have displayed ten times as much energy, if his aptitude for business had been ten times as great, if Mr. Ferguson had estimated him so highly as to take him as articled clerk, if he had passed all his examinations and been duly admitted, if the brightest possibilities in such a life as his had become realities and he had attained at last to a small share in the business,—what would be the end of this most improbable success? Merely that he would have to spend his whole life in Brenthill absorbed in law. Now, the law was a weariness to him, and he loathed Brenthill. Yet he had voluntarily accepted a life which could offer him no higher prize than such a fate as this, when Godfrey Hammond or Mrs. Middleton, or even old Hardwicke, would no doubt have helped him to something better.

Certainly he had been a fool; and yet, while he realized this truth, he sincerely respected—I might almost say he admired—his own folly. He had been sick of dependence, and he had gone down at once to the bottom of everything, taken his stand on firm ground and conquered independence for himself. He had gained the precious knowledge that he could earn his own living by the labor of his hands. He might have been a fool to reject the help that would have opened some higher and less distasteful career to him, yet if he had accepted it he would never have known the extent of his own powers. He would have been a hermit-crab still, fitted with another shell by the kindness of his friends. Had he clearly understood what he was doing when he went to Brenthill, it was very likely that he might never have gone. He was almost glad that he had not understood.

And now, having conquered in the race, could he go back and ask for the help which he had once refused? Hardly.[Pg 667] The life in which we first gain independence may be stern and ugly, the independence itself—when we gather in our harvest—may have a rough and bitter taste, yet it will spoil the palate for all other flavors. They will seem sickly sweet after its wholesome austerity. Neither did Percival feel any greater desire for a career of any kind than he had felt a year earlier when he talked over his future life with Godfrey Hammond. If he were asked what was his day-dream, his castle in the air, the utmost limit of his earthly wishes, he would answer now as he would have answered then, "Brackenhill," dismissing the impossible idea with a smile even as he uttered it. Asked what would content him—since we can hardly hope to draw the highest prize in our life's lottery—he would answer now as then—to have an assured income sufficient to allow him to wander on the Continent, to see pictures, old towns, Alps, rivers, blue sky; wandering, to remain a foreigner all his life, so that there might always be something a little novel and curious about his food and his manner of living (things which are apt to grow so hideously commonplace in the land where one is born), to drink the wine of the country, to read many poems in verse, in prose, in the scenery around; and through it all, from first to last, to "dream deliciously."

And yet, even while he felt that his desire was unchanged, he knew that there was a fresh obstacle between him and its fulfilment. Heaven help him! had there not been enough before? Was it needful that it should become clear to him that nowhere on earth could he find the warmth and the sunlight for which he pined while a certain pair of sad eyes grew ever sadder and sadder looking out on the murky sky, the smoke, the dust, the busy industry of Brenthill? How could he go away? Even these quiet walks of his had pain mixed with their pleasure when he thought that there was no such liberty for Judith Lisle. Not for her the cowslips in the upland pastures, the hawthorn in the hedges, the elm-boughs high against the breezy sky, the first dog-roses pink upon the briers. Percival turned from them to look at the cloud which hung ever like a dingy smear above Brenthill, and the more he felt their loveliness the more he felt her loss.

He had no walk on Sunday mornings. A few months earlier Mr. Clifton of St. Sylvester's would have claimed him as a convert. Now he was equally devout, but it was the evangelical minister, Mr. Bradbury of Christ Church, who saw him week after week a regular attendant, undaunted and sleepless though the sermon should be divided into seven heads. Mr. Bradbury preached terribly, in a voice which sometimes died mournfully away or hissed in a melodramatic whisper, and then rose suddenly in a threatening cry. Miss Macgregor sat in front of a gallery and looked down on the top of her pastor's head. The double row of little boys who were marshalled at her side grew drowsy in the hot weather, blinked feebly as the discourse progressed, and nodded at the congregation. Now and then Mr. Bradbury, who was only, as it were, at arm's length, turned a little, looked up and flung a red-hot denunciation into the front seats of the gallery. The little boys woke up, heard what was most likely in store for them on the last day, and sat with eyes wide open dismally surveying the prospect. But presently the next boy fidgeted, or a spider let himself down from the roof, or a bird flew past the window, or a slanting ray of sunlight revealed a multitude of dusty dancing motes, and the little lads forgot Mr. Bradbury, who had forgotten them and was busy with somebody else. It might be with the pope: Mr. Bradbury was fond of providing for the pope. Or perhaps he was wasting his energy on Percival Thorne, who sat with his head thrown back and his upward glance just missing the preacher, and was quite undisturbed by his appeals.

Judith Lisle had accepted the offer of a situation at Miss Macgregor's with the expectation of being worked to death, only hoping, as she told Mrs. Barton, that the process would be slow. The hope would not have been at all an unreasonable one if she had undertaken her task in the days when she had Bertie to work for. She[Pg 668] could have lived through much when she lived for Bertie. But, losing her brother, the mainspring of her life seemed broken. One would have said that she had leaned on him, not he on her, she drooped so pitifully now he was gone. Even Miss Macgregor noticed that Miss Lisle was delicate, and expressed her strong disapprobation of such a state of affairs. Mrs. Barton thought Judith looking very far from well, suggested tonics, and began to consider whether she might ask her to go to them for her summer holidays. But to Percival's eyes there was a change from week to week, and he watched her with terror in his heart. Judith had grown curiously younger during the last few months. There had been something of a mother's tenderness in her love for Bertie, which made her appear more than her real age and gave decision and stateliness to her manner. Now that she was alone, she was only a girl, silent and shrinking, needing all her strength to suffer and hide her sorrow. Percival knew that each Sunday, as soon as she had taken her place, she would look downward to the pew where he always sat to ascertain if he were there. For a moment he would meet that quiet gaze, lucid, uncomplaining, but very sad. Then her eyes would be turned to her book or to the little boys who sat near her, or it might even be to Mr. Bradbury. The long service would begin, go on, come to an end. But before she left her place her glance would meet his once more, as if in gentle farewell until another Sunday should come round. Percival would not for worlds have failed at that trysting-place, but he cursed his helplessness. Could he do nothing for Judith but cheer her through Mr. Bradbury's sermons?

About this time he used deliberately to indulge in an impossible fancy. His imagination dwelt on their two lives, cramped, dwarfed and fettered. He had lost his freedom, but it seemed to him that Judith, burdened once with riches, and later with poverty, never had been free. He looked forward, and saw nothing in the future but a struggle for existence which might be prolonged through years of labor and sordid care. Why were they bound to endure this? Why could they not give up all for just a few days of happiness? Percival longed intensely for a glimpse of beauty, for a little space of warmth and love, of wealth and liberty. Let their life thus blossom together into joy, and he would be content that it should be, like the flowering of the aloe, followed by swift and inevitable death. Only let the death be shared like the life! It would be bitter and terrible to be struck down in their gladness, but if they had truly lived they might be satisfied to die. Percival used to fancy what they might do in one glorious, golden, sunlit week, brilliant against a black background of death. How free they would be to spend all they possessed without a thought for the future! Nothing could pall upon them, and he pictured to himself how every sense would be quickened, how passion would gather strength and tenderness, during those brief days, and rise to its noblest height to meet the end. His imagination revelled in the minute details of the picture, adding one by one a thousand touches of beauty and joy till the dream was lifelike in its loveliness. He could pass in a moment from his commonplace world to this enchanted life with Judith. Living alone, and half starving himself in the attempt to pay his debts, he was in a fit state to see visions and dream dreams. But they only made his present life more distasteful to him, and the more he dreamed of Judith the more he felt that he had nothing to offer her.

He was summoned abruptly from his fairyland one night by the arrival of Mrs. Bryant. She made her appearance rather suddenly, and sat down on a chair by the door to have a little chat with her lodger. "I came back this afternoon," she said. "I didn't tell Lydia: where was the use of bothering about writing to her? Besides, I could just have a look round, and see how Emma'd done the work while I was away, and how things had gone on altogether." She nodded her rusty black cap confidentially at Percival. It was sprinkled with bugles, which caught the light of his solitary candle.[Pg 669]

"Pretty well," Mrs. Bryant allowed. "It's a mercy when there's no illness nor anything of that kind, though, if you'll excuse my saying it, Mr. Thorne, you ain't looking as well yourself as I should have liked to see you."

Mrs. Bryant shook her head. The different movement brought out quite a different effect of glancing bugles. "Young people should be careful of their health," was her profound remark.

"Well, well! we'll hope not," she answered, "though you certainly do look altered, Mr. Thorne, through being thinner in the face and darker under the eyes."

"What was I saying?" Mrs. Bryant continued. "Oh yes—that there was a many mercies to be thankful for. To find the house all right, and the times and times I've dreamed of fire and the engines not to be had, and woke up shaking so as you'd hardly believe it! And I don't really think that I've gone to bed hardly one night without wondering whether Lydia had fastened the door and the little window into the yard, which is not safe if left open. As regular as clockwork, when the time came round, I'd mention it to my sister."

Percival sighed briefly, probably pitying the sister. "I think Miss Bryant has been very careful in fastening everything," he said.

"Well, it does seem so, and very thankful I am. And as I always say when I go out, 'Waste I must expect, and waste I do expect,' but it's a mercy when there's no thieving."

"Things will hardly go on quite the same when you are not here to look after them, Mrs. Bryant."

"No: how should they?" the landlady acquiesced. "Young heads ain't like old ones, as I said one evening to my sister when Smith was by. 'Young heads ain't like old ones,' said I. 'Why, no,' said Smith: 'they're a deal prettier.' I told him he ought to have done thinking of such things. And so he ought—a man of his age! But that's what the young men mostly think of, ain't it, Mr. Thorne? Though it's the old heads make the best housekeepers, I think, when there's a lot of lodgers to look after."

"I dare say you think there'd be fine times for the young men lodgers if it wasn't for the old heads. And I don't blame you, Mr. Thorne: it's only natural, and what we must expect in growing old. And if anything could make one grow old before one's time, and live two years in one, so to speak, I do think it's letting lodgings."

Percival expressed himself as not surprised to hear it, though very sorry that lodgers were so injurious to her health.

"There's my drawing-room empty now, and two bedrooms," Mrs. Bryant continued. "Not but what I've had an offer for it this very afternoon, since coming back. But it doesn't do to be too hasty. Respectable parties who pay regular," she nodded a little at Percival as if to point the compliment, "are the parties for me."

"A queer business that of young Mr. Lisle's, wasn't it?" she went on. "I should say it was about time that Miss Crawford did shut up, if she couldn't manage her young ladies better. I sent my Lydia to a boarding-school once, but it was one of a different kind to that. Pretty goings on there were at Standon Square, I'll be bound, if we only knew the truth. But as far as this goes there ain't no great harm done, that I can see. He hasn't done badly for himself, and I dare say they'll be very comfortable. She might have picked a worse—I will say that—for he was always a pleasant-spoken young gentleman, and good-looking too, though that's not a thing to set much store by. And they do say he had seen better times."

She paused. Percival murmured something which was quite unintelligible, but it served to start her off again, apparently under the impression that she had heard a remark of some kind.[Pg 670]

"Yes, I suppose so. And as I was saying to Lydia—The coolness of them both! banns and all regular! But there now! I'm talking and talking, forgetting that you were in the thick of it. You knew all about it, I've no doubt, and finely you and he must have laughed in your sleeves—"

Mrs. Bryant smiled cunningly and nodded at him again. But it was an oblique nod this time, and there was a sidelong look to match it. Percival felt as if he were suffering from an aggravated form of nightmare.

"No, no: I dare say you didn't. At any rate, you won't let out if you did: why should you? It's a great thing to hold one's tongue, Mr. Thorne; and I ought to know, for I've found the advantage of being naturally a silent woman. And I don't say but what you are wise."

"Well, I don't suppose it was any the worse for anybody who did know," said Mrs. Bryant. "And though, of course, Miss Lisle lost her situation through it, I dare say she finds it quite made up to her."

"Oh, you may depend upon it she does," said Mrs. Bryant. "How should a gentleman like you know all the ins and outs, Mr. Thorne? It makes all the difference to a young woman having a brother well-to-do in the world. And very fond of her he always seemed to be, as I was remarking to Lydia."

Percival felt as if his blood were on fire. He dared not profess too intimate a knowledge of Judith's feelings and position, and he could not listen in silence. "I think you are mistaken, Mrs. Bryant," he said, in a tone which would have betrayed his angry disgust to any more sensitive ear. Even his landlady perceived that the subject was not a welcome one.

"Well, well!" she said. "It doesn't matter, and I'll only wish you as good luck as Mr. Lisle; for I'm sure you deserve a young lady with a little bit of money as well as he did; and no reason why you shouldn't look to find one, one of these fine days."

"Ah, you've something else in your eye, I can see, and perhaps one might make a guess as to a name. Well, people must manage those things their own way, and interfering mostly does harm, I take it. And I'll wish you luck, anyhow."

"I don't think there's any occasion for your good wishes," said Percival. "Thank you all the same."

"Not but what I'm sorry to lose Mr. and Miss Lisle," Mrs. Bryant continued, as if that were the natural end of her previous sentence, "for they paid for everything most regular."

"I hope these people who want to come may do the same," said Percival. Though he knew that he ran the risk of hearing all that Mrs. Bryant could tell him about their condition and prospects, he felt he could endure anything that would turn the conversation from the Lisles and himself.

But there was a different train of ideas in Mrs. Bryant's mind. "And, by the way," she said, "I think we've some little accounts to settle together, Mr. Thorne." Then Percival perceived, for the first time, that she held a folded bit of paper in her hand. The moment that he feared had come. He rose without a word, went to his desk and unlocked it. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Mrs. Bryant had approached the table, had opened the paper and was flattening it out with her hand. He stooped over his hoard—a meagre little hoard this time—counting what he had to give her.

Mrs. Bryant began to hunt in her purse for a receipt stamp. "It's a pleasure to have to do with a gentleman who is always so regular," she said with an approving smile.

Percival, who was steadying a little pile of coin on the sloping desk, felt a[Pg 671] strong desire to tell her the state of affairs while he stooped in the shadow with his face turned away. Precisely because he felt this desire he drew himself up to his full height, walked to the table, looked straight into her eyes and said, "Not so very regular this time, Mrs. Bryant."

She stepped back with a perplexed and questioning expression, but she understood that something was wrong, and the worn face fell suddenly, deepening a multitude of melancholy wrinkles. He laid the money before her: "That's just half of what I owe you: I think you'll find I have counted it all right."

"Well, I must earn the other half, Mrs. Bryant. You shall have it as soon as I get it."

She looked up at him. "You've got to earn it?" she repeated. Her tone would have been more appropriate if Percival had said he must steal it. There was a pause: Mrs. Bryant's lean hand closed over the money. "I don't understand this, Mr. Thorne—I don't understand it at all."

"It is very simple," he replied. "According to your wishes, I kept the rent for you, but during your absence there was a sudden call upon me for money, and I could not refuse to advance it. I regret it exceedingly if it puts you to inconvenience. I had hoped to have made it all right before you returned, but I have not had time. I can only promise you that you shall be paid all that I can put by each week till I have cleared off my debt."

"Oh, that's all very fine," said Mrs. Bryant. "But I don't think much of promises."

She looked hard at him, and said: "I did think you were quite the gentleman, Mr. Thorne. I didn't think you'd have served me so."

"No," said Percival. "I assure you I'm very sorry. If I could explain the whole affair to you, you would see that I am not to blame. But, unluckily, I can't."

"Oh, I don't want any explanations: I wouldn't give a thank-you for a cartload of 'em. Nobody ever is to blame who has the explaining of a thing, if it's ever so rascally a job."

"Oh, I dare say! Look here, Mr. Thorne: I've heard that sort of thing scores of times. There's always been a sudden call for money; it's always something that never happened before, and it isn't ever to happen again; and it's always going to be paid back at once, but there's not one in a hundred who does pay it. Once you begin that sort of thing—"

"Oh yes. To hear them talk you'd say each one was one in a thousand, at least. But I'd like you to know that though I'm a widow woman I'm not to be robbed and put upon."

"Mrs. Bryant"—Percival's strong voice silenced her querulous tones—"no one wants to rob you. Please to remember that it was entirely of your own free-will that you trusted me with the money."

"And a pretty mess I've made of it! It had better have gone so as to be some pleasure to my own flesh and blood, instead of your spending it in some way you're ashamed to own."

"If you had been here to receive it, it would have been ready for you," Percival went on, ignoring her last speech. "As it is, it has waited all these weeks for you. It isn't unreasonable that it should wait a little longer for me."

She muttered something to the effect that there was justice to be had, though he didn't seem to think it.

"Oh yes," he said, resting his arm on the chimney-piece, "there's the county court or something of that kind. By all means go to the county court if you like. But I see no occasion for discussing the matter any more beforehand."

His calmness had its effect upon her. She didn't want any unpleasantness, she said.[Pg 672]

"Neither do I," he replied: "I do not see why there need be any. If I live you will be paid, and that before very long. If I should happen to die first, I have a friend who will settle my affairs for me, and you will be no loser."

Mrs. Bryant suggested that it might be pleasanter for all parties if Mr. Thorne were to apply to his friend at once. She thought very likely there were little bills about in the town—gentlemen very often had little bills—and if there were any difficulties—gentlemen so often got into difficulties—it was so much better to have things settled and make a fresh start. She had no doubt that Mr. Lisle would be very willing.

"Mr. Lisle!" Percival exclaimed. "Do you suppose for one moment I should ask Mr. Lisle?"

Startled at his vehemence, Mrs. Bryant begged pardon, and substituted "the gentleman" for "Mr. Lisle."

"Thank you, no," said Percival. "I prefer to manage my own affairs in my own way. If I live I will not apply to any one. But if I must go to my grave owing five or six weeks' rent to one or other of you, I assure you most solemnly, Mrs. Bryant, that I will owe it to my friend."

The storm had subsided into subdued grumblings. Their purport was, apparently, that Mrs. Bryant liked lodgers who paid regular, and as for those who didn't, they would have to leave, and she wished them to know it.

"Does that mean that you wish me to go?" the young man demanded with the readiness which was too much for his landlady. "I'll go to-night if you like. Do you wish it?" There was an air of such promptitude about him as he spoke that Mrs. Bryant half expected to see him vanish then and there. She had by no means made up her mind that she did wish to lose a lodger who had been so entirely satisfactory up to that time. And she preferred to keep her debtor within reach; so she drew back a little and qualified what she had said.

Mrs. Bryant only hoped it wouldn't occur again. The tempest of her wrath showed fearful symptoms of dissolving in a shower of tears. "You don't know what work I have to make both ends meet, Mr. Thorne," she said, "nor how hard it is to get one's own, let alone keeping it. I do assure you, Mr. Thorne, me and Lydia might go in silks every day of our lives, and needn't so much as soil our fingers with the work of the house, if we had all we rightly should have. But there are folks who call themselves honest who don't think any harm of taking a widow woman's rooms and getting behindhand with the rent, running up an account for milk and vegetables and the like by the week together; and there's the bell ringing all day, as you may say, with the bills coming in, and one's almost driven out of one's wits with the worry of it all, let alone the loss, which is hard to bear. Oh, I do hope, Mr. Thorne, that it won't occur again!"

"It isn't very likely," said Percival, privately thinking that suicide would be preferable to an existence in which such interviews with his landlady should be of frequent occurrence. Pity, irritation, disgust, pride and humiliation made up a state of feeling which was overshadowed by a horrible fear that Mrs. Bryant would begin to weep before he could get rid of her. He watched her with ever-increasing uneasiness while she attempted to give him a receipt for the money he had paid. She began by wiping her spectacles, but her hand trembled so much that she let them fall, and she, Percival and the candle were all on the floor together, assisting one another in the search for them. The rusty cap was perilously near the flame more than once, which was a cause of fresh anxiety on his part. And when she was once more established at the table, writing a word or two and then wiping her eyes, it was distracting to discover that the receipt-stamp, which Mrs. Bryant had brought with her, and which she was certain she had laid on the table, had mysteriously disappeared. It seemed to Percival that he spent at least a quarter of an hour hunting for that stamp. In reality about two minutes elapsed before it was found sticking to[Pg 673] Mrs. Bryant's damp pocket handkerchief. It was removed thence with great care, clinging to her fingers by the way, after which it showed a not unnatural disinclination to adhere to the paper. But even that difficulty was at last overcome: a shaky signature and a date were laboriously penned, and Percival's heart beat high as he received the completed document.

And then—Mrs. Bryant laid down the pen, took off her spectacles, shook her pocket handkerchief and deliberately burst into tears.

Percival was in despair. Of course he knew perfectly well that he was not a heartless brute, but equally of course he felt that he must be a heartless brute as he stood by while Mrs. Bryant wept copiously. Of course he begged her to calm herself, and of course a long-drawn sob was her only answer. All at once there was a knock at the door. "Come in," said Percival, feeling that matters could not possibly be worse. It opened, and Lydia stood on the threshold, staring at the pair in much surprise.

"Well, I never!" she said; and turning toward Percival she eyed him suspiciously, as if she thought he might have been knocking the old lady about. "And pray what may be the meaning of this?"

"Mrs. Bryant isn't quite herself this evening, I am afraid," said Percival, feeling that his reply was very feeble. "And we have had a little business to settle which was not quite satisfactory."

At the word "business" Lydia stepped forward, and her surprise gave place to an expression of half incredulous amusement—Percival would almost have said of delight.

"What! ain't the money all right?" she said. "You don't say so! Well, ma, you have been clever this time, haven't you? Oh I suppose you thought I didn't know what you were after when you were so careful about not bothering me with the accounts? Lor! I knew fast enough. Don't you feel proud of yourself for having managed it so well?"

Mrs. Bryant wept. Percival, not having a word to say, preserved a dignified silence.

"Come along, ma: I dare say Mr. Thorne has had about enough of this," Lydia went on, coolly examining the paper which lay on the table. She arrived at the total. "Oh that's it, is it? Well, I like that, I do! Some people are so clever, ain't they? So wonderfully sharp they can't trust their own belongings! I do like that! Come along, ma." And Lydia seconded her summons with such energetic action that it seemed to Percival that she absolutely swept the old lady out of the room, and that the wet handkerchief, the rusty black gown and the bugle-sprinkled head-dress vanished in a whirlwind, with a sound of shrill laughter on the stairs.

For a moment his heart leapt with a sudden sense of relief and freedom, but only for a moment. Then he flung himself into his arm-chair, utterly dejected and sickened.

Should he be subject to this kind of thing all his life long? If he should chance to be ill and unable to work, how could he live for any length of time on his paltry savings? And debt would mean this! He need not even be ill. He remembered how he broke his arm once when he was a lad. Suppose he broke his arm now—a bit of orange-peel in the street might do it—or suppose he hurt the hand with which he wrote?

And this was the life which he might ask Judith to share with him! She might endure Mrs. Bryant's scolding and Lydia's laughter, and pinch and save as he was forced to do, and grow weary and careworn and sick at heart. No, God forbid! And yet—and yet—was she not enduring as bad or worse in that hateful school?

Oh for his dream! One week of life and love, and then swift exit from a hideous world, where Mrs. Bryant and Miss Macgregor and Lydia and all his other nightmares might do their worst and fight their hardest in their ugly struggle for existence!

Percival had achieved something of a victory in his encounter with his landlady. His manner had been calm and[Pg 674] fairly easy, and from first to last she had been more conscious of his calmness than Percival was himself. She had been silenced, not coaxed and flattered as she often was by unfortunate lodgers whose ready money ran short. Indeed, she had been defied, and when she recovered herself a little she declared that she had never seen any one so stuck up as Mr. Thorne. This was unkind, after he had gone down on his knees to look for her spectacles.

But if Percival had conquered, his was but a barren victory. He fancied that an unwonted tone of deference crept into his voice when he gave his orders. He was afraid of Mrs. Bryant. He faced Lydia bravely, but he winced in secret at the recollection of her laughter. He very nearly starved himself lest mother or daughter should be able to say, "Mr. Thorne might have remembered his debts before he ordered this or that." He had paid Lisle's bill at Mr. Robinson's, but he could not forget his own, and he walked past the house daily with his head high, feeling himself a miserable coward.

There was a draper's shop close to it, and as he went by one day he saw a little pony chaise at the door. A girl of twelve or thirteen sat in it listlessly holding the reins and looking up and down the street. It was a great field-day for the Brenthill volunteers, and their band came round a corner not a dozen yards away and suddenly struck up a triumphant march. The pony, although as quiet a little creature as you could easily find, was startled. If it had been a wooden rocking-horse it might not have minded, but any greater sensibility must have received a shock. The girl uttered a cry of alarm, but there was no cause for it. Percival, who was close at hand, stepped to the pony's head, a lady rushed out of the shop, the band went by in a tempest of martial music, a crowd of boys and girls filled the roadway and disappeared as quickly as they came. It was all over in a minute. Percival, who was coaxing the pony as he stood, was warmly thanked.

"There is nothing to thank me for," he said. "That band was enough to frighten anything, but the pony seems a gentle little thing."

"So it is," the lady replied. "But you see, the driver was very inexperienced, and we really are very much obliged to you, Mr. Thorne."

He looked at her in blank amazement. Had some one from his former life suddenly arisen to claim acquaintance with him? He glanced from her to the girl, but recognized neither. "You know me?" he said.

She smiled: "You don't know me, I dare say. I am Mrs. Barton. I saw you one day when I was just coming away after calling on Miss Lisle." She watched the hero of her romance as she spoke. His dark face lighted up suddenly.

"I have often heard Miss Lisle speak of you and of your kindness," he said. "Do you ever see her now?"

"Oh yes. She comes to give Janie her music-lesson every Wednesday afternoon.—We couldn't do without Miss Lisle, could we, Janie?" The girl was shy and did not speak, but a broad smile overspread her face.

"I had no idea she still came to you. Do you know how she gets on at Miss Macgregor's?" he asked eagerly. "Is she well? I saw her at church one day, and I thought she was pale."

"She says she is well," Mrs. Barton replied. "But I am not very fond of Miss Macgregor myself: no one ever stays there very long." A shopman came out and put a parcel into the chaise. Mrs. Barton took the reins. "I shall tell Miss Lisle you asked after her," she said as with a bow and cordial smile she drove off.

It was Monday, and Percival's mind was speedily made up. He would see Judith Lisle on Wednesday.

Tuesday was a remarkably long day, but Wednesday came at last, and he obtained permission to leave the office earlier than usual. He knew the street in which Mrs. Barton lived, and had taken some trouble to ascertain the number, so that he could stroll to and fro at a safe distance, commanding a view of the door.[Pg 675]

He had time to study the contents of a milliner's window: it was the only shop near at hand, and even that pretended not to be a shop, but rather a private house, where some one had accidentally left a bonnet or two, a few sprays of artificial flowers and an old lady's cap in the front room. He had abundant leisure to watch No. 51 taking in a supply of coals, and No. 63 sending away a piano. He sauntered to and fro so long, with a careless assumption of unconsciousness how time was passing, that a stupid young policeman perceived that he was not an ordinary passer-by. Astonished and delighted at his own penetration, he began to saunter and watch him, trying to make out which house he intended to favor with a midnight visit. Percival saw quite a procession of babies in perambulators being wheeled home by their nurses after their afternoon airing, and he discovered that the nurse at No. 57 had a flirtation with a soldier. But at last the door of No. 69 opened, a slim figure came down the steps, and he started to meet it, leisurely, but with a sudden decision and purpose in his walk. The young policeman saw the meeting: the whole affair became clear to him—why, he had done that sort of thing himself—and he hurried off rather indignantly, feeling that he had wasted his time, and that the supposed burglar had not behaved at all handsomely.

And Percival went forward and held out his hand to Judith, but found that even the most commonplace greeting stuck in his throat somehow. She looked quickly up at him, but she too was silent, and he walked a few steps by her side before he said, "I did not know what day you were going away."

The rest of the conversation followed in a swift interchange of question and reply, as if to make up for that pause.

"And I was out. I was very sorry when I came home and found that you were gone. But since we have met again, it doesn't matter now, does it?" he said with a smile. "How do you get on at Miss Macgregor's?"

"She will not see me nor hear from me. She is ill and low-spirited, and Mrs. Barton tells me that a niece has come to look after her."

"No: I don't like it. I saw one or two of those nieces—there are seven of them—great vulgar, managing women. I can't bear to think of my dear little Miss Crawford being bullied and nursed by Miss Price. She couldn't endure them, I know, only she was so fond of their mother."

Percival changed the subject: "So you go to Mrs. Barton's still? I didn't know that till last Monday."

"When you rescued Janie from imminent peril. Oh, I have heard," said Judith with a smile.

"Please to describe me as risking my own life in the act. It would be a pity not to make me heroic while you are about it."

"Janie would readily believe it. She measures her danger by her terror, which was great. But she is a dear, good child, and it is such a pleasure to me to go there every week!"

"Well, not very. But it might be much worse. And I am mercenary enough to think about the money I earn at Mrs. Barton's," said Judith. "I don't mind telling you now that Bertie left two or three little bills unpaid when he went away, and I was very anxious about them. But, luckily, they were small."

"Yes. You understand me, don't you, Mr. Thorne? Bertie and I were together then, and I could not take Emmeline's money to pay our debts."

"And I had saved a little. It is all right now, since they are all paid. I fancied there would be some more to[Pg 676] come in, but it seems not, so I have a pound or two to spare, and I feel quite rich."

It struck Percival that Judith had managed better than he had. "Do you ever hear from him?" he asked.

Judith nodded: "He has, though I thought he never would. Bertie understood him better."

(The truth was, that she had taken impotent rage for strength of purpose. Mr. Nash was aware that he had neglected his daughter, and was anxious to stifle the thought by laying the blame on every one else. And Bertie was quicker than Judith was in reading character when it was on his own level.)

"He has forgiven them," Percival repeated with a smile. "Well, Bertie is a lucky fellow."

"Yes. He has written to me and to my aunt Lisle—at Rookleigh, you know. He has taken another name, and it seems he is getting on and making money: he wanted to send me some too. And my aunt is angry with me because I would not go to her. She has given me two months to make up my mind in."

"I cannot leave Brenthill," said Judith. "She is more than half inclined to forgive Bertie too. So I am alone; and yet I am right." She uttered the last words with lingering sadness.

"No doubt," Percival answered. They were walking slowly through a quiet back street, with a blank wall on one side. "Still, it is hard," he said.

There was something so simple and tender in his tone that Judith looked up and met his eyes. She might have read his words in them even if he had not spoken. "Don't pity me, Mr. Thorne," she said.

"Oh, because—I hardly know why. I can't stand it when any one is kind to me, or sorry for me, sometimes at Mrs. Barton's. I don't know how to bear it. But it does not matter much, for I get braver and braver when people are hard and cold. I really don't mind that half as much as you would think, so you see you needn't pity me. In fact, you mustn't."

"No, no," she answered, hurriedly. "Don't say it, don't look it, don't even let me think you do it in your heart. Tell me about yourself. You listen to me, you ask about me, but you say nothing of what you are doing."

"More so than it was?" she questioned anxiously. "You used not to look so tired."

"Don't you think that a wearisome thing must grow more wearisome merely by going on?"

"Perhaps there is," he allowed. "There are little worries of course, but shall I tell you what is the great thing that is the matter with me?"

The color spread over her face like a rosy dawn. Her eyes were fixed on the pavement, and yet they looked as if they caught a glimpse of Eden. But Percival could not see that. "You miss me?" she said.

"Yes." He had forgotten his hesitation and despair. He had outstripped them, had left them far behind, and his words sprang to his lips with a glad sense of victory and freedom. "Must I miss you always?" he said. "Will you not come back to me, Judith? My work could never be wearisome then when I should feel that I was working for you. There would be long to wait, no doubt, and then a hard life, a poor home. What have I to offer you? But will you come?"[Pg 677]

She looked up at him: "Do you really want me, or is it that you are sorry for me and want to help me? Are you sure it isn't that? We Lisles have done you harm enough: I won't do you a worse wrong still."

"You will do me the worst wrong of all if you let such fears and fancies stand between you and me," said Percival. "Do you not know that I love you? You must decide as your own heart tells you. But don't doubt me."

CHAPTER XLIX.

HOW THE SUN ROSE IN GLADNESS, AND SET IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

The Wednesday which was so white a day for Judith and Percival had dawned brightly at Fordborough. Sissy, opening her eyes on the radiant beauty of the morning, sprang up with an exclamation of delight. The preceding day had been gray and uncertain, but this was golden and cloudless. A light breeze tossed the acacia-boughs and showed flashes of blue between the quivering sprays. The dew was still hanging on the clustered white roses which climbed to her open window, and the birds were singing among the leaves as if they were running races in a headlong rapture of delight. Sissy did not sing, but she said to herself, "Oh, how glad the Latimers must be!"

She was right, for at a still earlier hour the Latimer girls had been flying in and out of their respective rooms in a perfectly aimless, joyous, childishly happy fashion, like a flock of white pigeons. And the sum of their conversation was simply this: "Oh, what a day! what a glorious day!" Yet it sufficed for a Babel of bird-like voices. At last one more energetic than the rest, in her white dressing-gown and with her hair hanging loose, flew down the long oak-panelled corridor and knocked with might and main at her brother's door: "Walter! Walter! wake up! do! You said it would rain, and it doesn't rain! It is a lovely morning! Oh, Walter!"

Walter responded briefly to the effect that he had been awake since half after three, and was aware of the fact.

Henry Hardwicke, who had been to the river for an early swim, stopped to discuss the weather with a laborer who was plodding across the fields. The old man looked at the blue sky with an air of unutterable wisdom, made some profound remarks about the quarter in which the wind was, added a local saying or two bearing on the case, and summed up to the effect that it was a fine day.

Captain Fothergill had no particular view from his window, but he inquired at an early hour what the weather was like.

Ashendale Priory was a fine old ruin belonging to the Latimers, and about six miles from Latimer's Court. Sissy Langton had said one day that she often passed it in her rides, but had never been into it. Walter Latimer was astonished, horrified and delighted all at once, and vowed that she must see it, and should see it without delay. This Wednesday had been fixed for an excursion there, but the project was nearly given up on account of the weather. As late as the previous afternoon the question was seriously debated at the Court by a council composed of Walter and three of his sisters. One of the members was sent to look at the barometer. She reported that it had gone up in the most extraordinary manner since luncheon.

The announcement was greeted with delight, but it was discovered late that evening that Miss Latimer had had a happy thought. Fearing that the barometer would be utterly ruined by the shaking and tapping which it underwent, she had screwed it up to a height at which her younger brothers and sisters could not wish to disturb it, had gone into the village, and had forgotten all about it. There was general dismay and much laughter.

"It will rain," said Walter: "it will certainly rain. I thought it was very queer. Well, it is too late to do anything[Pg 678] now. We must just wait and see what happens."

And behold the morrow had come, the clouds were gone, and it was a day in a thousand, a very queen of days.

The party started for Ashendale, some riding, some driving, waking the quiet green lanes with a happy tumult of wheels and horse-hoofs and laughing voices. Captain Fothergill contrived to be near Miss Langton, and to talk in a fashion which made her look down once or twice when she had encountered the eagerness of his dark eyes. The words he said might have been published by the town-crier. But that functionary could not have reproduced the tone and manner which rendered them significant, though Sissy hardly knew the precise amount of meaning they were intended to convey. She was glad when the tower of the priory rose above the trees. So was Walter Latimer, who had been eying the back of Fothergill's head or the sharply-cut profile which was turned so frequently toward Miss Langton, and who was firmly persuaded that the captain ought to be shot.

Ashendale Priory was built nearly at the bottom of a hill. Part of it, close by the gateway, was a farmhouse occupied by a tenant of the Latimers. His wife, a pleasant middle-aged woman, came out to meet them as they dismounted, and a rosy daughter of sixteen or seventeen lingered shyly in the little garden, which was full to overflowing of old-fashioned flowers and humming with multitudes of bees. The hot sweet fragrance of the crowded borders made Sissy say that it was like the very heart of summer-time.

"I don't want November, I assure you," he replied. "Why cannot this last for ever?"

"Much more than the weather. Do you suppose I should only remember that it was a fine day?"

"What, the place too?" said Sissy. "It is beautiful, but I think you would soon get tired of Ashendale, Captain Fothergill."

"Do you?" he said in a low voice, looking at her with the eyes which seemed to draw hers to meet them. "Try me and see which will be tired first." And, without giving her time to answer, he went on: "Couldn't you be content with Ashendale?"

"Well, then, the perfect place is yet to find," said Fothergill. "And how charming it must be!"

"One?" Fothergill looked at her again. "Not one! Won't you hope we may both find it?"

"Like the people who hunted for the Earthly Paradise," said Sissy hurriedly. "Look! they are going to the ruins." And she hastened to join the others.

Latimer noticed that she evidently, and very properly, would not permit Fothergill to monopolize her, but seemed rather to avoid the fellow. To his surprise, however, he found that there was no better fortune for himself. Fothergill had brought a sailor cousin, a boy of nineteen, curly-haired, sunburnt and merry, with a sailor's delight in flirtation and fun, and Archibald Carroll fixed his violent though temporary affections on Sissy the moment he was introduced to her at the priory. To Latimer's great disgust, Sissy distinctly encouraged him, and the two went off together during the progress round the ruins. There were some old fish-ponds to be seen, with swans and reeds and water-lilies, and when they were tired of scrambling about the gray walls there was a little copse hard by, the perfection of sylvan scenery on a small scale. The party speedily dispersed, rambling where their fancy led them, and were seen no more till the hour which had been fixed for dinner. Mrs. Latimer meanwhile chose a space of level turf, superintended the unpacking of hampers, and when the wanderers came dropping in by twos and threes from all points of the compass, professing unbounded readiness to[Pg 679] help in the preparations, there was nothing left for them to do. Among the latest were Sissy and her squire, a radiant pair. She was charmed with her saucy sailor-boy, who had no serious intentions or hopes, who would most likely be gone on the morrow, and who asked nothing more than to be happy with her through that happy summer day. People and things were apt to grow perplexing and sad when they came into her every-day life, but here was a holiday companion, arrived as unexpectedly as if he were created for her holiday, with no such thing as an afterthought about the whole affair.

Latimer sulked, but his rival smiled, when the two young people arrived. For—thus argued Raymond Fothergill, with a vanity which was so calm, so clear, so certain that it sounded like reason itself—it was not possible that Sissy Langton preferred Carroll to himself. Even had it been Latimer or Hardwicke! But Carroll—no! Therefore she used the one cousin merely to avoid the other. But why did she wish to avoid him? He remembered her blushes, her shyness, the eyes that sank before his own, and he answered promptly that she feared him. He triumphed in the thought. He had contended against a gentle indifference on Sissy's part, till, having heard rumors of a bygone love-affair, he had suspected the existence of an unacknowledged constancy. Then what did this fear mean? It was obviously the self-distrust of a heart unwilling to yield, clinging to its old loyalty, yet aware of a new weakness—seeking safety in flight because unable to resist. Fothergill was conscious of power, and could wait with patience. (It would have been unreasonable to expect him to spend an equal amount of time and talent in accounting for Miss Langton's equally evident avoidance of young Latimer. Besides, that was a simple matter. He bored her, no doubt.)

When the business of eating and drinking was drawing to a close, little Edith Latimer, the youngest of the party, began to arrange a lapful of wild flowers which she had brought back from her ramble. Hardwicke, who had helped her to collect them, handed them to her one by one.

A green tuft which he held up caught Sissy's eye. "Why, Edie, what have you got there?" she said. "Is that maiden-hair spleenwort? Where did you find it?"

"In a crack in the wall: there's a lot more," the child answered; and at the same moment Hardwicke said, "Shall I get you some?"

"No: I'll get some," exclaimed Archie, who was lying at Sissy's feet. "Miss Langton would rather I got it for her, I know."

"She has so much more confidence in me," Archie explained. "Please give me a leaf of that stuff, Miss Latimer: I want to see what it's like."

"My confidence is rather misplaced, I'm afraid, if you don't know what you are going to look for."

"Not a bit misplaced. You know very well I shall have a sort of instinct which will take me straight to it."

"Oh, how cruel!" said Carroll, "withering up my delicate feelings with thoughtless sarcasm! Smell? no! My what-d'ye-call-it—sympathy—will tell me which it is. My heart will beat faster as I approach it. But I'll have that leaf all the same, please."

Sissy looked doubtful, but Carroll exclaimed, "Oh, I know! That's where the old fellows used to dine, isn't it? And had sermons read to them all the time."

"Well, I don't know about that," said Archie. "Sermons always are awful bores, ain't they? But I don't think I should mind 'em so much if I might eat my dinner all the time." He stopped with a comical look of alarm. "I say, we haven't got any parsons here, have we?"

"No," said Fothergill smiling. "We've brought the surgeon, in case of broken[Pg 680] bones, but we've left the chaplain at home. So you may give us the full benefit of your opinions."

"I thought there wasn't one," Archie remarked, looking up at Sissy, "because nobody said grace. Or don't you ever say grace at a picnic?"

"I don't think you do," Sissy replied. "Unless it were a very Low Church picnic perhaps. I don't know, I'm sure."

"Makes a difference being out of doors, I suppose," said Archie, examining the little frond which Edith had given him. "And this is what you call maiden-hair?"

"A libel," he answered promptly. "Maiden—hair, indeed! Why, I can see some a thousand times prettier quite close by. What can you want with this? You can't see the other, but I'll tell you what it's like. It's the most beautiful brown, with gold in it, and it grows in little ripples and waves and curls, and nothing ever was half so fine before, and it catches just the edge of a ray of sunshine—oh, don't move your head!—and looks like a golden glory—"

"Of course it is," said Archie. "But exchange is no robbery, they say. Suppose I go and dig up some of this, don't you think—remembering that I am a poor sailor-boy, going to be banished from 'England, home and beauty,' and that I shall most likely be drowned on my next voyage—don't you think—"

"I think that, on your own showing, you must get me at least a cartload of the other before you have the face to finish that sentence."

"A cartload! I feel like a prince in a fairy-tale. And what would you do with it all?"

"There now!" said Archie. "And I could tell you in a moment what I would do with mine if you gave it me."

"You would fold it up carefully in a neat little bit of paper, but you would not write anything on it, because you would not like it to look business-like. Besides, you couldn't possibly forget. And a few months hence you will have lost your heart to some foreign young lady—I don't know where you are going—and you would find the little packet in your desk, and wonder who gave it to you."

"Oh, how little you know me!" Archie exclaimed, and sank back on the turf in a despairing attitude. But a moment later he began to laugh, and sat up again. "There was a bit once," he said confidentially, "and for the life of me I couldn't think whose it could be. There were two or three girls I knew it couldn't possibly belong to, but that didn't help me very far. That lock of hair quite haunted me. See what it is to have such susceptible feelings! I used to look at it a dozen times a day, and I couldn't sleep at night for thinking of it. At last I said to myself, 'I don't care whose it is: she was a nice, dear girl anyhow, and I'm sure she wouldn't like to think that she bothered me in this way.' So I consigned it to a watery grave. I felt very melancholy when it went, I can tell you, and if my own hair had been a reasonable length I'd have sent a bit of it overboard with hers, just for company's sake. But I'd had a fever, and I was cropped like a convict, so I couldn't."

"You tell that little story very nicely," said Sissy when he paused. "Do you always mention it when you ask—"

"Why, no," Archie exclaimed. "I thought you would take it as it was meant—as the greatest possible compliment to yourself. But I suppose it's my destiny to be misunderstood. Don't you see that I couldn't tell that to any one unless I were quite sure that she was so much higher, so altogether apart, that she never, never could get mixed up with anybody else in my mind?"

"She had better have some very particular sort of curliness in her hair too," said Sissy. "Don't you think it would be safer?"[Pg 681]

"Oh, this is too much!" he exclaimed. "It's sport to you, evidently, but you don't consider that it's death to me. I say, come away, and we'll look for this green stuff."

Fothergill smiled, but Latimer's handsome face flushed. He had made a dozen attempts to supplant Carroll, and had been foiled by the laughing pair. What was the use of being a good-looking fellow of six-and-twenty, head of one of the county families and owner of Latimer's Court and Ashendale, if he were to be set aside by a beggarly sailor-boy? What did Fothergill mean by bringing his poor relations dragging after him where they were not wanted? He sprang to his feet, and went away with long strides to make violent love to the farmer's rosy little daughter. He knew that he meant nothing at all, and that he was filling the poor child's head and heart with the vainest of hopes. He knew that he owed especial respect and consideration to the daughter of his tenant, a man who had dealt faithfully by him, and whose father and grandfather had held Ashendale under the Latimers. He felt that he was acting meanly even while he kissed little Lucy by the red wall where the apricots were ripening in the sun. And he had no overmastering passion for excuse: what did he care for little Lucy? He was doing wrong, and he was doing it because it was wrong. He was in a fiercely antagonistic mood, and, as he could not fight Fothergill and Carroll, he fought with his own sense of truth and honor, for want of a better foe. And Lucy, conscious of her rosy prettiness, stood shyly pulling the lavender-heads in a glad bewilderment of vanity, wonder and delight, while Latimer's heart was full of jealous anger. If Sissy Langton could amuse herself, so could he.

But Sissy was too happily absorbed in her amusement to think of his. She had avoided him, as she had avoided Captain Fothergill, from a sense of danger. They were becoming too serious, too much in earnest, and she did not want to be serious. So she went gayly across the grass, laughing at Archie because he would look on level ground for her maiden-hair spleenwort. They came to a small enclosure.

"Here you are!" said Carroll. "This is what somebody said was the refectory. It makes one feel quite sad and sentimental only to think what a lot of jolly dinners have been eaten here. And nothing left of it all!"

"That's your idea of sentiment, Mr. Carroll? It sounds to me as if you hadn't had enough to eat."

"Oh yes, I had plenty. But we ought to pledge each other in a cup of sack, or something of the kind. And a place like this ought at least to smell deliciously of roast and boiled. Instead of which it might as well be the chapel."

Sissy gazed up at the wall: "There's some maiden-hair! How was it I never saw it this morning? Surely, we came along the top and looked down into this place."

"No," said Archie. "That was the chapel we looked into. Didn't I say they were just alike?"

"Well, I can easily get up there," she said. "And you may stay down here if you like, and grow sentimental over the ghost of a dinner." And, laughing, she darted up a steep ascent of turf, slackening her pace when she came to a rough heap of fallen stones. Carroll was by her side directly, helping her. "Why, this is prettier than where we went this morning," she said when they reached the top: "you see the whole place better. But it's narrower, I think. This is the west wall, isn't it? Oh, Mr. Carroll, how much the sun has gone down already!"

"I wish I were Moses, or whoever it was, to make it stop," said the boy: "it would stay up there a good long time."

There was a black belt of shadow at the foot of the wall. Archie looked down as if to measure its breadth. A little tuft of green caught his eye, and stooping he pulled it from between the stones.

"Oh, how broken it is here! Doesn't it look as if a giant had taken a great bite out of it?" Sissy exclaimed, at the same moment that he called after her, "Is this right, Miss Langton?"

She turned her head, and for a second's space he saw her bright face, her[Pg 682] laughing, parted lips. Then there was a terrible cry, stretched hands at which he snatched instinctively but in vain, and a stone which slipped and fell heavily. He stumbled forward, and recovered himself with an effort. There was blank space before him—and what below?

Archie Carroll half scrambled down by the help of the ivy, half slid, and reached the ground. Thus, at the risk of his life, he gained half a minute, and spent it in kneeling on the grass—a yard away from that which he dared not touch—saying pitifully, "Miss Langton! Oh, won't you speak to me, Miss Langton?"

He was in the shadow, but looking across the enclosure he faced a broken doorway in the south-east corner. The ground sloped away a little, and the arch opened into the stainless blue. A sound of footsteps made Carroll look up, and through the archway came Raymond Fothergill. He had heard the cry, he had outrun the rest, and, even in his blank bewilderment of horror, Archie shrank back scared at his cousin's aspect. His brows and moustache were black as night against the unnatural whiteness of his face, which was like bleached wax. His eyes were terrible. He seemed to reach the spot in an instant. Carroll saw his hands on the stone which had fallen, and lay on her—O God!—or only on her dress?

Fothergill's features contracted in sudden agony as he noted the horribly twisted position in which she lay, but he stooped without a moment's hesitation, and, lifting her gently, laid her on the turf, resting her head upon his knee. There was a strange contrast between the tenderness with which he supported her and the fierce anger of his face. Others of the party came rushing on the scene in dismay and horror.

"Water!" said Fothergill. "Where's Anderson?" (Anderson was the young doctor.) "Not here?"

"He went by the fish-ponds with Evelyn," cried Edith suddenly: "I saw him." Hardwicke darted off.

"Curse him! Playing the fool when he's wanted more than he ever will be again.—Mrs. Latimer!"

Some one brought water, and held it while Fothergill, with his disengaged hand, sprinkled the white face on his knee.

Walter Latimer hurried round the corner. He held a pink rosebud, on which his fingers tightened unconsciously as he ran. Coming to the staring group, he stopped aghast. "Good God!" he panted, "what has happened?"

A hoarse voice spoke from the background: "She fell." Archie Carroll had risen from his knees, and, lifting one hand above his head, he pointed to the wall. Suddenly, he met Fothergill's eyes, and with a half-smothered cry he flung himself all along upon the grass and hid his face.

The other did not look up. "I cannot tell," he said, "but I believe she is killed."

"It isn't possible!" said Walter. But his glance measured the height of the wall and rested on the stones scattered thickly below. The words died on his lips.

"Is Anderson never coming?" said some one else. Another messenger hurried off. Latimer stood as if rooted to the ground, gazing after him. All at once he noticed the rose which he still held, and jerked it away with a movement as of horror.

The last runner returned: "Anderson and Hardwicke will be here directly: I saw them coming up the path from the fish-ponds. Here is Mrs. Latimer."

Edith ran through the archway first, eager and breathless. "Here is mamma," she said, going straight to Raymond Fothergill with her tidings, and speaking softly as if Sissy were asleep. A little nod was his only answer, and[Pg 683] the girl stood gazing with frightened eyes at the drooping head which he supported. Mrs. Latimer, Hardwicke and Anderson all arrived together, and the group divided to make way for them. The first thing to be done was to carry Sissy to the farmhouse, and while they were arranging this Edith felt two hands[Pg 684] pressed lightly on her shoulders. She turned and confronted Harry Hardwicke.

"Hush!" he said: "do not disturb them now, but when they have taken her to the house, if you hear anything said, tell them that I have gone for Dr. Grey, and as soon as I have sent him here I shall go on for Mrs. Middleton. You understand?" he added, for the child was looking at him with her scared eyes, and had not spoken.

"Not if anything you and I can do will save her—will she, Edith?" and Hardwicke ran off to the stables for his horse. A man was there who saddled it for him, and a rough farm-boy stood by and saw how the gentleman, while he waited, stroked the next one—a lady's horse, a chestnut—and how presently he turned his face away and laid his cheek for a moment against the chestnut's neck. The boy thought it was a rum go, and stood staring vacantly while Hardwicke galloped off on his terrible errand.

Meanwhile, they were carrying Sissy to the house. Fothergill was helping, of course. Latimer had stood by irresolutely, half afraid, yet secretly hoping for a word which would call him. But no one heeded him. Evelyn and Edith had hurried on to see that there was a bed on which she could be laid, and the sad little procession followed them at a short distance. The lookers-on straggled after it, an anxiously-whispering group, and as the last passed through the ruined doorway Archie Carroll lifted his head and glanced round. The wall, with its mosses and ivy, rose darkly above him—too terrible a presence to be faced alone. He sprang up, hurried out of the black belt of shadow and fled across the turf. He never looked back till he stood under the arch, but halting there, within sight of his companions, he clasped a projection with one hand as if he were giddy, and turning his head gazed intently at the crest of the wall. Every broken edge, every tuft of feathery grass, every aspiring ivy-spray, stood sharply out against the sunny blue. The breeze had gone down, and neither blade nor leaf stirred in the hot stillness of the air. There was the way by which they had gone up, there was the ruinous gap which Sissy had said was like a giant's bite. Archie's grasp tightened on the stone as he looked. He might well feel stunned and dizzy, gazing thus across the hideous gulf which parted him from the moment when he stood upon the wall with Sissy Langton laughing by his side. Not till every detail was cruelly stamped upon his brain did he leave the spot.

By that time they had carried Sissy in. Little Lucy had been close by, her rosy face blanched with horror, and had looked appealingly at Latimer as he went past. She wanted a kind word or glance, but the innocent confiding look filled him with remorse and disgust. He would not meet it: he stared straight before him. Lucy was overcome by conflicting emotions, went off into hysterics, and her mother had to be called away from the room where she was helping Mrs. Latimer. Walter felt as if he could have strangled the pretty, foolish child to whom he had been saying sweet things not half an hour before. The rose that he had gathered for her was fastened in her dress, and the pink bud that she had given him lay in its first freshness on the turf in the ruins.

Some of the party waited in the garden. Fothergill stood in the shadow of the porch, silent and a little apart. Archie Carroll came up the path, but no one spoke to him, and he went straight to his cousin. Leaning against the woodwork, he opened his lips to speak, but was obliged to stop and clear his throat, for the words would not come. "How is she?" he said at last.

Fothergill slightly changed his position, and the light fell more strongly on his face. "I don't ever want to look at you again," he said with quiet emphasis. "You've done mischief enough to last your lifetime if you lived a thousand years."[Pg 685]

"Whose, then?" said Fothergill. "Possibly you think it would have happened if I had been there?"

"They didn't. No one told you to climb the most ruinous bit of the whole place. And she didn't even know where the refectory was."

"No, you won't," said Fothergill. "You'll go safe home to your people at the rectory. No more of this."

Archie hesitated, and then miserably dragged himself away. Fothergill retreated a little farther into the porch, and was almost lost in the shadow. No tidings, good or evil, had come from the inner room where Sissy lay, but his state of mind was rather despairing than anxious. From the moment when he ran across the grass and saw her lying, a senseless heap, at the foot of the wall, he had felt assured that she was fatally injured. If he hoped at all it was an unconscious hope—a hope of which he never would be conscious until a cruel certainty killed it.

His dominant feeling was anger. He had cared for this girl—cared for her so much that he had been astonished at himself for so caring—and he felt that this love was the crown of his life. He did not for a moment doubt that he would have won her. He had triumphed in anticipation, but Death had stepped between them and baffled him, and now it was all over. Fothergill was as furious with Death as if it had been a rival who robbed him. He felt himself the sport of a power to which he could offer no resistance, and the sense of helplessness was maddening. But his fury was of the white, intense, close-lipped kind. Though he had flung a bitter word or two at Archie, his quarrel was with Destiny. No matter who had decreed this thing, Raymond Fothergill was in fierce revolt.

And yet, through it all, he knew perfectly well that Sissy's death would hardly make any outward change in him. He was robbed of his best chance, but he did not pretend to himself that his heart was broken or that his life was over. Walter Latimer might fancy that kind of thing, but Fothergill knew that he should be much such a man as he had been before he met her, only somewhat lower, because he had so nearly been something higher and missed it. That was all.

Mrs. Latimer came for a few moments out of the hushed mystery of that inner room. The tidings ran through the expectant groups that Sissy had moved slightly, and had opened her eyes once, but there was little hopefulness in the news. She was terribly injured: that much was certain, but nothing more. Mrs. Latimer wanted her son. "Walter," she said, "you must go home and take the girls. Indeed you must. They cannot stay here, and I cannot send them back without you." Latimer refused, protested, yielded. "Mother," he said, as he turned to go, "you don't know—" His voice suddenly gave way.

"I do know. Oh, my poor boy!" She passed quickly to where Evelyn stood, and told her that Walter had gone to order the horses. "I would rather you were all away before Mrs. Middleton comes," she said: "Henry Hardwicke has gone for her."

This departure was a signal to the rest. The groups melted away, and with sad farewells to one another, and awestruck glances at the windows of the farmhouse, almost all the guests departed. The sound of wheels and horse-hoofs died away in the lanes, and all was very still. The bees hummed busily round the white lilies and the lavender, and on the warm turf of one of the narrow paths lay Archie Carroll.

He had a weight on heart and brain. There had been a moment all blue and sunny, the last of his happy life, when Sissy's laughing face looked back at him and he was a light-hearted-boy. Then had come a moment of horror and incredulous despair, and that black moment had hardened into eternity. Nightmare is hideous, and Archie's very life had become a nightmare. Of course he would[Pg 686] get over it, like his cousin, though, unlike his cousin, he did not think so; and their different moods had their different bitternesses. In days to come Carroll would enjoy his life once more, would be ready for a joke or an adventure, would dance the night through, would fall in love. This misery was a swift and terrible entrance into manhood, for he could never be a boy again. And the scar would be left, though the wound would assuredly heal. But Archie, stumbling blindly through that awful pass, never thought that he should come again to the light of day: it was to him as the blackness of a hopeless hell.

CHAPTER L.

THROUGH THE NIGHT.

The village-clock struck five. As the last lingering stroke died upon the air there was the sound of a carriage rapidly approaching. Carroll raised his head when it stopped at the gate, and saw Hardwicke spring out and help a lady to alight. She was an old lady, who walked quickly to the house, looking neither to right nor left, and vanished within the doorway. Hardwicke stopped, as if to give some order to the driver, and then hurried after her. Archie stared vaguely, first at them, and then at the man, who turned his horses and went round to the stables. When they were out of sight he laid his head down again. The little scene had been a vivid picture which stamped itself with curious distinctness on his brain, yet failed to convey any meaning whatever. He had not the faintest idea of the agony of love and fear in Mrs. Middleton's heart as she passed him. To Archie, just then, the whole universe was his agony, and there was no room for more.

Ten minutes later came Dr. Grey's brougham. The doctor, as he jumped out, told his man to wait. He went from the gate to the house more hurriedly than Mrs. Middleton, and his anxiety was more marked, but he found time to look round as he went with keen eyes, which rested for an instant on the young sailor, though he lay half hidden by the bushes. He too vanished, as the others had vanished.

About an hour later he came out again, and Fothergill followed him. The doctor started when he encountered his eager eyes. Fothergill demanded his opinion. He began some of the usual speeches in which men wrap up the ghastly word "death" in such disguise that it can hardly be recognized.

"Danger—yes," said Fothergill, "but is there any hope? I am not a fool—I sha'n't go in and scare the women: is there any hope?"

The answer was written on the doctor's face. He had known Sissy Langton from the time when she came, a tiny child, to Brackenhill. He shook his head, and murmured something about "even if there were no other injury, the spine—"

Fothergill caught a glimpse of a hideous possibility, and answered with an oath. It was not the profanity of the words, so much as the fury with which they were charged, that horrified the good old doctor. "My dear sir," he remonstrated gently, "we must remember that this is God's will."

"God's will! God's will! Are you sure it isn't the devil's?" said Fothergill. "It seems more like it. If you think it is God's will, you may persuade yourself it's yours, for aught I know. But I'm not such a damned hypocrite as to make believe it's mine."

And with a mechanical politeness, curiously at variance with his face and speech, he lifted his hat to the doctor as he turned back to the farmhouse.

So Sissy's doom was spoken—to linger a few hours, more or less, in helpless pain, and then to die. The sun, which had dawned so joyously, was going down as serenely as it had dawned, but it did not matter much to Sissy now. She was sensible, she knew Mrs. Middleton. When the old lady stooped over her she looked up, smiled faintly and said, "I fell."[Pg 687]

Later, Henry Hardwicke sent in a message, and the old lady came out to speak to him. He was standing by an open casement in the passage, looking out at the sunset through the orchard boughs. "What is it, Harry?" she said.

He started and turned round: "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Middleton, but I thought in case you wanted to send any telegrams—if—if—I mean I thought you might want to send some, and there is not very much time."

She put her hand to her head. "I ought to, oughtn't I?" she said. "Who should be sent for?"

Something like relief or pleasure lighted her sad eyes: "Yes, yes! send for Godfrey Hammond. He will come." She was about to leave him, but the young fellow stepped forward: "Mrs. Middleton"—was it the clear red light from the window that suddenly flushed his face?—"Mrs. Middleton, shall I send for Mr. Percival Thorne?"

She stopped, looking strangely at him: something in his voice surprised her. "For Percival?" she said.

"May I? I think he ought to come." The hot color was burning on his cheeks. What right had he to betray the secret which he believed he had discovered? And yet could he stand by and not speak for her when she had so little time in which to speak for herself?

"Is it for his sake," said Mrs. Middleton, "or is it that you think—? Well, let it be so: send for Percival. Yes," she added, "perhaps I have misunderstood. Yes, send at once for Percival."

"I'll go," said Harry, hurrying down the passage. "The message shall be sent off at once. I'll take it to Fordborough."

"Must you go yourself?" Mrs. Middleton raised her voice a little as he moved away.

"No: let me go," said Captain Fothergill, turning the farther corner: "I am going to Fordborough. What is it? I will take it. Mrs. Middleton, you will let me be your messenger?"

"You are very good," she said.—"Harry, you will write—I can't. Oh, I must go back." And she vanished, leaving the two men face to face.

"I've no telegraph-forms," said Harry after a pause. "If you would take the paper to my father, he will send the messages."

Fothergill nodded silently, and went out to make ready for his journey. Hardwicke followed him, and stood in the porch pencilling on the back of an old letter. When Fothergill had given his orders he walked up to Carroll, touched the lad's shoulder with the tips of his fingers, and stood away. "Come," he said.

The boy started and stepped back. He looked at the farmhouse, he looked at his cousin. "I'll come afterward," he faltered.

Archie shrank away, keeping his eyes fixed, as if in a kind of fascination, on his cousin's terrible eyes. The idea of going back alone with Raymond was awful to him. "No, I can't come, Ray—indeed I can't," he said. "I'll walk: I'd much rather—I would indeed."

"What for?" said Fothergill. "You are doing no good here. Do you know I have a message to take? I can't be kept waiting. Don't be a fool," he said in a lower but not less imperative voice.

Archie glanced despairingly round. Hardwicke came forward with the paper in his outstretched hand: "Leave him here, Captain Fothergill. I dare[Pg 688] say I shall go to the inn in the village, and he may go with me. He can take you the earliest news to-morrow morning."

Archie looked breathlessly from one to the other. "As you please," said Fothergill, and strode off without another word.

The boy tried to say something in the way of thanks. "Oh, it's nothing," Hardwicke replied. "You won't care what sort of quarters they may turn out to be, I know." And he went back to the house with a little shrug of his shoulders at the idea of having young Carroll tied to him in this fashion. He did not want the boy, but Hardwicke could never help sacrificing himself.

So Archie went to the gate and watched his cousin ride away, a slim black figure on his black horse against the burning sky. Fothergill never turned his head. Where was the use of looking back? He was intent only on his errand, and when that piece of paper should have been delivered into Mr. Hardwicke's hands the last link between Sissy Langton and himself would be broken. There would be no further service to render. Fothergill did not know that the message he carried was to summon his rival, but it would have made no difference in his feelings if he had. Nothing made any difference now.

Mrs. Middleton sat by Sissy's bedside in the clear evening light. Harry Hardwicke's words haunted her: why did he think that Sissy wanted Percival? They had parted a year ago, and she had believed that Sissy was cured of her liking for him. It was Sissy who had sent him away, and she had been brighter and gayer of late: indeed, Mrs. Middleton had fancied that Walter Latimer— Well, that was over, but if Sissy cared for Percival—

A pair of widely-opened eyes were fixed on her: "Am I going to die, Aunt Harriet?"

"I think I am going to die. Will it be very soon? Would there be time to send—"

"We will send for anything or any one you want. Do you feel worse, dear? Time to send for whom?"

"Harry Hardwicke has sent for him already. Perhaps he has the message by now: it is an hour and a half since the messenger went."

Mrs. Middleton went to the door and called softly to Hardwicke. He had been looking in Bradshaw, and she returned directly: "Percival will come by the express to-night. He will be at Fordborough by the quarter-past nine train, and Harry will meet him and bring him over at once—by ten o'clock, he says, or a few minutes later."

Sissy's brows contracted for a moment: she was calculating the time. "What is it now?" she said.

Fourteen hours and a half! The whole night between herself and Percival! The darkness must come and must go, the sun must set and must again be high in the heavens, before he could stand by her side. It seemed to Sissy as if she were going down into the blackness of an awful gulf, where Death was waiting for her. Would she have strength to escape him, to toil up the farther side, and to reach the far-off to-morrow and Percival? "Aunt Harriet," she said, "shall I live till then? I want to speak to him."

"Yes, my darling—indeed you will. Don't talk so: you will break my heart. Perhaps God will spare you."

Between eight and nine Hardwicke was summoned again. Mrs. Latimer wanted some one to go to Latimer's Court, to take the latest news and to say that it was impossible she could return that night. "You see they went away before Dr. Grey came," she said. "I have written a little note. Can you find me a messenger?"

"Oh, I didn't mean to trouble you. And wait a moment, for Mrs. Middleton wants him to go on to her house. She will come and speak to you when I go back to the poor girl."

"I hardly know. I think she is wandering a little: she talked just now about some embroidery she has been doing—asked for it, in fact."

"When Dr. Grey was obliged to go he didn't think there would be any change before he came back, surely?" said Hardwicke anxiously.

"No. But she can't know what she is saying, can she? Poor girl! she will never do another stitch." Mrs. Latimer fairly broke down. The unfinished embroidery which never could be finished brought the truth home to her. It is hard to realize that a life with its interlacing roots and fibres is broken off short.

"Oh, Mrs. Latimer, don't! don't!" Harry exclaimed, aghast at her tears. "For dear Mrs. Middleton's sake!" He rushed away, and returned with wine. "If you give way what will become of us?"

She was better in a few minutes, and able to go back, while Harry waited in quiet confidence for Mrs. Middleton. He was not afraid of a burst of helpless weeping when she came. She was gentle, yielding, delicate, but there was something of the old squire's obstinacy in her, and in a supreme emergency it came out as firmness. She looked old and frail as she stepped into the passage and closed the door after her. Her hand shook, but her eyes met his bravely and her lips were firm.

"You'll have some wine too," he said, pouring it out as a matter of course. "You can drink it while you tell me what I am to do."

She took the glass with a slight inclination of her head, and explained that she wanted an old servant who had been Sissy's nurse when she was a little child. "Mrs. Latimer is very kind," she said, "but Sissy will like her own people best. And Sarah would be broken-hearted—" She paused. "Here is a list of things that I wish her to bring."

"Do you mean because she talked of her work? Oh, I don't think so. She answers quite sensibly—indeed, she speaks quite clearly. That was the only thing."

"True. Yes, yes, bring it." She told him where to find the little case. "The fancy may haunt her. How am I to thank you, Harry?"

It was nearly eleven before Hardwicke had accomplished his double errand and returned with Sarah. The stars were out, the ruins of the priory rose in great black masses against the sky, the farmhouse windows beneath the overhanging eaves were like bright eyes gazing out into the night. Dr. Grey had come back in the interval, and had seen his patient. There was nothing new to say, and nothing to be done, except to make the path to the grave as little painful as might be. He was taking a nap in Mr. Greenwell's arm-chair when the young man came in, but woke up clear and alert in a moment. "Ah, you have come?" he said, recognizing the old servant. "That's well: you'll save your mistress a little. Only, mind, we mustn't have any crying. If there is anything of that sort you will do more harm than good."

Sarah deigned no reply, but passed on. Mrs. Middleton came out to meet them. Sissy had not spoken. She lay with her eyes shut, and moaned now and then. "Are you going home, Harry?" said the old lady.

"Only into the village: I've got a room at the Latimer Arms. It isn't two minutes' walk from here, so I can be fetched directly if I'm wanted."

Hardwicke went off to look for Archie Carroll. He found him in the square flagged hall, sitting on the corner of a window-seat, with his head leaning against the frame, among Mrs. Greenwell's geraniums. "Come along, old fellow," said Harry.

There was only a glimmering candle, and the hall was very dim. Archie got up submissively and groped his way after his guide. "Where are we going?" he asked as the door was opened.

"To a little public-house close by. We couldn't ask the Greenwells to take us in."

As they went out into the road the priory rose up suddenly on the left and towered awfully above them. Carroll shuddered, drew closer to his companion and kept his eyes fixed on the ground. "I feel as if I were the ghost of myself, and those were the ghosts of the ruins," he said as he hurried past.

The flight of fancy was altogether beyond Hardwicke: "You've been sitting alone and thinking. There has been nothing for you to do, and I couldn't help leaving you. Here we are."

They turned into the little sanded parlor of the ale-house. Hardwicke had looked in previously and given his orders, and supper was laid ready for them. He sat down and began to help himself, but Archie at first refused to eat.

"Nonsense!" said Harry. "You have had nothing since the beginning of the day. We must not break down, any of us." And with a little persuasion he prevailed, and saw the lad make a tolerable supper and drink some brandy and water afterward. "Vile brandy!" said Hardwicke as he set his tumbler down. Archie was leaning with both elbows on the table, gazing at him. His eyes were heavy and swollen, and there were purple shadows below them.

"Mr. Hardwicke," he said, "you've been very good to me. Do you think it was my fault?"

"I wish he had been. But we must not expect old heads on young shoulders. How did it happen?"

"We climbed up on the wall, and she was saying how narrow and broken it was, and I picked some of that stuff and called to her, and as she looked back—"

Hardwicke groaned. "It was madly imprudent," he said. "But I don't blame you. You didn't think. Poor fellow! I only hope you won't think too much in future. Come, it's time for bed."

"Very well," said Hardwicke. "But I must try and get a little rest. They had only one room for us, so if you can't sleep you'll keep quiet and let a fellow see what he can do in that line. And you may call me in the morning if I don't wake. But don't worry yourself, for I shall."

But in half an hour it was Carroll who lay worn out and sleeping soundly, and Hardwicke who was counting the slow minutes of that intolerable night.

Sarah had been indignant that Dr. Grey should tell her not to cry. But when Sissy looked up with a gentle smile of recognition, and instead of calling her by her name said "Nurse," as she used to say in old times, the good woman was very near it indeed, and was obliged to go away to the window to try to swallow the lump that rose up in her throat and almost choked her.

Mrs. Middleton sat by her darling's bedside. She had placed the little work-case in full view, and presently Sissy noticed it and would have it opened. The half-finished strip of embroidery was laid within easy reach of hand and eye. She smiled, but was not satisfied. "The case," she said. Her fingers strayed feebly among the little odds and ends which it contained, and closed over something which she kept.

Then there was a long silence, unbroken till Sissy was thirsty and wanted[Pg 691] something to drink. "What time?" she said when she had finished.

Again there was silence, but not so long this time. And again Sissy broke it: "Aunt Harriet, he is coming now."

"I feel as if I saw the train, with red lights in front, coming through the night—always coming, but never any nearer."

Sissy said "Yes," and was quiet again till between one and two. Then Mrs. Middleton perceived that her eyes were open. "What is it, dear child?" she said.

"Sissy," said Aunt Harriet softly, "I want you to listen to me. A year ago, when Godfrey died and I talked about the money that I hoped to leave you one day, you told me what you should like me to do with it instead, because you had enough and you thought it was not fair. I didn't quite understand then, and I would not promise. Do you remember?"

"Sissy, shall I promise now? I've been thinking about it, and I've no wish on earth but to make you happy. Will it make you happier if I promise now that it shall be as you said?"

Sissy answered with a smile. "Kiss me," she said. And so the promise was sealed. After that the worst of the night seemed somehow to be over. Sissy slept a little, and Aunt Harriet nodded once or twice in the easy-chair. Starting into wakefulness after one of these moments, she saw the outline of the window faintly defined in gray, and thanked God that the dawn had come.

CHAPTER LI.

BY THE EXPRESS.

Mr. Hardwicke, not knowing Percival Thorne's precise address, had telegraphed to Godfrey Hammond, begging him to forward the message without delay. A couple of days earlier Hammond had suddenly taken it into his head that he was tired of being in town and would go away somewhere. In a sort of whimsical amusement at his own mood he decided that the Land's End ought to suit a misanthrope, and promptly took a ticket for Penzance as a considerable step in the right direction.

It made no difference to Percival, for Hammond had left full directions with a trustworthy servant in case any letters should come for Mr. Thorne, and the man sent the message on to Brenthill at once. But it made a difference to Hammond himself. When Hardwicke despatched the telegram to his address in town Godfrey lay on the turf at the Lizard Head, gazing southward across the sunlit sea, while the seabirds screamed and the white waves broke on the jagged rocks far below.

But with Percival there was no delay. The message found him in Bellevue street, though he did not return there immediately after his parting with Judith. He wanted the open air, the sky overhead, movement and liberty to calm the joyful tumult in heart and brain. He hastened to the nearest point whence he could look over trees and fields. The prospect was not very beautiful. The trees were few—some cropped willows by a mud-banked rivulet and a group or two of gaunt and melancholy elms. And the fields had a trodden, suburban aspect, which made it hardly needful to stick up boards describing them as eligible building-ground. Yet there was grass, such as it was, and daisies sprinkled here and there, and soft cloud-shadows gliding over it. Percival's unreal and fantastic dream had perished suddenly when Judith put her hand in his. Now, as he walked across these meadows, he saw a new vision, that dream of noble, simple poverty, which, if it could but be realized, would be the fairest of all.[Pg 692]

When he returned from his walk, and came once more to the well-known street which he was learning to call "home," he was so much calmer that he thought he was quite himself again. Not the languid, hopeless self who had lived there once, but a self young, vigorous, elate, rejoicing in the present and looking confidently toward the future.

was the keynote of his mood. He felt as if he trod on air—as if he had but to walk boldly forward and every obstacle must give way. The door of No. 13 was open, and a boy who had brought a telegram was turning away from it. Hurrying in with eager eyes and his face bright with unspoken joy, Percival nearly ran up against Mrs. Bryant and Emma, whose heads were close together over the address on the envelope.

He went up the stairs two at a time, with his message in his hand. Here was some good news—not for one moment did he dream it could be other than good news—come to crown this day, already the whitest of his life. He tore the paper open and read it by the red sunset light, hotly reflected from a wilderness of tiles.

He read it twice—thrice—caught at the window-frame to steady himself, and stood staring vaguely at the smoke which curled upward from a neighboring chimney. He was stunned. The words seemed to have a meaning and no meaning. "This is not how people receive news of death, surely?" he thought. "I suppose I am in my right senses, or is it a dream?"

He made a strong effort to regain his self-command, but all certainties eluded him. This was not the first time that he had taken up a telegram and believed that he read the tidings of Sissy's death. He had misunderstood it now as then. It could not be. But why could he not wake?

"Ashendale." Yes, he remembered Ashendale. He had ridden past the ruins the last day he ever rode with Sissy, the day that Horace came home. It belonged to the Latimers—to Walter Latimer. And Sissy was dying at Ashendale!

All at once he knew that it was no dream. But the keen edge of pain awoke him to the thought of what he had to do, and sent him to hunt among a heap of papers for a time-table. He drew a long breath. The express started at 10.5, and it was now but twenty minutes past eight.

He caught up his hat and hurried to the office. Mr. Ferguson, who seldom left much before that time, was on the doorstep. While he was getting into his dog-cart Percival hastily explained that he had been summoned on a matter of life and death. "Sorry to hear it," said the lawyer as he took the reins—"hope you may find things better than you expect. We shall see you again when you come back." And with a nod he rattled down the street. Percival stood on the pavement gazing after him, when he suddenly remembered that he had no money. "I might have asked him to give me my half week's salary," he reflected. "Not that that would have paid my fare."

A matter of life and death! Sissy waiting for him at Ashendale, and no money to pay for a railway-ticket! It would have been absurd if it had not been horrible. What had he to sell or pawn? By the time he could go to Bellevue street and return would not the shops be shut? It was a quarter to nine already. He did not even know where any pawnbroker lived, nor what he could take to him, and the time was terribly short. He was hurrying homeward while these thoughts passed through his mind when Judith's words came back to him: "I have a pound or two to spare, and I feel quite rich." He took the first turning toward Miss Macgregor's house.

Outside her door he halted for a moment. If they would not let him see Judith, how was he to convey his request? He felt in his pocket, found the telegram and pencilled below the message, "Sissy Langton was once to have been my wife: we parted, and I have never seen her since. I have not money enough for my railway-fare: can[Pg 693] you help me?" He folded it and rang the bell.

No, he could not see Miss Lisle. She was particularly engaged. "Very well," he said: "be so good as to take this note to her, and I will wait for the answer." His manner impressed the girl so much that, although she had been carefully trained by Miss Macgregor, she cast but one hesitating glance at the umbrella-stand before she went on her errand.

Percival waited, eager to be off, yet well assured that it was all right since it was in Judith's hands. Presently the servant returned and gave him a little packet. The wax of the seal was still warm. He opened it where he stood, and by the light of Miss Macgregor's hall-lamp read the couple of lines it contained:

There were two sovereigns and some silver. He told the girl to thank Miss Lisle, and went out into the dusk as the clocks were striking nine. Ten minutes brought him to Bellevue street, and rushing up to his room he began to put a few things into a little travelling-bag. In his haste he neglected to shut the door, and Mrs. Bryant, whose curiosity had been excited, came upon him in the midst of this occupation.

"And what may be the meaning of this, Mr. Thorne, if I may make so bold as to ask?" she said, eying him doubtfully from the doorway.

"Why, you gave me the telegram yourself," he answered indifferently while he caught up a couple of collars. He was too much absorbed to heed either Mrs. Bryant or his packing.

Percival made no answer, and she began to grumble about people who had money enough to travel all over the country at a minute's notice if they liked, and none to pay their debts—people who made promises by the hour together, and then sneaked off, leaving boxes with nothing inside them, she'd be bound.

Thus baited, Percival at last turned angrily upon her, but before he could utter a word another voice interposed: "What are you always worrying about, ma? Do come down and have your supper, and let Mr. Thorne finish his packing. He'll pay you every halfpenny he owes you: don't you know that?" And the door was shut with such decision that it was a miracle that Mrs. Bryant was not dashed against the opposite wall. "Come along," said Lydia: "there's toasted cheese."

Percival ran down stairs five minutes later with his bag in his hand. He turned into his sitting-room, picked up a few papers and thrust them into his desk. He was in the act of locking it when he heard a step behind him, and looking round he saw Lydia. She had a cup of tea and some bread and butter, which she set down before him. "You haven't had a morsel since the middle of the day," she said. "Just you drink this. Oh, you must: there's lots of time."

"Just you drink it," said Lydia, "and eat a bit too, or you'll be good for nothing." And while Percival hastily obeyed she glanced round the room: "Nobody'll meddle with your things while you're gone: don't you trouble yourself."

"Oh, I didn't suspect that any one would," he replied, hardly thinking whether it was likely or not as he swallowed the bread and butter.

"Well, that was very nice of you, I'm sure, I should have suspected a lot if I'd been you," said Lydia candidly. "But nobody shall. Now, you aren't going to leave that tea? Why, it wants twenty minutes to ten, and not six minutes' walk to the station!"

"And I say," Lydia pursued, pulling her curl with less than her usual consideration for its beauty, "I suppose you[Pg 694] have got money enough? Because if not, I'll lend you a little. Don't you mind what ma says, Mr. Thorne. I know you're all right."

"You are very good," said Percival. "I didn't expect so much kindness, and I've been borrowing already, so I needn't trouble you. But thank you for your confidence in me and for your thoughtfulness." He held out his hand to Lydia, and thus bade farewell to Bellevue street.

She stood for a moment looking after him. Only a few hours before she would have rejoiced in any small trouble or difficulty which might have befallen Mr. Thorne. But when he turned round upon her mother and herself as they stood at his door, her spite had vanished before the sorrowful anxiety of his eyes. She had frequently declared that Mr. Thorne was no gentleman, and that she despised him, but she knew in her heart that he was a gentleman, and she was ashamed of her mother's behavior. Lydia was capable of being magnanimous, provided the object of her magnanimity were a man. I doubt if she could have been magnanimous to a woman. But Percival Thorne was a young and handsome man, and though she did not know what his errand might be, she knew that she was not sending him to Miss Lisle. Standing before his glass, she smoothed back her hair with both hands, arranged the ribbon at her throat and admired the blue earrings and a large locket which she wore suspended from a chain. Even while she thought kindly of Mr. Thorne, and wished him well, she was examining her complexion and her hands with the eye of a critic. "I don't believe that last stuff is a mite of good," she said to herself; "and it's no end of bother. I might as well pitch the bottle out of the window. It was just as well that he'd borrowed the money of some one else, but I'm glad I offered it. I wonder when he'll come back?" And with that Lydia returned to her toasted cheese.

Percival had had a nervous fear of some hinderance on his way to the station. It was so urgent that he should go by this train that the necessity oppressed him like a nightmare. An earthquake seemed a not improbable thing. He was seriously afraid that he might lose his way during the five minutes' walk through familiar streets. He imagined an error of half an hour or so in all the Brenthill clocks. He hardly knew what he expected, but he felt it a relief when he came to the station and found it standing in its right place, quietly awaiting him. He was the first to take a ticket, and the moment the train drew up by the platform his hand was on the door of a carriage, though before getting in he stopped a porter to inquire if this were the express. The porter answered "Yes, sir—all right," with the half smile of superior certainty: what else could it be? Thorne took his place and waited a few minutes, which seemed an eternity. Then the engine screamed, throbbed, and with quickening speed rushed out into the night.

A man was asleep in one corner of the carriage, otherwise Percival was alone. His nervous anxiety subsided, since nothing further depended upon him till he reached town, and he sat thinking of Sissy and of that brief engagement which had already receded into a shadowy past. "It was a mistake," he mused, "and she found it out before it was too late. But I believe her poor little heart has been aching for me, lest she wounded me too cruelly that night. It wasn't her fault. She would have hid her fear of me, poor child! if she had been able. And she was so sorry for me in my trouble! I don't think she could be content to go on her way and take her happiness now while my life was spoilt and miserable. Poor little Sissy! she will be glad to know—"

And then he remembered that it was to a dying Sissy that the tidings of marriage and hope must be uttered, if uttered at all. And he sat as it were in a dull dream, trying to realize how the life which in the depths of his poverty had seemed so beautiful and safe was suddenly cut short, and how Sissy at that moment lay in the darkness, waiting—waiting—waiting. The noise of the train took up his thought, and set it to a monotonous repetition[Pg 695] of "Waiting at Ashendale! waiting at Ashendale!" If only she might live till he could reach her! He seemed to be hurrying onward, yet no nearer. His overwrought brain caught up the fancy that Death and he were side by side, racing together through the dark, at breathless, headlong speed, to Sissy, where she waited for them both.

Outside, the landscape lay dim and small, dwarfed by the presence of the night. And with the lights burning on its breast, as Sissy saw them in her half-waking visions, the express rushed southward across the level blackness of the land, beneath the arch of midnight sky.

CHAPTER LII.

When the gray of the early morning had changed to golden sunlight, and the first faint twittering of the birds gave place to fuller melody, Mrs. Middleton went softly to the window, opened it and fastened it back. She drew a long breath of the warm air fresh from the beanfields, and, looking down into the little orchard below, saw Harry Hardwicke, who stepped forward and looked up at her. She signed to him to wait, and a couple of minutes later she joined him.

"She is no worse. She has lived through it bravely, with one thought. You were very right to send for Percival."

Hardwicke looked down and colored as he had colored when he spoke of him before. "I'm glad," he said. "I'm off to fetch him in about an hour and a half."

"No. I'll ask at my father's as I go by. He will either come or we shall hear, unless he is out."

"Of course," the old lady answered. "Godfrey Hammond would not fail me. And now good-bye, Harry, till you bring Percival."

She went away as swiftly and lightly as she had come a minute before, and left Hardwicke standing on the turf under the apple trees gazing up at the open casement. A June morning, sun shining, soft winds blowing, a young lover under his lady's window: it should have been a perfect poem. And the lady within lay crushed and maimed, dying in the very heart of her June!

Hardwicke let himself out through the little wicket-gate, and went back to the Latimer Arms. He entered the bedroom without disturbing Archie, who lay with his sunburnt face on the white pillow, smiling in his sleep. He could not find it in his heart to arouse him. The boy's lips parted, he murmured a word or two, and seemed to sink into a yet deeper slumber. Hardwicke went softly out, gave the landlady directions about breakfast, and returned, watch in hand. "I suppose I must," he said to himself.

But he stopped short. Carroll stirred, stretched himself, his eyes were half open: evidently his waking was a pleasant one. But suddenly the unfamiliar aspect of the room attracted his attention: he looked eagerly round, a shadow swept across his face, and he turned and saw Hardwicke. "It's true!" he said, and flung out his arms in a paroxysm of despair.

Harry walked to the window and leant out. Presently a voice behind him asked, "Have you been to the farm, Mr. Hardwicke?"

"Yes," said Harry. "But there is no news. She passed a tolerably quiet night: there is no change."

"I've been asleep," said Archie after a pause. "I never thought I should sleep." He looked ashamed of having done so.

"Twenty minutes past seven. I want to speak to you, Carroll. I think you had better go home."

"No. Really home, to your own people. You can write to your cousin. You don't want to go back to him?"[Pg 696]

Archie shook his head. Then a sudden sense of injustice to Fothergill prompted him to say, "Ray was never hard on me before."

"You mustn't think about that," Hardwicke replied. "People don't weigh their words at such times. But, Carroll, you can do nothing here—less than nothing. You'll be better away. Give me your address, and I'll write any news there is. Look sharp now, and you can go into Fordborough with me and catch the up train."

As they drove through the green lanes, along which they had passed the day before, Archie looked right and left, recalling the incidents of that earlier drive. Already he was better, possessing his sorrow with greater keenness and fulness than at first, but not so miserably possessed by it. Hardly a word was spoken till they stood on the platform and a far-off puff of white showed the coming train. Then he said, "I shall never forget your kindness, Mr. Hardwicke. If ever there's anything I can do—"

Hardwicke answered "Yes." He knew too well what it was he promised to write to say a word more.

It was a relief to him when Carroll was gone and he could pace the platform and watch for the London train. He looked through the open doorway, and saw his dog-cart waiting in the road and the horse tossing his head impatiently in the sunshine. Through all his anxiety—or rather side by side with his anxiety—he was conscious of a current of interest in all manner of trivial things. He thought of the price he had given for the horse five months before, and of Latimer's opinion of his bargain. He noticed the station-master in the distance, and remembered that some one had said he drank. He watched a row of small birds sitting on the telegraph-wires just outside the station, and all at once the London train came gliding rapidly and unexpectedly out of the cutting close by, and was there.

A hurried rush along the line of carriages, with his heart sinking lower at every step, a despairing glance round, and he perceived the man he came to meet walking off at the farther end of the platform. He came up with him as he stopped to speak to a porter.

"Ah! I am in time, then?" said Percival when he looked round in reply to Hardwicke's hurried greeting.

Percival nodded, and took his place without a word. Not till they were fairly started on their journey did he turn to his companion. "How did it happen?" he asked.

Hardwicke gave him a brief account of the accident. He listened eagerly, and then, just saying "It's very dreadful," he was silent again. But it was the silence of a man intent on his errand, leaning slightly forward as if drawn by a powerful attraction, and with eyes fixed on the point where he would first see the ruins of Ashendale Priory above the trees. Hardwicke did not venture to speak to him. As the man whom Sissy Langton loved, Percival Thorne was to him the first of men, but, considered from Hardwicke's own point of view, he was a fellow with whom he had little or nothing in common—a man who quoted poetry and saw all manner of things in pictures and ruins, who went out of his way to think about politics, and was neither Conservative nor Radical when all was done—a man who rather disliked dogs and took no interest in horses. Hardwicke did not want to speak about dogs, horses or politics then, but the consciousness of their want of sympathy was in his mind.

As they drove through the village they caught a passing glimpse of a brougham. "Ha! Brackenhill," said Thorne, looking after it. They dashed round a corner and pulled up in front of the farmhouse. Hardwicke took no pains to spare the noise of their arrival. He knew very well that the sound of wheels would be music to Sissy's ears.

A tall, slim figure, which even on that June morning had the air of being wrapped up, passed and repassed in the hall within. As the two young men came up[Pg 697] the path Horace appeared in the porch. Even at that moment the change which a year had wrought in him startled Percival. He was a mere shadow. He had looked ill before, but now he looked as if he were dying.

"She will not see me," he said to Hardwicke. His voice was that of a[Pg 698] confirmed invalid, a mixture of complaint and helplessness. He ignored his cousin.

"She will see you now that Percival has come," said Mrs. Middleton, advancing from the background. "She will see you together."

And she led the way. Horace went in second, and Percival last, yet he was the first to meet the gaze of those waiting eyes. The young men stood side by side, looking down at the delicate face on the pillow. It was pale, and seemed smaller than usual in the midst of the loosened waves of hair. On one side of the forehead there was a dark mark, half wound, half bruise—a mere nothing but for its terrible suggestiveness. But the clear eyes and the gentle little mouth were unchanged. Horace said "Oh, Sissy!" and Sissy said "Percival." He could not speak, but stooped and kissed the little hand which lay passively on the coverlet.

"Yes." The mere thought of enmity was horrible to him as he looked into Sissy's eyes with that spectral Horace by his side.

He stood up and turned to his cousin. "Horace!" he said, and held out his hand. The other put a thin hot hand into it.—"See here, Sissy," said Percival, "we are friends."

"Yes, we're friends," Horace repeated. "Has it vexed you, Sissy? I thought you didn't care about me. I'm sorry, dear—I'm very sorry."

Aunt Harriet, standing by, laid her hand on his arm. She had held aloof for that long year, feeling that he was in the wrong. He had not acted as a Thorne should, and he could never be the same to her as in old days. But she had wanted her boy, nevertheless, right or wrong, and since Percival had pardoned him, and since it was partly Godfrey's hardness that had driven him into deceit, and since he was so ill, and since—and since—she loved him, she drew his head down to her and kissed him. Horace was weak, and he had to turn his face away and wipe his eyes. But, relinquishing Percival's hand, he held Aunt Harriet's.

Percival stooped again, in obedience to a sign from Sissy. "Ask him to forgive me," she said.

"I've nothing to forgive," said Horace. "It is I who ought to ask to be forgiven. It was hard on me when first you came to Brackenhill, Percy, but it has been harder on you since. I hardly know what I said or did on that day: I thought you'd been plotting against me."

"No, but I did think so.—Since then I've felt that, anyhow, it was not fair. I suppose I was too proud to say so, or hardly knew how, especially as the wrong is past mending. But I do ask your pardon now."

"But I never blamed you, Sissy—never, for one moment. I wasn't so bad as that. I've watched for you now and then in Fordborough streets, just to get a glimpse as you went by. I thought it was you who would never forgive me, because of Percival."

"Look here, Horace," he said. "There was a misunderstanding you knew nothing of, and Sissy feels that she might have cleared it up. It was cleared up at last, but I think it altered my grandfather's manner to you for a time. If you wish to know the whole I will tell you. But since it is all over and done with, and did not really do you any harm, if you like best"—he looked steadily at Horace—"that we should forgive and forget on both sides, we will bury the past here to-day."

"Yes, yes," said Horace. "Sissy may have made a mistake, but she never meant me any harm, I know."[Pg 699]

He stooped and kissed her, as he had kissed her many a time when she was his little pet and playmate. She kissed him back again, and smiled: "Good-bye, Horry!"

Mrs. Middleton interposed. "This will be too much for her," she said.—"Percival, she wants you, I see: be careful." And she drew Horace gently away.

Percival sat down by the bedside. Presently Sarah came in and went to the farther end of the room, waiting in case she should be wanted. Sissy was going to speak once, but Percival stopped her: "Lie still a little while, dear: I'm not going away."

She lay still, looking up at this Percival for whom she had watched and waited through the dreary night, and who had come to her with the morning. And he, as he sat by her side, was thinking how at that time the day before he was in the office at Brenthill. He could hardly believe that less than twenty-four hours had given him the assurance of Judith's love and brought him to Sissy's deathbed. He was in a strangely exalted state of mind. His face was calm as if cast in bronze, but a crowd of thoughts and feelings contended for the mastery beneath it. He had eaten nothing since the night before, and had not slept, but his excitement sustained him.

He met Sissy's eyes and smiled tenderly. How was it that he had frightened her in old days? Could he ever have been cruel to one so delicate and clinging? Yet he must have been, since he had driven away her love. She was afraid of him: she had begged to be free. Well, the past was past, but at least no word nor look of his should frighten or grieve the poor child now.

After a time she spoke: "You have worked too hard. Isn't it that you wanted to do something great?"

"That isn't at all likely," said Percival with a melancholy smile. "I'm all right, Sissy."

"No, you are pale. You wanted to surprise us. Oh, I guessed! Godfrey Hammond didn't tell me. I should have been glad if I could have waited to see it."

"I want you to have my money. It is my own, and I have nobody." Sissy remembered the terrible mistake she had once made, and wanted an assurance from his own lips that her gift was accepted.

Percival hesitated for a moment, and even the moment's hesitation alarmed her. It was true, as she said, that she had nobody, and her words opened a golden gateway before Judith and himself. Should he tell her of that double joy and double gratitude? He believed that she would be glad, but it seemed selfish and horrible to talk of love and marriage by that bedside. "I wish you might live to need it all yourself, dear," he answered, and laid his hand softly on hers. The strip of embroidery caught his eye. "What's this?" he said in blank surprise. "And your thimble! Sissy, you mustn't bother yourself about this work now." He would have drawn it gently away.

The fingers closed on it suddenly, and the weak voice panted: "No, Percival. It's mine. That was before we were engaged: you spoilt my other."

"O God!" he said. In a moment all came back to him. He remembered the summer day at Brackenhill—Sissy and he upon the terrace—the work-box upset and the thimble crushed beneath his foot. He remembered her pretty reproaches and their laughter over her enforced idleness. He remembered how he rode into Fordborough and bought that little gold thimble—the first present he ever made her. All his gifts during their brief engagement had been scrupulously returned, but this, as she had said, was given before. And she was[Pg 700] dying with it in her hand! She had loved him from first to last.

"Percival, you will take my money?" she pleaded, fearing some incomprehensible scruple.

"For God's sake, Sissy! I must think a moment." He buried his face in his hands.

How could he think? Sissy loved him—had always loved him. It was all plain to him now. He had been blind, and he had come back to find out the truth the day after he had pledged himself to Judith Lisle!

How could he stab her to the heart by a refusal of that which he so sorely needed? How could he tell her of his engagement? How could he keep silence, and take her money to spend it with Judith?

"I shall never ask you anything again," she whispered. "Oh, Percival, be good to me!"

He raised his head and looked earnestly at her. He must be true, happen what might.

"Sissy, God knows I thank you for your goodness. I sha'n't forget it, living or dying. If only you might be spared—"

"I will say 'Yes' if, when I have done, you wish it still. But it must be 'Yes' for some one besides myself. Dear, don't give it to me to make amends in any way. You have not wronged me, Sissy. Don't give it to me, dear, unless you give it to Judith Lisle."

As he spoke he looked into her eyes. Their sweet entreaty gave place to a flash of pained reproach, as if they said "So soon?" Then the light in them wavered and went out. Percival sprang up. "Help! she has fainted!"

Sarah hurried from her post by the window, and the sound of quick footsteps brought back Mrs. Middleton. The young man stood aside, dismayed. "She isn't dead?" he said in a low voice.

Aunt Harriet did not heed him. A horrible moment passed, during which he felt himself a murderer. Then Sissy moaned and turned her face a little to the wall.

"What do you mean? What have you done? You may wait outside, and I will call you. She cannot bear any more now: do you want to kill her outright?"

He went. There was a wide window-seat in the passage, and he dropped down upon it, utterly worn out and wretched. "What have I done?" he asked himself. "What made me do it? She loved me, and I have been a brute to her. If I had been a devil, could I have tortured her more?"

Presently Mrs. Middleton came to him: "She cannot see you now, but she is better."

He looked up at her as he sat: "Aunt Harriet, I meant it for the best. Say what you like: I was a brute, I suppose, but I thought I was doing right."

Percival took her hand and laid it on his forehead. "You can't think I meant to be cruel to our Sissy," he said. "You will let me speak to her?"

She softly pushed back his hair. After all, he was the man Sissy loved. "What was it?" she asked: "what did you do?"

"Couldn't you let her die in peace? It is such a little while! Couldn't you have waited till she was in her grave?"

"Will she see me? Just one word, Aunt Harriet." And yet while he pleaded he did not know what the one word was that he would say. Only he felt that he must see her once more.

"Not now," said Mrs. Middleton. "My poor darling shall not be tortured any[Pg 701] more. Later, if she wishes it, but not now. She could not bear it."

"What is she to you? She is all the world to me, and she shall be left in peace. It is all that I can do for her now. You have been cruel to her always—always. She has been breaking her heart for you: she lived through last night with the hope of your coming. Oh, Percival, God knows I wish we had never called you away from Miss Lisle!"

"Go back to her," said Aunt Harriet, "and leave my darling to me. We were happy at Brackenhill till you came there."

He sprang to his feet: "Aunt Harriet! have some mercy! You know I would die if it could make Sissy any happier."

He turned away with a groan, and, leaning against the wall, put his hand over his eyes. Mrs. Middleton hesitated a moment, but her haste to return to Sissy triumphed over any relenting feelings, and she left him, pausing only at the door to make sure of her calmness.

Noon came and passed. Sissy had spoken once to bid them take the needlework away. "I've done with it," she said. Otherwise she was silent, and only looked at them with gentle, apathetic eyes when they spoke to her. Dr. Grey came and went again. On his way out he noticed Percival, looked keenly at him, but said nothing.

Henry Hardwicke's desire to be useful had prompted him to station himself on the road a short distance from the farm, at the turning from the village. There he stopped people coming to inquire, and gave the latest intelligence. It was weary work, lounging there by the wayside, but he hoped he was serving Sissy Langton to the last. He could not even have a cigar to help to pass the time, for he had an idea that Mrs. Middleton disliked the smell of smoke. He stared at the trees and the sky, drew letters in the dust with the end of a stick, stirred up a small ants' nest, examined the structure of a dog-rose or two and some buttercups, and compared the flavors of different kinds of leaves. He came forward as Dr. Grey went by. The doctor stopped to tell him that Miss Langton was certainly weaker. "But she may linger some hours yet," he added; and he was going on his way when a thought seemed to strike him. "Are you staying at the farm?" he asked.

Hardwicke went off on his mission, but he could not persuade him to stir. "All right!" he said at last: "then I shall bring you something to eat here." Percival agreed to that compromise, and owned afterward that he felt better for the food he had taken.

The slow hours of the afternoon went wearily by. The rector of Fordborough came; Dr. Grey came again; Mrs. Latimer passed two or three times. The sky began to grow red toward the west once more, and the cawing rooks flew homeward, past the window where Percival sat waiting vainly for the summons which did not come.

Hardwicke, released from his self-imposed duty, came to see if Percival would go with him for half an hour or so to the Latimer Arms. "I've got a kind of tea-dinner," he said—"chops and that sort of thing. You'd better have some." But it was of no use. So when he came back to the house the good-natured fellow brought some more provisions, and begged Lucy Greenwell to make some tea, which he carried up.

"Where are you going to spend the night?" asked Harry, coming up again when he had taken away the cup and plate.

"Here," said Percival. He sat with his hands clasped behind his head and one leg drawn up on the seat. His face was sharply defined against the square of sunset sky.

Hardwicke stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down at him. "But you can't sleep here," he said.[Pg 702]

A sudden hope flashed in his eyes, for the door of Sissy's room opened, and, closing it behind her, Mrs. Middleton came out and looked up and down the passage. But she called "Harry" in a low voice, and Percival leant back again.

Harry went. Mrs. Middleton had moved a little farther away, and stood with her back toward Percival and one hand pressed against the wall to steady herself. Her first question was an unexpected one: "Isn't the wind getting up?" Her eyes were frightened and her voice betrayed her anxiety.

"I don't know—not much, I think." He was taken by surprise, and hesitated a little.

"I am—I will," he stammered. "I haven't thought about it. There is a pleasant little breeze, such as often comes in the evening. I don't really think there's any more."

"Wait a minute," said Hardwicke, and hurried off. He did not in the least understand his errand, but it was enough for him that Mrs. Middleton wanted to know. If she had asked him the depth of water in the well or the number of trees on the Priory farm, he would have rushed away with the same eagerness to satisfy her. His voice was heard in the porch, alternating with deeper and less carefully restrained tones. Then there was a sound of steps on the gravel-path. Presently he came back. Mrs. Middleton's attitude was unchanged, except that she had drawn a little closer to the wall. But though she had never looked over her shoulder, she was uneasily conscious of the young man half sitting, half lying in the window-seat behind her.

"Greenwell says it won't be anything," Hardwicke announced. "The glass has been slowly going up all day yesterday and to-day, and it is rising still. He believes we have got a real change in the weather, and that it will keep fine for some time."

"A week or two ago," she said, "my poor darling was talking about dying, as you young folks will talk, and she said she hoped she should not die in the night, when the wind was howling round the house. A bitter winter night would be worst of all, she said. It won't be that but I fancied the wind was getting up, and it frightened me to think how one would hear it moaning in this old place. It is only a fancy, of course, but she might have thought of it again lying there."

Hardwicke could not have put it into words, but the fancy came to him too of Sissy's soul flying out into the windy waste of air.

"Of course it is nothing—it is nonsense," said Mrs. Middleton. "But if it might be, as she said, when it is warm and light!—if it might be!" She stopped with a catching in her voice.

Harry, in his matter-of-fact way, offered consolation: "Dear Mrs. Middleton, the sun will rise by four, and Greenwell says there won't be any wind."

"I hope you have been taking some rest," he ventured to say after a brief silence.

"Yes. I was lying down this afternoon, and Sarah will take part of the night." She paused, and spoke again in a still lower tone: "Couldn't you persuade him to go away?"

She nodded: "I will not have her troubled. I asked her if she would see him again, and she said, 'No.' I wish he would go. What is the use of his waiting there?"

Hardwicke shrugged his shoulders: "It is useless for me to try and persuade him. He won't stir for me."

"I'll speak to him again if you like," said Harry, "though it won't do any good."

Nor did it when a few minutes later the promised attempt was made. "I[Pg 703] shall stay here," said Percival in a tone which conveyed unconquerable decision, and Hardwicke was silenced. The Greenwells came later, regretting that they had not a room to offer Mr. Thorne, but suggesting the sofa in the parlor or a mattress on the floor somewhere. Percival, however, declined everything with such courteous resolution that at last he was left alone.

Again the night came on, with its shadows and its stillness, and the light burning steadily in the one room. To all outward seeming it was the same as it had been twenty-four hours earlier, but Mrs. Middleton, watching by the bedside, was conscious of a difference. Life was at a lower ebb: there was less eagerness and unrest, less of hope and fear, more of a drowsy acquiescence. And Percival, who had been longed for so wearily the night before, seemed to be altogether forgotten.

Meanwhile, he kept his weary watch outside. He said to himself that he had darkened Sissy's last day: he cursed his cruelty, and yet could he have done otherwise? He was haunted through the long hours of the night by the words which had been ever on his lips when he won her—

and he vowed that never was man so forsworn as he. Yet his one desire had been to be true. Had he not worshipped Truth? And this was the end of all.

His cruelty, too, had been worse than useless. He had lost this chance of an independence, as he had lost Brackenhill. He hated himself for thinking of money then, yet he could not help thinking of it—could not help being aware that Sissy's entreaty to him to take her fortune was worth nothing unless a will were made, and that there had been no mention of such a thing since she spoke to him that morning. And he was so miserably poor! Of whom should he borrow the money to take him back to his drudgery at Brenthill? Well, since Sissy no longer cared for his future, it was well that he had spoken. Better poverty than treachery. Let the money go; but, oh, to see her once again and ask her to forgive him!

As the night crept onward he grew drowsy and slept by snatches, lightly and uneasily, waking with sudden starts to a consciousness of the window at his side—a loophole into a ghostly sky where shreds of white cloud were driven swiftly before the breeze. The wan crescent of the moon gleamed through them from time to time, showing how thin and phantom-like they were, and how they hurried on their way across the heavens. After a time the clouds and moon and midnight sky were mingled with Percival's dreams, and toward morning he fell fast asleep.

Again Aunt Harriet saw the first gray gleam of dawn. Slowly it stole in, widening and increasing, till the candle-flame, which had been like a golden star shining out into the June night, was but a smoky yellow smear on the saffron morning. She rose and put it out. Turning, she encountered Sissy's eyes. They looked from her to a window at the foot of the bed. "Open," said Sissy.

Mrs. Middleton obeyed. The sound of unfastening the casement awoke Sarah, who was resting in an easy-chair. She sat up and looked round.

The breeze had died away, as Harry had foretold it would, and that day had dawned as gloriously as the two that had preceded it. A lark was soaring and singing—a mere point in the dome of blue.

Aunt Harriet considered for a moment before she replied: "A little to the right, my darling."

The dying eyes were turned a little to the right. Seven miles away, yet the old gray manor-house rose before Aunt Harriet's eyes, warm on its southern slope, with its shaven lawns and whispering trees and the long terrace with its old stone balustrade. Perhaps Sissy saw it too.

Sissy smiled. Her eyes wandered from the window. "Aunt, you promised," she whispered.

There was a pause. Suddenly, Sissy spoke, more strongly and clearly than she had spoken for hours: "Tell Percival—my love to Miss Lisle."

"Fetch him," said Mrs. Middleton to Sarah, with a quick movement of her hand toward the door. As the old woman crossed the room Sissy looked after her. In less than a minute Percival came in. His dark hair was tumbled over his forehead, and his eyes, though passionately eager, were heavy with sleep. As he came forward Sissy looked up and repeated faintly, like an echo, "My love to Miss Lisle, Percival." Her glance met his and welcomed him. But even as he said "Sissy!" her eyes closed, and when, after a brief interval, they opened again, he was conscious of a change. He spoke and took her hand, but she did not heed. "She does not know me!" he said.

Her lips moved, and Aunt Harriet stooped to catch the faint sound. It was something about "Horry—coming home from school."

Hardly knowing what she said—only longing for one more look, one smile of recognition, one word—Aunt Harriet spoke in painfully distinct tones: "My darling, do you want Horace? Shall we send for Horace?"

No answer. There was a long pause, and then the indistinct murmur recommenced. It was still "Horry," and "Rover," and presently they thought she said "Langley Wood."

"Horace used to take her there for a treat," said Mrs. Middleton.—"Oh, Sissy, don't you know Aunt Harriet?"

Still, from time to time, came the vague murmur of words. It was dark—the trees—she had lost—

Percival stood in silent anguish. There was to him a bitterness worse than the bitterness of death in the sound of those faint words. Sissy was before him, yet she had passed away into the years when she did not know him. He might cry to her, but she would not hear. There was no word for him: the Sissy who had loved him and pardoned him was dead. This was the child Sissy with whom Horace had played at Brackenhill.

The long bright morning seemed an eternity of blue sky, softly rustling leaves, birds singing and golden chequers of sunlight falling on walls and floor. Dr. Grey came in and stood near. The end was at hand, and yet delayed. The sun was high before the faint whispers of "Auntie," and "Horry," ceased altogether, and even then there was an interval during which Sissy still breathed, still lingered in the borderland between living and dying. Eagerly though they watched her, they could not tell the moment when she left them.

It was late that afternoon. Hardwicke lounged with his back against the gate of the orchard and his hands in his pockets. When he lifted his eyes from the turf on which he stood he could see the white blankness of a closed window through the boughs.

He was sorely perplexed. Not ten minutes earlier Mrs. Latimer had been there, saying, "Something should be done: why does not Mr. Thorne go to her? Or could Dr. Grey say anything if he were sent for? I'm sure it isn't right that she should be left so."

Mrs. Middleton was alone with her dead in that darkened room. She was perfectly calm and tearless. She only demanded to be left to herself. Mrs. Latimer would have gone in to cry and sympathize, but she was repulsed with a decision which was almost fierce. Sarah was not to disturb her. She wanted nothing. She wanted nobody. She must be by herself. She was terrible in her lonely misery.

Hardwicke felt that it could not be his place to go. Somewhere in the priory ruins was Percival Thorne, hiding his sorrow and himself: should he find him and persuade him to make the attempt? But Harry had an undefined feeling that Mrs. Middleton did not want Percival.

He stood kicking at a daisy-root in the grass, feeling himself useless, yet unwilling to desert his post, when a hand was pressed on his shoulder and he started round. Godfrey Hammond was on the other side of the gate, looking just as cool and colorless as usual.

"Thank God you're come, Mr. Hammond!"[Pg 705] Harry exclaimed, and began to pour out his story in such haste that it was a couple of minutes before Godfrey fully understood him. The new-comer listened attentively, asking a question or two. He brushed some imperceptible dust from his gray coat-sleeve, and sticking his glass in his eye he surveyed the farmhouse.

"I think I should like to see Mrs. Middleton at once," he said when Hardwicke had finished.

Sarah showed him the way, but he preferred to announce himself. He knocked at the door.

He opened the door and saw her sitting by the bedside, where something lay white and straight and still. She turned her head as he entered, then stood up and came a step or two to meet him. "Oh, Godfrey!" she said in a low voice, "she died this morning."

"I knew it." She trembled so much that he drew her nearer, supporting her as tenderly as if he were her son, though his face above her was unmoved as ever.

"She died this morning," Mrs. Middleton repeated. She hid her face suddenly and burst into a passion of tears. "Oh, Godfrey! she was hurt so! she was hurt so! Oh my darling!"

Still, through her weeping, she clung to him. His sympathy made a faint glimmer of light in the darkness, and her sad eyes turned to it.

CHAPTER LIII.

AFTERWARD.

There is little more to write. Four years, with their varying seasons, their endless procession of events, their multitude of joys and sorrows, have passed since Sissy died. Her place in the world, which seemed so blank and strange in its first vacancy, is closed up and lost in the crowding occupations of our ordinary life. She is not forgotten, but she has passed out of the light of common day into the quiet world of years gone by, where there is neither crowd nor haste, but soft shadows and shadowy sunshine, and time for every tender memory and thought. Even Aunt Harriet's sorrow is patient and subdued, and she sees her darling's face, with other long-lost faces, softened as in a gentle dream. She looks back to the past with no pain of longing. At seventy-eight she believes that she is nearer to those she loves by going forward yet a little farther. Nor are these last days sad, for in her loneliness Godfrey Hammond persuaded her to come to him, and she is happy in her place by his fireside. He is all that is left to her, and she is wrapped up in him. Nothing is good enough for Godfrey, and he says, with a smile, that she would make the planets revolve round him if she could. It is very possible that if she had her will she might attempt some little rearrangement of that kind. Her only fear is lest she should ever be a burden to him. But that will never be. Godfrey likes her delicate, old-fashioned ways and words, and is glad to see the kind old face which smiled on him long ago when he was a lad lighted up with gentle pleasure in his presence now. When he bids her good-night he knows that she will pray before she lies down, and he feels as if his home and he were the better for those simple prayers uttered night and morning in an unbroken sequence of more than seventy years. There is a tranquil happiness in that house, like the short, golden days of a St. Martin's summer or the November blooming of a rose.

In the February after Sissy's death Godfrey went to Rookleigh for a day, to be present at a wedding in the old church where the bridegroom had once lingered idly in the hot summer-time and pictured his marriage to another bride. That summer afternoon was not forgotten. Percival, standing on the uneven[Pg 706] pavement above the Shadwells' vault, remembered his vision of Sissy's frightened eyes even while he uttered the words that bound him to Judith Lisle. But those words were not the less true because the thought of Sissy was hidden in his heart for ever.

Since that day Percival has spent almost all his time abroad, leading such a life as he pictured long ago, only the reality is fairer than the day-dream, because Judith shares it with him. Together they travel or linger as the fancy of the moment dictates. Percival does not own a square yard of the earth's surface, and therefore he is at liberty to wander over it as he will. He is conscious of a curious loneliness about Judith and himself. They have no child, no near relations: it seems as if they were freed from all ordinary ties and responsibilities. His vague aspirations are even less definite than of old; yet, though his life follows a wandering and uncertain track, fair flowers of kindliness, tolerance and courtesy spring up by that wayside. Judith and he do not so much draw closer day by day as find ever new similarity of thought and feeling already existing between them. His heart turns to her as to a haven of peace; all his possibilities of happiness are in her hands; he rests in the full assurance that neither deed nor word of hers can ever jar upon him; in his darker moods he thinks of her as clear, still sunlight, and he has no desire apart from her. Yet when he looks back he doubts whether his life can hold another moment so supreme in love and anguish as that moment when he looked into Sissy's eyes for the last time and knew himself forgiven.

SOME ASPECTS OF CONTEMPORARY ART.

The art of the present day succeeds to the art of past centuries not immediately nor by an insensible gradation. It is preceded by an interval of absolute deadness in matters artistic. Sixty years ago art in almost every branch was a sealed book to the majority of even well-educated persons, and contentedly contemplated by them as such. All love for it, with all knowledge of its history and all desire for its development, was for a generation or two confined to a few professed followers and a few devoted patrons, the mass of mankind thinking of it not at all. But slowly a revival came in the main centres of civilization—not much sooner in one than in another, though somewhat differently in each. In Germany we see it beginning with the famous Teutonic colony at Rome, reverent in spirit, cautious in method, severe in theory, restrained in style—culminating, on the one hand, in the academic pietism of Overbeck, on the other in the deliberate majesty of Cornelius. In France the new life begins with the successors of David, strenuous, impetuous, jealous and innovating, Ingres and outline waging deadly battle with color and Delacroix. In England architectural enthusiasm gave the first impulse, the "Gothic Revival" becoming the basis of all subsequent work.

If, before noting the points of difference between one branch and another of this modern art, we try to find the characteristics in which these branches resemble one another, and by which they collectively are distinguished from earlier developments, we find the most prominent one to be self-consciousness—not necessarily self-conceit, but the inward consciousness that they are, and the endeavor to realize just what they are. With these comes, when the art is conscientious, a desire to discover the noblest goal and to formulate the best methods of reaching it. Some, casting[Pg 707] the horoscope for this struggling art of ours, find in these facts a great discouragement, believing that the vital germ of art is spontaneity—believing that there cannot again be a genuine form of art until there arise a fresh race of artists, unfed by the mummy-wheat of tradition, unfettered by the cere-cloths of criticism. Others, more sanguine, believe that spontaneity has done all it can, and that its place is in the future to be worthily filled by a wide eclecticism. Let us inquire what testimony as to the value of spontaneity and the influence of self-consciousness in art may be gathered from the methods and results of the past, and what from a contrast between the different contemporary schools in their methods and their results. Painting, as most prominently before our eyes and minds just now, will principally concern us.

To the making of every work of art go three things and no more—the material worked upon, the hand that works, and the intellect or imagination which guides that hand. When the proportion is perfect between the three, the work of art is perfect of its kind. But in the different kinds of art the necessary proportion is not the same. In music, for example, the medium is at its lowest value, the imagination at its highest. In architecture, on the other hand, material is most important. Musicians use the vibration of string and atmosphere, sculptors use bronze and marble, painters use color and canvas, poets use rhythm and rhyme, as vehicles to express their ideas. The architect's ideas are for the sake of his material. He takes his material as such, and embellishes it with his ideas—creates beauty merely by disposing its masses and enriching its surface. But in all and each of these processes, whether mind predominate or matter, there comes in as a further necessary factor the actual technical manipulation. Poetic visions and a noble mother-tongue do not constitute a man a poet if he cannot treat that language nobly according to the technique of his art. Nor, though Ariel sing in his brain and the everlasting harp of the atmosphere wait for him, is he a musician if he have not a sensitive ear and a knowledge of counter-point. More notably yet does the hand—and in this as a technical term I include the other bodily powers which go to form technical skill,—more notably yet does the hand come in play with the painter. Here the material is little, the imagination mighty indeed, but less overwhelming than with poet and musician; but the technique, the God-given and labor-trained cunning of retina and wrist, how all-important! often how all-sufficing!

In all criticism it is necessary first to reflect which of these three factors—intellectual power, physical endowment or propitious material—is most imperious. When we find this factor most perfectly developed, and the others, though subordinate, neither absent nor stunted, we shall find the art nearest to perfection. And the conditions of race and climate and society which most helpfully develop that factor without injuring the others are the conditions which will best further that art. And the critic who lays most stress on that factor, and is content to miss, if necessary, though noting the loss, a certain measure of the other two in order more entirely to gain the one that is vitalest, is the critic whose words are tonic. And he who, blending the province of the arts, calling them all with vagueness "art," exalts and demands the same factor first in all of them, must be detrimental, no matter how great his sincerity and his knowledge.

Before weighing any contemporary thing in the balance let us mark out in the past some standards of comparison. For it is useless to speculate upon theoretical methods if we can discover the actual methods employed by those whose art, if not ideally perfect, is yet so far beyond our present power as to be quite perfectly ideal. It needs no discussion to prove that to find the utmost that has been actually accomplished by human endeavor we must turn in sculpture and in language to Greece, in music to Germany, in architecture to Greece or to mediæval Europe as our taste may pull, and in painting to the Italians.

The primary conception of art in its productive[Pg 708] energy is as a certain inspiration. How did that inspiration work in those whom we acknowledge to have received it in fullest measure? If we think a moment we shall say, "Involuntarily"—by a sort of possession rather than a voluntary intellectual effort. The sculpture of the Greeks, their tragedies and their temples, were all wrought simply, without effort, without conscious travailing, by a natural evolution, not by a potent egg-hatching process of instructive criticism and morbid self-inspection and consulting of previous models, native and foreign. Architectural motives were gathered from Egypt and the East, from Phoenicia and Anatolia, but they were worked in as material, not copied as patterns; and the architecture is as original as if no one had ever built before. Phidias and Praxiteles and the rest shaped and chiselled, aiming at perfection no doubt, trying to do their best, but without troubling themselves as to what that best "ought" to be. Criticism was rife in Athens of all places, but it was a criticism of things existing, not of things problematically desirable. Statue and temple-front were criticised, not sculptor and architect—surely not sculpture and architecture in the abstract. Not sculptors and architects, that is, when the question was of their works. The men came in for their share of criticism, but on a different count. Theseus and Athene were judged as works of art, not as lame though interesting revelations of Phidias's soul. And be sure no faintest sin of the chisel was excused on the plea that Phidias meant more than he could express, and so bungled in the expression. Nor was the plea advanced that such bungling after the infinite was better than simple perfection in the attainable. An artist was called upon to be an artist, not a poet nor a philosopher nor a moralist. When Plato confounded them all in a splendid confusion of criticism the fruit-time had gone by. There was left but to expatiate on the hoard which summer had bequeathed, or to speculate, if he chose, on the possible yield of a future and most problematical year.

In the rich Italian summer one sees the same thing. Men paint because they must—because put at anything else they come back to art as iron to the magnet. Not because art is lovely, nor because to be an artist is a desirable or a noble or a righteous thing, but because they are artists born, stamped, double-dyed, and, kick as they might, they could be nothing else—if not artists creative, yet artists critical and appreciative. Truly, they think and strive over their art, write treatises and dogmas and speculations, vie with and rival and outdo each other. But it is their art they discuss, not themselves, not one another—technical methods, practical instruction, questions of pigment and model and touch, of perspective and chiaroscuro and varnish, not psychological æsthetics, biographical and psychical explanations as to facts of canvas and color. What is done is what is to be criticised. What can be done technically is what should be done theoretically, and what cannot be done with absolute and perfect technical success is out of the domain of art once and for ever. As the Greek did not try to carve marble eyelashes, so no Venetian tried to put his conscience on a panel. All Lionardo could see of Mona Lisa's soul he might paint, not all he could feel of Lionardo's. Mr. Ruskin himself quotes Dürer's note that Raphael sent him his drawings, not to show his soul nor his theories, but simply seine Hand zu weisen—to prove his touch. In Raphael's touch was implied Raphael's eye, and those two made the artist Raphael.

Nothing strikes one more in these men than the oblivion of self in their work. Only one of the first-rank men was self-conscious, and he, the most mighty as a man, is by no means the first as an artist. And even Michael Angelo had not the self-consciousness of to-day: it requires a clique of commentators and a brotherhood of artists equally infected to develop that. But just so far as he tried to put his mighty self into his work, just so far he failed of artistic perfection; and not every one is Michael Angelo to make even failure beautifully colossal. In architecture, which in his day was already a dead art to be galvanized, not alive and manly[Pg 709] like the art of the painter, his self-consciousness shows most strongly and his failure is most conspicuous. Here he did not create, but avowedly composed—set himself deliberately to study the past and to decide what was best for the future. And upon none but him rests the blame of having driven out of the semi-unconscious, semi-original Renaissance style what elements of power it had, and sent it reeling down through two centuries crazed with conceit and distorted with self-inspection.

On the unconscious development of mediæval architecture, due to no one man, but to a universal interest in and appreciation of the art, it is unnecessary to dwell. Nor need we for present purposes seek further illustration farther afield. Let us take time now to look more narrowly at the art of to-day, and try to mark the different shapes it has taken with different nations.

The most decided school is in France: her artists, many in number, confine, whether involuntarily or not, their individual differences within sharply-marked and easily-noted limits. In Germany the schools are two—one of so-called historical painting at Munich, one of what we may name domestic painting at Düsseldorf. This last may be put on one side as having no specially obtrusive characteristics, and by German pictures will be meant those of the Munich and Vienna type, whether actually from the studios of Munich and Vienna or not. In English contemporary art can one pretend to find a school at all in any true sense of the word? What we do find is a very widespread art-literature and talk of art, a large number of working artists varying in temperament, and a vast horde of amateurs, who are not content to be patrons, but yearn also to be practisers of art.

In England theories of art are more carefully discussed and more widely diffused than they are in any other country. But they are theories of an essentially untechnical, amateurish, literary kind. The English critic calls all law and philosophy, all rules of morals and manners, of religion and political economy and science and scientific æsthetics, to aid his critical faculty when he needs must speak of pictures. In Germany there is also much theorizing, but of a different kind. It is not so much the whole physical and psychical cosmos that the German critic studies as the past history of art in its most recondite phases and most subtle divergences. Upon this he draws for information as to the value of the work before him. On the other hand, we shall find French art-criticism to be almost purely technical.

As the critics differ, so do the criticised by the natural law of national coherence. An English painter is apt to be primarily an embodied theory of one sort or another; which theory is more or less directly connected with his actual work as a painter. A German painting is apt to be scientifically composed on theory also, but a theory drawn from the study of art per se, not of the whole world external to art. The work of a Frenchman, like the criticism of his commentator, is primarily technical.

Because both German work and English work are theoretical compared with French, I do not wish to imply that technically they are on a par. Aside from the difference of imaginative power in the two nations, which renders German conceptions more valuable in every way than contemporary English ideas, there is a great difference in the technical training of the two groups of artists. German work often shows technical qualities as notable as those we find in France, though of another kind. The noble physical endowment of an artist—that by reason of which, and by reason of which alone, he is an artist—is twofold: power of eye and power of hand. By power of the eye I mean simple vision exalted into a special gift, a special appreciation of line, an ultra delicate and profound perception of color, and an exact, unconscious memory. This last is not imagination nor imaginative memory, but an automatic power, if I may so say, of the retina—as unconscious as is the pianist's memory of his notes, and as unerring. It is not the power to fix in the mind by conscious effort the objects[Pg 710] before one, and to recall them deliberately, inch by inch, at any time, but the power, when the brush pauses trembling for the signal, to put down unerringly facts learned God knows where, or imagined God knows how. Automatic, I repeat, this power must be. The tongue might not be able to tell, nor the mind deliberately to recall in cold blood, what was the depth of blue on a distant hill or the vagueness of its outlines, or what the anatomical structure of a mistress's fingers. But the brush knows, as nothing but the brush of an artist can; and when it comes to painting them, aërial perspective and anatomical detail must come right. This is the first and the great endowment. And the second is like unto it in—Shall I use the fashionable artistic slang and say preciousness? It is the gift of a dexterous hand, winged with lightness and steady as steel, sensitive as a blind man's finger-tips, yet unerring in its stroke as the piston of a steamship. This is a gift as well as the other, but it can, far more than the other, be improved and developed by practice and patience. Both gifts in equal perfection constitute a technical master. It is hardly necessary to say that no man—certainly no nation—can to-day claim the highest measure of both. The French are most highly gifted with the first, the Germans with the second. In the latter, patience and science, working upon a natural aptitude, have developed great strength and accuracy of wrist, and with this the power of composition and design, purity and accuracy of outline, and good chiaroscuro. But the whole race is deficient in a sense of color. Its work is marked by crudeness and harshness, or at the best reticence—splendor without softness or inoffensiveness without charm. In cases where much is attempted in color—as in what is undoubtedly one of the best of contemporary paintings, Knille's Tannhäuser and Venus in the Berlin Gallery—the success is by no means on a par with the great excellence of drawing and composition. In France the eye for color is present—I will not say as in Venice, but to a greater degree than in the two other nations.

If we leave now professional painters and professional critics and turn to the untrained public, we shall find, of course, all our modern faults more evident. The English public is pre-eminently untechnical in its judgments, pre-eminently literary or moral. But the French and the German public approximate more to the English—as is natural—than do their respective artists. I use the word literary as it has often been used by others in characterizing the popular art-criticism of the time—and in England much of the professional criticism also—to denote a prominence given to the subject, the idea, the story—l'anecdote, as a French critic calls it—over the purely painter's work of a picture. It denotes the theory that a picture is not first to please the sense, but to catch the fancy or the intellect or to touch the heart. This feeling, which in France turns toward sensationalism, in England toward sentimentality, is something other than the interest which attaches to historical painting as the record of facts—in itself not the highest interest one can find in a work of art. If we think back for a moment, we shall see how different from either of these moods was the mood in which the great Italians painted. Some "subject" of course a painting must have that is not a portrait, but these men chose instinctively—hardly, it is to be supposed, theoretically—such subjects as were most familiar to their public, and therefore least likely to engage attention primarily, and to the exclusion of the absolute pictorial value of the painting as such. We never find Titian telling anecdotes. His portraits are quiescence itself—portraits of men and women standing in the fulness of beauty and strength to be painted by Titian. We do not find likenesses snatched in some occurrence of daily life or in some dramatic action of historical or biographical importance. Even Raphael's great frescoes are symbolical more truly than historical, expressing the significance of a whole series of events rather than literally rendering one single event. The first remark of many who, accustomed to the literary interest of modern pictures, are for the[Pg 711] first time making acquaintance with the old masters, is, that the galleries are so unexcitingly monotonous: the subjects are not interesting. Portraits, scenes from sacred history or Greek mythology,—that is all among the Italians. Desiring nothing but beauty of line and color, and expressiveness provided it was beautiful, they

sought a subject merely as the raison d'etre of beauty. Raphael could paint the Madonna and Child a score of times, and Veronese his Marriages of Cana, and all of them Magdalenes and St. Sebastians by the dozen, without thinking of finding fresh subjects to excite fresh interest. Nor does this restricted range of subjects imply, under the hand of a master, monotony. There is more unlikeness in Raphael's Madonnas than in the figures of any modern artist, whatever their variety of name and action. Even a century later than Raphael, among the Flemings and Hollanders, the best pictures are the simplest, the least dependent for their interest upon anything dramatic or anecdotal in their subject. The triumphs of the Dutch school are the portraits of the guilds. The masterpieces of Rubens are his children and single figures and biblical scenes, not his Marie de Medicis. And what of Rembrandt is so perfect as his Saskia with the Pink at Dresden? If we have a photograph even of such a picture as this constantly before us, with a modern picture of anecdotal interest, no matter how vivid and pleasant that interest may have been at first, it is not hard to predict which will please us longest—which will grow to be an element in the happiness of every day, while the other becomes at last fade and insipid. This even if we suppose its technical excellence to be great. How, then, shall such interest take the place of technical excellence?

This modern love of l'anecdote is not exactly the cause perhaps, nor yet the effect, of the self-consciousness of modern art, but it goes hand in hand with it: they are manifestations of the same spirit in the two different spheres of worker and spectator.

But it may be said, If Michael Angelo was self-conscious, it was because he first caught the infection of modern times. Life, the world, the nineteenth century, are self-conscious through and through. It is impossible to be otherwise. It is impossible for a world which has lived through what ours has, which has recorded its doings and sufferings and speculations for our benefit, ever to be naïve or spontaneous in anything. Inspiration unsought and unquestioned is a thing of the past. Study, reflection, absorption, eclecticism,—these are the watchwords of the future. If this were granted, many would still think it an open question whether art of the highest kind would in the future be possible or not. But is by no means necessary to grant it, for we have had in the most learned and speculative of nations an art in our century—still surviving, indeed, in our very midst—the growth of which has been as rapid and the flowering as superb as the growth and bloom of sculpture in Greece or of painting in Italy. I mean, of course, music in Germany. And if we think a moment we shall see that its growth was as unpremeditated, its direction and development as unbiassed by theories, its votaries as untroubled with self-consciousness, as if they had been archaic sculptors or builders of the thirteenth century. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, what sublime unconsciousness of their own personality as the personality of artists and as influencing art! Does Richard Wagner seem at first sight to be a glaring exception to such a rule—seem to strive more than any other artist in any branch of art to be critic as well—seem, perhaps, to be most notably self-conscious even in an age of self-consciousness? The most highly gifted of the generation as an artist, his musical talent developed spontaneously, irresistibly. It had thus developed before he began to reason about it, to justify in theory that which had approved itself in fact. His power lies in the union we find in him of musician and dramatist. His dogmatizing and theorizing expatiate not on the way he works in either art, but on the propriety of combining the two.[Pg 712] Not his theories, but his artist's instinct, taught him how to do it as it is done in the Meistersinger. His theories try to explain his work, but by just so much as his work is consciously founded on his theories, by just so much is it less perfect than it would have been had he preserved his unconsciousness. The fact of his self-consciousness tends in many eyes to mark him as the rearguard of a line of artists, the pioneer of a generation of critical musicians. May Liszt perhaps serve as a sample of such—learned, critical, self-conscious, productive, but unoriginal? And the worst sign in Germany is less that the young musicians copy Wagner than that they copy him not instinctively and by nature, but theoretically and of deliberate intent, exalting his theories to rank beside his work.

It seems at first strange that, music being at once the glory and the recreation of the whole German nation, and a knowledge of it being native to the vast majority of individual Germans, there is little existing musical criticism—none as compared with the abounding German criticism on every other branch of art and every other subject under the sun. The field offered here to the cobweb-spinning German brain is wide and attractive. It seems strange that it should be as yet uncultivated, unless we fall back on the theory that art at its vitalest is of necessity uncritical, and that where an inborn love of, and aptitude for, an art exists with a daily enjoyment of its technical perfection, we shall be least likely to find it elaborately criticised theoretically. Where practice is abundantly satisfactory theories are superfluous.

Below, though still in the same category with, the musical gift of the Germans we may cite the literary gift of the English. For though this may not be the greatest literary epoch of England, yet it will not be denied that the greatest of English aptitudes is for literature. The wide appreciation of it in England is unmatched by a like appreciation of any other form of art. The growth of English novel-writing and its healthy development, accompanied, it may be, by many fungus-growths due to over-fertility, afford us the spectacle of a contemporary yet spontaneous English art, unforced by hothouse cultivation, uninfluenced by theories. A century or so hence the hearty, unconscious bloom of narrative literature in our day and language may seem as strange as seems to us the spontaneous blossoming of Venetian painting, of Greek sculpture, or of architecture in the Ile de France. An Englishman of to-day who thinks painters can be spun out of theories would surely laugh with instinctive knowledge of the veritable requirements of their art if one were to propose supplying novelists or poets in a similar way.

If we thus acknowledge that two kinds of art—and those two requiring the greatest amount of imaginative power—can flourish with spontaneity even in so self-conscious a civilization as ours, we shall fail to see in that civilization a sufficient a priori reason why the same might not have been the case with painting. If, however, still keeping to our own day, we look for the reverse of this picture, we shall find some approach to it in the condition of the painter's art in England. Here theory runs wild, practice falls far behind, and a great part of the practice that exists is inspired and regulated by theory. Artists are especially self-conscious, and the public, while much concerned with things artistic and fed on daily food of art-theory and speculation, is specially devoid of an innate artistic sense and an educated faculty for appreciating technical perfection.

In England, more even than on the Continent or with ourselves, is there a passion for story-telling with the brush, a desire to give ideas instead of pictures, a denial of the fact that the main object of a picture is to please the eye just as truly and as surely as the main object of a symphony is to please the ear. If we look through the catalogue of a Royal Academy exhibition, we notice the preponderance of scenes illustrative of English or other literature—of canvases that tell a story or point a moral or bear a punning or a sentimental title. And we[Pg 713] notice the great number of quotations introduced into the catalogue without any actual explanatory necessity. Even landscapes are dragged into the domain of sentiment, and Mr. Millais, who copies Nature with the exactest reverence, cannot call his brook a brook, but "The sound of many waters;" and a graveyard is not named a graveyard, but "Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap;" and instead of Winding the Clock we are told "The clock beats out the life of little men." A canvas representing "untrodden snow" must be ticketed, for increase of interest, "Within three miles of Charing Cross." Another is marked, "Christmas Eve: a welcome to old friends. (See Silas Marner.)" And so on, ad infinitum. May one not say ad nauseam before a piece of marble labelled "Baby doesn't like the water," or a canvas by Faed, R. A., called "Little cold tooties," or the portrait by the president of the Academy of a child on her pony denoted not only by the child's name in full, but her pony's also?

Prominent also at a first visit to a London exhibition stands out the hesitancy; of English artists to deal with large canvases and life-size figures—their strict confinement to genre of a domestic or bookishly archæological type. This is not the place to discuss the causes of such a fact, nor to insist on the lack of certain technical qualities in even the best English work. Such discussions can only be profitable when the originals are at hand to recriticise the criticism.

More striking than anything to be seen in 1877 at the Royal Academy was the small collection of pictures at the Grosvenor Gallery, organized and controlled by a noble amateur—himself a painter also—with the avowed intention of exhibiting the latest and most eccentric phases of English art. To a Londoner the opening day was interesting, as revealing the newest works of the most conspicuous London artists. To a stranger fresh from continental pictures, old and new, eager to see the touch of hands so often described in print, it was a revelation not only of a few men's work, but of the tendency of a national art and the artistic temperament of a whole people. Superficially, these pictures seemed the exact opposite of those at the conservative Academy—as aberrant as the latter were commonplace. But to one who knew them as the work of a fashionable, highly-educated clique they seemed merely a reaction of the same spirit that produced the elder style. In striving to get out of the rut of commonplace which had so long held in its grip the wheels of English art, not originality, so much as deliberate, sought-out eccentricity, was the result. The scale of work, starting from the original bathos of domestic sentimentality, runs up to the veriest contortions of affected mediævalism, rarely striking out a note of common sense. Simple English art is the apotheosis of the British middle-class spirit, of Mr. Arnold's "Philistinism." English art departing from this spirit shows, not Mr. Arnold's "sweetness and light," not calmness, repose, sureness of self, unconsciousness of its own springs of life, but theories running into vague contradictions, a far-fetched abnormalness, a morbid conception of beauty, a defiant disregard of the fact that a public exists which judges by common sense and the eye, not by a fine-spun confusion of theories and an undefined but omnipotent and deified "æsthetic sense" non-resident in the optic nerve. Mr. Whistler's pictures to-day, cleverly as he can paint if he will, are not pictures—I do not mean in fact, which is certainly true—but in title. They are "Natures in Black and Gold," or "In Blue and Silver," or "In Blue and Gold," or "Arrangements in Black," or "Harmonies in Amber and Brown." Here we have the desperate reaction from the idea that l'anecdote is everything to the idea that it is sufficient to represent nothing (poetically conceived!) with little color and less form, with the vaguest and slightest and most untechnical technique. It is hard to say which would most puzzle Titian redivivus—"Little cold tooties," or a blue-gray wash with a point or two of yellow, bearing some imaginary resemblance to the Thames with its gaslights,[Pg 714] and called a "Nocturne in Blue and Gold."

The French "impressionalist" clique, similar in spirit to these Englishmen, though less outré in practice, is not by any means of so great importance in France as they are in England. It has more than once been remarked in England that the old-fashioned amateur—patron and critic, kenner—is dying out, and that his modern substitute must not only choose, but experiment—not only admire, but be admired. This spirit, spreading through a nation, will not make it a nation of artists, but will make the nation's artists amateurs. No critic, no amateur, is more loath to try his own hand than the one who most deeply and rightly appreciates the skill of others, and the rare and God-given and difficult nature of that skill. The confusion of amateur with professional work lowers the standard, so there will be every year fewer to tell the mass of the nation that most useful of truths—how earnest a thing is true art, and how rare a native appreciation of its truest worth.

There is no place where the interest excited by national art is so widespread, where the exhibitions are so crowded, where they so regulate times and seasons, annual excursions to and departures from town, as in England. Yet there is no place where the interest in art seems to a stranger so factitious, so much a matter of fashion and custom, of instinctive following of chance-appointed bell-wethers. It would scarcely be a matter of surprise if the whole thing should collapse through some pin-thrust of rival interest or excitement, and next year's exhibition be a desert, next year's artists paint their theories and their souls for unregarding eyes, or rather for unheeding brains. Have we not an apology for such a suggestion in the history of the rage for Gothic architecture, so thoroughly demonstrated in every possible theoretical and philosophical way to be the only proper style for Englishmen present or future, so devotedly and exclusively followed for a while by the profession, only to be suddenly abandoned for its fresher rivals, the so-called styles of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Anne?

In the throngs that flocked to the opening of the Royal Academy, waiting hours before the doors were opened, fighting and struggling for a foothold on the stairs, eager to be the first to see, though there were weeks of opportunities ahead—in the rare recurrence through the hum of the vast criticising crowd of a word of technical judgment or sober artistic criticism—it was easy to recognize the same spirit that confuses morality with chair-legs, that finds a knocker more "sincere" and "right" than a door-bell, that insists as upon a vital necessity that the heads of all nails should be visible and that all lines should be straight, and would as soon have a shadow on its conscience as in the pattern of wall-paper. Nowhere was decorative art so non-existent a few years ago as in England—nowhere is it so universally dwelt upon to-day. Yet it is easy to see how entirely the revival is a child of theory and books and teachers and rules—how little owing to a spontaneous development of art-instinct in the people, a spontaneous desire for more beauty in their surroundings, a spontaneous knowledge of how it is best to be obtained.

The literary and un-painterlike—if I may use such an awkward term—nature of English art is shown perhaps more forcibly in its critics than in artists or public. One is especially struck in reading criticisms of whatever grade with the excessive prominence given to the artist's personality. The work of this year is judged not so much by its excellence as by comparison with the work of last year. A——'s pictures, and B——'s and C——'s and D——'s, are interesting and valuable mainly as showing A——'s improvement, or B——'s falling off, or C——'s unexpected change of theme, or D——'s fine mind and delicate sensibilities.

Mr. Ruskin is without doubt the most remarkable of English critics, and summarizes so many opposite theories and tendencies that his pages may in some sort be taken as an epitome of the whole matter. It would be impossible to abstract[Pg 715] from their great bulk any consecutive or consistent system of thought or precept. His influence has been mainly by isolated ideas of more or less truth and value. It is impossible here to analyze his work. Such is the mixed tissue of his woof that the captive princess who was set to sort a roomful of birds' feathers had scarcely a harder task than one who should try to separate and classify his threads, some priceless and steady, some rotten, false, misleading. Morals, manners, religion, political economy, are mixed with art in every shape—art considered theoretically and technically, historically, philosophically and prophetically. Various as are his views on these varying subjects, on no one subject even do they remain invariable. Yet such is the charm of his style, delightfully sarcastic, and eloquent as a master's brush, so vividly is each idea presented in itself, that, each idea being enjoyed as it comes, all seem at first of equal value. We realize neither the fallacy of many taken singly nor the conflict of all taken together. His points are often cleverly and faithfully put, and our attention is so riveted on this cleverness and faithfulness that we take for granted the rightness of his deductions, slovenly, illogical or false though they may be. What we most remark in his books is how the purely artistic element in his nature—of a very high grade and very true instincts—is dwarfed of full development and stunted of full results by the theorizing literary bent which he has in common with his time and people. In theorizing even on truly-felt and clearly-stated facts, in explaining their origin and unfolding their effects, his guidance is least valuable. We may more safely ask him what than why. His influence on English art has been great at the instant: whether it will be permanent is doubtful. At one time it was said that without having read his books one could tell by an inspection of the Royal Academy walls what Mr. Ruskin had written in the past year. Now, the most notable exponents of his teaching, whether consciously so or not, are on the one hand the shining lights of the Grosvenor Gallery—hierophants of mysticism and allegory and symbolism and painted souls and moral beauty expressed in the flesh, copying Ruskin's Botticelli line for line, forgetting that what was naïveté in him, and in him admirable, because all before him had done so much less well, becomes to-day in them the direst affectation, is reprehensible in them because many before them have done so much better. On the other hand, we have a naturalistic throng which follows Mr. Ruskin's precepts when he overweights the other side of the scale and says that art should "never exist alone, never for itself," never except as "representing a true"—defined as actually-existing—"thing or decorating a useful thing;" when he declares that every attempt by the imagination to "exalt or refine healthy humanity has weakened or caricatured it." Mr. Ruskin bade men "go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought but how best to penetrate her meaning, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing;" and Mr. Hamerton was literally obeying him when he exiled himself for five years in a hut on an island in a bleak Scotch lake to learn faithfully to portray the shores of that single lake. Was it thus that Titian studied in his youth, and learned how, years after in Venice, to paint the chestnuts and the hills of Cadore a thousand-fold more artistically and more truly, because more abstractly and more ideally, than could all the "pre-Raphaelite" copyists of to-day? Thus we see the two extremes of Mr. Ruskin's teaching—see him at one time exalting imagination and feeling over the pictorial part of art, at another degrading art into the servilest copying.

Observers may disagree as to whether these cognate things—self-consciousness in the artist, æsthetic philosophizing in the critic, and the taste for a literary rather than a pictorial value in the public—are on the increase or on the decrease in the various centres of art. Annual exhibitions—a significant illustration of our high-pressure life in art as in other things—would seem to tend toward deepening[Pg 716] these faults. Attention must be attracted at all hazards, and the greater the number of exhibitors and the average attractiveness of their canvases the greater becomes the temptation to shine, not by excellence, but by eccentricities of treatment, or, still more, by the factitious interest of a "telling" subject. Is it due, perhaps, to this constant desire for notoriety on the part of the artist, and for more and more excitement on the part of the public, that in all modern schools, landscape art, as less possibly influenced by such a state of things, stands ahead of the art which has humanity for its subject? It is scarcely possible to find in France to-day a figure-painter who is a Daubigny, still less a Jules Dupré. Next to these unquestionably stand such animal-painters as Bonheur and Troyon; and it would be hard among the youngest file of artists to find a figure-painter who in his line should rival Van Marcke in his. In England also landscape ranks ahead, and it is perhaps in comparing it with French landscape that the difference between the schools is most truly though not most glaringly displayed. Even here, and in the allied fields of animal-painting, the desire for l'anecdote creeps in, and Landseer with all his talent often prostitutes his brush in the attempt to make his brutes the centre of dramatic action, and forces into them semi-human characteristics in order to extract from them tales or ideas of human interest. It was not thus that Veronese painted dogs or Franz Snyders his lions and boars—not thus that the Greeks have put the horse into art. Nor, to take the best contemporary comparison, is it thus that Barye's bronzes are designed.

Landscape brings us inevitably to Turner. The most highly gifted of all English artists, past or present, his genius was hardly a logical outcome of the contemporary spirit of his nation. We have no right to say this of an artist, no right to call him anomalous, while we are still in doubt as to whether he may be only the advance-guard of a new national art, the herald of a new avatar. But when he with his generation dies, when another generation develops and bears fruit, and a third is beginning to blossom, and he still seems anomalous, it is fair to hold him exceptional in his country's art, rather than characteristic thereof. Together with wonderful endowments of eye and hand, and a prodigious power of work, Turner's earlier works show us an unconscious development and a healthy oblivion of his own personality. But later the fatal modern fever entered his blood, ending in something very like delirium. From a painter he became a theorist, contaminated by a rush of criticism alike indiscriminate in praise and injudicious in blame. We shall see the baleful effects of modern methods if we look, in the wonderful series at the National Gallery, first at the pictures painted when Turner was an artist thinking of painting, then to those done when he was a self-conscious experimentalist thinking of Turner—Turner worshipped by Ruskin, Turner sick with envy of the Dutchmen and defiance of Claude.

I have but a line to give to the one or two other men of abnormally splendid gifts whom this century has seen. Henri Regnault's extraordinary talent was extinguished almost at the first spark, and it is beyond prophecy to tell what it might have produced. His eccentricities seem to have been quite genuine, due to an overflow of power rather than to posing or grimace. His love of his art, his passion for color, were almost frantic in their intensity, but sincere. A certain exaggerated phrase of his is but the protest of reaction against the literary painting, the erudite and philosophical art, of his time. "La vie," he cries, "étant courte, il faut peindre tant qu'on a des yeux. Donc on ne doit pas les fatiguer à lire des stupides journaux." A crude way of putting the idea that to be an artist one needs but art.

Another wonderful talent is Hans Makart. Such an eye for color, it is quite safe to say, has not been born since Veronese. Had he been born at Venice among his peers, forced to work instead of experiment, outvied instead of foolishly extolled, surrounded by artists to surpass him if he tripped for a single[Pg 717] instant, instead of critics to laud his most glaring faults and amateurs to pay thousands for his spoiled paper, we should have had another name to use as explanatory of genius. As it is, he is, according to present indications, utterly spoiled. Only those who know how he can draw if he will, how he has painted—portraits best, perhaps—when he would, are vexed beyond endurance by the folly and the carelessness and the sins he chooses to give us. It has been said that Raphael Mengs was a born genius spoiled by the coldness, the pseudo-classicism, the artificiality and eclecticism of the eighteenth century. A companion portrait is Hans Makart, ruined by the amateurishness, the rhapsodizing, the theorizing, the morbid self-consciousness of the nineteenth.

The so-called Spanish school of to-day is as yet too new for us to see exactly whither it tends. Its passion for glaring, metallic, aniline compound tints—tints that "scream," to use a French phrase—its horror of all shade and depth and of pure and simple colors, are, however, most certainly unhealthy. It is a diseased eye that in the desire for violent color loses all memory of chiaroscuro.

I have left till now unnoticed the contemporary Netherland artists, though their works are perhaps more entirely satisfactory than those of either of the three schools we have discussed. But their characteristics are less markedly distinct, less available for comparison, and can be best noted and appraised by a previously-gained knowledge of the peculiarities of English, French and German painting. The Belgian school is most closely allied to the French, and in technique is often its equal. In landscape and cattle-painting the types are similar, while Belgian figure-painting gains by the lack of the element which a French critic notes when he says modern art has become mondain—surtout demi-mondain. Nowhere does contemporary art seem so healthy and sane, so sure of itself, so consonant with the best nature and gifts of the people, as in the Netherlands: nowhere are its ideals so free from morbidness, affectation or sentimentality. Is it perhaps that in the studios of Amsterdam, in the great school of Antwerp, even in the galleries of Brussels, one is somewhat out of the wildest stream of modern life—less driven to analysis and theorizing and self-consciousness than in London, Paris or Munich? Whatever is cause, whatever effect, the Netherland school shows two things side by side—the least measure of self-consciousness, and the soundest contemporary painting: if not the most effective, it is, I think, the most full of promise. There seems to be forming the most healthy national soil for the development of future genius.

In conclusion, it may be noted that we in America, whose art is just beginning even to strive, are subjected to a somewhat strange cross-fire of influences. Lineally the children of England, we are spiritually and by temperament in many things her opposites. Our taste in art seems to turn resolutely away from her. For each hundred of French and score of German pictures that comes to us, how many come from England? What can one who has not crossed the sea learn of English pictures from our private collections and picture-dealers' shops? Was not all we knew prior to the Exhibition of 1876 gleaned from Vernon Gallery plates and Turner's Rogers or Rivers of France? But while our dealers and students and millionaires throng the studios of Paris and Munich, and our eyes are being daily educated to demand above all things technique, our brains are constantly being worked upon by a stream of art-literature from England. Taste pulls us one way—identity of English speech, with consequent openness to English ideas, pulls us the other. Pictures preach one thing, books another. Our boy who has worked in Paris comes home to try to realize Ruskin. Both influences are too new, and our art is as yet too unsteady, for any one to guess as to the ultimate result. One thing only can be unreservedly inculcated: Let us shun self-analyzation, self-consciousness, morbidness, affectation, attitudinizing. Let us look ahead as little as possible, keeping our eyes on our brushes and[Pg 718] on the world of beauty around us. One thing only can with safety be predicted: If we are, or are to be, a people of artists, creative or appreciative as the case may be, we shall learn whatever of technique the world has to teach us, and shall improve upon it, and we shall perhaps digest the small measure of theory for which we have appetites left. But if we are not artists, actual or future, technique will be impossible, and will seem undesirable. We shall greedily fill our stomachs with the wind of art-philosophy, shall work with the reason instead of with the eye and the fingers, shall symbolize our aspirations, our theorizings, our souls and our consciences, and fondly dream we are painting pictures. Or we shall copy with a hopeless effort after literalness the first face or weed we meet, and call the imperfect, mechanical result a work of art.

THREE WATCHES

I sat in the silence, in moonlight that gathered and glowed
Far over the field and the forest with tender increase:
The low, rushing winds in the trees were like waters that flowed
From sources of passionate joy to an ocean of peace.
And I watched, and was glad in my heart, though the shadows were deep,
Till one came and asked me: "Say, why dost thou watch through the
night?"
And I said, "I am watching my joy. They who sorrow may sleep,
But the soul that is glad cannot part with one hour of delight."

Again in the silence I watched, and the moon had gone down;
The shadows were hidden in darkness; the winds had passed by;
The midnight sat throned, and the jewels were bright in her crown,
For stars glimmered softly—oh softly!—from depths of the sky.
And I sighed as I watched all alone, till again came a voice:
"Ah! why dost thou watch? Joy is over, and sorrow is vain."
And I said, "I am watching my grief. Let them sleep who rejoice,
But the spirit that loves cannot part with one hour of its pain."

Once more I sat watching, in darkness that fell like a death—
The deep solemn darkness that comes to make way for the dawn:
I looked on the earth, and it slept without motion or breath,
And blindly I looked on the sky, but the stars were withdrawn.
And the voice spoke once more: "Cease thy watching, for what dost
thou gain?"
But I said, "I am watching my soul, to this darkness laid bare.
Let them sleep to whom love giveth joy, to whom love giveth pain,
But the soul left alone cannot part with one moment of prayer."

Marion Couthouy.
[Pg 719]

SISTER SILVIA.

Monte Compatri is one of the eastern outlying peaks of the Alban Mountains, and, like so many Italian mountains, has its road climbing to and fro in long loops to a gray little city at the top. This city of Monte Compatri is a full and busy hive, with solid blocks of houses, and the narrowest of streets that break now and then into stairs. For those old builders respected the features of a landscape as though they had been the features of a face, and no more thought of levelling inequalities of land than of shaving down or raising up noses. When a man had a house-lot in a hollow, he built his house there, and made Steps to go down to it: his neighbor, who owned a rocky knoll, built his house at the top, and made stairs to go up to it. Moreover, if the land was a bit in the city, the house was made in the shape of it, and was as likely to have corners in obtuse or acute as in right angles.

The inhabitants of Monte Compatri have two streets of which they are immensely proud—the Lungara, which wriggles through the middle of the town, and the Giro, which makes the entire circuit of the town, leaving outside only the rim of houses that rise from the edge of the mountain, some of them founded on the natural rock, others stretching roots of masonry far down into the earth.

One of these houses on the Giro had for generations been in the possession of the Guai family. One after another had held it at an easy rent from Prince Borghese, the owner of the town. The vineyard and orchard below in the Campagna they owned, and from those their wealth was derived. For it was wealth for such people to have a house full of furniture, linen and porcelain—where, perhaps, a connoisseur might have found some rare bits of old china—besides having a thousand scudi in bank.

In this position was the head of the family when he died, leaving a grown-up son and daughter, and his wife about to become a mother for the third time.

"Pepina shall have her portion in money, since she is to marry soon," the father said. "Give her three hundred scudi in gold and a hundred in pearls. The rest of the money shall be for my wife to do as she likes with. For the little one; when it shall come, Matteo shall put in the bank every year thirty scudi, and when it shall be of age, be it girl or boy, he shall divide the land equally with it."

So said Giovanni Guai, and died, and his wife let him talk uncontradicted, since it was for the last time. They had lived a stormy life, his heavy fist opposed to her indefatigable tongue, and she contemplated with silent triumph the prospect of being left in possession of the field. Besides, would he not see afterward what she did—see and be helpless to oppose? So she let him die fancying that he had disposed of his property.

"The child is sure to be a girl," she said afterward, "and I mean her to be a nun. The land shall not be cut up. Matteo shall be a rich man and pile up a fortune. He shall be the richest man in Monte Compatri, and a girl shall not stand in his way."

Nature verified the mother's prophecy and sent a little girl. Silvia they called her, and, since she was surely to be a nun, she grew to be called Sister Silvia by everybody, even before she was old enough to recognize her own name.

The house of the Guai, on its inner wall, opened on the comparatively quiet Giro. From the windows and door could be heard the buzz and hum of the Lungara, where everybody—men, women, children, cats and dogs—were out with every species of work and play when the sun began to decline. This was the part of the house most frequented and liked by the family. They could see their neighbors even when they were at work in their houses, and could exchange gossip[Pg 720] and stir the polenta at the same time. The other side of the house they avoided. It was lonely and it was sunny. For Italians would have the sun, like the Lord, to be for ever knocking at the door and for ever shut out. It must shine upon their outer walls, but not by any means enter their windows.

As years passed, however, there grew to be one exception in this regard. Sister Silvia loved not the town with its busy streets, nor the front windows with their gossiping heads thrust out or in. She had her own chamber on the Campagna side, and there she sat the livelong day with knitting or sewing, never going out, except at early morning to hear mass. There her mother accompanied her—a large, self-satisfied woman beside a pallid little maiden who never raised her eyes. Or, if her mother could not go, Matteo stalked along by her side, and with his black looks made everybody afraid to glance her way. Nobody liked to encounter the two black eyes of Matteo Guai. It was understood that the knife in his belt was sharp, and that no scruple of conscience would stand between him and any vengeance he might choose to take for any affront he might choose to imagine.

After mass, then, and the little work her mother permitted the girl to do for health's sake, Silvia sat alone by her window and looked out on the splendor which her eyes alone could appreciate. There lay the Campagna rolling and waving for miles and miles around, till the Sabines, all rose and amethyst, hemmed it in with their exquisite wall, and the sea curved a gleaming sickle to cut off its flowery passage, or the nearer mountains stood guard, almost covered by the green spray it threw up their rocky sides. She sat and stared at Rome while her busy fingers knit—at the wonderful city where she was one day to go and be a nun, where the pope lived and kings came to worship him. In the morning light the Holy City lay in the midst of the Campagna like her mother's wedding-pearls when dropped in a heap on their green cushion; and Silvia knelt with her face that way and prayed for a soul as white, for she was to be the spouse of Christ, and her purity was all that she could bring Him as a dowry. But when evening came, and that other airy sea of fine golden mist flowed in from the west, and made a gorgeous blur of all things, then the city seemed to float upward from the earth and rise toward heaven all stirring with the wings of its guardian angels, and Silvia would beg that the New Jerusalem might not be assumed till she should have the happiness of being in it.

But there was a lovely view nearer than this visionary one, though the little nun seldom looked at it. If she should lean from her window she would see the mountain-side dropping from the gray walls of her home, with clinging flowery vines and trees growing downward, while the olives and grapevines of the Campagna came to meet them, setting here and there a precarious little garden halfway up the steep. Just under her window an almost perpendicular path came up, crept round the walls and entered the town. But no one ever used this road now, for a far wider and better one had been constructed at the other side of the mountain, and all the people came up that way when the day's work was over in the Campagna.

One summer afternoon Silvia's reveries were broken by her mother's voice calling her: "Silvia, come and prepare the salad for Matteo."

It was an extraordinary request, but the girl went at once without question. She seized upon every opportunity to practise obedience in preparation for that time when her life would be made up of obedience and prayer.

Her mother was sitting by one of the windows talking with Matteo, who had just came up from the Campagna. He had an unsocial habit of eating alone, and, as he ate nothing when down in the vineyard, always wanted his supper as soon as he came up. The table was set for him with snow-white cloth and napkin, silver knife, fork and spoon, a loaf of bread and a decanter of golden-sparkling wine icy cold from the grotto hewn in the rock beneath the house; and he was just eating his minestra of vegetables[Pg 721] when his sister came in. At the other end of the long table was a head of crisp white lettuce lying on a clean linen towel, and two bottles—one of white vinegar, the other of oil as sweet as cream and as bright as sunshine. Monte Compatri had no need to send to Lucca for oil of olives while its own orchards dropped such streams of pure richness.

The room was large and dingy. The brick floor had never known other cleansing than sprinkling and sweeping, the yellow-washed walls had become with time a pale, mottled brown, the paint had disappeared under a fixed dinginess which the dusting-brush alone could not remove, and the glass of the windows had never been washed except by the rain. Yet, for all that, the place had an air of cleanliness. For though these people do not clean their houses more than they clean their yards, yet their clothing and tables and beds are clean. Plentiful white linen, stockings like snow, and bright dishes and metals give a look of freshness and show well on the dim background. Heavy walnut presses, carved and black with age, stood against the walls, drinking-glasses and candlesticks sparkled on a dark bureau-top, there was a bright picture or two, and the sunlighted tinware of a house at the other side of the street threw a cluster of tiny rays like a bouquet of light in at the window. Silvia received these sun-blossoms on her head when she placed herself at the lower end of the table. She pushed the sleeves of her white sack back from her slim white arms, and began washing the lettuce-leaves in a bowl of fresh water and breaking them in the towel. The leaves broke with a fine snap and dropped in pieces as stiff as paper into a large dark-blue plate of old Japanese ware. A connoisseur in porcelain would have set such a plate on his drawing-room wall as a picture.

"He works well," Matteo replied. "He is worth two of our common fellows, if he is educated."

"Nevertheless, I should not have employed him," the mother said. "He has disobeyed and disappointed his parents, and he should be punished. They meant him to be a priest, and raked and scraped every soldo to educate him. Now, just when he is at the point of being able to repay them, he makes up his mind that he has no vocation for the priesthood, and breaks their hearts by his ingratitude. It is nonsense to set one's will up so and have such scruples. Obedience is vocation enough for anything. There should be a prison where parents could put the children who disobey them."

The Sora Guai spoke sternly, and looked as if she would not have hesitated to put a refractory child in the deepest of dungeons.

"He was a fool, but he earns his money," Matteo responded, and, drawing a plate of deliciously fried frogs toward him, began to gnaw them and throw the bones on the floor.

Silvia gave him the salad, and poured wine and water into the tumbler for him, while his mother went to the kitchen for a dish of fricasseed pigeons.

Silvia uttered an exclamation of dismay, ran for a silvery-white little onion and sliced it thinly into the salad.

"Forgive me, Matteo," she said. "I was distracted by the thought of Claudio. It seems such a terrible thing."

"It would be a much more terrible thing if it were a girl who disobeyed," Matteo growled. He did not like that girls should criticise men.

"I don't know why I feel so tired to-day," the mother said, sinking into a chair again. "My bones ache as if I had been working in the vineyard all day."

The answer was a hesitating one: "I don't see what can ail me. It wouldn't be anything, only that I am so tired without having done much."

Gentle as she was, she had adopted the ruthless and ungrateful Italian custom of ascribing every ache and pain of the body to some almost imperceptible change in their too beautiful weather. The smallest cloud goes laden with more accusations than it holds drops of rain, and the ill winds that blow nobody any good blow through those shining skies from morning till night and from night till morning again.

The Sora Guai was sicker than she dreamed. It was not the summer sun that scorched her so, nor the scirocco that made her head so heavy. What malaria she had found to breathe on the mountain-top it would be hard to say; but the dreaded perniciosa had caught her in its grasp, and she was doomed. The fever burned fiercely for a few days, and when it was quenched there was nothing left but ashes.

And thus died the only earthly thing to which Sister Silvia's heart clung. The mother had been stern, but the daughter was too submissive to need correction. She had never had any will of her own, except to love and obey. Collision between them was therefore impossible, and the daughter felt as a frail plant growing under a shadowing tree might feel if the tree were cut down. She was bare to every wind that blew. She had no companions of her own age—she had no companion of any age, in fact—and she had not been accustomed to think for herself in the smallest thing.

She had got bent into a certain shape, however, and her brother and sister felt quite safe on her account. Everybody knew that she was to be a nun of the Perpetual Adoration; that she was soon to go to the convent of Santa Maria Maddalena on the Quirinal in Rome; and that, once entered there, she would never again see a person from outside. The town's-people were accustomed to the wall of silence and seclusion which had already grown up about her, and they did not even seek to salute her when they met her going to and from church in the morning. To these simple citizens, ignorant but reverential, Sister Silvia's lowered eyelids were as inviolate as the pearl gates of the New Jerusalem. Besides, to help their reverence, there were the fierce black eyes and strange reputation of Matteo. So when, a day or two after her mother's death, his sister begged him to accompany her to church in the early morning, and leave her in the care of some decent woman there, Matteo replied that she might go by herself.

She set out for the first time alone on what had ever been to her a via sacra, and was now become a via dolorosa, where her tears dropped as she walked. And going so once, she went again. Pepina, the elder sister, a widow now, had come home to keep house for Matteo, but she was too much taken up with work, the care of her two children and looking out for a second husband to have time to watch Silvia, and after a few weeks the young girl went as unheeded as a matron in her daily walk.

At home her life was nearly the same. She mended the clothes from the washing and knit stockings, and sat at her window and looked off over the Campagna toward Rome.

One evening she sat there before going to bed and watched the moonlight turn all the earth to black and silver under the purple sky—a black like velvet, so deep and soft was it, and a silver like white fire, clear and splendid, yet beautifully soft. She was feeling desolate, and her tears dropped down, now and then breaking into sobs. It had been pleasant to sit there alone when she knew that her mother was below stairs, strong, healthy and gay. All that life had been as the oil over which her little flame burned. Lacking it, she grew dim, just as the floating wick in her little blue vase before the Madonna grew dim when the oil was gone.

As she wept and heard unconsciously the nightingales, she grew conscious of another song that mingled with theirs. It was a human voice, clear and sweet as an angel's, and it sang a melody she knew in little snatches that seemed to begin and end in a sigh. The voice came nearer and paused beneath a fig tree, and the words grew distinct.[Pg 723]

Silvia leaned out of the window and looked down at the singer. His face was lifted to the white moonlight, and seemed in its pallid beauty a concentration of the moonlight. Only his face was visible, for the shadow of the tree hid all his figure. One might almost have expected to catch a glimmer of two motionless wings bearing up that face, so fair it was.

To Silvia it was as if another self, who grieved also, but who could speak, were uttering all her pain, and lightening it so. She recognized Claudio's voice. He was the chief singer in the cathedral, and sang like an angel. She was afraid that Claudio had done very wrong in not being a priest, but, for all that, she had often found her devotion increased by his singing. The Christmas night would not have been half so joyful lacking his Adeste Fideles; the Stabat Mater sung by him in Holy Week made her tears of religious sorrow burst forth afresh; and when on Easter morning he sang the Gloria it had seemed to her that the heavens were opening.

For all that, however, he had been to her not a person, but a voice. That he should come here and express her sorrow made him seem different. For the first time she looked at his face. By daylight it was thin and finely featured, and of a clear darkness like shaded water, through which the faintest tinge of color is visible. In this transfigurating moonlight it became of a luminous whiteness.

The song ended, the singer turned his head slightly and looked up at Silvia's window. She did not draw back. There was no recognition of any human sympathy with him, and no slightest consciousness of that airy and silent friendship which had long been weaving itself over the tops of the mountains that separated them. How could she know that Claudio had sung for her, and that it had been the measure of his success to see her head droop or lift as he sang of sorrow and pain or of joy and triumph? The choir had their post over the door; and, besides, she never glanced up even in going out. Therefore she gazed down into his uplifted face with a sweet and sorrowful tranquillity, her soul pure and candid to its uttermost depths.

For Claudio, who had sung to express his sympathy for her, but had not dreamed of seeing her, it was as if the dark-blue sky above had opened and an angel had looked out when he saw her face. He could only stretch his clasped hands toward her.

The gesture made her weep anew, for it was like human kindness. She hid her face in her handkerchief, and he saw her wipe the tears away again and again.

Claudio remembered a note he carried. It had been written the night before—not with any hope of her ever seeing it, but, as he had written her hundreds of notes before, pouring out his heart into them because it was too full to bear without that relief. He took the note out, but how should he give it to her? The window was too far above for him to toss so light a thing unless it should be weighted with a stone; and he could not throw a stone at Silvia's window. He held it up, and, that she might see it more clearly, tore up a handful of red poppies and laid it white on the blossoms that were a deep red by night.

Silvia understood, and after a moment's study dropped him down the ball of her knitting; and soon the note came swaying up through the still air resting on its cushion of poppies, for Claudio had wound the thread about both flowers and letter.

He smiled with an almost incredulous delight as he saw the package arrive safely at its destination and caught afterward the faint red light of the lamp that Silvia had taken down from before her Madonna to read the note by. Since she was a little thing only five or six years old his heart had turned toward her, and her small white face had been to him the one star in a dim life. He still kept two or three tiny flowers she had given him years before when his family and hers were coming together down from Monte San Silvestro at the other side[Pg 724] of Monte Compatri. The two children, with others, had stopped to stick fresh flowers through the wire screen before the great crucifix halfway up the mountain, and Silvia had given Claudio these blossoms. He had laid them away with his treasures and relics—the bit of muslin from the veil of Our Lady of Loretto, the almost invisible speck from the cord of St. Francis of Assisi and the little paper of the ashes of Blessed Joseph Labré. In those days he was the little priest and she the little nun, and their companions stood respectfully back for them. Now he was no more the priest, and she was up there in her window against the sky reading the note he had written her.

"My heart is breaking for your sorrow. Why should such eyes as yours be permitted to weep? Who is there to wipe those tears away? Oh that I might catch them as they fall! Drop me down a handkerchief that has been wet with them, that I may keep it as a relic. Tell me of some way in which I can console you and spend my life to serve you."

She read with a mingling of consolation and astonishment. Why, this was more than her mother cared for her! But perhaps men were really more strongly loving than women. It would seem so, since God, who knows all, when He wanted to express His love to mankind, took the form of a man, not of a woman. Then she considered whether, and how, she should answer this note, and the result of her considering was this, written hastily on a bit of paper in which some Agnus Dei had been wrapped:

It seemed to her a simple and merely polite note. To him it was as the spark to a magazine of powder. All the possibilities of his life, only half hoped or half dreamed of, burst at once into a flame of certainty. She had need of comfort, and he comforted her! His voice was sweet to her, and his singing was a prayer!

Silvia should not be a nun. She should break the bond imposed by her mother, as he had broken that imposed by his parents. She should be his wife, and they would live in Rome. He knew that his voice would find bread for them.

All this flashed through his mind as he read, and pressed to his lips the handkerchief which she had dropped down to him, though it was not a relic. He lifted his arms upward toward her window with a rapturous joy, as if to embrace her, but she did not look out again. A little scruple for having deprived the Madonna for a moment of her lamp had made her resolve to say at once a decade of the rosary in expiation. He waited till the sound of closing doors and wandering voices told that the inhabitants gathered for the evening in the Lungara were separating to their homes, then went reluctantly away. Matteo would be at home, and Matteo's face might look down at him from that other window beside Silvia's. So he also went home, with the moonlight between his feet and the ground and stars sparkling in his brain. He felt as if his head were the sky.

This was an August night. One day in October, Matteo told his sister that she was to go to Rome with him the next morning to pass a month with a family they knew there, and afterward begin her noviciáte in the convent of the Sacramentarians at Monte Cavallo. He had received a letter from the Signora Fantini, who would receive her and do everything for her. He and Pepina had no time, now that the vintage had begun, to attend to such affairs, even if they knew how.

Silvia grew pale. She had not expected to go before the spring, and now all was arranged without a word being[Pg 725] said to her, and she was to go without saying good-bye to any one.

Matteo's sharp eyes were watching her. "You will be ready to start at seven o'clock," he said: "I must be back to-morrow night."

"Yes, Matteo," she faltered, hesitated a moment, then ventured to add, "I did not expect to go so soon."

"And what of that?" he demanded roughly. "You were to go at the proper time, and the proper time is to-morrow."

She trembled, but ventured another word: "I should like to see my confessor first."

"He will come here this evening to see you," her brother replied: "I have already talked with him. You have nothing else to do. Pepina will pack your trunk while you are talking with the priest."

Silvia had no more to say. She was bound hand and foot. Besides, she was willing to go, she assured herself. It was her duty to obey her parents, or the ones who stood in their place and had authority over her. Matteo said she must go; therefore it was her duty to go, and she was willing.

But the willing girl looked very pale and walked about with a very feeble step, and it was hard work to keep the tears that were every moment rising to her eyes from falling over her cheeks. It was such a pitiful face, indeed, that Father Teodoli, when he came just before Ave Maria, asked if Silvia were ill.

"I will leave you to give Silvia all the advice she needs," Matteo said after the compliments of welcome were over. "I have to go down the Lungara for men to work in the vineyard to-morrow.—Silvia, come and shut the door after me: there is too much draught here."

Silvia followed her brother to the door, trembling for what he might say or do. Well she knew that his command was given only that he might have a chance to speak with her alone.

"Mind what you say to your confessor," he whispered, grasping her arm and speaking in her ear. "You are to be a nun: you wish to be, and you are willing to set out to-morrow. Tell him no nonsense—do you hear?—or it will be worse for you. I shall know every word you say. If he asks if you had a toothache say Yes. Do you hear?"

She went back half fainting, and did as she had been commanded. If there had been any little lurking impulse to beg for another week or month, it died of fear. If she had any confession to make of other wishes than those chosen for her, she postponed it. Matteo might be behind the door listening, or in the next room or at the window. It seemed to her that he could make himself invisible in order to keep guard over her.

So the priest talked a little, learned nothing, gave some advice, recommended himself to her prayers, gave her his benediction, and went. Then Pepina called her to see the trunk all packed with linen that had been laid by for her for years, and Matteo, who had really been lurking about the house, told her to go to bed, and himself really went off this time to the Lungara. Pepina's lover came for her to sit out on the doorstep with him, and Silvia was left alone. Nobody cared for her. All had other interests, and they forgot her the moment she was out of their sight. Worse, even: they wanted her to be for ever out of their sight, that they might never have to think of her.

But no: there was one who did not forget her—who would perhaps now have heard that she was going away, and be waiting in the mountain-path for her. She hastened to her room, locked the door and went to the window. He made a gesture of haste, and she dropped the ball down to him. This was not the second time that their conversation had been held by means of a thread. Indeed, they had come to talk so every night. At first it had been a few words only, and Silvia's unconsciousness and her sincerity in her intention to follow her mother's will had imposed silence[Pg 726] on the young man. But little by little he had ventured, and she had understood; and within the last week there had been no concealments between them, though Silvia still resisted all his prayers to change her resolution and brave her brother.

"Is it possible that what I hear is true? I will not believe it: I will not let you go."

"Yes, and I must go," she wrote back. "I have to start at seven in the morning. Dear Claudio, be resigned: there is no help for it."

"Silvia, why will you persist in ruining your life and mine? It is a sin. Say that you are too sick to go to-morrow. Stay in bed all day, and by night I will have a rope-ladder for you to come down to me. We can run away and hide somewhere."

"I cannot. We could never hide from Matteo: he would find us out and kill us both."

"I will go to the Holy Father and tell him all. We could be in Rome early in the morning if we should walk all night."

"Matteo would hear us: he hears everything. We should never reach Rome. He would find us wherever we might be hidden. If we were dead and buried he would pull us out of the ground to stab us. I must go. I have sinned in having so much intercourse with you. Be resigned, Claudio. Be a good man, and we shall meet in heaven. The earth is a terrible place: I am afraid of it. I want to shut myself up in the convent and be at peace. I fear so much that I tremble all the time. Say addio."

"I cannot. Will you stay in bed to-morrow, and let me try if I cannot go to Rome?"

"Say addio, Claudio. I dare not stay here any longer: I hear some one outside my door. I say addio to you now. I shall not drop the ball again."

She did not even draw it up again, for the thread caught on a nail in the wall and broke. And at the same time there was a knock at her door.

"I am going now," she made haste to answer, and in her terror threw herself on the bed without undressing. She wondered if Matteo could hear her heart beat through the wall or see how she was shaking.

The next morning at seven o'clock Silvia and her brother took their seats in the clumsy coach that goes from Monte Compatri to Rome whenever there are passengers enough to fill it, and after confused leavetakings from all but the one she wished most to see they set out. Claudio was invisible. In fact, he had lain on the ground all night beneath her window, and now, hidden in a tree, was watching the winding road for an occasional glimpse of the carriage as it bore his love away.

The peasants of Italy, when they see the Milky Way stretching its wavering, cloudy path across the sky, shining as if made up of the footprints of innumerable saints, say that it is the road to Jerusalem. The road to the New Jerusalem has no such pallid and spiritual glory: its colors are those of life. No death but that of martyrdom, with its rosy blood, waving palm-branch and golden crown, is figured there. Life, and the joy of life, beauty so profuse that it can afford to have a few blemishes like a slatternly Venus, and the dolce far niente of poverty that neither works nor starves,—they lie all along the road.

Silvia was young, and had all her life looked forward to this journey. She could not be quite indifferent. She looked and listened, though all the time her heart was heavy for Claudio. They reached the gate of St. John Lateran just as all the bells began to ring for the noon Angelus, and in fifteen minutes were at the Signora Fantini's door and Silvia in the kind lady's arms. It seemed to the girl that she had found her mother again. That this lady was more gracious, graceful, kind and beautiful than her mother had ever been she would not think. She was simply another mother. And when Matteo had gone away home again,[Pg 727] not too soon, and when, after a few days' sightseeing, the signora, suspecting that the continued sadness of her young guest had some other cause than separation from her brother and sister, sought persistently and artfully to win her secret, Silvia told her all with many tears. She was going to be a nun because her mother had said that she must; and she was willing to be a nun—certainly she was willing. But, for all that, if it could have been so, she would have been so happy with Claudio, and she never should be quite happy without him.

"Then you must not be a nun," the signora said decidedly. "The thing is all wrong. You have no vocation. You should have said all this before."

For already the signora had taken Silvia to see the Superior at Monte Cavallo, who had promised to receive the young novice in three weeks, and had told her what work she could perform in the convent. "You are not strong, I think," she had said, "but you can knit the stockings. All have to work."

And Monsignor Catinari, whose business it was to examine all candidates for the conventual life, had held a long conversation with her and gone away perfectly satisfied.

But when the signora proposed to undo all this, Silvia was wild with terror. No, no, she would be a nun. Her mother had said so, she wished it, and Matteo would kill her if she should refuse.

"Leave it all to me," the signora said, and laid her motherly hand on the trembling little ones held out to her in entreaty. "We will look out for that. Matteo shall not hurt you or Claudio. I am going to send for Monsignor Catinari again, and you must tell him the truth this time. And then we will see what can be done in the case. Don't look so terrified, child. Do you think that Matteo rules the world?"

Poor little Silvia could not be reassured, for to her other terrors was now added Monsignor Catinari's possible wrath. To her, men were objects of terror. The doctrine of masculine supremacy, so pitilessly upheld in Italy, was exaggerated to her mind by her brother's character; and though she believed that help was sometimes possible, she also believed that it often came too late, as in the case of poor Beatrice Cenci. They might stand between her and Matteo, but if he had first killed her, what good would it do? She had a fixed idea that he would kill her.

Monsignor Catinari was indeed much provoked when the signora told him the true story of the little novice.

"Just see what creatures girls are!" he exclaimed. "How are we to know if they have a vocation or not? That girl professed herself both willing and desirous to be a nun."

He did not scold Silvia, however. When he saw her pretty frightened face his heart relented. "You have told me a good many lies, my child," he said, "but I forgive you, since they were not intended in malice. We will say no more about it. I learn from the signora that this Claudio is a good young man, so the sooner you are married the better. Cheer up: we will have you a bride by the first week of November; and if Claudio has such a wonderful voice, he can make his way in Rome."

"At last I believe! at last I fear no more!" Silvia cried, throwing herself into the arms of the Signora Fantini when the Monsignor was gone. "Oh how beautiful the earth is! how beautiful life is!"

"We will then begin immediately to enjoy life," the signora replied. "Collation is ready, and Nanna has bought us some of the most delicious grapes. See how large and rich they are! One could almost slice them. There! these black figs are like honey. Try one now, before your soup. The macaroni that will be brought in presently was made in the house—none of your Naples stuff, made nobody knows how or by whom. What else Nanna has for us I cannot say. She was very secret this morning, and I suspect that means riceballs seasoned with mushrooms and hashed giblets of turkey. She always becomes mysterious when those are in preparation. Eat well,[Pg 728] child, and get a little flesh and color before Claudio comes."

They made a merry breakfast, with the noon sun sending its golden arrows through every tiniest chink of the closed shutters and an almost summer heat reigning without. Then there was an hour of sleep, then a drive to the Pincio to see all the notable people who came up there to look at or speak to each other while the sun sank behind St. Peter's. And in the evening after dinner they went to the housetop to see the fireworks which were being displayed for some festa or other; and later there was music, and then to bed.

Life became an enchantment to the little bride-elect, as life in Italy will become to any one who has not too heavy a cross to bear. For peace in this beautiful land means delight, not merely the absence of pain. How the sun shone! and how the fountains danced! What roses bloomed everywhere! what fruits of Eden were everywhere piled! How soft the speech was! and how sweet the smiles! And when it was discovered that Silvia had a beautiful voice, so that she and Claudio would be like a pair of birds together, then it seemed to her that a nest of twigs on a tree-branch would be all that she could desire.

They took her to see the pope on one of those days. It was as if they had taken her to heaven. To her he was the soul of Rome, the reason why Rome was; and when she saw his white figure against the scarlet background of cardinals she remembered how Rome looked against the rosy Campagna at sunset from her far-away window in Monte Compatri.

"A little sposa, is she?" the pope said when Monsignor Catinari presented her.—"I bless you, my child: wear this in memory of me." He gave her a little gold medal from a tiny pocket at his side, laid his hand on her head and passed on. It was too much: she had to weep for joy.

Then, when the audience was over, they took her through the museum and library, and some one gave her a bunch of roses out of the pope's private garden, and she was put into a carriage and driven home, her heart beating somewhere in her head, her feet winged and her eyes dazzled.

There was a rapturous letter from Claudio awaiting her, and by that she knew that it was not all a dream. She rattled the paper in her hands as she sat with her eyes shut, half dreaming, to make sure and keep sure that she was not to wake up presently to bitterness. Claudio would come to Rome in a week, and perhaps they would be married before he should go back. There was no letter from Matteo. So much the better.

One golden day succeeded another, and Silvia changed from a lily to a rose with marvellous rapidity. She was not a ruddy, full-leaved rose, though, but like one of those delicate ones with clouds of red on them and petals that only touch the calyx, as if they were wings and must be free to move. She was slim and frail, and her color wavered, and her head had a little droop, and her voice was low. She had always been the stillest creature alive; and now, full of happiness as she was, her feelings showed themselves in an uneasy stirring, like that of a flower in which a bee has hidden itself. After the first outburst she did not so much say that she was happy as breathe and look it.

One noonday, when life seemed too beautiful to last, and they all sat together after breakfast, the signora, her daughter and Silvia, too contented to say a word, the door opened, and Matteo Guai came in with a black, smileless face, and not the slightest salutation for his sister. He had come to take Silvia home, he replied briefly to the signora's compliments. She must be ready in an hour. The vintage was suffering by his absence, and it was necessary that he should return at once.

Signora Fantini poured out the most voluble exclamations, prayers and protests. She had forty engagements for Silvia. They had had only a few days' visit from her, and she was to have stayed a month. They would themselves accompany her to Monte Compatri later if it was necessary that she should go. But, in fine, Monsignor Catinari did not expect her to return.[Pg 729]

"I am the head of the family, and my sister has to obey me till she is married," Matteo replied doggedly. "I suppose that Monsignor Catinari will not deny that. The Church always supports the authority of the master of the family."

"Why, of course," the signora replied, rather confused by this irresistible argument, "you have the right, and no one will resist you. But as a favor now—" and the signora assumed her most coaxing smile, and even advanced a plump white hand to touch Matteo's sleeve.

She might as well have tried to bewitch and persuade the bronze Augustus on the Capitoline Hill.

"Things are changed since it was promised that Silvia should stay a month with you," Matteo replied. "There is work at home for her to do. Since she is not to be a nun, she must work. Let her be ready to start in an hour: my carriage is waiting at the door. I am going out into the piazza for a little while. I will send a man up for her trunk when I am ready to start."

Silvia uttered not a word. At sight of her brother she had sunk back in her chair white and speechless. On hearing his voice she had closed her eyes.

He half turned to her before going out, looking at her out of the corners of his evil eyes, a cold, strange smile wreathing his lips. "So you are not going to be a nun?" he said.

She did not respond. Only the quiver of her lowered eyelids and a slight shiver told that she knew he was addressing her.

Matteo went out, and the signora, at her wits' end, undertook to encourage Silvia. There was no time to see Monsignor Catinari or to appeal to any authority; and if there were, it would have availed nothing perhaps. Almost any one would have said that the girl's terrors were fanciful, and that it was quite natural her brother, who would lose five hundred scudi by her change of purpose, should require her to work as other girls of her condition worked.

"Cheer up and go with him, figlia mia," she said, "and leave all to me. I will see Monsignor Catinari this very evening, and post a letter to you before I go to bed. If Matteo is unkind to you, we will have you taken away from him at once. And, in any case, you shall be married in a few weeks at the most, as Monsignor promised. Don't cry so: don't say that you cannot go. I am sorry and vexed, my dear, but I see no way but for you to go. Depend upon me. No harm shall come to you. I will myself come to Monte Compatri within the week, and arrange all for you. Besides, recollect that you will see Claudio: he is there waiting for you. Perhaps you may see him this very evening."

The Signora Fantini's efforts to cheer and reassure the sister were as ineffectual as her efforts to persuade the brother had been. Silvia submitted because she had no strength to resist.

"O Madonna mia!" she kept murmuring, "he will kill me! he will kill me! O Madonna mia! pray for me."

When an Italian says that he will come back in an hour, you may look for him after two hours. Matteo was no exception to the rule. It was already mid-afternoon when the porter came up and said that Silvia's brother was waiting for her below.

The signora gave her a tumbler half full of vin santo, which she kept for special occasions—a strong, delicious wine with the perfume of a whole garden in it. "Drink every drop," she commanded: "it will give you courage. You had better be a little tipsy than fainting away. And put this bottle into your pocket to drink when you have need on the way."

More dead than alive, Silvia was placed in the little old-fashioned carriage that Matteo had hired to come to Rome in, and her brother took his seat beside her. The Signora Fantini and her daughter leaned from the window, kissing their hands to her and shaking their handkerchiefs as long as she was in sight. And as long as she was in sight they saw her pale face turned backward, looking at them. Then the tawny stone of a church-corner hid her from their eyes for ever.

Who knows or can guess what that drive was? The two passed through[Pg 730] Frascati, and Matteo stopped to speak to an acquaintance there. They drove around Monte Porzio, and Matteo stopped again, to buy a glass of wine and some figs. He offered some to his sister, but she shook her head.

"She is sleepy," her brother said to the man of whom he had bought. "Give me another tumbler of wine: it isn't bad."

"It is the last barrel I have of the vintage of two years ago," the man replied. "It was a good vintage. If the signorina would take a drop she would sleep the better. Besides, the night is coming on and there is a chill in the air."

Silvia opened her eyes and made the little horizontal motion with her fore finger which in Italy means no.

Night was coming on, and they had no more towns to pass—only a bit more of lonely level road and the lonely road that wound to and fro up the mountain-side. At the best, they could not reach home before ten o'clock. The road went to and fro—sometimes open, to give a view of the Campagna and the Sabine Mountains, and Soracte swimming in a lustrous dimness on the horizon; sometimes shut in closely by trees, that made it almost black in spite of the moon. For the moon was low and gave but little light, being but a crescent as yet. There was a shooting star now and then, breaking out like a rocket with a trail of sparks or slipping small and pallid across the sky.

One of these latter might have been poor Silvia's soul slipping away from the earth. It went out there somewhere on the mountain-side. Matteo said the carriage tilted, and she, being asleep, fell out before he could prevent. Her temple struck a sharp rock, and Claudio missed his bride.

He had to keep quiet about it, though. What could he prove? what could any one prove? Where knives are sharp and people mind their own business, or express their opinions only by a shrug of the shoulders and a grimace, how is a poor boy, how is even a rich man or a rich woman, to come at the truth in such a case? Besides, the truth would not have brought her back, poor little Silvia!

A SPANISH STORY-TELLER

In these days of pessimism in literature, when Tourgueneff and Sacher-Masoch represent man as the victim of blind Chance and annihilation his greatest happiness, it is pleasant to turn to a writer who still believes in God, his country and the family, and recognizes an overruling Providence that directs the world. It is not strange that these old-fashioned ideas should be found in Spain, where, in spite of much ignorance and superstition, the lower classes are deeply religious in the best sense of the word, and distinguished for their patriotism and intense love for their homes.

Antonio de Trueba, the subject of this sketch, was born in 1821 at Montellano, a little village in Biscay. He thus describes the home of his childhood in the preface to his collected poems: "On the brow of one of the mountains that surround a valley of Biscay there are four little houses, white as four doves, hidden in a grove of chestnut and walnut trees—four houses that can only be seen at a distance when the autumn has removed the leaves from the trees. There I spent the first fifteen years of my life. In the bottom of the valley there is a church whose belfry pierces the arch of foliage and rises majestic above the ash and walnut trees, as if to signify that the[Pg 731] voice of God rises above Nature; and in that church two masses were said on Sunday—one at sunrise and the other two hours later. We children rose with the song of the birds and went down to the first mass, singing and leaping through the shady oak-groves, while our elders came down later to high mass. While our parents and grand-parents were attending it I sat down beneath some cherry trees that were opposite my father's house—for from that spot could be seen the whole valley that ended in the sea—and shortly after four or five young girls came to seek me, red as the cherries that hung over my head or as the graceful knots of ribbon that tied the long braids of their hair, and made me compose couplets for them to sing to their sweethearts in the afternoon, to the sound of the tambourine, under the walnut trees where the young people danced and the elders chatted and enjoyed our pleasure."

The young poet's parents were simple tillers of the soil, who gave their son a meagre education. In one of his letters he says that his father's library consisted of the Fueros de Viscaya (the old laws of Biscay), the Fables of Samaniego, Don Quixote, some ballads brought from Valmaseda or Bilbao, and two or three lives of the saints. Antonio seems to have had from his earliest childhood an ardent love of poetry, and in the passage quoted above he mentions his own compositions. He continues by saying, "I remember one day one of those girls was very sad because her sweetheart was going away for a long time. She wanted a song to express her grief, and I composed one at her request. A few days later she did not need my aid to sing her sorrow: in proportion as it had increased her ability to sing it herself had also increased, for poetry is the child of feeling. Her songs, as well as those I composed, soon became popular in the valley."

When the poet was fifteen years old the civil war waged by Don Carlos was desolating Spain. The inhabitants of Biscay espoused his cause, but Antonio's parents were unwilling to expose their son to the dangers he must run if he remained at home, and therefore decided to send him to a distant relative in Madrid who kept a hardware-shop. "One night in November," says Trueba, "I departed from my village, perhaps—my God!—never to return. I descended the valley with my eyes bathed in tears. The cocks began to crow, the dogs barked, the owls hooted in the mountains, the wind moaned in the tops of the walnut trees, and the river roared furiously rushing down the valley; but the inhabitants of the village slept peaceably, except my parents and brothers, who from the window followed weeping the sound of my footsteps, about to be lost in the noise of the valley. I was just leaving the last house of the village when one of those girls who had so often sought me under the cherry trees approached the window and took leave of me sobbing. On crossing a hill, about to lose the valley from my sight, I heard a distant song, and stopped. That same girl was sending me her last farewell in a song as beautiful as the sentiment that inspired it."

Antonio devoted himself to his duties during the day and pursued his studies with eagerness during the night. What he suffered from home-sickness the reader can easily imagine. All through his later works are scattered reminiscences of those unhappy years in Madrid, when his memory fondly turned to the mountains and cherry-groves of his beloved Encartaciones.[1] Often dreaming of the country, which, he says, is his perpetual dream, he imagined the moment in which God would permit him to return to the valley in which he was born. "When this happens, I say to myself, my brow will be wrinkled and my hair gray. The day on which I return to my native valley will be a festal day, and on crossing the hill from which I can behold the whole valley, I shall hear the bells ringing[Pg 732] for high mass. How sweetly will resound in my ears those bells that so often rilled my childhood with delight! I shall enter the valley, my heart beating, my breathing difficult and my eyes bathed with tears of joy. There will be, with its white and sonorous belfry, the church where the holy water of baptism was poured upon the brows of my parents and my own; there will be the walnut and chestnut trees beneath whose shade we danced on Sunday afternoons; there will be the wood where my brothers and I looked for birds' nests and made whistles out of the chestnut and walnut bark; there, along the road, will be the apple trees whose fruit my companions and I knocked off with stones when we went to school; there will be the little white house where my grand-parents, my father, my brothers and I were born; there will be all that does not feel or breathe. But where will be, my God, all those who with tears in their eyes bade me farewell so many years ago? I shall follow the valley down: I shall recognize the valley, but not its inhabitants. Judge whether there will be among sorrows a greater sorrow than mine! The people gathered in the portico of the church waiting for mass to begin will look over the wall along the road, and others will look out of the windows, all to see the stranger pass. And they will not know me, and I shall not know them, for those children and those youths and those old men will not be the old men nor the youths nor the children whom I left in my native valley. I shall follow sadly the valley down. 'All that has felt,' I shall exclaim, 'has changed or died. What is it that preserves here pure and immaculate the sentiments which I inspired?' And then some village-woman will sing one of those songs in which I enclosed the deepest feelings of my soul, and on hearing her my heart will want to leap from my breast, and I shall fall on my knees, and, if emotion and sobs do not stifle my voice, I shall exclaim, 'Holy and thrice holy, blessed and thrice blessed, poetry which immortalizes human sentiment!'"

Antonio after a time left his relative's shop to enter another in the same business, from which he was relieved by the owner's financial difficulties. He then determined to devote himself to literature, and became a writer for the papers. In 1852 he published Libro de Cantares (Book of Songs), which at once made his name a household word throughout Spain. He tells us that most of the poems in it were composed mentally while dreaming of his native country and wandering about the environs of Madrid, "wherever the birds sing and the people display their virtues and their vices, for the noble Spanish people have a little of everything." He warns his readers not to expect from him what he cannot give them: "Do not seek in this book erudition or culture or art. Seek recollections and feeling, and nothing more. Fifteen years ago I left my solitary village: these fifteen years, instead of singing under the cherry trees of my native country, I sing in the midst of the Babylon which rises on the banks of the Manzanares; and, notwithstanding, I still amuse myself with counting from here the trees that shade the little white house where I was born, and where, God willing, I shall die: my songs still resemble those of fifteen years ago. What do I understand of Greek or Latin, of the precepts of Horace or of Aristotle? Speak to me of the blue skies and seas, of birds and boughs, of harvests and trees laden with golden fruit, of the loves and joys and griefs of the upright and simple villagers, and then I shall understand you, because I understand nothing more than this."

These poems are what the author calls them, nothing more—pure and simple records of the life of the people around him, their loves and griefs, their hopes and disappointments. The most usual metre is the simple Spanish asonante, or eight-syllable trochaic verse, with the vowel rhyme called asonante.[2] They are pervaded by a tender spirit of melancholy, very different from the Weltschmerz of Heine, with some of whose[Pg 733] lyrics the Spanish poet's cantares may be compared without losing anything by the comparison. In one poem he says: "In the depths of my heart are great sorrows: some of them are known to men, others to God alone. But I shall rarely mention my griefs in my songs, for I have no hope that they can be alleviated; and where is the mortal who, in passing through this valley, has not encountered among the flowers some sharp thorn?" In the same poem he says: "All ask me, Who taught you to sing? No one: I sing because God wills it—I sing like the birds;" and he explains his method by a touching incident. One evening he was singing on the bank of the Manzanares when he saw a child smiling on the breast of its mother. The poet went and caressed it, and the child threw its arms about Antonio's neck and turning to its mother cried, "Mother, Antonio, he of the songs, is a blind man who sees."[3] The poet continues: "I am a blind man who sees: that angel told the truth. With my guitar resting on my loving heart, you may see me wandering from the city to the valley, from the cabin of the poor to the palace of the great, weeping with those who weep, singing with those who sing, for my rude guitar is the lasting echo of all joys and all sorrows. I shall sing my songs in the simple language of the laborer and the soldier, of the children and the mothers, of those who have not frequented learned schools.... In this language I shall extol the faith and the holy combats of the soldiers of Christ with the sacrilegious Saracen; I shall sing the heroic efforts of our fathers to conquer the proud legions of Bonaparte; and the beauty of the skies, and the flowers of the valley, and love and innocence—all that is beautiful and great—will find a lasting echo in my rude guitar."

Many of these songs are ingenious variations on a theme supplied by some old and well-known poem, a few lines of which are woven into each division of the new song.

The success of the Libro de los Cantares was immediate and great; the first three editions were exhausted in a few months; the duc de Montpensier wished to defray the expenses of the fourth, and Queen Isabella of the fifth; since then others have followed. Some years later the poet married, and since then has written chiefly in prose.

In 1859 appeared a volume of short tales entitled Rose-colored Stories (Cuentos de Color de Rosa): these were followed by Tales of the Country (Cuentos campesinos), Popular Tales (Cuentos popolares), Popular Narrations (Narraciones popolares), Tales of Various Colors, Tales of the Dead and Living, etc.[4]

Before examining in detail any of these collections it may be well to learn the author's views of his task and definition of his subject. In the introduction to the Popular Tales he says, addressing his friend Don José de Castro y Serrano: "The object of this preface is simply to tell you why I have given the name of Popular Tales to those contained in this volume, what I understand by popular literature, and why I write tales instead of writing novels or comedies or cookbooks. There are two reasons why I have called these tales popular. First, because many of them are told by the people; and, secondly, because in retelling them I have used the simple and plain style of the people.... In my conception, popular literature can be defined in this manner: That literature which by its simplicity and clearness is within the reach of the intelligence of the people.... However, in popular literature the simplicity of form is not enough: it is necessary to reproduce Nature, because if not reproduced there will be no truth in it; and if there is no truth in it the people will not believe it; and if they do not believe it they will not feel it. For my part, I take such pains in studying Nature, in order that my pictures may be true, that I fear you will accuse me of extravagance, and will[Pg 734] laugh at me when you read the two examples I am going to cite. On a very severe night in January I was writing in the fourth story of the street Lope de Vega, No. 32, the tale which I named De Patas en el Infierno ('The Feet in Hell'), and when a detail occurred which consisted in explaining the changes in the sound made by water in filling a jar at a fountain, I found that I had never studied these changes, and I did not have in the house at that moment water enough to study them. The printers were going to send for the story early in the morning, and it must be finished that night. Do you know what I did to get out of my difficulty? At three o'clock in the morning, facing the darkness, rain and wind, I went to the little fountain near by with a jar under my cloak, and spent a quarter of an hour there listening to the sound of the water as it fell into the jar. A short time after I was preparing to write the rural tale called Las Siembras y las Cosechas ('Seed-time and Harvest'), and the description of a sunrise in the country entered into my plan. I had often seen the sun rise in the country, but it was necessary to contemplate and study anew that beautiful spectacle in order to describe it exactly; and early one morning, long before the dawn, accompanied by two friends, I went to the hills of Vicalvaro, where we made some good studies, but were very much frightened by some thieves who attacked us knife in hand, believing we were people who carried watches."

These words of the author reveal better than we could explain his aim and method. He is a follower of Fernan Caballero, in so far as he has devoted himself to illustrate the every-day life of the Spanish people. The former writer has filled her pages with brilliant pictures of the life of Andalusia. Her canvas is, however, larger than Trueba's: she depicts the society of the South in all its grades; Trueba has chosen a more limited circle on which he has lavished all his care.

The volume of Rose-colored Tales is in many respects the best that Trueba has produced. The dedication to his wife explains the title and reveals the author's optimistic views. He says: "I call them Rose-colored Tales because they are the reverse of that pessimistic literature which delights in representing the world as a boundless desert in which no flower blooms, and life as a perpetual night in which no star shines. I, poor son of Adam, in whom the curse of the Lord on our first parents has not ceased to be accomplished a single day since the time when, still a child, I left my beloved valley of the Encartaciones,—I shall love this life, and shall not believe myself exiled in the world while God, friendship, love and the family exist in it, while the sun shines on me every morning, while the moon lights me every night and the flowers and birds visit me every day."

The scene of all the stories of this collection is in the Encartaciones, and an examination of a few of them will make us acquainted with the usual range of characters and the author's mode of treatment. The first is entitled "The Resurrection of the Soul" (La Resurreccion del Alma), and opens with an account of the village of C——, one of the fifteen composing the Encartaciones. Here lived Santiago and Catalina, the latter a foundling whom Santiago's parents had found at their door one winter morning. The good people, who had always desired a daughter, cared tenderly for the little stranger, and she grew up with their son, who was a few years older. It had been decided that when Santiago was fifteen he should go to his uncle in Mexico; which country, for the simple inhabitants of Biscay, is still "India," and the retired merchants who return to spend their last days in their native towns are "Indians"—a class that often play an important part in the dénouement of Trueba's simple plots. At the beginning of the story the two children (Santiago was nearly fifteen) had gone off to play and allowed the goats to get into the fields. The angry father is about to punish Catalina, who has assumed all the blame, but his wife mollifies him by reminding him that they have received a piece of good news. Ramon good-humoredly[Pg 735] says, "You women always have your own way," and proceeds to tell a story to illustrate it. We give it as an example of the popular tales that Trueba often weaves into his stories:

"Once upon a time, when Christ went through the world healing the sick and raising the dead, a woman came out to meet him and said to him, seizing hold of his cloak and weeping like a Magdalen, 'Lord, do me the favor to come and raise my husband, who died this morning.'

"'I cannot stop,' answered the Lord. 'I am going to perform a great miracle—that is, find a good mother among the women who are fond of bull-fights; but everything will turn out well if the ass doesn't stop. All I can do for you is that if you take it into your head to raise your husband, your husband will be raised.'

"And indeed the wife took it into her head that her husband must be raised, and her husband was raised, for even the dead can't resist the whims of women."

The good news that Ramon had received was a letter from his brother, who wished Santiago to be sent to him by the first steamer leaving Bilbao. It was the 15th of August, the Feast of the Assumption, when Santiago, accompanied by his father, prepared to start for Bilbao.

"Quica, who until the moment of departure had not shed a tear, because she had only seen her son on the way to happiness, as you saw yours, disconsolate mother, who now see only a sepulchre in the Americas,—Quica now wept without restraint. Poor Catalina had wept so much for a month and a half that there were no tears left in her eyes: she did not weep, but she felt the faintness and sorrow which the dying must experience. Santiago's eyes were moist at times, but soon shone with joy.

"'Come, come! You are like a lot of crying children,' exclaimed Ramon, tearing his son from the arms of Quica and Catalina. 'One would say that it is a matter to cry over. Don't you see me? I too have a soul in my soul-case....'

"And indeed he had, for tears as large as nuts rolled from his eyes. Santiago and Ramon departed. Quica and Catalina sorrowfully followed them with their eyes until they crossed a neighboring hill. Then the young girl made an almost supernatural effort to calm herself, and said, 'Mother, I am going to take the sheep to the mountain.'

"It was Catalina's custom to open, the gate every morning to a flock of sheep and lead them a stone's throw from the farmhouse, where she left them alone; but this day she went with them as far as the hill that Ramon and Santiago had just crossed, and from that hill she went on to the next and the next, with her eyes always fixed on the road to Bilbao, until, overcome by fatigue and dying with grief, she bowed her beautiful head, and instead of retracing her steps to the farmhouse of Ipenza, she went to the church in the valley and fell on her knees before the altar of the Virgin of Solitude."

Santiago reaches Mexico in safety, and is kindly received by his uncle, who dies ten years later and leaves him an immense fortune. Santiago at once plunges into every species of dissipation, and soon destroys his health. His physician recommends him as a last resort to return to his native country and try the effect of the mountain-air. Meanwhile, Catalina had grown up one of the prettiest girls of the village, and Santiago's parents had died, leaving her a handsome dowry and the use of the farm until it should be claimed by Santiago.

"One dark and rainy night Santiago returned to his home, broken down in health and profoundly weary of life. Catalina receives him, and is amazed at his changed appearance.

In truth, the unfortunate Santiago had lost all the better feelings of his heart.[Pg 736] His return to the home of his innocent boyhood failed to evoke any pure and noble sentiments: his heart continued paralyzed, cold, indifferent to everything. But it was impossible for him to remain in this condition under the influence of Catalina. He gradually began to take an interest in the life around him and employ his wealth for the benefit of his neighbors. Gradually, he awoke from his lethargy and became well in body and mind. As the reader can imagine, the story closes with his marriage to Catalina, who had such a great share in his recovery.

In the story called "From One's Country to Heaven" (Desde la Patria al Cielo) the author's endeavors show that the surest happiness is to be found in one's native village. He begins with an ironical description of the village of S—— in the Encartaciones, in which he depicts the simplicity of the inhabitants and their backwardness, in regard to the spirit of the age. In this village lived, among others, Teresa, a poor widow, and her only child, Pedro. One day, while passing the palace of a wealthy "Indian," he called her and said he was obliged to return to America, and wished her to take care of his house during his absence. The poor woman now saw herself relieved from want and able to educate her son. The latter found in the rich library of the "Indian" food for many years of study, and soon became dissatisfied with his quiet life in the village, and eager to travel and see the countries about which he had read such charming tales. He soon grew to despise everything around him, and treated with scorn his neighbor Rose, who had long loved him tenderly.

One day news arrived from Mexico that the "Indian" had died, leaving to Teresa his palace at S—— and a large sum of money besides. Pedro was now able to fulfil his dreams of travel, and started on his journey. He first visits the Pass of Roncesvalles, and is nearly killed by the indignant Frenchmen whom he asks about the defeat of Charlemagne and the Twelve Peers. Pedro then proceeds to Bayonne, where he is so shocked by the sight of young girls selling their hair to the highest bidder that he determines to leave France, and we next find him in a Swiss chalet, where he is disgusted by the lack of cleanliness. His feelings can be imagined when he finds that the peasants have no popular traditions and are not acquainted even with the name of William Tell. In despair, Pedro directs his course to Germany, but finds no sylphs or sirens on the banks of the Rhine, while maidens with blue eyes and golden hair are no more abundant there than elsewhere. Greece next receives the wanderer, who hears in Athens of railroads and consolidated funds: on Olympus he finds a guano manufactory, and on Pindus a poet writing fourteen-syllable endecasyllabics. He visits with a similar disenchantment Constantinople, and then makes his way to England. There poor Pedro is disgusted by the sordid, selfish spirit of the people. An absurd scene at a village church fills him with horror. The bare walls of the temple chill his heart, and after the service a domestic quarrel between the curate and his jealous wife caps the climax and Pedro flees to America. On landing in New York he is robbed of his watch: the thief is arrested, but gives the watch to the magistrate, keeping the chain for himself, and Pedro is condemned to pay the costs and the damages suffered by the thief's character. On returning that evening from the theatre he is garroted and robbed of all he has with him. The landlord tells him that no one thinks of going out at night without a pair of six-shooters, and adds that what happens in New York is nothing to what goes on at Boston, Baltimore and New Orleans. The next day he reads an editorial in the New York Herald advising American merchants to repudiate their foreign debts. He then determines to visit the different States, and on passing through the South thanks God that slavery is unknown in Europe. Railroad accidents, murders and political and social corruption cause him to regard with profound horror the young republic, which seems to him old in vice, and he starts for South America, the Spanish part of which reminds[Pg 737] him of a virgin overwhelmed with misfortunes, but still full of youth and faith. In Vera Cruz, Pedro visits the sepulchre of the "Indian" to whom he owes his fortune. A letter from his mother is awaiting him there, and he bursts into tears, and sails at once for his beloved home, which he reaches one beautiful Sunday morning in May. His meeting with his mother takes place in the church, and there also he sees Rose, whose constancy is now rewarded. The story closes with the lines from Lista: "Happy he who has never seen any other stream than that of his native place, and, an old man, sleeps in the shade where he played a boy!"

Another story of the same collection, and one of the author's best, is entitled Juan Paloma. The principal characters are Don Juan de Urrutia, nicknamed Juan Paloma ("dovelike"), a wealthy and crusty old bachelor, and Antonio de Molinar, a poor peasant, and his wife. The moral of the story is in Don Juan's last words: "Blessed be the family!" and in Juana's remark: "Alas for him who lives alone in the world, for only his dogs will weep for him when he dies!"

The other stories of this volume, "The Mother-in-Law," "The Judas of the Household" and "I Believe in God," all contain many charming scenes. In the last a young girl is educated by an infidel father, and after his death marries Diego, a village lad. She becomes a mother, but still retains in her heart the seeds of atheism sown there by her father. Her child, a girl, becomes ill, and a doctor is sent for from Bilbao.

"The doctor was long in coming, and Ascensita was devoured by impatience and uncertainty. He arrived at last, and examined the child attentively, observing a deep silence, which caused the poor mother the most sorrowful anxiety.

"'Will the daughter of my heart recover?' Ascensita asked him in tears. 'For God's sake, speak to me frankly, for this uncertainty is more cruel than the death of my daughter.'

"Ascensita fell senseless by the side of the cradle containing her dying child. When she returned to herself Diego alone was at her side. The unhappy mother placed her ear to the child's lips, and perceived that it still breathed.

"'Diego,' she exclaimed, 'take care of the child of my soul!' and flying down the stairs hastened to a hermitage near by, and falling on her knees before the Virgin of Consolation exclaimed in grief, 'Holy Virgin! pity me! Save the child of my heart! And if she has flown to heaven since I left her side to fall at thy feet, beg thy holy Son to restore her to life, as He did the maid of Galilee!'

"A woman who was praying in a corner of the temple arose weeping with joy and grief, and hastened to clasp the unhappy mother in her arms and call her daughter. It was her husband's mother, Agustina, who had also gone to the temple to pray for the restoration of the child.

"'Mother,' exclaimed Ascensita, 'I believe in God! I believe in God and hope in His mercy!'

"'My daughter, no one believes in it in vain,' answered Agustina, bursting into tears. And both again knelt and prayed."

In the Popular Narrations, Trueba works up themes already popular among the people, but clothes them in his own words and varies them to suit his own taste. He says in the preface: "The task which I undertook some time ago, and still continue, consists in collecting the narrations, tales or anecdotes that circulate among the people and are the work of the popular invention, which sometimes creates and at others imitates, if it does not plagiarize, trying when it imitates to give to the imitation the form of the original. Some of the writers or collectors abroad, and especially in Germany, who have devoted themselves to a similar task, have followed a method different from mine; since, like the Brothers Grimm, they reproduce the popular tales almost as they have collected them from the lips of the[Pg 738] people. This system is not to my taste, because almost all popular tales, although they have a precious base, have an absurd form, and in order to enter worthily into the products of the literary art they need to be perfected by art, and have a moral or philosophical end, which nothing in the sphere of art should be without."

The subjects of some of these stories are well known out of Spain. "St. Peter's Doubts" (Las Dudas de San Pedro) is as old as the Gesta Romanorum (cap. 80), and is familiar to English readers from Parnell's Hermit. Another, "A Century in a Moment" (Un Siglo en un Momento), is the story of the woman allowed after death to come back to the earth and see her lover, whom she finds faithless. Still another, Tragaldabas, is familiar to the readers of Grimm's Household Tales, where it figures as "Godfather Death."

The volume of Popular Tales contains nineteen stories of the most varying description. Some are popular in the broadest sense, as "The Three Counsels" (Los Consejos), in which a soldier whose time of service has expired buys from his captain with his pay three pieces of advice: Always take the short cut on a road, Do not inquire into what does not concern you, and Do nothing without reflection. The soldier on his way home has occasion to put in practice all three counsels, and thereby saves his life and property. Others, are legendary, as Ofero, the legend of St. Christopher, and Casilda, the story of the Moorish king's daughter converted to the Christian religion by a physician from Judea, who proves to be Our Lord. One, "The Wife of the Architect" (La Mujer del Arquitecto), is a local tradition of Toledo, and another, "The Prince without a Memory" (El Principe Desmemoriado), is taken from Gracian Dantisco's Galateo Español.

We may say of this collection, as of the last, that, although the stories show much humor and skill, they are not among the author's best. He is most at home in the simple pictures of life in the Encartaciones or in the country near Madrid. The latter is the scene of the stories in the volume entitled Rural Tales (Cuentos campesinos), which contains some of the author's most charming productions. They are generally longer than the others—one, "Domestic Happiness" (La Felicidad domestica), filling over ninety-two octavo pages. "Seed-time and Harvest" (Las Siembras y las Cosechas) is a charming story of Pepe and his wife Pepa, the former of whom sows wheat in his fields, and the latter economy, love and virtue by the fireside. The best story of the collection, however—and, to our mind, one of the best that Trueba has written—is the one called "The Style is the Man" (El Estilo es el Hombre), which is so well worth a translation that we will not spoil it by an analysis.

We have said that Trueba's works have been great popular successes. He has endeared himself to all who love poetry and the simple, honest life of the Spanish people. His beloved province has not forgotten him, and in 1862 unanimously elected him archivist and chronicler of Biscay, with a salary of nine hundred dollars a year. The poet henceforth turned his attention to a history of Biscay, which has not yet appeared, though some preliminary studies have been published in a work entitled Chapters of a Book (Capitulos de un Libro). Trueba resided at this period of his life at Bilbao, which he was obliged to leave in haste during the last Carlist war, and he has since lived in Madrid. He has published there several volumes of romances and historical novels, some of which have been very successful; but Trueba's real strength is in his poetry and short stories, which may be favorably compared with the best of this class of literature—with Auerbach's Tales of the Black Forest, for example. The reader is at once attracted to the author, whose personality shines through most of his stories and is always apparent in his poetry. Simple, honest, patriotic, religious, he is a type of the best class of Spaniards—a class that will some day win for their country the respect of other nations and bring back a better glory than that founded on conquest.

THROUGH WINDING WAYS.

CHAPTER XVII.

My first meeting with Georgy Lenox on the seashore was not my last. The habits of the family made it easy for us to have our interviews uninterrupted, and probably unperceived, for although we were all early risers we rarely met each other till breakfast-time. Helen went to her father's room at half-past seven, and they read and talked together until my mother called them at nine o'clock. As for my mother, purest of all women as she was, she felt she was not pure enough to meet the new day until she had spent an hour at her Bible and on her knees in prayer. There is a light that comes out of the west sometimes toward evening after a stormy day which seems to be sent straight from the fount of light itself. Such light was always in my mother's eyes when I kissed her good-morning, and I knew it had come to her as she knelt on bended knees. She was tranquil in these days with a Heaven-born tranquillity, but I know now that she had a pang of dread for every throb of love.

She spoke to me once of my increasing intimacy with Georgina. "There is nothing you are concealing from me, Floyd?" she said, her brown eyes reading my face.

She had come to my bedside after I had gone to rest for the night, impelled by a restlessness to be certain that all was well with her dear ones before she could close her eyes.

"I cannot think what you mean, mother," I answered. "I have nothing to conceal."

She sighed. "Georgy is a beautiful girl," she said quietly, "but she baits too many lures for men, Floyd. It seems to me she is trying to win you, my dear boy. She is born to make men unhappy. Do not trust her. Oh, why is she here?"

"Helen pities her and tries to please her. She is one too many in the house, Floyd: she will do some harm to some of us. She is cold and treacherous at heart, and she never sees us happy, contented together but that she hates us every one."

I thought my mother fanciful, and told her that she was prejudiced against the girl, who had grown up from infancy under her eyes.

She smiled a patient, melancholy smile. "If I am prejudiced," said she gently, "it is because of what her misconduct cost my son years ago. Do you think I can ever forget that but for her caprice and self-will you would never have had those years of suffering, Floyd? But we women know each other. It is at times a sad knowledge, and for our prescience the men whom we would serve misjudge us and tell us we hate each other. Georgina is in love this summer. You do not guess what man she has set her wishes upon?"

I stirred restlessly on my pillow, but I looked at her with something like anger against her growing in my heart.

"Good-night, mother," I returned. "It is none of my business to read any girl's heart through a sister-woman's cold trained eyes. If Miss Lenox is in love, God bless her! I say. I suppose I am not the lucky fellow."

My mother kissed me softly on my forehead and went out; and, alas! it was many a day afterward before there was perfect peace and confidence between us again. Not that we were cold or constrained—indeed, we were more than ever gentle and tender in our ways ... but there was a subject which was heavy on our hearts of which we were not again to speak, and there may have been a meaning in my face which she did not venture to read, for I resented it if her look fastened upon me too closely.[Pg 740]

But the pleasant country-house life went on quite unchecked by events of any sort. Few visitors were admitted, and it was understood at the Point that rigid seclusion from all society was the will of Miss Floyd. The young girl was much talked about: she held every advantage of youth, beauty, enormous wealth, and, almost more than all these, she possessed that prestige which inheres in families that maintain quietly and proudly their reserve, dignity and indifference to the transitory fashions of society. Georgy Lenox became more and more involved in the watering-place dissipations as the season advanced and the hotels filled. She came and went in shimmering toilettes of all hues with an air of radiant enjoyment, but her outgoings and incomings disturbed no one but myself. Helen would kiss her and tell her there was no one half so beautiful; Mr. Floyd would lean back in his chair and smile at her with the admiration in his eyes that all men who are not churls feel it a discourtesy to withhold from a pretty woman; and even my mother, with a conscientious wish to do her duty by the young girl, would inquire carefully about every chaperone, every invitation, and would herself direct what time the carriage should be sent to bring her home.

I have already spoken of our pleasant labors together in the study over poor Mr. Raymond's papers. Many a treasure did Mr. Floyd and Helen find there. After the death of his daughter Mr. Raymond had jealously taken possession of every scrap of paper which belonged to her, and now her husband was at last to see a hundred testimonials of her love for him of which he had never dreamed. There was the young girl's journal before she was married, bound in blue velvet and clasped with gold: there were the letters the poor little woman had written, shuddering before her great trial, to the husband and the child who should survive her. I believe all young mothers on the threshold of outward and visible maternity believe they are to die in their agony, but these tokens of his young wife's unspoken dread touched Mr. Floyd so closely we almost had cause to regret that he had seen them.

"She never told me of her premonition of death," he said to my mother over and over again. "She seemed very glad and proud that she was going to bring me a little child."

"Some time," said Mr. Floyd, "I want to read every word she wrote, but these letters are enough now: I can bear nothing more." And even these he could not well endure until my mother had talked them over with him again and again.

The quiet, happy life which we led in these days suited Mr. Floyd's health, and there was no recurrence of the alarming symptoms which had filled me with dread a few months before. "I begin to think," he remarked often, "that by continuing this life, as simple as that which a bird leads flying from bough to bough, I am to grow stout and elderly, and go on getting gray, rubicund, with an amplitude of white waistcoat, until I am seventy years of age or so. My father and mother each died young, but both by accident as it were: the habit of both families was of long life and great strength. I confess I should like to live for a good many years yet. I suppose Helen will marry by and by. I should like to be a witness of her happiness, rounded, full, complete, sanctified by motherhood. Think, Mary, of my holding Helen's children on my knee!"

"I think often of grandmotherhood myself," my mother replied. "It is a symptom of advancing age, James."

I heard the talk, but Helen was far enough from guessing what plans her father was forming for his ultimate satisfaction, and I could fancy her superb disdain at such mention. It was easy for me to see that her love for her father was quite enough for her: she invested it with all the charming prettinesses that a dainty coquette uses with her lover. She was arch, gay, imperious, tender, all in a breath: I confess that I often felt that, let her once put forth her might, not Georgy Lenox could be more winning,[Pg 741] sweet and seductive. But all her tenderness was for her father: with me she was sometimes proud and shy, sometimes wearing the manner of a loving little child. I often called her "little sister" in those days, and so, and in no other wise, I held her. When she was kind, we had pleasant talks together: when she treated me with coolness and reserve, I laughed and let her go. Her father needed her, and I did not; and I paid scant attention to her little caprices, although I scolded her for them now and then.

"Do you wish to treat me as you treat Thorpe?" I would ask. "I am not a tame cat yet."

"How do I treat Mr. Thorpe?" she inquired. "I intend to treat him as I do the man who places my chair."

"You don't always manage that, my dear child. For instance, last night, when you were going to sing, you showed plainly that you were vexed at his officiousness in opening the piano and placing your stool for you, and declined singing at once. Now, had Mills performed those slight services you would have said coolly, 'Thank you, Mills,' and not have wasted a thought on the matter more than if some interior mechanism had raised the cover of the instrument."

"But Mr. Thorpe looks at me as Mills would never dare to look. He thrusts his personality upon me," exclaimed Helen in a small fury. "Let him pay his compliments to Georgy: I do not want them. Think of it! he called me Miss Helen this morning!"

"Am I so dreadful?" she asked coaxingly. "Tell me how to behave to young gentlemen, Floyd. Really, I don't know."

"To me you should behave in the most affectionate manner, mademoiselle. Granted that, the more disdainful you are to other fellows the more I shall admire you."

"Well, since you are in earnest, dear child, if I were you I would show nothing but kindness to my friends.

Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike;
But, like the sun, they shine on all alike,

"But I cannot be like that," she cried plaintively. "Would you like me to treat you and Mr. Thorpe in precisely the same way, Floyd?"

"Not at all. Don't count me in with the rest of your admirers: I must have the first, best, dearest place."

"I am sure you always do," she remonstrated in a tone of injury. "You come next after papa. If I behave badly to you sometimes, it is because I like to see if you mind my putting on little airs." That was candor.

"Well, Miss Kitten," said I, "you seem to know how to behave to young men. I shall waste no more advice upon you."

And indeed she did not require it. She possessed in an exquisite degree that gift of a delightful manner which generally comes through inheritance, and cannot be perfectly gained by education. But my suggestion regarding Thorpe bore fruit, and henceforward she was a little more queenly and indifferent to him than ever, but never displayed pique or asperity. Yet, however badly she treated him, he quite deserved my title of a "tame cat:" he bore every reverse patiently, and indeed at times displayed an absolute heroism in the face of her indifference, going on in fluent recital of something he believed would interest her while she utterly ignored him and his subject. However, Thorpe was a good actor, and could play his part, and do it well, in spite of his audience. I sometimes fancied that he was less cheerful in those times than he seemed. In fact, I was ready to believe that he was in reality, as he was in pretence, seeking to win Helen's attention. Mr. Floyd looked at the matter in the same light.

"When he gets his congé he cannot complain of having received encouragement," he said once or twice. "But he's no fool: can it be that he is in love with Miss Lenox all the time, and that he tries[Pg 742] to pique her with a show of devotion to Helen?"

"Tony Thorpe will never be in love with a poor girl," I replied: "there is nothing of that sort."

"I don't like Helen's having lovers," said Mr. Floyd. "When I married my wife it was the pleasantest thing in the world to know that no other man had ever breathed a word of love in her ears. 'The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.' The first sound of a lover's voice brings a thrill to a girl's heart which she never knows but once. Miss Lenox's perceptions in that way must be considerably toughened: sole-leather is nothing in thickness compared to the epidermis of a coquette's heart. Now, a man can love with delicacy, fervor, passion a score of times. Women are frail creatures, are they not? I would like to have my little girl give her heart once, receive unbounded love in return, and never think of another man all her life. But Fate will manage her affairs for her, as for us all."

I have said that my morning interviews with Miss Lenox on the beach continued for a time. Suddenly they ceased: she came to the rendezvous no more, and it was impossible for me to get near enough to her to seek an explanation. I had felt quite dissipated and like a man of the world when I jumped out of my bed half awake each morning with an appointment on my hands. I had not told myself that it was bliss to meet her, and in fact had smiled a little at the recollection that it had been she who had asked me to join her ramble. Once or twice I had designated the whole thing a bore, and had wished it might rain and let me have a comfortable morning's nap instead of an hour or two with the most beautiful of girls at a romantic trysting-place. But most men deceive themselves about their feelings concerning women. When the first time I did not find Georgina awaiting me (for my orders were to join her walk, not to have her join mine) I lay on the rocks and took a nap until Thorpe came along the beach as usual and awoke me. But when I had failed to find her the second morning I was restless and disturbed. After two more fruitless quests I grew by turns insanely jealous and wretchedly self-distrustful.

Had I vexed her? What had I said? what had I done? I went over and over again every word of our talks: every mood of hers, every blush and glance and smile, lived again for me. We had spoken of many things those mornings we had met, yet there had been small reference to our mutual relations; and certainly if there were love-making on my part, it had colored none of our moods to any passion. I had travelled and seen many people: I had been introduced in courts, and had, by Mr. Floyd's influence, penetrated into an exclusive and brilliant continental society, where I had found much to observe. These reminiscences of mine had delighted Georgina: she had the irresistible feminine instinct for details, the analysis of which made a mastery of brilliant results easily attainable to her who possessed, to begin with, remarkable beauty, and, if not tact, so bewildering a way of doing what she chose that in the eyes of men at least she lacked nothing which grace and good taste could teach her. She was always anxious, too, to hear everything concerning Mr. Floyd—his friends abroad, his habits, his vie intime at certain houses which had been his favorite lounge for years while he was minister at ——. Garrulity was by no means my habit in those days, but I had talked to her very freely: indeed, she could do with me what she wished.

But why had she suddenly given me up? Had she tired of me, exhausted me, wrung my mind dry of interest; and flung me by like a squeezed orange? I lay in wait for her in the passages that I might speak to her, but she seemed never to be alone any more. I would lurk in her path for hours, only to be rewarded by the sight of her dress vanishing in another direction. I wrote her notes, to none of which would she reply. "If a woman flies, she flies to be pursued," I had heard all my life. Elusive, mocking goddess that she was, I felt every[Pg 743] day more and more ardent in my pursuit, yet I rarely saw her now except at breakfast, when she was demure, a little weary, and altogether indifferent to me. I determined to follow her into society.

It was early in July now, and the watering-place life was at its gayest. I had hitherto accepted no invitations, from respect for the habits of the house where I was staying, but now I examined with interest every card and note brought to me. Accordingly, I set out on a round of pleasure-seeking, which soon transformed me from a boy whose foolish aim in life was to be as clever as other men into an impassioned lover. Other men may look back upon their first love with a certain pleasing sentimentality: in spite of all the years that now lie between me and the fever of those few months at The Headlands, I still suffer bitterly from the recollection of that time.

CHAPTER XVIII.

I had gone with Georgina to a picnic one day at her request, meeting her at the house of Mrs. Woodruff, with whom she was staying for a fortnight, at the Point. The picnic meant merely a drive for miles back into the country and a lunch in the woods prepared by a French cook, but it was a delightful road through shadows of tall forest trees, the glare of sunlight alternating with green copsewood coolness. They were cutting the grass and clover in the fields, and the air was fresh with the scent of new-mown hay: half the land on either side of us was covered with ripening grain, and the light breeze that played perpetually over it gave us endless shimmerings and glimmerings of wonderful light almost as beautiful as the tints that play over the sea.

I had every need to find the beauty of the summer gracious to me that day. It was but another of many days when every throb of my feeling for Georgy Lenox became an anguish hard to bear. She was opposite me as we rode through the fair country, but she neither looked at nor spoke to me. I was much lionized, however, by Mrs. Woodruff, a pretty, faded, coquettish woman, who had been balancing herself on the very edge of proprieties for years, but who still, thanks to a certain weariness she compelled in men, was yet safe enough in her position as a matron. Georgy's companion was a titled foreigner just then a favorite at the Point, but of whom I need not speak.

"Did you ask me to come that I might hear you talk with the count?" I asked her when once that day I had a chance to address her.

"But the count would talk to me," she returned, laughing. "Do you suppose I care for him? I think him the most odious man I know, with his waxed moustache, his small green eyes, his wicked mouth and teeth. But Mrs. Woodruff is dying for him, and half the women here hate me in their hearts because he pays me attention. I like you infinitely better, Floyd."

"Oh, I cannot afford to do those romantic, compromising things. You see that, as we are both staying at The Headlands, where everybody's curiosity is centred this summer, we are much observed, much commented upon."

"It seems to me you are not at all afraid of compromising yourself with other men."

"Now you are cross and jealous. Perhaps if you betrayed a little less interest in me you might make me less afraid of concession. And you must not watch me so: the count himself spoke about your eyes ready to burn me with their melancholy fire."

"With all my heart! I am tired of his hanging about me, however. Now go away: at the dance to-night I will talk to you all you wish."

There were plenty of beautiful girls at the picnic, and not a few of them sat outside the circle quite neglected or wandered away like school-girls in couples, picking ferns and gathering pale wood-blossoms; but since I could not speak to Georgina at my ease, there seemed to me[Pg 744] neither meaning nor occupation for the slowly-passing hours. I have sometimes wondered how those women feel to whom society brings no homage, no real social intercourse, who sit outside the groups formed around their more brilliant sisters and behold their easy triumphs. They seem patient and good-natured, but must they not wonder in their hearts why one woman's face and figure are a magnet compelling every man to come within the circle of her attraction, while others, not less fair and sweet, seem depolarized?

Georgy had many successful days, and this was but one of them. She understood allurement now not as an accident, but as a science, and she practised it cleverly. She had already heard bold language from the count, so held him in check as he sat beside her, giving him at times, however, "a side glance and look down," and to his trained habits of observation showed constantly that she was perfectly aware of his presence even if she seemed to ignore him. She was openly flirting with Frank Woolsey (a cousin of mine), but since she knew him for a veteran whose admiration only counted to lookers-on, she consoled herself by other little diversions, and scarcely a man there but felt his pulses tingle as she sent him a bright word or a careless smile.

Thorpe was there, but dull, moody, distrait, and he joined me and poured into my ears his disgust at this form of entertainment. He had eaten ants in his salad, he affirmed, his wine was corked, his pâté spoiled.

"What are we here for?" he asked. "I see no reason in it. I suppose Miss Lenox is enjoying herself, and she thinks the men about her are in a seventh heaven. What do even the cleverest women know about the men they meet? Woolsey hates her like poison; the count is on the lookout for a belle héritière and is yawning over his loss of time; and I doubt if one of that group except Talbot would marry her. I don't think many of us are pleased with that sort of thing. We don't want too fierce a light to beat about the woman we are dreaming of. She has no love or respect for sweetness and womanly virtue for their own sake—no faith in their value to her, further than that the semblance of them may attract admirers."

"I am out of humor," he exclaimed, "devilishly out of humor! For God's sake, Randolph, tell me if you think I have any chance with Miss Floyd."

"Look here, Thorpe," I returned under my breath: "I have no business to make any suppositions concerning that young lady, but I will say just this much. Do you see that bird in the air hovering above that oak tree?"

"I think there is just as much chance of that bird's coming down at your call and nestling in your bosom as there is of your winning the young lady you allude to."

He looked crestfallen for a moment: then his thorough coxcombry resumed its sway. "You see," said he, with a consummate air of reserve, "you know nothing about the affair at all, Randolph."

"You'd much better drop the subject, Thorpe," I remarked: "I assure you it's much safer let alone."

I contrived to live through the long hours of the day. At sunset we drove back to the Point, I giving up my seat in Mrs. Woodruff's barouche to a lady and joining Frank Woolsey and Thorpe in a dog-cart. We none of us spoke, but smoked incessantly, our eyes upturned to the sky, which was lovely, mystical, wonderful, with the pale after-glow thrilling it with the most beautiful hues. Before we had reached the town a strange yellow moonlight had crept over the landscape, making the trees gloom together in solemn masses, while the sea glimmered in a thousand lines of trembling light away, away into remote horizons. We all enjoyed the drive, although none of us spoke until we got down from the cart at the steps of the hotel.[Pg 745]

"That was the best part of the day," observed my cousin Frank. "What good times we fellows might have if there were no women to disturb us!"

Thorpe growled some inarticulate assent or dissent, as the case might be, and went up to his room, while Frank and I had our cigars out on the piazza.

A dance at Mrs. Woodruff's was to follow the picnic, and thither we resorted about ten o'clock and found the chairs placed for a German. Georgy Lenox was there, radiant in a ravishing toilette, waiting for Frank to lead the cotillon with her. She nodded to me pleasantly as she took her seat. I was angry with myself for my disappointment, doubly angry with her for causing it. It cost me my self-respect to be so utterly at her mercy. What did I gain by following her into this gay coterie but pang upon pang of humiliation and pain? Why did I come, indeed? It was not the first time she had broken her promises to me. Yet what could I expect of her? Bright, gay, dazzling creature that she was, warm and eager in her love of vigorous life, could she sit down with me in a corner and talk while the rest of the world palpitated and glowed and whirled around her to the music of the waltz, which stirred even my crippled limbs with a wild wish for voluptuous swaying motion in rhythm with the melodious melancholy strain? No, I could not blame her: I was merely out of my place. Let me go home and remember what a gulf of disparity separated me from my fellows.

So I walked out of the house through the grounds into the street, and along the road home to The Headlands. It was a long walk for me, yet I overcame the distance quickly, and long before eleven o'clock gained the house, entered quietly and sat down beside my mother on her sofa, unseen by Mr. Floyd and Helen, who were in the next room.

I was half mad with baffled desire, blind anger and fatigue that night, and the sound of Helen's voice as she sang some song like a lullaby was like a blessing. My mother did not speak to me; only smiled gently in my face and kissed me on my forehead. Her tenderness touched my heart, and my head drooped to her shoulder, then to her lap, and I lay there like a boy comforted by his mother's touch, just as I was. A kind of peaceful stupor came over me. Helen went on singing some quiet German piece of which her father was fond, with many verses and a sweet, moving story. Her voice was delicious in its way, with a noble and simple style, and a pathetic charm in some of its cadences I never heard surpassed. Mr. Floyd never tired of hearing her. After a time the ballad came to an end.

She sang something soft, cooing, monotonous, a strain a mother might sing as she hushed her baby at her breast: then she came out, followed by her father, and both sat down beside us. I, half shyly, half through dread of talking, went on counterfeiting sleep.

"Poor boy!" exclaimed Mr. Floyd. "He has evidently walked back from the Point. He was tired out with his dissipations, or Miss Georgina was coquetting with other men or ate too much to suit him. If I were in love to extremity of passion with Miss Lenox, or rather with her brilliant flesh-tints and her hands and feet, I should recover the moment I saw her at table. She is the frankest gourmande I ever saw, and will be stout in five years."

"Now, Mary, how little you understand the points of a woman! Helen has hands that I kiss"—and he kissed them—"the most beautiful hands in the world; and she has feet whose very shoe-tie I adore; but, nevertheless, there is nothing aggressive about her insteps and ankles. She considers her feet made to walk with, not to captivate men with."

"I should hope not," said Lady Disdain, with plenty of her chief attribute[Pg 746] in her voice. "I prefer that nobody should know I have any feet."

"That is just it. Now, Miss Lenox never comes in or goes out of a room but every man there knows the color of her stockings."

"I am ashamed of you, papa!—Scold him, Mrs. Randolph. I think him quite horrid."

"Since, my mouse, you don't want to be admired for your feet and hands, what points of your beauty may we venture to obtrude our notice upon?"

"Oh, you may love me for whatever you like. But I don't want other people ever to think of me in that way at all."

"Floyd would never be silly," Helen said indignantly. "Floyd likes me because we are old friends: he knew grandpa and you, papa, and all that."

"You are easily satisfied if you are contented with affection on the score of your aged relatives."

"How soundly he sleeps!" murmured Helen; and I knew that she bent close to me as she spoke, for I could feel the warmth of her young cheeks. Half to frighten her, half because I wanted to see how she looked as she regarded me, I suddenly opened my eyes.

"You weren't asleep at all!" she exclaimed, laughing and quite unembarrassed. "But I think you were wicked to hoax us so. Did you hear everything we said?"

"Indeed, Helen," I said, "I was fast asleep, I do believe, until you confessed your affection for me. You did not expect me to sleep through that?"

She stared at me blankly, then looked at the others with dilating eyes. "Did I say anything about that?" she asked, growing pale even to her lips and tears gathering in her eyes.

"Why, no, you foolish child!" said her father, drawing her upon his knee: "he is only teasing you. As if anybody had any affection for one of the Seven Sleepers!—Well, Floyd, how happened you to come back so soon? The carriage was going for you at midnight.—Here, Mills, Mr. Randolph has already returned, and the coachman may go to bed."

"The day was pretty long," I returned. "I had had enough of it, and so set out and walked back. I was well tired out when I came in, and that put me to sleep."

"It was a shame for you to walk so far," exclaimed Helen imperiously: "you are not strong enough for such an effort. There are eight horses in the stables, every one of them pawing in his stall, longing for a gallop, and for you to be obliged to walk four miles! Don't do such a dreadful thing again, Floyd."

I sprang up and limped about, feeling impatient and cross. "In spite of my poor leg," I returned, "I am a fair walker. Don't set me down as a helpless cripple, Helen."

I was bitter and wrathful still, or I trust I was too magnanimous to have wounded her so.

"Floyd!" exclaimed my mother in a tone of reproof; but I did not turn, and went down the long suite of parlors and stood at the great window which overlooked the sea. It was all open to the summer night, and the lace curtains waved to and fro in the breeze. Solemnly came up the rhythmic flow of the waves as they beat against the rocks. I pushed aside the draperies and looked out at the wide expanse of waters lying, it seemed, almost at my feet, for everything else but the great silver plain of sea was in shadow. Above, the moon had it all her own way to-night: the constellations shone pale, and seemed weary of the firmament which at other times they span and compass with their myriad splendors. Mars moved in a stately way straight along above the southern horizon to his couch in the west: even his red light was dim.

But what stillness and peace seemed possible beneath this throbbing sea? I sighed as I listened to the sound of the waves and gazed at the great golden pathway of the moon across the silver[Pg 747] waters. I knew that some one had followed me and stood timidly behind me: I guessed it was Helen, but did not know until a slim satin hand stole into mine, for surely it was not my mother's hand. Hers was warm and firm in its pressure: the touch of this was soft and cool like a rose-leaf. I held the hand close, but did not turn.

She came in front of me and looked up in my face. "I don't want you to think," she said in a little faint trembling voice, "that—that I—that I—" She quite broke down.

"Floyd," she cried passionately, "I think I would die before I would wilfully hurt your feelings!"

"Why, my poor little girl," said I, quite touched at the sight of her quivering face and the sound of her impassioned voice, "you did not hurt my feelings for an instant. What I said was in answer to my own thoughts. I like to say such things to myself at times, and remember that I do not possess the advantages of other men. Besides, facts are facts: I am lame. I cannot dance, and although I can walk, it is with a limping gait: I should be a poor fellow in a foot-race. I don't suppose that my being a cripple will forfeit me anything in the kingdom of heaven, but, nevertheless, it obliges me to forego a good many pleasures here on earth."

"You are not a cripple!" she burst out impetuously. "You have every advantage! What is it that you cannot dance? I despise men who whirl about like puppets: I have never seen them waltzing but they must make themselves ridiculous. I am glad you cannot dance: you are on the level of too much dignity and noble behavior to condescend to such petty things. And surely you do not want to run a foot-race!" she added with an intensity of disdain which made me laugh, high-wrought and painful although my mood was. Then her lip trembled, and I saw tears in her eyes as she went on. "If you were a cripple," she pursued in a low, eager voice, "really a helpless cripple, everybody would love you just the same. Why, Floyd, what do you think it is to me that, as you say, you do not possess the advantages of other men? Have you forgotten how it all came about? I was a little girl then, but there is nothing that happened yesterday clearer to my memory than that terrible morning when I cost you so dear. I know how I felt—as if forsaken by the world. I wondered if God looked down and saw me, alone, in danger, blind and dizzy and trembling, so that again and again I seemed to be slipping away from everything that held me. I could not have stayed one minute more had I not heard your voice. You were so strong, so kind, Floyd! When you reached me your hands were bleeding, your face scratched and torn, your breath came in great pants, but you looked at me and smiled. And then you carried me to the top and put me in safety, and I let you go down, down, down!" She was quite speechless, and leaned her cheek against my hand, which she still held, and wet it freely with her tears.

"If you mind your lameness," she said brokenly, with intervals of sobs—"if you feel that Fate is cruel to you—that there is any reason why you cannot be perfectly happy—then I wish," she exclaimed with energy, "that I had never been born to do you this great injury. I love my life, I love papa, I love your mother and you, and it seems to me as if I were going to be a very happy woman; but still, if you carry any regret for that day in your heart, I wish I had died when I was so sick before you came: I wish I lay up there on the hill with the grass growing over me."

What was anybody to do with this overwrought, fanciful child? She was so wonderfully pretty too, with her great dark, melancholy eyes, her flushed, tear-stained[Pg 748] cheeks, her rich rare lips! "Oh, Helen," I murmured, holding her close to me, "I don't want you to go under the green grass: I'm very glad you are alive. I would have broken all my bones in your service that day and welcome, so that you might be well and unhurt. Come, now, cheer up: I am going to be a pleasanter fellow than I have been of late. Dry your eyes, dear. Your father will be laughing at you. Come, let us go and take a stroll in the moonlight: it is quite wicked not to indulge in a little romance on a sweet midsummer night like this."

When I had gone to my room that night, and sat, still bitter, still discontented, looking off through my open window toward the Point, and wondering who was looking in Georgy Lenox's starry eyes just then—thinking, with a feeling about my forehead like a band of burning iron, that some man's arm was sure to be about her waist, her face upturned to his, her floating golden hair across his shoulder as they danced,—while, I say, such fancies held a firm clutch over my brain and senses, devouring me with the throes of an insane jealousy, my mother came in and sat down beside me.

"My dear boy," she said, putting her hand on my shoulder, "I am going to give you a caution. You must remember that Helen, with all her frankness and impetuosity, is still no child. Don't win her heart unthinkingly."

I felt the blood rush to my face, and I think I had never in all my life experienced such embarrassment.

"I'm not such a coxcomb, mother, as to believe any girl could fall in love with me—Helen above all others."

She smiled, with a little inward amusement in her smile. "You must remember," she said again softly, "that Helen is not a child, and you surely would not make her suffer."

"Why, mother," I gasped, "we are just like brother and sister: our intimacy is the habit of years."

"Good-night, my son," my mother said, and went away still smiling: "I have perfect faith in your magnanimity."

I remembered with a flash of guilty self-consciousness one or two little circumstances about our talk by the window two hours before which I have not set down here. It had seemed an easy task to soothe the child. If there had been any absurdity like that my mother hinted at, would she—could I— No, never! She was a careless child, with fits of coldness, imperious tenderness and generosity. Not a woman at all. The idea was quite distasteful to me that Helen was a grown-up woman with whom I must be on my guard.

However, Helen's manner to me next day and at all times was calculated to assure any man that she was a wilful, self-sustained young creature of extraordinary beauty and grace, who was devoted to her father, and to him alone. I saw Thorpe one evening pick up, by stealth, the petals of a crimson rose which had dropped from the stalk that still nestled in the black ribbon at her throat, and I laughed at him for his pains as he laid them carefully away in his pocket-book.

"Miss Floyd," said I, "here is another rose. Don't honor that poor skeleton of a vanished flower."

She saw the accident which had befallen her rose, and took mine from me and replaced her ornament with a fresh blossom. "Give me the poor stem," said I as she was about to throw it away.

"What is that for?" she asked, staring at me as I placed it in my buttonhole. "What do you want of the poor old thing?"

And, mistrusting some mischief beneath my sentimental behavior, she was quite tart with me the entire evening, and would not speak to Thorpe at all, but sat demurely between my mother and Mr. Floyd, her eyes nailed on some embroidery, and behaving altogether like a spoiled child of twelve years old.

Georgy Lenox had returned from her visit at Mrs. Woodruff's, and seemed a little quiet and weary of late. I was not so much at her service as before, but had begun to console myself by teaching in song what, like other young poets, I had experienced in suffering. I thank Heaven that no eyes but my own ever[Pg 749] beheld the tragedy I wrote that summer: still, I am a little tender-hearted over it yet, and believe that it was, after all, not so bad as it might have been. At any rate, it enabled me to find some relief from my passionate unrest in occupation, and even my own high-sounding phrases may have taught me some scanty heroism. After all, if one fights one's own battle bravely, does it make so much matter about other things? Our battles to-day, like the rest of those fought since creation, show poor cause if regarded from any other standpoint save the necessity of fighting them. Most of our fiercest struggles for life have no adequate reason: it is not so necessary for us to live as we think it is. That we do not get what we want, or that we sink beneath our load of trouble, signifies little in the aggregate of the world's history. But, all the same, our cries of despair go up to Heaven, and there seems no need in the universe so absolute, so final, as that we ourselves should live and be happy.

It is hard for a man of middle age, with a cool brain and tranquillized passions, to retrace the history of his youth. There is much that he must smile over—much, too, which is irksome for him to dwell upon. Many experiences which in their freshness seemed holy and sacred, in after years, stripped of their disguise of false sentiment and the aureole with which they were invested by youthful imagination, become absolutely loathsome—just as when we see tamely by daylight the tawdry stage which last night made a world for us full of all the paraphernalia of high romanticism—silver and velvet robes, plumed hats, dim woodland vistas and the echo of a distant high note, youthful beauty, rope-ladders, balconies, daggers, poison, and passionate love-strains. This skeleton framework of the illusion, these well-worn contrivances, tarnished gold lace and mock splendors, disenchant us sadly, and what we took for

Horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle: answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying,

is now discovered to be a cheap-trumpet imitation of the enchanted notes we dreamed of hearing.

After Miss Lenox returned from the Point she was, as I have said, a little pensive: this little shadow upon the splendor of her beauty lent a subtlety and charm to her manner. If there had been a fault in her loveliness before, it was that it remained always equal: the same light seemed always to play over face and hair, the liquid clearness of her eyes was always undimmed, and there was a trifle of over-robustness about the rounded contours of her figure. In spite of all her beauty, it had at times been hard for me to realize that she was a woman to give herself thoroughly to love. I had already had many dreams of her, yet never one where I thought she could have given me the infinite softness of a caressing touch or feel the motherly quality which lies at the bottom of every true woman's love for man. Now the splendor of her eyes was veiled, her smile was half melancholy, her voice less clear and ringing.

When a man loves a woman, and her mood changes and softens, he reads but one meaning in her tenderness; and it was not long before I had begun fully to believe that there was hope for me. There seemed to be no one to meddle in my wooing. True, Judge Talbot came constantly to the house to see Miss Lenox, and lacked none of the signs by which we read a man's errand in his demeanor; but I did not fear any rivalry from him. Youth, at any rate, is something in itself, independent of other advantages: no wonder it vaunts itself and believes in its own power. That Georgy would think for an instant of giving herself to this man did not seriously occur to me. His face was like the face of thousands of successful men whom we see daily in the great marts of the world. His forehead was broad but low, his eyes inclined to smallness and set closely together, his brows shaggy and overhanging: his cheeks were heavy, and the fleshy formation of his mouth and chin denoted both cruelty and sensuality. He was a wealthy man: such men are always rich. He had the reputation of holding[Pg 750] an iron grip over everything he claimed, and never letting it go. He had been married in early life, and now had sons and daughters past the age of the girl upon whom he was eagerly pressing his suit.

He came to dinner now and then, and over his wine he was noisy, boisterous and bragging. He had been in Congress with Mr. Floyd years before, and, though of different parties, they had innumerable recollections in common, and, much as I disliked Mr. Talbot, I recognized his cleverness in anecdote and the clearness and conciseness of his narratives. I could endure him among men, but with women he was odious, and, for some reasons occult and inexplicable to any man, plumed himself upon his success with them. He understood himself too well, and relied too entirely upon his natural abilities, to make any effort to hide his gross ignorance upon all subjects requiring either literary or mental culture. He had been eminently successful without any such acquirements in every field he entered, and consequently considered them non-essentials in a man's career—very good to have, like the cream and confectionery at dessert, tickling the palates of women and children, but eschewed by sensible men. He had travelled twice over Europe, seeing everything with the voracious curiosity of a strong man eager to get his money's worth: after his experience of cities rich in high historic charm, works of art where the rapture and exaltation of long-vanished lives have been exultingly fixed in wonderful colors or imperishable marbles, he had carried away merely a hubbub of recollections of places where the best wines were found and his miseries at being reduced in certain cases to the position of a deaf-mute through his inability to grapple with the difficulties of foreign tongues.

No, it did not in those days occur to me that I had a rival in Mr. Talbot. Helen and I used to laugh at his crass ignorance, and mystify him now and then by our allusions. Miss Lenox was never vivacious at table, and used to listen languidly to all of us, turning to me now and then and regarding me with a sort of pleased curiosity when she thought I overmatched her heavy admirer.

As I have said, I had turned to composition as an amusement, an occupation, and perhaps a refuge from feelings which were rapidly becoming an ever-present pain. I recall one day when I had sat for hours at my desk writing busily, utterly wrapped up in my fancies—so engrossed, indeed, that when I had finished my work I looked with astonishment at my watch and discovered that it was long past two o'clock. I rose and went to the window, pushed aside the curtains and threw open the blinds, and gazed out. I overlooked the garden, which was deserted except by the bees and humming-birds busy among the flowers. The mid-day heat had passed, and a breeze rustled the leaves and moaned in the pine trees. It was a fair world, and I felt what one often experiences in coming back to reality after high emotion—a sort of strangeness in the beauty of tree and grass and sea and wood.

While I stood there some one advanced along the garden-path, looked up, saw me and beckoned. It was but a moment's effort to join her, and almost before I had realized what I was doing I was beside Miss Lenox in the garden.

"No," I returned, remembering that I had sworn to myself not to yield to her caprices, "I am going for a walk."

"Oh yes, you may go, Georgy," I said with a little laugh. "I am only too happy, I am afraid, if you ask to go anywhere with me."

"Don't take me where it is wet," she observed simply, "for I have on thin slippers;" and she stretched out a little foot.

She took up the folds of her full white dress in her hands, and we set out. The mood was upon me to take the old paths[Pg 751] across the sloping uplands into the woods on the hill that Helen and I had tramped over so often in our childhood. Beneath us lay the sea, a wide plain of placid waters, blue in the foreground, with opal tints playing over it as it spread out toward the horizon; above us were the woods luxuriant in their midsummer verdure, silent except for the occasional note of a wild bird; and about us were the green fields, fresh mown of late, with thickets of grape and wild convolvulus and star-wreathed blackberry-vines making a luxuriant tangle over the fences.

Georgy walked before me in the narrow path, and I followed closely, watching her fine free movements, the charm of her figure in its plain white morning-dress bound at the waist with a purple ribbon. Her golden-yellow hair lay in curls upon her shoulders: now and then I caught a glimpse of the contour of her face as she half turned to see if I were close behind her. Neither of us spoke for a long time.

My own thoughts flew about like leaves in a wind, but I wondered of what she was thinking. Although I had known her all my life, she was not easy for me to understand; or rather my impressions of her at this time were so colored by the passion of my own hopes that it was impossible for me to find a clew to her real feelings. Perhaps she was thinking of Jack: she was thinking—I was sure she was thinking—of something sweet, sad and strange, or she could not have looked so beautiful.

Suddenly she stopped in her walk and uttered a little cry. "It is wet here," she cried with vexation: "we must turn back, Floyd."

"I said I would take care of you," I exclaimed quickly, and putting my arms about her I raised her and carried her safely over the spot where a hundred springs trickled up to the surface and made a morass of the luxuriant grass. I did not set her down at once. For weeks now, sleeping and waking, I had been haunted by a fierce longing to hold her to my heart as I held her now, and it was not so easy to put by so great a joy. When at last I reached the stile I released her, and she sat down on the stone and looked at me with a half smile.

"How could I be angry with you?" she said, putting out her hand to me and speaking so kindly that I dared to press her little rosy palm to my lips. "But how strong you are, Floyd! You carried me like a feather's weight, and yet I am tall and very heavy. You know how to take care of me, indeed."

"If I might always take care of you!" I said, my heart beating and the blood rushing to my face. "I can carry you home if you will. Don't you remember about the Laird of Bothwick declaring that no man should marry his daughter save the one who should carry her three miles up the mountain-side? If I could have such a chance with you!"

"But about the daughter of the old laird: did she find a lover so strong as to carry her to the mountain-top?"

"Yes: one of her suitors took her in his arms and strode along, crying, 'Love gives me strength—love gives me speed.' However, he was not happy after all, poor fellow! When he reached the goal he died. How could he have died then?"

"What did the young lady do?" inquired Georgy, laughing. "I suppose another lover rode by her side as she walked home, and that she married him for his pains. That is the way the brave men of the world are rewarded, Floyd. Don't be too generous, nor too strong, nor too self-forgetful. You will gain nothing by it."

"Oh, I said nothing about myself. Why do you ask me all these questions as soon as we are alone? I am afraid sometimes to let you talk to me, although there are few people in the world whom I like so well to have near me. Women will always love you dearly, Floyd. You are so gentle, so harmonious with pleasant thoughts and pleasant doings: you seem less selfish and vain than other men.[Pg 752] You deserve that some woman should make you very happy, Floyd."

"I am not so sure of that. I do not know why you think of me at all: what is it about me that attracts you? Helen is younger than I am—a hundred times more beautiful. No, sir, you need make no such demonstrations. If you like my poor face best, it is because we are old friends, and you are so true, so kind, to the old memories. Do not interrupt me yet. I think you are blind to your own interests when you pass Helen by: she is so rich that if you marry her you can live a life like a prince."

"But if I do not wish to lead a prince's life, Georgy?" said I, a little nettled at the indifference which must prompt such comparisons of Helen to herself. "Nothing could induce me to marry a rich woman, even if Helen were to be thought of by a poor fellow like me. I have no vague dreams about the future: my hopes are clear and definite. I want a career carved by my own industry, my own taste: I want—above all things, I want—the wife of whom I am always thinking."

"You know very well, Georgy," I returned, throwing myself beside her and gazing up into her face. "Since I was a little fellow in Belfield, and used to look out of the school-room window with Jack Holt, and see you going past the church with your red jacket and your curls on your shoulders, I have had just one dream of the girl I could love so well that I could die for her. I used to lie on the hilltop then and fancy myself a bold knight on a white steed who should gallop down those sunshiny streets and seize you in his arms, raise you to the saddle and carry you away into Fairyland to live with him for ever. My longing has not changed: I want the same thing still."

"But when I was to marry Jack you did not seem to mind," said Georgina, looking at me with that new pensiveness she had learned of late.

"You knew my heart very little. When Jack told me that you were still free, I hated myself, my joy, my renewal of hope, seemed so contemptibly little in contrast with his great despair. I would not have wronged him. God knows, I pity him when I remember what he has lost! Still, I too loved you as a child: I never had it in my power to serve you, but I had no other thought but you. Why may it not be, dear? Who can love you better than I do? Even although I am not rich, who will take better care of you than I shall? I am sure you love me a little. Do not put the feeling by, but think of it: do not deny it—let it have its chance."

She rose with an absent air. "We must go on," she said dreamily; and I helped her over the stile, and we walked slowly through the wood. She leaned upon my arm, but her face was downcast, and her broad hat concealed it from me.

She looked up at me pale but smiling. "Do you know, Floyd," she murmured, "I do think you could make me happy if anybody could."

"Promise me that I may have the chance. End now, Georgy, all your doubts, all my fears. You will be happier so."

"But we should be poor!" she cried sharply. "I could not be contented to marry a poor man. You may be clever, Floyd—I do not know much about cleverness in men—but, all the same, it is hard for a man to make money until he has worked for many, many years. I could not wait for you. I am older than you, and everybody is wondering why, with all my opportunities, I have not married. You'd much better give me up," she added, looking into my face steadily and smiling, although her lip trembled, "and let Mr. Talbot have me. He is rich, and can marry me at once. He is waiting for my answer now, and it is best that I should, as you say, end it all."

I shuddered as this pang disturbed my warm bliss. "For Heaven's sake, don't joke, Georgy!" I exclaimed. "I can't even hear you allude to the possibility of marrying such a man as that with equanimity. I am not so poor. Mr.[Pg 753] Floyd—" But, after all, I could not tell her of Mr. Floyd's generosity to me: it seemed like basing calculations upon his death to assure her that the course of events was to bring me a fortune.

She looked at me with eagerness. "Tell me now," she said, putting her hand upon my arm. "If you love me, Floyd, you cannot keep a secret from me."

To describe the beauty of her face, the fascination of her manner, the thrill of her touch, words are quite powerless, mere pen-scratches. If any man could have withstood her, I was not that man. Shame to relate, I soon had told her everything—that Mr. Floyd had for years placed an ample income at my disposal—that I had seen his will, which gave me, without restriction, a clear third of his fortune.

She was meditative for a while. "But," she said then with a trifle of brusqueness, "if you marry me he will be angry and change all that: he does not like me. He has different plans for you: he wants you to marry Helen."

"Don't say that," I cried, "for I love Mr. Floyd so well, I owe him so much, I could refuse him nothing."

"You mean that if he asked you to marry Helen you would give me up, would take her?" she retorted with a flaming color on her cheeks and a gleam in her eyes. "You do not care for me, then. You are merely playing with me: you love her, after all."

"Now, that is nonsense, Georgy," I said gently, for through her jealousy I had the first glimpse, I fancied, of something like real love for me; "and I do not like to hear Helen's name bandied about in this way. You may be sure that she will stand in no need of suitors: I shall never be one of them. Now, then, who is it that is coquetting? You know whom I love—what I want. I am very much in earnest—unsettled in heart and mind, body, soul and spirit, until I have your answer. Tell me, Georgy darling, is it or is it not to be?"

But I was to have no answer that day. Miss Lenox said it was very tiresome hearing me reiterate that dreary question, and that she saw raspberries in the thicket which I must gather for her. Although, when she had eaten them, she let me kiss the lovely stained lips, I was still far enough from knowing whether they were mine or not—whether she liked to raise my ardent dreams merely to disappoint them, or whether at heart it was, as she sometimes hinted, that she did care for me with something of the intimate, clinging habit which bound me so closely to her.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

DAWN IN THE CITY.

The city slowly wakes:
Her every chimney makes
Offering of smoke against the cool white skies:
Slowly the morning shakes
The lingering shadowy flakes
Of night from doors and windows, from the city's eyes.

A breath through heaven goes:
[Pg 754]Leaves of the pale sweet rose
Are strewn along the clouds of upper air.
Healer of ancient woes,
The palm of dawn bestows
On feverish temples peace, comfort on grim despair.

Now the celestial fire
Fingers the sunken spire;
Crocket by crocket slowly creepeth down;
Brushes the maze of wire,
Dewy, electric lyre,
And with a silent hymn one moment fills the town.

Over emergent roofs
A sound of pattering hoofs
And anxious bleatings tells the passing herd:
Scared by the piteous droves,
A shoal of skurrying doves,
Veering, around the island of the church has whirred.

Soon through the smoky haze,
The park begins to raise
Its outlines clearer into daylit prose:
Ever with fresh amaze
The sleepless fountains praise
Morn, that has gilt the city as it gilds the rose.

High in the clearer air
The smoke now builds a stair
Leading to realms no wing of bird has found:
Things are more foul, more fair;
A distant clock, somewhere,
Strikes, and the dreamer starts at clear reverberant sound.

Farther the tide of dark
Drains from each square and park:
Here is a city fresh and new create,
Wondrous as though the ark
Should once again disbark
On a remoulded world its safe and joyous freight.

Ebbs all the dark, and now
Life eddies to and fro
By pier and alley, street and avenue:
The myriads stir below,
As hives of coral grow—
Vaulted above, like them, with a fresh sea of blue.

Charles de Kay.
[Pg 755]

THE PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1878.

IV.—MACHINERY.

The machinery in the Paris Exposition covers a larger space than any other of the eight departments of material, machinery and products which occupy the buildings and annexes. The ninth department, Horticulture, is outdoors on the grounds or in greenhouses. Foreign machinery has about half the space, and French machinery the remainder. Few countries are without annexes, the space allotted to each, though supposed to be ample, being utterly insufficient to hold the multitude of objects presented.

In preference to taking the classes of machinery in turn, and visiting the various nations in search of exemplars of the classes in rotation, it will be more interesting to take the nations in order and arrive at an idea of the rate and direction of their relative progress, modified so largely by the respective natural productions of the countries and by the habits and degrees of civilization of their inhabitants. When put to a trial of its strength, each nation naturally brings forward the matters in which it particularly excels.

Prominent in the section of the Netherlands, the name so descriptive of the land where not less than two hundred and twenty-three thousand acres are below the level of the sea and kept constantly drained by artificial means, are the engineering and mechanical devices for the reclamation and preservation of land, the formation of outlet-canals for the centres of commerce, and the bridging of the rivers and estuaries which intersect the maritime portions of the country. Some of the models and relief-maps were shown in the Netherlands section in the Main Building at Philadelphia, but the exhibition is more perfect here, as much has been added in the two intervening years.

The works for the drainage of the Haarlemmer Meer illustrate the means employed for the last great drainage-work completed. This lake had an area of 45,230 acres, an average depth of seventeen feet below low water, and was drained between 1848 and 1853. Being diked to exclude the waters which naturally flowed into it, three large engines were built in different places around it, and the work of pumping out 800,000,000 tons of water commenced. The engines have cylinders of twelve feet diameter, and are capable of lifting 2,000,000 tons[Pg 756] of water in twenty-four hours from the depth of seventeen feet to the level of the boezem, or catch-water basin, of the district. The boezem carries the water to the sea, into which it discharges by sluices at Katwyk on the North Sea and at Sparndam and Halfweg on the Y, or the southern end of the Zuyder Zee. The land reclaimed is now in excellent tillage, and one farm on the tract is referred to in agricultural journals as one of the three model farms of the world. The three engines are called the Leeghwater, the Cruquius and the Lynden, from three celebrated engineers who had at different times proposed plans for draining the Haarlemmer Meer. Proposals for its drainage were made by one of these engineers as far back as 1663. The next enterprise in hand is the drainage of the southern lobe of the Zuyder Zee, which is stated to have an average depth of thirteen feet, and it is intended to cut it off by a dike from the northern basin and erect sufficient engines around it to pump it out in thirteen years at the rate of a foot a year, working night and day.

Another engineering device, very necessary in a land where foundations are so frequently built under water, is the enclosed caisson with compressed air, as shown in detail in this exhibit. It was originally invented by M. Triger to keep the water expelled from the sheet-iron cylinders which he sunk through quick-sands in reaching the coal-measures in the vicinity of the river Loire in France. The seams of coal in this district lie under a stratum of quicksand from fifty-eight to sixty-six feet in thickness, and they had been inaccessible by all the ordinary modes of mining previously practised. The system has been much amplified and improved since, especially in sinking the foundations of the St. Louis and the New York East River bridges, and does not require specific description. An improved air-lock, by which access is given from the exterior to the working chamber at the part where the men work in an atmosphere sufficiently condensed to exclude water from the lower open end—like a tumbler inverted in water—is the principal addition which America has made to the device.

We need not go abroad to find long bridges, but the great bridge, with three immense iron trusses and eight smaller ones, over the Wahal near Bommell would be respectable anywhere. Our Louisville bridge is a parallel example for length, but the truss is different.

The dikes and jetties of the new embouchure of the Meuse embrace the same features of extending a river's banks into deep water, and by confining the stream making it scour out its own bed, as now so successfully practised by Captain Eads in one of the passes of the Mississippi River. Limbs and saplings made into gabions and staked together form mattresses, and by loading with stone are sunk in position. They soon become silted up, and are practically solid. Others are made and laid upon them ad libitum, and at last raise the crest above the level of the sea, the last course being laid with the advantage of high-water spring tides. This foundation supports courses of pitched masonry on its side, and these protect the stone or gravel embankment, which forms a roadbed. The river's water, instead of, as formerly, depositing its silt at the embouchure as its motion is arrested on reaching the open sea, carries its silt along and deposits it farther out: if a favorable shore-current occurs, it is swept away laterally, and so disposed of.

The maritime canal of Amsterdam is another late success of this remarkable people, which leads the world in dikes and drainage of low lands, as the Italian does in the art and area of irrigation. The present canal may satisfy the great and still rising commerce of Amsterdam, the previous ship-canal, fifty-one miles in length, built in 1819-25 at a cost of $4,250,000, and deep and wide enough to float two passing frigates, having proved insufficient.

Belgium is happily situated, and well provided by Nature and art to enter into any competitive trial. With admirable skill, great provision of iron and coal and a people of economical habits that permit them to work at low wages without being impoverished, she is, besides[Pg 757] working up her own abundant material, rolling the iron of England into rails, and making it into locomotives for Great Britain, whose own people lack the work thus done abroad. The "Société Cockerill-Seraing" has an enormous space devoted to the machinery for the exploitation of iron. Compressed forgings in car-wheels and other shapes are piled on the floor, and a whole railway rail-rolling mill train is shown in motion. Two of the rolls are stated to have rolled 10,500 tons of steel rails, and are in apparent good order yet.

The Belgium system of sinking shafts for mines and wells, invented by Kind and Chaudron, exhibited here as in Philadelphia, attracts great attention from its gigantic proportions. Imagine an immense boring-chisel (trepan), weighing 26,000 pounds and with a breadth of over six feet, worked up and down by machinery, the steel studs on its face stamping the rocks into dust, so that they can be removed with a bucket with bottom valves which is dropped into the hole and is worked up and down until the detritus and water, if any, creep into it, when it is withdrawn and emptied. The repetition of these processes makes the shaft of two mètres diameter. Then comes the larger trepan, with a width of 4.80 mètres, and repeats the process on a larger scale. This enormous chisel weighs 44,000 pounds. The system is much in favor, and forty-five shafts have been thus sunk between 1854 and 1877 in Belgium, France, England and Germany. Cast-iron lining is lowered in sections as the shaft deepens, the sections being added at the top and bolted together.

The Belgian exhibit contains also one of those immense paper-machines invented by the brothers Fourdrinier about fifty years ago, and now used almost universally for the best class of machine-made papers. They are used by Wilcox at Glen Falls, Delaware county, Penn., in making the government note and bond paper, and are a marvel of art. The Frenchmen who invented the machine brought it into use in England, but they were much hampered and discouraged by difficulties, and it was never a pecuniary success to them. It was a legacy to the future, and they have joined the army of martyrs to mechanical science. The machine in the Belgian section is one hundred and thirty feet long, and the Swiss machine, near by, is nearly as large. The French, with their customary ingenuity, have reduced the proportions very considerably. The Swiss machine makes paper one mètre and a half wide.

The remainder of the Belgian exhibit of machinery may be summarized: rock drills on the principle of those used at Mont Cenis; the gas-engines of Otto; machine tools, lathes, drills and planers; a very curious machine for cutting bevel or straight gears, built by a firm at Liège, and worthy of attention by Mr. Sellers or Mr. Corliss, whose ingenious machines for the same purpose were at Philadelphia; the woollen machinery of Celestine Martin of Verviers, which I recollect to have seen in Philadelphia also; multitubular boilers, rudder propeller, and hand fire-engines Then we see a number of locomotives and tramway engines, rail and street cars, winding, mining, crane and portable engines, and a full set of vacuum-pans for sugar, with engines, centrifugal[Pg 758] filters and hydraulic presses. A glance at Guibal's great mine-ventilator fan, fifty feet in diameter and with ten wooden vanes, and we may quit the section of Belgium, which is the next largest after England of all the foreign departments here.

The exhibition of Denmark is principally agricultural machinery, its iron ploughs being copies of the English, and its reapers of the American, while the dairy machines and apparatus are its own, and very excellent.

The embroidering-machine of Hurtu & Hautin is shown working in the Swiss section, and is a great success. The web or cloth to be embroidered is stretched between horizontal rollers in a vertical frame which hangs suspended in the machine from the shorter end of a lever above. On each side of this floating frame is a track on which a carriage alternately approaches and recedes. Each carriage carries as many nippers in a row as equals the number of needles, which in this case is two hundred and twelve. The needles have an eye in the middle and are pointed at each end. The carriage advances, the nippers holding the threaded needles, and pushes them through the cloth: the nippers on the other side are waiting to receive them and shut upon them, those which have just thrust them into the cloth opening automatically; the second carriage retreats and draws the silk through the cloth with the requisite tightness, and then comes forward, thrusting the other end of the needles through the cloth to be grasped by the nippers on the first carriage, and so on. The frame holding the cloth is moved by an arrangement of levers under the control of the operator, who conducts a tracer point on the long end of the lever over the design, which is suspended before him. The frame moves in obedience to the action of the tracer, but in a minified degree, and each needle repeats on a scale of one-twentieth the design over which the tracer is moved step by step between each stitch. Thus two hundred and twelve embroideries according to a prescribed pattern are made by each needle; and, in fact, though it was not stated, to avoid complicating the description, a second row of a similar number of needles is carried by the same carriages and operates upon a second web stretched between another pair of rollers in the same floating frame. The object of the rollers is to reel off new cloth as the embroidery progresses and to reel on the work done. A similar machine is shown in the French section, in the Salle de l'École Militaire.

The Jacquard loom is shown in many sections—Swiss, French, United States, English and others—principally upon silk handkerchiefs and motto-ribbons. The exhibit of carpet-weaving is far inferior to the Philadelphian. The Swiss exhibit of machinery for making paper of wood pulp is very large and ample, but the Belgian annex shows the finest and largest varieties of paper so made to be found in the Exposition. The paper, white and of various colors, made from about forty trees and twenty different straws, grasses and forage-plants, is shown in large rolls.

Of Russia there is not much to say except as regards the work of the École Impériale Technique de Moscou. This is a remarkable exemplification of tools, methods of work, parts of engines and machines, all finished with extreme care and fitted with great nicety. It is fuller than it was in Philadelphia, but many of the portions are readily recognizable. The machine tools, hydraulic presses, stationary engines and hand fire-engines are closely associated with the military and naval objects, cannons, ambulances, field-forges and an excellent lifeboat, système de Bojarsky.

Austria comes with no more striking exhibit than the malteries and breweries of Nobak Frères and Fritze. The immense extent of the magazines for barley and hops; the size and height of the malteries, where by continuous processes the grain is damped, sprouted and dried and the malt ground; the number and capacity of the various vessels in which the infusions of malt and hops are made and mixed; and the apparently interminable series of engines, pumps and pipes by which the steam and liquids[Pg 759] are conducted,—are confusing until some study evolves order out of the apparent confusion. The wort is cooled artificially, time being a great object as well as the saving of aroma, and the yet innocent liquid is poured in a torrent into the fermentation-vats, where Nature will have her own way and eliminate the ingredients which convert the mawkish wort into the sparkling and refreshing beer. Four hundred and fifty of these establishments have been erected by this firm in Europe; which must be some comfort to those, not vignerons, who think the prospects of the vine are materially clouded by the Phylloxera.

But Austria is not beery alone. She has fine exhibits in horology, electric and pneumatic telegraphy, and in tools, grain-mills, gang-saw mills, and machines for making paper bags. More important, as some might say, are the admirable locomotives and stationary engines, cars, fire-engines, and her collection of iron-work, in which are exhibited cast-iron car-wheels, made by Ganz & Co. of Buda-Pesth, which have been in use twenty-one years and have run without apparent severe injury a distance of 549,108 kilomètres, or nearly 280,700 miles.

The beet-root sugar interest is becoming very important in Austria, but the evidences of the Exhibition indicate that the diffusion-process holds better credit there than in France, where it is not approved of. The rotative apparatus shown is an immense affair, with a series of eight tall tanks arranged on a circular carriage and rotating on a vertical axis, so as to bring each in turn to the charging and discharging positions. Each tank has its own system of pumps. Beet-root is difficult to exploit for various reasons, chemical and other. Like the vine, it is particular in its nutriment, requires great skill to remove extraneous substances, and can hardly be handled by the French system without a set of machinery costing about eighty thousand dollars.

From Austria to Spain is but a step, but it is not productive of much information in the matter we have in hand. A beaming-machine for cotton warps, red, white and yellow, stands solitary in its section, and next to it is a model of a cirque de taureau, composed of nineteen thousand pieces of tin laboriously put together without solder, as if that were a merit, and stated to be the work of two years. In the arena the wooden bull regards with indifference two mounted cavaliers and seven footmen in various provoking attitudes. Near by are various machines and presses for the treatment of grapes and olives, grinders and presses in variety, a sugar-cane press and a turbine. Barcelona would seem to be the most enterprising of Spanish cities. Several exemplifications of the excellent iron of Catalonia and Biscay suggest the direction in which Spain has taken its most important industrial start of late years. An admirable model of the quay of the copper-mining company of the Rio Tinto is another evidence in the same line which the maps, plans and ores amply corroborate.

Two steps, in violation of all preconceived geographical notions, but in obedience to the Exposition authorities, land us in China, where we find things mechanical in much the same state of progress as Marco Polo viewed them some centuries since. The silk tissues brought from the far East were famous in the days of the Roman magnificence, and here is the loom. The marvel is how such a web can be made on such a rough machine. A blue silk warp of delicate threads is in the loom, which has nine heddles, and the partly-finished fabric shows a woof[Pg 760] consisting of a narrow gilded strip of paper. The sheen of the figured goods is something remarkable. It is a parallel case to that of the shawls of Kashmir, where the natives, trained for generations, succeed in producing by great care and unlimited expenditure of time fabrics with which the utmost elaboration of our machinery scarcely enables us to compete.

The machine for the whitening of rice by the removal of the brown coating from the pure white grain is similar to that shown from Siam at the Centennial, but, unlike the latter, the faces of the two round horizontal wooden blocks which act as mill-stones are serrated, whereas the Siamese rubbers were made of sun-dried clay, the serrations consisting of bamboo strips inserted in the clay while yet plastic. The motion is similar, not being continuously revolving, but reciprocatory, and the method is customary in all the rice-eating regions except India, and is well known in parts of the latter, though not universal. The grain of Eastern Asia, including India and Malaysia, is almost universally rice, of which two, and even three, crops a year are raised in some regions, and the processes of cooking are simple among these vegetarians, the variation consisting principally in the choice of condiments or of certain additional esculents or fruits in their season. The grinding of grain is, however, universally known, though meal forms but a small proportion of the daily food. The mortar and pestle in the Chinese section show the more usual method, and there, as in some parts of India, the pestle is placed on the end of a poised horizontal beam which is worked by the foot of the operator at the end opposite to the pestle.

We meet in the Chinese section with the original of our fanning-mill or winnowing-machine for grain. Though China has had the same machines for centuries, we have not knowingly copied many of them. The fanning-mill, porcelain and the cheng may be fairly credited to her. The last is the original of all our free-reed musical instruments. It is shown here, and was also at the Centennial, and it was the carrying of one overland to Russia, where it fell into the hands of Kratzenstein, the organ-builder to Queen Catharine II., which initiated the free reed in Europe, and led to the accordions, concertinas, harmoniums and parlor organs which perhaps afford the cheapest and loudest music for a given expenditure of muscle and wind of anything we have.

The spinning and winding machinery of China is simple enough, but so much like that of our great-grandmothers that it does not arrest particular attention. It is otherwise with the irrigating-machine, which in its various modifications produces, by the fruitfulness induced, the food of scores of millions in China, India, Syria and Egypt—the cogged wheel on a vertical axis, with an ox travelling beneath it, and a horizontal shaft moved thereby and carrying an endless chain of pots or buckets, either hanging from the cord or moving in an inclined chute.

The ploughs, harrows, rakes, flails, spades, hoes and forks are of the usual clumsy description, not to be apprehended by the reader without cuts, and many of them only reasonably effective even in the mellow soil repeatedly stirred and occasionally flooded with water. The seed-drill for planting one row, with a share on each side to turn soil on to the grain, is an anticipation of some later inventions nearer home. The thresher is a square frame drawn over the grain—which is spread upon the bare ground—and is furnished on its under side with steel blades which not only shell the grain out of the ear, but also reduce the straw into chaff, which is desirable, as storing for feed more conveniently. Southern nations have but little conception of our use of hay. Grain for the man and straw for the beast is the usual division. The ancient Roman tribulum and the modern Syrian morej, were or are similar, and the "sharp" threshing instrument of Isaiah may be seen to-day in the Tunis exhibit, being a frame of boards with sharp flint spalls inserted into its under surface.

We might linger with profit over the elaborate models of Chinese manufactures—sugar, rice, tobacco, paper, etc.,[Pg 761] showing the stages of cultivation, manufacture, and packing for transportation and market—but perhaps it will be as well to slip across the alley and visit the ancient island of Zipango.

Zipango, Nipon, Japon, have one consistent syllabic element, and the rulers of the country are so desirous that it should take its place among the civilized nations of the world that they have not shown to any liberal extent the native machinery, except in the form of models which attract but little attention, a few machines for winding and measuring silk, some curious articles of bamboo and ratan, fishpots and baskets, and cutlery of native shapes.

The exclusiveness which had marked the policy of Japan from time immemorial, and which was somewhat roughly intruded upon by Captain Perry, and subsequently by other explorers and diplomatists, has given place to a change which amounts to a revolution. Japan, under the name of Zipango, took its place on the map of the world some time before Columbus discovered, unwittingly to himself, that a continent intervened between Western Europe and Eastern Asia. When Columbus made his voyage in search of Asia, assisted by those very estimable persons Ferdinand and Isabella, it was on the part of the latter intended as a flank movement against the Portuguese, who, consequent upon the discovery of the passage of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama, had obtained a patent from the pope for the eastern route to India. The globe of Martin Behaim at that time depicted Zipango as off the coast of Asia and near the longitude actually occupied by the Carolinas and Florida, the eastward extension of Asia being fearfully exaggerated. The globe of John Schöner, of 1520, fourteen years after the death of Columbus, had Zipango in the same place, and Cuba alongside of it, ranging north and south. So loath were geographers to give up preconceived ideas. Columbus died supposing he had discovered "fourteen hundred islands and three hundred and thirty-three leagues of the coast of Asia," and hence our group are called the West Indies, and our aborigines Indians. Such are one's reflections as one wanders in the Japanese section, dreaming among the objects of a land which has just awaked from what may be called the sleep of centuries.

Italy has much that is valuable as well as beautiful in other classes, but her attempts in agricultural machinery are but rude. Here, for example, is a plough. Well, perhaps it is not exactly that which made the trench over which Remus leaped, to be slain by his twin wolf-nursling, but it is the plough of Bocchi Gaetano of[Pg 762] Parma, is twelve feet long and weighs something under half a ton. Another, hard by, is two feet longer and has but one handle. Efforts are evident, however, to assimilate the country to the portions of Europe more advanced in mechanical matters. When we reflect upon how much we owe to Italy, we can but wish her well, but we cannot delay long with her in a search for objects of mechanical interest except to examine her models of tunnels, manner of scaffolding, boring and blasting. The Mont Cenis tunnel must stand as the grandest work of its kind until that of Saint Gothard is finished. An exemplification by a model constructed to a scale of the electric ballista of Spezzia for testing the hundred-ton gun lately made in England for Italy attracts a great many visitors, and the large photographs which give the condition of the butt after each impact of the projectiles brings up again the double problem as it is stated: How to construct a gun and projectile which shall be able to pierce the heaviest armor; and how to construct armor which shall be proof against the heaviest shot. Many saw with interest in the Machinery Building at the Centennial the eight-inch armor-plating made by Cammell of Sheffield, tested in one case by nine spherical shots overlapping, making an indentation of 3.12 inches with balls from a seven-inch gun driven by thirty pounds of powder at a range of seventy feet. They are here again, and so is the nine-inch armor with a much deeper indentation from a chilled Palisser bolt. Here is also a new-comer, John Brown, whose armor of four and a half inches of steel welded on to the same thickness of iron resists the Palisser bolt, which only penetrates the thickness of the steel. What might happen to it with a pointed steel bolt from a sixty- or one-hundred-ton gun is another matter. To set our minds at rest as to what would occur in the event supposed comes Sir Joseph Whitworth, who exhibits his gun with polygonal rifling, the bore being a hexagon with rounded corners. The projectiles are moulded of the same shape, and are fired as they are cast, without planing. One of these bolts, six diameters long and weighing twenty-nine and a half pounds, was fired from a twelve-pounder gun through a four and a half inch armor-plate. The exhibit also shows a flat-fronted Whitworth fluid-pressed steel shell, three diameters long, weighing eight hundred and eight pounds, which was fired at Gavre, France, without a bursting charge, from a Whitworth twelve-inch, thirty-five-ton gun, and penetrated iron sixteen inches thick and twelve inches of oak backing. The shell remained entire and was only slightly distorted. The question seems to be answered, unless the plates are made twenty inches thick, and that is impossible on a vessel to be manoeuvred.

Sweden comes next, and the scene changes; for the weapon which suggested the remarks was only, as it were, one gun in a garden. Instead of wine and olives we find iron and furs. Except some Indian steels, there is no better metal than that of Sweden, and horse-shoe nails are made of it all over Europe and the United States. Iron in ore, pig, rails, bars, rods, wire; iron in tools, files, wheels, balls, shells, pans, boilers, stoves, springs; iron ad lib.

The agricultural machines of Sweden, like those of Denmark, are copies of the American and English, and the same is true to a large extent of the engines, saw-mills, water-wheels and wood-working machinery. The statement would not be true of the very elaborate exercising-machines (la gymnastique médicale mécanique) invented by Gustave Zander of Stockholm. They embrace every conceivable variety of effort, and also another class of applications which may be termed shampooing, as they consist of kneading and rubbing. Among the twenty machines are those designed for flexing, stretching and extending the limbs, for kneading the back and neck, for rubbing the body and limbs to induce circulation and simulate the effect of exercise in the cases of weak persons or those confined to their beds by casualties. Some of these were in Philadelphia in 1876.

Steering-apparatus and gun-harpoons for whaling testify to the maritime character[Pg 763] of the people, as do the boats and ropes. The great exhibit of pâte de bois shows the anxiety of the people to turn their extensive forests to good account in the markets of the world. White pine seems to be the principal wood thus used. Norway and Sweden have been shipping timber for some centuries, and yet seem to need no laws to restrain the denudation of their hills; certainly not to encourage rainfall. Bergen has 88.13 inches per annum, which is just double that of Philadelphia, and four inches greater than that of Sitka, where the people say it is always raining. Of course these figures are small when compared to spots on the Himalayas, where Hooker observed a fall of 470 inches in seven months, and on one occasion 30 inches in four hours; the latter equal to the average annual rainfall of France.

The American machinery, which occupies a position between Norway and England, is creditable in kind and quality, but fails very far in giving a correct idea of the multiplicity of our industries. Almost the only evidence of our textile manufactures are two of Tilt's Jacquard silk-weaving looms. The telephones of Edison and Gray excite unremitting astonishment and admiration, and have both received the highest possible awards. Our wood-working is practically shown in a large variety by Fay & Co. of Cincinnati, and one or two other special machines by other makers. The Wheelock engine, which drives all the machinery in our section of the main building, has very properly been awarded a grand prize. It is all that can be desired in an engine, and has a singular simplicity of construction, with few working parts. It is the same which drove the machinery in the Agricultural Building at the Centennial. The steam is admitted and exhausted by a valve at each end of the cylinder placed directly below the port. The cut-off valve is behind the main valve: the mechanism for operating the valves is on the outside of the steam-chest, and easily accessible. The valves and seats are made tapering in their general diameter, and the pressure of steam comes on one side, also acting to keep the collar in contact with the sleeve.

The Waltham Watch Company is considered by some of the most influential European journals as the most important in the American section on account of the revolution it is making in that important industry. When the Swiss commissioner went home from the Centennial he published a letter fairly throwing up the sponge, and when the company's exhibit appeared for the first time in Europe at an international exposition it was regarded as carrying the war into Africa. The American system of making by machinery all the parts of an article—say, of a watch—of a given grade by means of gauges and templets, so that the parts may be "assembled," and of such singular exactitude in their making that any part may be replaced by the corresponding piece of any other watch of the same grade, has in this manufactory attained its highest results, greatest precision and most perfect illustration. The whole collection of watches was sold within[Pg 764] a few weeks after the opening. The latest improvements in the balance to secure perfect isochronism under varying conditions of temperature would delight the soul of Harrison, who worked from 1728 to 1761 on the problem of a compensator for the changes of rate due to the expansion and contraction of the metal, and received the reward of twenty thousand pounds sterling offered by the Board of Longitude.

Tiffany's exhibit has been admired and patronized, but is not quite within my range of subjects. Darling, Brown & Sharpe have their machine-tools and gauges, Bliss & Williams their presses and dies. We have the Baxter, Snyder and Lovegrove portable engines, Taylor's and Aultman's agricultural engines. Our railroad exhibit is not very full: we have a Philadelphia and Reading coal-burning locomotive, a Pullman car, the Westinghouse brake, Stephenson's street-cars, car-wheels from Baldwin's and Lobdell's: the latter also sends calender-rolls of remarkable quality. As a sort of set-off to the Austrian car-wheels which have run for twenty-one years, as previously mentioned, Lobdell has a pair which have run 245,000 miles on the Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska Railway. The Fairbanks scales in great variety, both of size and purpose, and of a finish and an accuracy which have become proverbial; the Howe scales; the Goodyear boot- and shoe-machinery; Stow's flexible shaft; Lechner's coal-mining engine; Allen & Roeder's riveting-machine; and Delamater's punches and shears,—are a few more of the representative machines.

Sewing-machines are not in as great variety in the American section as they were in Philadelphia. There are, however, enough of American and European to foot up about eighty exhibitors. Wheeler & Wilson's have been awarded the grand prize, and there are various medals for others, both home and foreign—the American machine, Cole's and Wardwell's among the number. The various hardware exhibits, such as the Disston saws, Ames shovels, Collins axes, Batcheller forks, Russell & Erwin builders' hardware, as well as the Remington, Colt, Winchester, Sharpe and Owen Jones rifles and revolvers, and the Gatling and Gardner guns, are a little on one side of my present line of subjects.

The United States has preserved its ancient reputation in its agricultural machinery. We are especially strong in the class which we term "harvesters," the name including reapers, automatic binders, mowers, horse-rakes and hay-loaders. Our baling-presses also are in advance of competitors. A juryman may perhaps stand excused for supposing that more than an average amount of interest is felt in the machinery which happens to be in his class, but on Class 76—"agricultural implements in motion and in the field"—additional interest was conferred by a series of competitive trials extending from July 22 to August 12, and embracing reapers, mowers, steam and ordinary ploughs, hay-presses, threshing-machines especially, but also including all the other machines for working in the ground, gathering crops and the storage and preparation of feed for animals. In this series of competitive trials eight different countries entered the lists. The prizes were twelve objets d'art placed at the disposal of Monsieur Tisseraud, the "director-general of agriculture and horticulture of France," and the jury selected to attend the trials. Eleven of them were accorded to machines of "exceptional merit," the idea of novelty being included in the definition of the term. These objets d'art are Sèvres vases worth one thousand francs each, and in view of their exceptional value, and the large share that America has in the award, a list of the names may very properly be appended.[5] Several hundred machines[Pg 765] competed: for instance, twenty-six reapers, sixteen mowers, fifty-four ploughs, and so on of numerous kinds of agricultural implements and machines for working in the soil, gathering crops and for the work of the homestead and barn.

Last on the foreign side is the British machinery, and the collection is very much larger and more varied than any of the preceding. There are few lines of manufacture which are not represented here. Machines for working in iron and other metals, for sawing and fashioning wood, for the ginning, breaking or carding of cotton, flax, wool, jute and hemp, for working in stone, glass, leather and paper, are shown. Then, again, the finished productions; prime motors, such as stationary engines, locomotives and fire-engines; lifting-machines for solids or liquids, cranes, jacks, elevators, pumps, each in endless variety.

Prominent in the hall, and employed in driving the machinery, is the large double compound horizontal engine of Galloway of Manchester. This form of engine is coming to the front, as is evinced especially in the marine service. Maudslay & Sons of London exhibit a model of the four-cylinder marine compound engine as fitted on the "White Star line" vessels, the Germanic, Britannic, Oceanic, Baltic and Adriatic, and on the steamers of the "Compagnie Générale Transatlantique," the Ville de Havre, Europe, France, Amérique, Labrador, Canada. The vessels of the New York and Bremen line have the same class of engines, built in Greenock, Scotland.

Amid so large a mass of machinery one can but select the most prominent, and among these we may choose such as, while not necessarily imposing in size, are suggestive of ideas which we may find valuable for home introduction. Appleby & Sons lead the world in the completeness and capacity of their great cranes and lifts for docks and wharves, machine-shops, erection of buildings, and travelling cranes for railways or common roads. We must make one exception—the elevators for hotels and warehouses, in which America is in advance of all other countries. While we have many varieties of these, we must give credit where it is due, and the ascenseur Edoux of Paris is the original of all those in which the cage is placed upon a plunger that descends into a vertical cylinder into which water is forced to elevate the plunger, and from which it is withdrawn to allow the plunger and cage to descend. Very fine specimens of this class of elevator are in the New York Post-office building. The gantry crane of Messrs. Appleby Bros. of London is the most complete engine of its kind in the world. It was originally constructed for the growing requirements of the docks of the North-eastern Railway Company of England at Middlesborough. The term "gantry" is applied to the movable scaffold or frame, which in this case rests upon a pair of rails twenty-three feet apart, one of them being close to the edge of the quay. The clear height is seventeen and a half feet, which allows the uninterrupted passage of locomotives and all kinds of rolling-stock on each of the two lines of rails which are spanned by the gantry. The crane is designed for a working load of five tons, with a maximum radius of twenty-one feet from the centre of the crane-post to the plumb-line of the lifting chain, with a capacity for altering the radius by steam to a minimum of fourteen feet. The crane has capacity to (1) lift and lower; (2) turn round completely in either direction simultaneously with the lifting and lowering; (3) alter the radius by raising or lowering the jib-head; (4) travel along the rails by its own steam-power. All these motions are easily worked by one man, who attends to the boiler. The travelling motion is transmitted from the crane-engines by suitable gear and shafts to the travelling wheels, and warping-drums or capstans are fitted on a countershaft on the inner side of each frame, which drums can be driven independently of the travelling wheels for moving trucks into position below the crane as they are required for loading and unloading. Smaller cranes may pass with their loads below the gantry, and a number of these large cranes may be assembled so as each to work at the different[Pg 766] hatchways of a large screw steamer, or two may be associated together for any exceptionally heavy lift. The value of elevation of the crane is not only in allowing the loaded cars to be brought on tracks beneath it, but in giving it capacity to work over the sides of large vessels, which when light may rise twenty feet above the level of the quay, and to load or discharge from trucks on two lines of rails on the land-side of the gantry, overhead of the trucks on the two lines which run below the gantry.[6]

Blake's stone-breaker, though only represented by model in the United States section, where it belongs, is shown by two English firms; and though some Europeans profess to have improved upon its details, no efficient substitute has been found for it, but it remains the premium stone-crusher of the world, and has rendered services in the exploitation of gold quartz and silver ores, and in the crushing of stones for public works and for concretes, which can hardly be exaggerated. In testimony taken in the United States in 1872 it was put in evidence that five hundred and nine machines then in service effected a direct saving over hand-labor of five million five hundred thousand dollars per annum.

Steam-pumps are here in force—direct by Tangye and others, and rotary by both of the Gwynnes, whose name has been so long and is so intimately associated with this class of machines.

The emery-wheels of Thompson, Sterne & Co. of Glasgow have the same variety of form and application usual with us, but the firm claims that while it uses the true corundum emery of Naxos, the American article is only a refractory iron ore, which soon loses its sharpness and becomes inefficient. This is a question of efficiency or of veracity which we leave to the trade. The machine adapted as a tool-grinder has six emery-wheels for varying characters of work. Four are assorted for gauges of different radii, for moulding-irons, etc. One has a square face for plane-irons, chisels, etc. One is an emery hone to replace the water-of-Ayr stone.

In examining the English locomotives exhibited two things were apparent: one half of them have adopted the outside cylinders and wrist-pins on the drivers, three out of four have comfortable cabs for the engineers. These are, as we view them, sensible changes. Outside-cylinder engines are also coming into extensive use in France. The machine tools shown by Sharp, Stewart & Co. of Manchester are remarkably well made, and their locomotive in the same space is an evidence of the efficiency of the tools.

The exhibit of hydraulic-machine tools by Mr. R. H. Tweddell is a very admirable one, and shows a multitude of stationary and portable forms in which the idea is developed so as to reach the varying requirements. When work is more conveniently held to the machines, the latter are adapted to reach it whether presented vertically or horizontally, or with one arm inside of it, as with boilers and flue-pipes. When it is more convenient to handle the riveter, the latter is suspended from a crane and swung up to its work, and the peculiarity of the various sizes and shapes for different kinds of work is remarkable. The cut shows one of the latest for riveting girders.

The Ingram rotary perfecting press, on which the Illustrated London News is worked off, prints from a web of paper of the usual length, and is claimed as the final triumph in the line of inventors, which is thus stated in England: Nicholson, König, Applegarth and Cowper, Hoe and Walter. We should be disposed to add a few names to the list, among which would be Bullock and Campbell. A is the roll of paper, containing a length of, say, two miles; B B the type and impression cylinders for printing the inner form; C C calendering rollers to remove the indentation of the inner form type; D D the outer form type and impression cylinders; E E cylinders with a saw-tooth knife and an indentation respectively to perforate the sheet between the papers; F F rollers to hold the sheet while the snatching-rollers G G, which run at an increased speed, break[Pg 767] the paper off where it has been indented by E E. The folder is in duplicate to give time to work, as each only takes half the papers. The vibrating arm H delivers the sheets alternately to K and J, which are carrying-tapes leading to two folding-machines. If the sheets are not required to be folded, the arm H is moved to its highest position, and there fixed, without stopping the machine: it then delivers the sheets to the roller L, and by means of a blast of air and a flyer they are laid on a table provided for them.

The rise of British factory-life and great energy in manufacturing began with the invention of the spinning-frame by Arkwright, the power-loom by Cartwright, the spinning-jenny by Hargreaves, and the mule by Crompton—all within a space of twenty years ending 1785. To these must be added the steam-engine by Watt, which made it possible to drive the machinery, and the gin by Eli Whitney, which made it possible to get cotton to spin. Much as iron has loomed up lately, the working of the various fibres—cotton, wool, flax, hemp and jute—constitutes the pet industry of her people, and very elaborate and beautiful are the machines at the Exposition, especially attractive and less commonly known being those for working long or combing wool, flax, hemp and jute. The United States is not doing as much as it ought in the working of these fibres, and the money which is paid for the purchase of foreign linens and fabrics made of other materials than cotton and wool might, some economists think, be employed at home in making them. The day will come probably, but does not seem to be hastening very fast, when we shall conclude to make our own linens, as we have within a comparatively few years past determined in regard to all the staple varieties of carpets.

One of the most important machines in the Exposition, from the American point of view, is the "double Macarthy roller-gin," exhibited by Platt Brothers & Co. of Oldham, England. It is a curious instance of how machines sometimes revert to their original types. The oldest machine for ginning cotton is undoubtedly the roller-gin, and it was known in India, China and Malaysia long before Vasco da Gama turned the Cape of Good Hope and opened the trade of the East to the Portuguese and their successors. The common roller-gin of Southern Asia was shown at the Centennial from Hindostan, Java and China, and is exhibited here from Java. It has a pair of rollers about the size of broomsticks, close together and turning in different directions, which pinch and draw the fibre through, while the seeds are prevented from passing by the closeness of the rollers. Whitney's invention of the saw-gin in 1794 revolutionized the business and changed the whole domestic aspect of our Southern States. In it the fibre is picked from the seed by means of saw-teeth projecting through slits in the side of the chamber in which the seed-cotton[Pg 768] is placed. But the roller-gin has again come upon the stage, and with the late improvements is likely to become the gin of the future. When the close of our civil war put an end to the "cotton famine," as it was called, in Europe, and American cotton resumed its place in the market, the export of the East Indian and Egyptian cottons would have been immediately suppressed if they had not possessed the roller-gin in those countries. Ten thousand of the double Macarthy gin are used in India, and five thousand of the single roller-gin in Egypt. It is understood that the saw-gin is used in but a single district in India. While the saw-gin injures any variety of cotton by cutting, tearing, napping and tangling the fibres, its action upon the long and fine staple called "sea island" is ruinous, and the roller-gin alone is suitable for working it. The slow action of the single roller-gin, cleaning about one hundred and fifty pounds of lint per day, made its cultivation too expensive, but the double roller-gin will clean nine hundred pounds in ten hours, or one hundred and twenty pounds an hour of the common upland short-staple cotton. It is thought by Southern members of the United States commission that the introduction of the double roller-gin into our country would greatly increase the profitableness of the culture of cotton, and especially of the "sea island," which is at present much neglected, and in the growth of which we need fear no rivalry. Each roller is made of walrus leather, and rotates in contact with a fixed knife, dragging by its rough surface the fibres of cotton between itself and the knife. A grating holds the seed-cotton. Besides these parts there are moving knives to which are attached a grid or series of fingers. At each elevation of the moving knives, the grids attached thereto lift the cotton to the elevation of the fixed knife-edge and of the exposed surface of the rollers: on the descent of each moving knife the seeds which have become separated from the fibre are disentangled by the prongs of the moving grid passing between those of the lower or fixed grid about seven hundred and fifty times per minute, and are by this rapidity of action flirted out.

It would be scarcely fair to neglect altogether the English annex in which all the agricultural implements are exhibited, nor that which contains its carriages. So much commercial intercourse, so many journals published in the respective countries, have made each pretty well acquainted with the agricultural machines and methods of the other. The principal difference is in the splendid plant for steam-ploughing exhibited by Fowler & Son and by Aveling & Porter, and in the great number and variety of the machines and apparatus for preparing food for animals—chaff-cutters, oat- and bean-bruisers and crushers, oilcake-grinders, boilers and steamers for feed and mills for rough grinding of grain.

A shed by the annex contains two curious machines for working stone—one a dresser, belonging to Brunton & Triers, which has a large wheel and a number of planetary cutters whose disk edges as they revolve cut the stone against which they impinge. The other machine, by Weston & Co., is for planing stone mouldings. The stone-drills are in the same annex; also the Smith and the Hardy brakes, the former of which is the European rival of the Westinghouse, acting upon the vacuum principle, and already in possession of so many of the lines in Europe that it proves a serious competitor.

Perhaps nothing in the French Exposition excites more surprise in the minds of those who are conversant with technical matters than the immense advance of the French since 1867 in the matter of machinery. The simple statement of the names of the exhibitors, their residences and the subject-matter occupies a large volume, and the quality and variety are equal to the quantity.

Reference has been made to the web perfecting printing-machine in the English section, but quite a number are shown in the French department, three of them by Marinoni of Paris, one of which prints the journal La France, eighteen thousand an hour. It prints, cuts, counts, folds and[Pg 769] piles the papers. Another by the same maker prints twenty thousand an hour of the Weekly Dispatch (English paper), and counts and piles them in heaps of one hundred each. A third works on the Petit Journal, printing forty thousand per hour with two forms. Alauzet & Co. have also a web perfecting press, à double touche, for illustrated papers and book-printing. This wets, prints, cuts, counts and folds in octavo four thousand per hour of super-royal size. They also show a double railway topographic press, printing in two colors. Vauthier's roller-press is arranged to work on an endless roll of paper or on sheets fed in as usual, and prints in six colors. Electro shells are secured in position on the respective rollers, which are in horizontal series, and the paper is conducted by tapes to the rollers in succession. The French section shows a great variety of polychrome, lithographic and zincographic printing-machines, and also a great number of ordinary job and card presses, the most interest, however, centring in the large number and variety of the web perfecting presses for newspapers and for bill-work where long numbers are required.

France has a right to exemplify the Jacquard in its fulness, for it is hers. The original machine of Vaucanson and that of Jacquard are in the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiérs, as well as a long series of exemplifications of successive improvements. The Grand Maison de Blanc of Paris has a large one, making an immense linen cloth of damask figures, all in white, and representing what I took at first to be an allegorical picture of all the nations bringing their gifts to the Exposition. I found afterward that it was called Fées du Dessert. It is about three mètres wide, and just as long as you please to make it, but the pattern is repeated every five mètres. The design, on paper, is hung against the wall, and is twelve by eight mètres, all laid off in squares of twelve millimètres, and these again into smaller ones exactly a square millimètre in size. The number of small squares on the sheet of paper is ninety-six million, which represents the number of the intersections of the warp and woof in the pattern. There are nine thousand and sixty-six perforated cards in the Jacquard arrangement for floating the threads which form the damask pattern, and the whole machine stands on a space of about twenty by twelve feet and is eighteen feet high. It is worked by one man, without steam-power, the shifting of the harness being done by two foot-levers and the shuttle thrown by a pull-cord.

We may here observe the looms that weave the marvellously fine silk gauzes realizing such fanciful Indian names as "morning mist," which poetically express the lightness of a web that when spread upon the grass is not visible unless one stoops down and examines closely. To even name the various looms here would be to make a list of ribbons, velvets, cloths and other tissues. The subsidiary machines for dressing the fabrics are here also—for napping, teasling, shearing, stretching and brushing, for measuring, folding and packing.

The other modes of making fabrics shown are a machine for making fishing-nets of great width, and a number of knitting-machines, from the stocking-frame of eighty years ago to the small domestic machine, and the larger one with nine hundred needles in the circumference and making a circular seamless fabric eighteen inches in diameter. The march of improvement is eminently shown here, where an old man is patiently knitting a flat web of ten inches with a series of five motions between the rows of stitches, while just by are the circular machines, whose motions are so rapid that the clicks of the needles merge into a whir, and a man is able to attend to six machines, making one hundred and thirty pounds of knitted goods per day.

Passing the large exhibit of machines for the working of fibres preliminary to the loom—the carding, roving, spinning, reeling and warping—and the allied but different machines which make wire-cloths of different meshes and size, we come to the ropemaking-machines for hemp and wire, which are shown principally[Pg 770] in their products, the manufacture taking an amount of room and material which could hardly be expected to be efficiently shown in a crowded building where space is valuable.

The French plant for boring small shafts to find water or obtain sections of the strata, and the larger ones for sinking large ones for mines, are shown by several exhibitors. The annular drills remove cylindrical sections of the strata from ten to sixty centimètres in diameter: the large chisels resemble those described in the Belgian exhibit, having a diameter of four mètres and a weight of twenty-five thousand kilos.

The department of mining has some excellent large models of mining districts, in which the face of the country is represented with the natural undulations, the villages, roads, fields and streams, and made in removal-sections which expose the underlying strata, the galleries, drifts and shafts of the subterranean world.

An attempt to describe the steam-engines, of such various size, shape, position and capacity, would exhaust all the space permissible in a magazine article.

The wood-working tools of France are excellent, and our manufacturers must look well to their laurels. We have as yet the advantage in compactness and simplicity, with adjustability and adaptation to varying classes of work. The band-saw is claimed as a French invention, and the crowds around the workman who saws a roomful of dolls' furniture out of a single block as large as one's fist are as great here as they were at Philadelphia. The Blanchard lathe for turning irregular forms is here in a variety of forms. This is an interesting object of study, as illustrating the usual course of invention, in which a master-hand grasps a subject which has been suggested in an incomplete and comparatively ineffective manner from time to time by others. De la Hire and Condamine during the last century described lathes adapted to turn irregular shapes, and the scoring-machine for ships' blocks invented by Brunel and made by Maudslay for Chatham dockyard in England, 1802-8, was as perfect an exemplification of the idea as the nature of the work to be done required. Blanchard, however, in 1819 gave the finishing stroke, and the lathe will bear his name for long years. Inventors of three nations attacked the problem, and each aided the result.

Brickmaking, diamond-cutting; machines for making paper bags, envelopes, cuffs and collars; distilleries, sugar-mills, with the successive apparatus of vacuum-pans, pumps and centrifugal filters; soap, stearine, paraffine, wax, candle, candy and chocolate machines and apparatus,—succeed each other, and we next find ourselves in a busy factory of cheap jewelry, Exposition souvenirs and medals, chains and charms. The leather machinery is deserving of a careful description, but it would be too technical perhaps, and there is no romance in the handling of wet hides, the scraping, currying, stretching and pommelling which even the thickness, prepare the surface and develop the pliability of the leather. Near this is the boot- and shoe-making, sewing and cable-screw wire machines, but none for pegging. Sewing-machines, copies of the various American forms, occupy the end of the hall.

Separate buildings around the grounds and on both banks of the Seine contain groups of machinery at which we can but glance. Two long pavilions have agricultural machines, and one each is appropriated to materials for railways, to civil engineering, pumps, gas-works, the forges of Terre Noire, the iron-works of Creusot, the ministry of public works, stoves, the government manufacture of tobacco, navigation, life-saving apparatus of floats and boats, fire-engines and ceramics. Add to these two annexes, each one thousand feet long, containing locomotives, cars, street-cars, telegraph-apparatus and many acres of the surplus machinery of all classes excluded from the large building for want of room, and a person may form some adequate idea of the immense extent and variety of this wonderful collection.

THE COLONEL'S SENTENCE: AN ALGERIAN STORY.

"I've known many clever fellows in my time," said Paul Dupont, French sous-lieutenant in the —th of the line, as he sat sipping his coffee in front of the Hôtel de la Régence at Algiers, "but by far the cleverest man I ever met was our old colonel, Henri de Malet. People said he ought to have been an avocat, but that was giving him but half his due, for I'll be bound he could have outflanked any lawyer that ever wore a gown. In his latter days he always went by the name of 'Solomon the Second;' and if you care to hear how he came by it I'll tell you.

"Before he came to us De Malet was military commandant at Oran, and it was there that he did one of his best strokes—outgeneralling a camel-driver from Tangier, one of those thorough-paced Moorish rascals of whom the saying goes, 'Two Maltese to a Jew, and three Jews to a Moor,' Now this Tangerine, when pulled up for some offence or other, swore that he wasn't Muley the camel-driver at all, but quite another man; and as his friends all swore the same, and he had managed to alter his appearance a bit before he was arrested, he seemed safe to get off. But our colonel wasn't to be done in that way. He pretended to dismiss the case, and allowed the fellow to get right out into the street as if all was over; and then he suddenly shouted after him, 'Muley the camel-driver, I want to speak to you.' The old rogue, hearing his own name, turned and came back before he could recollect himself; and so he was caught in spite of all his cunning.

"The fame of this exploit went abroad like wildfire, and it got to be a saying among us, whenever we heard of any very clever trick, that it was 'one of Colonel de Malet's judgments;' and so, when he was transferred from Oran to Algiers, it was just as if we all knew him already, although none of us had ever seen him before. But it wasn't long before we got a much better story than that about him; for one night a man dined at our mess who had known the colonel out in India, and told us a grand tale of how he had astonished them all at Pondicherry. It seems that some things had been stolen from the officers' quarters, and nobody could tell who had done it. The first thing next morning the colonel went along the line at early parade, giving each of the native soldiers a small strip of bamboo; and then he said, very solemnly, 'My children, there is a guilty man among us, and it has been revealed to me by Brahma himself how his guilt is to be made clear. Let every man of you come forward in his turn and give me his piece of bamboo; and the thief, let him do what he may, will have the longest piece.'

"Now, you know what superstitious hounds those Asiatic fellows always are; and when they heard this announcement they all looked at each other like children going to be whipped. The colonel took the bamboos one after another, as solemnly as if he were on a court-martial, but when about a dozen men had gone past he suddenly sprang forward and seized one of them by the throat, shouting at the full pitch of his voice, 'You are the man!'

"Down went the fellow on his knees and yelled for mercy, confessing that he was the man, sure enough. As for the rest, they looked as frightened as if all the gods in the caverns of Elephanta had come flying down among them at once; and from that day forth they salaamed to the very ground at the mere sight of the colonel half a mile off.

"'How on earth did you manage that, colonel?' asked the senior major, a great fat fellow, as stupid as a carp.[7]

"'Nothing simpler, my dear fellow,' answered De Malet, laughing. 'The[Pg 772] strips were all exactly the same length, and the thief, fearing to get the longest piece, betrayed himself by biting off the end.'

"This, as you may think, added a good deal to the colonel's reputation; and when we had that affair with the Bedouins at Laghouat we soon saw that he could fight as well as manoeuvre. In the thick of the skirmish one of the rogues, seeing De Malet left alone, flew at him with drawn yataghan, but the colonel just dropped on his horse's neck and let the blow pass over him, and then gave point and ran the fellow right through the body, as neatly as any fencing-master could have done it. You may be sure we thought none the less of him after that; but all this was nothing to what was coming.

"Well, De Malet had been with us about a year when the railway was begun from Algiers to Blidah, and the directing engineer happened to be one of my greatest friends, Eugène Latour, as good a fellow as I ever met. It was quite a fête with us whenever he dined at mess, for his jokes and good stories kept every one brisk; and then to hear him sing! ma foi, it was wonderful! One minute some rattling refrain that seemed to set the very chairs dancing, and then suddenly a low, sad air that fairly brought the tears into your eyes. They were in mine, I know, every time I heard him sing those last two verses of 'The Conscript's Farewell:'

I thought to gain rich spoils—I've gained
Of bullets half a score:
I thought to come back corporal—
I shall come back no more.

Feed my poor dog, I pray thee, Rose,
And with him gentle be:
He'll miss his master for a while—
Adieu! remember me![8]

"Well, as I was saying, Eugène had been put over the work, and I don't know where they could have found a better man for it. Whether it poured with rain or came on hot enough to cook a cutlet without fire, it was all one to him: there he was at his post, looking after everything, with his eyes in ten places at once. You may think that under such a chief the laborers had no chance of idling; and everything was getting on splendidly when one morning, as he was standing on the parapet of a bridge, his foot slipped and down he went, I don't know how far. The fall would have killed him outright if by good luck there hadn't happened to be an Arab underneath (the only time that an Arab ever was of any use, I should say), and Eugène, alighting upon him, broke his own fall and the Bedouin's neck to boot.

"Now, if there had been nobody there to tell tales, this wouldn't have mattered a pin, for an Arab more or less is no such great matter; but, as ill-luck would have it, there were three or four more of the rascals near enough to see what had happened, and of course they raised a hue-and-cry directly. And when it was noised abroad that a Christian dog (as they politely call us) had killed a Mussulman, you should have seen what an uproar there was! The people came running together like vultures when a camel drops down in the desert, and there was a yelling and dancing and shaking of fists that made one's very head turn round. Poor Eugène would have been torn to pieces on the spot if the guard hadn't formed round him and defended him; and the only way we could pacify the mob was to promise them justice from the district magistrate; so away to the magistrate we all went.

"Now, I dare say Mr. Magistrate was a very good fellow in his way, and I don't want to say a word against him, but still, it must be owned that he wasn't exactly the kind of man to stand firm in the midst of a rabble of wild Mohammedans, all howling and flourishing their knives at once under his very nose. To tell the plain truth, he was frightened out of his wits; and the only thing he thought of was how to shift the responsibility on to somebody else's shoulders as fast as possible. So he said (and it was very lucky he did, as it turned out) that Latour, being in government employ,[Pg 773] must be tried by military law; and he packed them all off to the commandant, who, as I've told you, was no other than Colonel de Malet.

"It was no easy matter for the colonel to get at the facts of the case, for all the rascals kept shrieking at once, one louder than another; but at last, bit by bit, he managed to get a pretty clear idea of what had happened; and then he said, very solemnly, 'A French officer does his duty, let it be what it will. You have come here for justice, and justice you shall have.'

"There was a great roar of triumph from the crowd, and poor Eugène looked as blank as a thief in the Salle de la Police.

"'Before I pass sentence, however,' pursued De Malet, 'I wish to ask this young man' (pointing to the son of the dead Arab, who was the ringleader of all the mischief) 'whether he will accept of any compromise.'

"'So be it,' said the colonel gravely, 'and you, by Mussulman law, are your father's destined avenger. Therefore, let the engineer be taken back to the very spot where his victim was standing, and do you go up to the top of the parapet and jump down upon him!'

"Tonnerre de ciel! what a roar of laughter there was! The very Arabs couldn't help joining in. As to the young villain himself, he stood stock-still for a moment, and then flew out of the court like a madman; and that was the last of him. We gave Eugène a famous supper that night at the Café Militaire in honor of his escape; and the story was in all the papers next morning, headed 'A Judgment of Solomon.' And from that day to the end of his life Colonel de Malet never went by any other name among us but 'Solomon the Second.'"

STARLIGHT

How dark against the sky
Loom the great hills! Over the cradled stream
They lean their dusky shadows lovingly,
Watching its happy dream.

The oil-well's little blaze
Gleams red and grand against the mountain's dark:
Yon star, seen through illimitable haze,
Is dwindled to a spark.

Far greater to my eye
The swimming lights of yonder fishing-boat
Than worlds that burn in night's immensity—
So huge, but so remote.

Ah, I have loved a star
That beckoned sweetly from its distant throne,
Forgetting nearer orbs that fairer are,
And shine for me alone.

Better the small and near
Than the grand distant with its mocking beams—
Better the lovelight in thine eyes, my dear,
Than all ambition's dreams.

Charles Quiet.
[Pg 774]

THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF 1878 IN VENEZUELA.

On Friday evening, the 12th of April, 1878, we were collected, as usual, in our drawing-room in Caracas, and were in the act of welcoming an old friend who had just returned from Europe, when there came suddenly a crash, a reverberation—a something as utterly impossible to convey the impression of as to describe the movement which followed, or rather accompanied, it, so confused, strange and unnatural was the entire sensation. It was like the rush of many waters, the explosion of cannon—like anything the imagination can conceive; and at the same time the earth appeared to leap beneath our feet, then swayed to and fro with an oscillating motion: the panes of glass rattled in the windows, the beams of the flooring above creaked ominously; lamps, chandeliers and girandoles vibrated and trembled like animated creatures. The great bells of the cathedral suddenly rang out a spontaneous peal of alarm with a sonorous, awe-inspiring clang, while the clock in the tower struck the ill-timed hour with a solemn, unearthly reverberation.

This was but the work of a few seconds: a few more and Caracas would have been a heap of ruins, as in the earthquake of 1812. But even in these short moments we had time, horror-stricken and pallid with terror as we were, to cry out, "An earthquake! an earthquake!"—to seize upon our European friend, who did not seem to realize the danger, to drag him from the chair which he was just about to take, I pushing him before me, while my sister pulled him by the arm down the long drawing-room into the corridor which surrounds the central court, while still the earth rocked beneath our feet and everything around us trembled with the vibration.

By this time the city was thoroughly alarmed. Cries of "Misericordia! misericordia!" resounded on every side, and every one prophesied another and a greater shock. These fears were not entirely uncalled for, for at twenty minutes past nine there was a second, and several more before daybreak, although none proved to be as severe as the first.

In a short time carriages began to roll by in all directions, bearing the more timorous to the villages and plantations outside of the city: the open public squares or plazas filled rapidly with the excited population, especially when telegram after telegram began to arrive from La Guayra, Puerto Cabello, Valencia, La Vittoria and the intervening towns—all having felt the violence of the shock, and anxious lest the capital might have been destroyed. This proof of the extent of the onda seismica, as the scientists termed it, served to increase the general alarm. Tents were improvised in the plazas, composed of blankets, counterpanes, etc., stretched across ropes attached to the trees in the square, those who had no such appliances at hand remaining all night upon the public benches or upon more comfortable seats which they caused to be transported for their accommodation.

The scene in the principal square of Caracas, the Plaza Bolivar—upon which front the cathedral on the eastern side, the palace of the archbishop on the southern, the presidential residence (called the Casa Amarilla, or "Yellow House") on the western, and a number of other public buildings on the northern—was one which under less terrifying circumstances would have been most imposing, for the archbishop left his palace and descended by the great stairway into the plaza, accompanied by a train of his attending priests, to raise the fainting spirits of the terrified multitude, who, with pallid faces upraised to Heaven or crouched upon the bare ground in attitudes of supplication, implored mercy from on high. And inasmuch as calamitous events, such as the appearance of comets, earthquakes or[Pg 775] pestilences, are usually the signal for great moral reforms, doubtless many a promise of a purer life was registered in that hour of terror by those self-accused by their quickened consciences.

The archbishop—who is a young man, devout, fervent and sincere, a very anchorite in his habits and mode of life, thin, spare of frame, and with features eloquent with the fire of intellect, morally and physically the splendid ideal of what a true priest ought to be—wandered among his flock, exhorting, comforting, admonishing and cheering them; while the Hermandades, a religious brotherhood, headed by their color-bearer, upon whose banner the effigy of the Virgin, their patron saint, was emblazoned, walking two by two in procession in the long gowns of their order—some red, some black, some white—and each carrying a lighted taper, traversed the plazas and paraded the streets the whole night. The glimmering light of the tapers falling upon these dusky shrouded forms in the gloom of this awful night, the melancholy refrain of the prayers which they chanted as they passed through the awestruck city, the lessening glimpses of the flickering tapers as the train passed solemnly by into some distant street,—all served rather to intensify than to tranquillize the alarm.

The excitement and agitation of the people were so great that no one thought of going to bed: those who, like ourselves, went neither to the country nor to the open squares, sat in their windows and compared their experiences or gathered news from every passer-by; for they feared to separate from their families, lest a worse shock might overtake some one of them apart from the rest. Besides this, the danger in the streets was greater than at home, because of their narrowness and the likelihood of the walls on either side toppling over upon pedestrians.

The night had been beautifully clear, and the moon brilliant as it is only in the tropics, but toward midnight the weather became cloudy and a drizzling rain fell at intervals, driving us within doors between one and two o'clock, but only to lie down fully dressed upon our beds, with lights burning and doors left open, so as the more readily to facilitate our escape if necessary. One or two slight shocks recurred during the night, but morning dawned at last, finding us unhurt; and with returning day our courage too returned, so darkness "doth make cowards of us all." It was then ascertained that the cathedral had sustained some slight damage; the image of the Virgin in the church of the Candelaria had been thrown to the ground and broken to pieces; and the National Pantheon, the observatory of the new university and other public buildings, with many houses, had been injured, but none thrown down and no lives lost.

No one, however, could dwell long in lamentation over these accidents when the news reached us the next morning of the terrible calamity which had overtaken the beautiful valley of the Tuy. This valley lies to the south of the city of Caracas, at an elevation of twelve or fifteen hundred feet above the sea, and is noted for being one of the most fertile of the many rich agricultural districts in which Venezuela abounds. The river Tuy, two hundred miles in length and navigable for about forty miles, flows through the centre, fertilizing the soil and causing it to become the granary of the capital, its abundant crops usually sufficing, in fact, for the consumption of the whole province. Indeed, were there more public highways its surplus products might find their way to still more distant portions of the republic. The whole valley is studded with towns, villages and plantations: of the former, the principal are Ocumare, Charallave, Santa Teresa, Santa Lucia and Cua.

The city of Cua was beyond comparison the richest and most flourishing of all, being situated at the head of the valley, where it opens toward the vast Llanos or plains, and being also the emporium of many extensive districts producing the staples of the country, such as coffee, cocoa, sugar and indigo. There too had been transported enormous timber from the still virgin forests—timber of the most valuable kind, whether for[Pg 776] ornament, for building or for dyeing purposes. Nor was the city more remarkable for its advantageous situation and the importance of its commerce than for the refinement of its society. Unlike the generality of inland towns in South America, where the constitution of society is apt to be rather heterogeneous, Cua was the residence of many of the principal families of the country—gentlemen at the head of wealthy commercial establishments, or opulent planters owning large estates in the neighborhood, but making the city their permanent abode. Hence the society was far beyond what might have been imagined as regards position and general cultivation. Cua, like all Spanish American towns, was laid out at right angles, while many of the houses rivalled the handsomest in Caracas, and were furnished with equal splendor.

Such was the state of things in this smiling valley when, at the same moment precisely at which we in Caracas felt the shock of the earthquake, all the above-mentioned towns—Ocumare, Santa Lucia, Charallave, etc.—were shaken to their foundations. The latter especially suffered greatly, for not a house was left uninjured or safe to inhabit, although the occupants had time to escape. But Cua—unhappy Cua!—was utterly destroyed. Without a moment's warning, without a single indication of their impending fate, all the inhabitants were buried beneath the mass of ruins to which in a few seconds it was reduced. Perhaps it is not strictly correct to say there had been no sign. The heat had become so intense between seven and eight o'clock that numbers of persons were seated outside of the houses or had betaken themselves to the open squares to endeavor to seize a breath of fresh air, while many of the lower classes were sleeping under the open sky; to which fact, indeed, they owed their lives. The only habitations which survived the violence of the shock were the huts of the poor, being what is called bajareque, made of posts driven into the earth and otherwise formed of a species of wild cane tied together and cemented with mud and straw, these primitive dwellings being usually considered earthquake-proof.

Besides the extraordinary heat, a friend of ours, who was riding from his plantation into the town, observed another indication of some disturbance in the usual processes of Nature. While crossing the river he noticed that the fishes were leaping in great numbers out of the water, and called the attention of several persons to the fact. They attributed this, however, to the discomfort occasioned by the intense heat, for the temperature of the water had increased so much that it had become disagreeable to drink.

The gentleman to whom I have alluded, Don Tomas de la G——, describes the subterranean noise at Cua during the earthquake as something terrific, like the discharge of hundreds of cannon, while the earth rose simultaneously under his feet. There are two kinds of earthquakes—that of trepidacion, which comes directly from below, with an upward motion; the other, de oscilacion, where the earth sways to and fro like a pendulum, and which is generally less dangerous. Unfortunate Cua experienced both: the first shock was one vast upheaval, the whole town being uprooted from its foundations and every house uplifted and overturned, and before the bewildered population could realize what was happening they were buried beneath the ruins. The shock then changed into the oscillatory movement, and set all this mass of destruction to quivering as if it were the dire agony of some living creature. All was so sudden that few were saved by their own exertions, those who survived having either been dug out of the ruins afterward or cast forth by the counter-motion as the earth rocked to and fro in the second shock. It was as if the city had been lifted up en masse, and then thrown back with the foundations uppermost—upside down, in fact. Don Tomas de la G—— happened to be in the plaza in front of the church when the shock came: in the endeavor to steady himself he grasped a tree close by; the[Pg 777] tree was uprooted, throwing him violently forward; then suddenly reversing its course in an exactly opposite direction, it flung him off to a great distance, bruising him severely. While clinging to the tree he beheld the church in front of him, a new and handsome edifice, literally lifted up bodily into the air and then overturned with an appalling crash, "not one stone left upon another." If this had occurred an hour or two previously, hundreds would have perished within the walls, for there had been religious services in the church until a late hour, it being the Friday before Holy Week, termed by Spanish Catholics Viernes del Concilio.

Don Tomas de la G—— described the whole scene as something too terrible for the imagination to conceive. After the stupendous crash caused by the falling of the houses, for a few moments there ensued an awful silence: then, amid the impenetrable darkness caused by the cloud of dust from the fallen walls, which totally obscured the murky light of a clouded moon, there arose a cry of anguish from those without—a wail as of one great voice of stricken humanity; then the answering smothered groan of those buried beneath the ruins—a cry like nothing human, rising as it did from the very bowels of the earth.

There ensued a scene the harrowing details of which can never be fully given—the search of the living and uninjured for those dead, dying or imprisoned ones who lay beneath the great masses of stone and mortar. Sometimes, in answer to the desperate cries of those outside or already rescued, smothered, almost inaudible cries for help might be heard, so faint as to seem scarcely human, and yet growing fainter and fainter still, until those who were working for the release of the captive became aware that their labor was in vain, and that only a corpse lay beneath their feet. No light could be obtained in this stifling Erebus of dust and darkness: all means of obtaining light had been buried in the undistinguishable mass, and where lighted lamps were overturned in the crash they had set fire to beams and rafters in the houses, and many who escaped being crushed were burned to death. Even proper instruments were wanting, and the number of persons who had collected to assist in the work of searching the débris was totally inadequate to the occasion. Many instances of distress I can vouch for as authentic, as the victims were intimate friends of my own, and all the individuals I am about to mention were persons of the highest respectability, the upper classes having suffered more than the lower, who, living in huts such as I have described, were generally uninjured.

One of the richest commercial houses in Cua was owned by three German gentlemen, brothers. The eldest, having married a Spanish American lady of the place, had lately built himself a magnificent mansion, and one of his brothers resided with him. The lady was seated between her brother-in-law and husband when the shock came: a huge beam from the ceiling fell across her brother-in-law and literally divided him in two, while the side wall, falling at the same time, buried her husband from her sight. She herself was saved by the great packages of hemp and tobacco which fell around her and prevented the wall from crushing her. Blinded by the darkness and choked by the dust, she yet managed with the only hand at liberty to tear an opening which allowed her to breathe, and through which she called for help. Faint accents answered her: they were the tones of her husband's failing voice. She called to him to have courage—that she had hopes of release. "No," he replied, "I am dying, but do not give way. Live for our child's sake." As well as her agitation and distress would permit she endeavored to sustain him with words of encouragement, but in vain. About fifteen minutes passed in this sad colloquy: the replies came more and more slowly, more and more painfully, and then they ceased: the imprisoned lady comprehended in her lonely agony that she was a widow. She, a living, breathing woman, fully conscious of her awful anguish, lay helpless between the stiff and stark corpses[Pg 778] of her husband and brother-in-law, and quite ignorant of the fate of her infant child, which had been left in another part of the house. Her cries were heard at last by a muleteer, who made some efforts to release her, but alone and in the darkness he could accomplish little. He went in search of aid, but his companions, after he had returned to the house, refused to endanger their lives, as the shocks were incessant and a high wall still standing threatened to topple over upon them at any moment. They even endeavored to dissuade the muleteer from any further effort, but the good creature replied that he was indebted to the imprisoned lady for many kindnesses, and that he was willing to risk his life in her behalf. One or two remained with him, and they succeeded at last in releasing her, but were obliged to cut her clothes from her body, as they seemed immovably nailed to the floor, the Good Samaritan of a muleteer covering her with his own cloak. The bodies of her husband, brother-in-law, two clerks and several servants were recovered the next day and buried.

Another lady was found, when the ruins of her house were cleared away, upon her knees, with her children surrounding her in the same attitude—all dead! Their bodies were uninjured, so that it is probable that they were suffocated by the dust of the falling walls. A gentleman named Benitez, who had been standing at the door of his house, ran into the centre of the street and fell upon his knees: a little boy from the opposite doorway rushed in his terror into Benitez's arms. At that moment the two houses fell, and in this attitude the bodies of the man and the child were found the following day. A bride of twenty-four hours was killed with three of her children by a previous marriage. A fourth child was supposed also to have been killed, but on the third day a soldier who was passing the house pierced a basket which was among the ruins with his bayonet out of curiosity, when to his amazement a childish voice cried out, "Tengo hambre" ("I am hungry"), and the basket being lifted a living child was discovered, thus almost miraculously saved.

One lady was crushed to death under the weight of the body of her daughter, who could not move a limb, although she knew her mother was dying beneath her. A beam had fallen transversely across the daughter, and in this position she crouched, listening in agony to the death-struggles of her parent. More, almost, than the bitterness of death itself must have been the horror of such a situation and the terrible contact during long hours of silent darkness with a cold, rigid corpse. This lady belonged to the family of Fonseca-Acosta, one of the most distinguished in Cua, its head being the eminent physician Dr. Acosta, now of Paris, one of the favored circle of the ex-queen Isabella of Spain, with his wife, who was Miss Carroll, a sister of the present governor of Maryland.

The Acosta family suffered perhaps more than any other, no less than fourteen of its members having perished, among them Doña Rosa, a still young and remarkably handsome woman, with her son, a lad of fifteen, and her baby grandchild. It was to save the life of this grandchild that Doña Rosa forfeited her own, as she ran into the house to snatch it from its cradle. Of the same family two little boys had fallen asleep at their play: one lay upon a sofa, and the other had crept beneath it. The earthquake literally turned the room upside down, the sofa being overturned by the falling wall, the child beneath thrown out and killed by the descending rafters, while the boy who had been sleeping upon it fell beneath the lounge, and, being thus protected, actually remained in this position uninjured for the greater part of two days. He had been numbered with the many dead in that house of sorrow, and was only found when the mourning survivors were searching for his remains to inter them—alive, but insensible, and entirely unable to give any account of what had befallen him.

Every member of the police force, twenty-five in number, was killed, together with nine prisoners under guard.

But it is impossible to give an adequate[Pg 779] description of that night of horror in Cua by enumerating individual instances of suffering. Those that I have given are merely a few out of hundreds of others equally distressing.

The survivors encamped upon the banks of the river Tuy, where they might well repeat those tender lines of the Psalmist: "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept." Even the discomfort of the heavy rains which set in could make no impression upon hearts bowed down and crushed by the terrible calamity which had swept away their all—home, friends, everything that makes life worth having—at one quick blow. Not a house was left standing in their beautiful city: even the outlines of the streets were no longer visible: it was with the greatest difficulty that any particular building or locality could be recognized.

Tents of various materials were improvised upon the river-side, sheltering without regard to age, sex or social condition the wounded, and even the dead. Many were in a state of delirium, some in the agonies of death, hundreds weeping for their lost friends and relatives, and many unable to recognize the recovered bodies on account of their having been burned beyond recognition by the fire caused by the upsetting of petroleum lamps. For the first two days the bodies were buried in the usual manner, but on the third decomposition had set in to such an extent that it was found necessary to burn them. An eye-witness exclaims: "Of all that I have seen in what was the rich, the beautiful, the flourishing city of Cua, now a cemetery, nothing has made so profoundly melancholy an impression upon me as the cremation of the bodies of the unfortunate victims of the late disaster, tied together with ropes and dragged forth from the ruins, one over another, the stiffened limbs taking strange, unnatural attitudes, and upon being touched by the flames consuming instantly, on account of their advanced decomposition." The body of a little child was thrown upon this funeral pile, when suddenly the eyes opened, and the voice cried out, "Pan! pan!" ("Bread! bread!") Imagine the feelings of the spectators at beholding how nearly the little creature had been immolated!

The explosion and principal strength of the subterranean forces were concentrated in the town of Cua and within a radius of four or five leagues (twelve or fifteen miles) around it. Within this distance great chasms of various widths had opened, all running from east to west. From some of these streams of a fetid liquid issued, intermingled with a grayish-tinted earth, which caused many persons to surmise that a volcano was about to burst forth, especially as the earthquake-shocks still continued for many days, accompanied by loud subterranean reports. Although the catastrophe was confined to the valley of the Tuy, the shocks were felt for many hundred miles in every direction, even as far as Barquesimeto and other places toward the Cordilleras.

As the population of Cua had entirely deserted the city and encamped upon the river-side, and as large sums of money and other valuables were known to be buried beneath the ruins, some heartless, lawless wretches took advantage of the unprotected state of things, under pretence of assisting in the work of extricating the victims, to appropriate everything that they could secrete without being discovered. Only one of the public officials, General E——, had escaped: the police had perished. It was a situation where only prompt and stringent measures could avail. General E——, therefore, with Don Tomas de la G——, whom I have before mentioned, assumed the responsibility of issuing a most energetic order of the day, and Don Tomas was commissioned by the general to draw up the document. In relating the anecdote to me, Don Tomas avers that the order had to be drawn upon the back of a letter which he discovered in his pocket, and that great delay was caused by its being an impossibility to procure ink. A poor black woman, however, hearing of his perplexity, announced that her son had been learning to write, and that as her rancho or hut was still[Pg 780] standing, the bottle of ink would probably be found tied to a nail in the wall, as well as the pen; that is, provided the thieves had not made away with it, of which she appeared to be somewhat suspicious. She consented to go for the articles herself, stipulating, however, that Don Tomas and one or two others should accompany her, believing, apparently, that numbers would guarantee her against injury from the earthquake. The ink was found where she had described it, but, unfortunately, no pen. Here was another dilemma! She bethought herself at last that a neighbor of hers possessed a pen; so the party was obliged to retrace its steps to the encampment for further information. The neighbor was sufficiently generous to lend the pen, but stoutly refused to re-enter the stricken city. She described its locale, however, as being between a rafter and a caña in the roof at the entrance of her hut. The thieves, it proved upon investigation, had spared the precious implement, although, probably, if they had surmised the use to which it was to be put, that of fulminating destruction to their machinations, they might not have been so honest. All difficulties having been at length overcome, the important document was drawn up, and duly published the following morning by bando—that is, by sound of the trumpet, drum and fife—a body of citizens doing duty in lieu of troops, and the individual with the most stentorian lungs thundering forth the edict from where the corner of the streets might have been supposed to be. The proclamation was to the effect that any person or persons discovered robbing houses or insulting females should be shot on the spot, without trial or benefit of clergy. This measure of lynch law had the desired effect, and proved sufficient to maintain order until the arrival of a corps of three hundred soldiers sent by the government for that purpose.

As soon as the disaster was made known, General Alcantara, the president of the republic, sent carts laden with provisions, blankets, shoes, hats, etc., besides money, and coaches to convey the unfortunate Cuans to their friends in the adjacent towns. The president also recommended the unfortunate people of Cua to the generosity of Congress, which was then in session. A sum of one hundred thousand dollars for rebuilding the city was immediately voted—a large sum for so impoverished a nation—and subscriptions from neighboring states, as well as private ones, have been most liberal. But these are but a drop in the bucket. Some of the finest plantations in the country surrounded Cua—coffee, sugar, cocoa, indigo, etc.—all with handsome mansions and expensive offices, with stores, sugar-mills and steam-engines, many of them worth from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars. After the disastrous 12th no one for many miles in the vicinity slept under roof, but all encamped on the adjacent plains: not even the rainy season, which soon set in with great violence, sufficed to drive them from their hastily-contrived shelter. From the 12th of April to the 30th there were ninety-eight or ninety-nine shocks of earthquake.

In Caracas too the people still continued to sleep in the public squares, although the capital had hitherto escaped the greatest violence of the shocks. Various rumors among the most ignorant part of the population, however, still kept up the general excitement. A certain astronomer or professor of the occult sciences, a Dr. Briceño by name, had even the audacity to circulate a paper throughout the city, headed by the ominous title, "Vigilemos!" (Let us watch!). He prophesied that on the 17th of April, at twenty-nine minutes past one, there would certainly occur a great cataclismo, connecting the movements of the moon with the occurrence of earthquakes, and assuring the populace that at that hour this heavenly body would be in the precise position to produce this extraordinary cataclismo, whatever that might prove to be. The public excitement was intense, but the fatal day and hour arrived, passed, and found the city still safe and unharmed.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

THE HISS AND ITS HISTORY.

Hissing is a custom of great antiquity. Cicero, in his Paradoxes, says that "if an actor lose the measure of a passage in the slightest degree, or make the line he utters a syllable too short or too long by his declamation, he is instantly hissed off the stage." Nor was hissing confined to the theatre, for in one of his letters Cicero refers to Hortensius as an orator who attained old age without once incurring the disgrace of being hissed. Pliny notes that some of the lawyers of his day had paid applauders in court, who greeted the points of their patron's speech with an ululatus, or shrill yell. This Roman manner of denoting approval seems akin to the practice of the Japanese, who give a wild shriek as a sign of approbation, and hoot and howl to show their displeasure. But the sound of the goose—the simple hiss—is the most frequently-employed symbol of dissent. "Goose" is, in theatrical parlance, to hiss; and Dutton Cook, in his entertaining Book of the Play, remarks that the bird which saved the Capitol has ruined many a drama.

The dramatist is of all creative artists the most unfortunate. He can never present himself directly to his critics; he must be seen through a medium over which he has but slight control; he must depend wholly on the actors of his play, and too often he is leaning on a reed. Colman accused John Kemble of having been the cause of the original failure of The Iron Chest, and Ben Jonson published his New Inn as a comedy "never acted, but most negligently played by some of the king's servants, and more squeamishly beheld and censured by others, the king's subjects, 1629; and now, at last, set at liberty to the readers, His Majesty's servants and subjects, to be judged of, 1631."

Nor are Colman and Jonson alone in their tribulations. Sheridan was hissed, and so were Goldsmith and Fielding and Coleridge and Godwin and Beaumarchais and About and Victor Hugo and Scribe and Sardou, and many another, including Charles Lamb, who cheerfully hissed his own Mr. H.

The operatic composer is even more unfortunate than the dramatist, for he is dependent not only on the acting but on the singing of his characters; and he is also at the mercy of the orchestra. Wagner's Tannhäuser led a stormy life at the Paris opera for a very few evenings, and its failure the composer has never been willing to let the world forget. Rossini was more philosophical. On its first performance the Barber of Seville, like the comedy of Beaumarchais, whence its libretto is taken, was a failure; and when the curtain fell, Rossini, who had led the orchestra, turned to the audience and calmly clapped his hands. The anger at this openly-expressed contempt for public opinion did not prevent the opera from gradually gaining ground, until by the end of the week it was a marked success. Had it been a failure, the composer would have borne it easily: Mr. Edwards informs us that when Rossini's Sigismondo was violently hissed at Venice he sent a letter to his mother with a picture of a large fiasco (bottle). His Torvaldo e Dorliska, which was brought out soon afterward, was also hissed, but not so much. This time Rossini sent his mother a picture of a fiaschetto (little bottle).

Nor is it, in modern times, authors or actors alone who are subject to the hiss. The orator may provoke it by a bold speech in support of an unpopular measure or an unpopular man. But here the hisser is not so safe, nor the hissee—to coin a convenient word—so defenceless. The orator is not hampered by the studied words of a written part: he has the right of free speech, and he may retort upon his sibilant surrounders. Macready records that on one occasion, when Sheil[Pg 782] was hissed, he "extorted the applause of his assailants by observing to them, 'You may hiss, but you cannot sting.'" Even finer was the retort of Coleridge under similar circumstances: "When a cold stream of truth is poured on red-hot prejudices, no wonder they hiss."

Sir William Knighton declares that George II. never entered a theatre save in fear and trembling from dread of hearing a single hiss, which, though it were at once drowned in tumultuous applause, he would lie awake all night thinking about, entirely forgetful of the enthusiasm it had evoked. He must have felt as Charles Lamb did, who wrote: "A hundred hisses (hang the word! I write it like kisses—how different!)—a hundred hisses outweigh a thousand claps. The former come more directly from the heart." It is hard to entirely agree with Lamb here. Hissing seems to me to proceed for the most part from ill-temper, or at least from the dissatisfaction of the head. Applause is often the outburst of the heart, the gush of a feeling, an enthusiasm incapable of restraint. No wonder that the retired actor longs for a sniff of the footlights and for the echo of the reverberating plaudits to the accompaniment of which he formerly bowed himself off.

Indeed, applause is the breath of an actor's nostrils. Without it good acting is almost impossible. Actors, like other artists, need encouragement. Applause gives heart, and, as Mrs. Siddons said, "better still—breath." Mrs. Siddons's niece has put on record her views, as valuable as her famous relative's: "'Tis amazing how much an audience loses by this species of hanging back, even when the silence proceeds from unwillingness to interrupt a good performance: though in reality it is the greatest compliment an actor can receive, yet he is deprived by that very stillness of half his power. Excitement is reciprocal between the performer and the audience: he creates it in them, and receives it back again from them."

To one set of actors a hiss takes the place of applause. It is the highest compliment which can be paid to a "heavy villain," for it bears witness to the truth with which he has sustained his character.

Sometimes the performer mistakes reproof for approval. An amateur singer, describing to her father the great success she had achieved at her first concert, concluded by saying, "Some Italians even took me for Pasta."—"Yes," corroborated her mother: "before she had sung her second song they all cried, 'Basta! basta!'" ("Enough! enough!")

Pasta herself is the heroine of an amusing anecdote. She gave her servant, a simple contadina, an order for the opera on a night when she appeared in one of her greatest parts. That evening the great prima donna surpassed herself; she was recalled time and again; the audience were wildly enthusiastic; almost every number was encored. Returning home, she wearily asked her maid how she had enjoyed the play. "Well, the play, ma'am, was fine, but I felt sorry for you," was the reply.—"For me, child! And why?"—"Well, ma'am," said the waiting-maid, "you did everything so badly that the people were always shouting and storming at you, and making you do it all over again."

There are situations even worse than Pasta's, as Pauline Lucca has recently discovered in Vienna, where she was fined fifty florins for violating the law which forbids the recognition of applause. It seems cruel to mulct a pretty prima donna for condescending to acknowledge an encore.

Whether or not it be law in Austria to prevent a courtesy and a smile, rewarding the enthusiasm of an audience, it is certainly law in England and France that a dissatisfied spectator shall be at liberty to express his dissatisfaction. It has been held by the Court of Queen's Bench that, while any conspiracy against an actor or author is of course illegal, yet the audience have a lawful right to express their feelings at the performance either by applause or by hisses. The Cour de Cassation of France has decided in the same way. When Forrest, therefore, hissed Macready for introducing a fancy dance in Hamlet, he was doing[Pg 783] what he had a legal right to do, though the ultimate result of it was the Astor Place riot and the death of many. In ancient Rome the right to hiss seems also to have existed in its fulness. Suetonius in his life of Augustus informs us that Pylades was banished not only from Rome, but from Italy, for having pointed with his finger at a spectator by whom he was hissed, and turning the eyes of the whole audience upon him. But as time passed on, and Nero took the imperial crown and chose to exhibit it himself to the public on the stage, all the spectators were bound to applaud under penalty of death.

The French law forbids disturbance of any kind except when the curtain is up. In France the boisterousness of the Dublin gallery-boy would hardly be tolerated. The Parisians would have been amazed at a recent incident of the Irish stage. When Sophocles' tragedy of Antigone was produced at the Theatre Royal with Mendelssohn's music, the gallery "gods" were greatly pleased, and, according to their custom, demanded a sight of the author. "Bring out Sapherclaze," they yelled. The manager explained that Sophocles had been dead two thousand years and more, and could not well come. Thereat a small voice shouted from the gallery, "Then chuck us out his mummy."

There is a delicious tradition that Mrs. Siddons, when playing in Dublin, was once interrupted with cries for "Garry Owen! Garry Owen!" She did not heed for some time, but, bewildered at last and anxious to conciliate, she advanced to the footlights and with tragic solemnity asked, "What is Garry Owen? Is it anything I can do for you?"

Actors are not always willing to stand baiting quietly: they turn and rend their tormentors. Mrs. Siddons herself took leave of a barbarian audience with the words, "Farewell, ye brutes!" George Frederick Cooke, describing his own failings, said: "On Monday I was drunk, and appeared, but they didn't like that and hissed me. On Wednesday I was drunk, so I didn't appear; and they didn't like that. What the devil would they have?" Once at Liverpool, when he was drunk and did appear, they didn't like it. He reeled across the stage and was greeted by a storm of hisses. With savage grandeur he turned on them: "What! do you hiss me—me, George Frederick Cooke? You contemptible money-getters, you shall never again have the honor of hissing me. Farewell! I banish you!" He paused, and then added, with contemptuous emphasis, "There is not a brick in your dirty town but is cemented by the blood of a negro." Edmund Kean treated one of his audiences with less vigor, but with equal contempt. The spectators were noisy and insulting, but they called him out at the end of the piece. "What do you want?" he asked.—"You! you!" was the reply.—"Well, here I am!" continuing after a pause, with characteristic insolence: "I have acted in every theatre in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, I have acted in all the principal theatres throughout the United States of America, but in my life I never acted to such a set of ignorant, unmitigated brutes as I now see before me."

A NEW TOPIC OF CONVERSATION.

There can be no doubt but what the increase of interest in the decorative arts has lightened the general tone of society in our cities. "I buy everything new that I can find," a lady remarked the other day when her bric-à-brac was praised: "not that I care anything in especial for this sort of thing, but because it is such a blessing to have something to talk about." One shudders now to remember the drawing-rooms of a generation ago—a colorless, cold, negative background for social life; rich sweeping curtains of damask satin and lace muffling the windows; impossible sofas and impracticable chairs gilded and elaborated into the most costly hideousness; an entire suite of rooms utterly barren of interest; a place given over to the taste of the upholsterer; nothing on any hand which contained a suggestion of life or emotion, thought or effort; every sign of occupation banished—nothing tolerated save[Pg 784] the dullest uniformity, which depressed originality into inanity.

No wonder that this barrenness of household resource had its effect upon women, and that every one complained of the meagre results of ordinary social intercourse. Now-a-days, when tables are crowded with bric-à-brac, cabinets laden with porcelain and faïence, and richly-hung walls brightened with plaques and good pictures, the female mind has received a fresh impulse, almost an inspiration, which will show clear results before many years have passed.

Enthusiasm for bric-à-brac and pottery, for embroidery and general decorative art, is strongest among practical and unimaginative people—people who know little or nothing of the world of thought opened by books, and who have hitherto been somewhat disheartened by a conviction of their own dulness. To them the present mania is an undoubted lease of the finer uses of intellect, and their mental horizons have widened until the prose of their lives is brightened into poetry. Every one now-a-days feels the stirring of the artistic impulse, and is able in some way to gratify it.

The American mind is always extravagant, and is certain to aim at too much and leap too high, and in this renaissance of decorative art carry its admiration of the beautiful and rare entirely too far in one direction—in the matter of dress at least. The costly velvets and satins and silks, which outweigh and surpass in beauty those of the early centuries, are seen on every side cut up and tortured into intricate and perplexing fashions of toilette. In the olden times these fabrics were wisely considered too rich to be altered from one generation to another, but were passed from mother to daughter as an inheritance. So far as the ornamentation of her own person is concerned, the American woman is too expensive and prodigal in her ideas, and wastes on the fashion of the hour what ought to grace a lifetime.

But in turning her talent to the fitting-up of her house the American woman is apt to be thrifty, ingenious and economical; and since she has learned what decorative art really is, she works miracles of cleverness and beauty. And, as we began by saying, it is a real blessing to have a new topic of conversation. True, there can be nothing more fatiguing to those who are free from the mania for pottery and porcelain than a discussion between china-lovers and china-hunters concerning, for instance, the difference between porcelain from Lowestoft and porcelain from China. Then, again, in the society of a real enthusiast one is apt to be bored by a recapitulation of his or her full accumulations of knowledge. You are shown a bit of "crackle." You look at it admiringly and express your pleasure. Is that enough? Can the subject be dismissed so easily? Far from it. "This is real crackle," the collector insists, with more than a suspicion that you under-value the worth of his specimen; and then and there you have the history of crackle and the points of difference between the imitation and the real. And in glancing at his collection your tongue must not trip nor your eye confound styles. It requires a literal mind, besides a good memory and practised observation, to be an expert, and diffused and generalized knowledge amounts to little.

We have in mental view a lady who five years ago possessed apparently neither powers of thought nor capacity for expression, but who has, since she became a collector of china and antique furniture, developed into a tireless talker. Formerly she sat in her pale gray-and-blue rooms dressed faultlessly, "splendidly null," and you sought in vain for a topic which could warm her into interest or thaw out a sign of life from her. Now her rooms are studies, so picturesquely has she arranged her cabinets of china, her Oriental rugs and hangings, and her Queen Anne furniture; and she herself seems a new creature, so transfused is she by this fine fire of enthusiasm which illuminates her face and warms her tongue into eloquence. There is no dearth of subjects now. The briefest allusion to the Satsuma cup on the table beside you, and the[Pg 785] lady, well equipped with matter, starts out on a tireless recapitulation of the delights and fatigues of collecting. She is a better woman and a much less dull one from this blossom of sympathy and interest with something outside of the old meaningless conditions of her life.

We all remember that it was a point of etiquette inculcated in our youth never to make allusion to the furniture and fittings of the houses where we paid visits. That rule is far more honored in the breach than in the observance now-a-days. It would show chilling coldness not to inquire if our fair friend herself embroidered the curtains of velvet and mummy-cloth which drape her doors and windows, and if that plaque were really painted by one of the Society of Decorative Art, and not imported from Doulton.

It would, in fact, seem as if this initiation in fresh ideas and aims—which, even if trivial, are higher than the old uncreative forms of occupation and interest—was an answer to the yearning of the feminine mind for something to sweep thoughts and impulses into a current which results in action. And certainly any action which lends interest, worth and beauty to domestic life, which draws out talent and promotes culture, is deserving of all encouragement.

THE STORY OF THE TROCADÉRO.

There is no portion of the Paris Exhibition of 1878 which has excited more attention or attracted more visitors than has the Palace of the Trocadéro. Yet few of the visitors who pass beneath its lofty portals ever imagine that the site of the sumptuous edifice is haunted by historical associations of no slight degree of interest. In fact, before the palace "rose like an exhalation" at the bidding of the skilled architects employed by the government few persons knew anything about the Trocadéro at all. That lofty eminence, incomparably the finest building-site in Paris, with its graduated slopes gay with flowers and verdure, has long been a favorite lounging-place for Parisian artisans when out for a holiday, or for tourists seeking for a good view of the city and shrinking from the fatigue of climbing to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. Yet no one seemed to know anything of its history, or even why a hill in Paris should bear the name of a Spanish fort. And yet, to a certain extent, the spot is one of genuine historical interest. Successively a feudal manor, a royal domain, a cloister, and the site of unrealized projects of the later monarchs of France, religion, ambition, sorrow and glory have there at different times sought a refuge or a pedestal.

The Trocadéro occupies a part of the site of the ancient village of Chaillot, whose existence can be traced back to the eleventh century. In its earlier days this village was celebrated for its vineyards and gardens and for its enchanting view; which last charm its site still retains. It was bestowed by Louis XI. on the historian Philippe de Comines, from whose heirs the domain was purchased by Catherine de Medicis. The building-loving queen caused a palace to be erected there, but of that edifice no trace now remains. After the death of the queen, Chaillot and its palace became the property of the President Janin, who probably tore down and rebuilt the royal abode, as he is accused in the memoirs of the time of being largely possessed by a mania for pulling down and rebuilding all the mansions in his possession. An engraving of the edifice as he left it exists in the Bibliothèque Nationale. It shows a very charming structure in the Renaissance style, erected, apparently, at a point halfway down the slope, since there are two lines of terraces behind it, as well as many in front.

The next owner of the domain of Chaillot was François de Bassompierre, former friend and boon-companion of Henri IV. He did not occupy it very long, being sent to the Bastile by Cardinal de Richelieu a very few years after the purchase was completed. During his imprisonment he lent Chaillot to his sister-in-law, Madame de Nemours. One day Richelieu sent to the Bastile to request his prisoner to let him occupy Chaillot as a summer abode. Bassompierre accordingly sent word to his sister-in-law that[Pg 786] she must make way for the all-powerful minister. Richelieu remained at Chaillot for over six weeks, and declared that the furniture of the apartments was far finer than anything in that line which the king possessed.

The sad figure of Henriette Marie, the widowed queen of Charles I. of England, and youngest daughter of Henri IV., comes next upon the scene. She it was who, having purchased Chaillot after her return to France, established there the convent of Les Dames de la Visitation. A chapel was added to the extensive structure left behind by her father's old comrade, and it was in that chapel that her funeral sermon was preached by Bossuet—one of the first of those marvellous pieces of funereal eloquence which more than aught else have contributed to render his name immortal.

Next we have a vision of Louise de la Vallière, "like Niobe, all tears," flying to the arms of the abbess of the Visitandines for refuge from the anguish of beholding the insolent De Montespan enthroned in her place. It took all the eloquence and persuasive powers of Colbert to induce the fair weeper to return with him to Versailles. She yielded at last, but not without many sad forebodings that were destined to be only too perfectly fulfilled. "When I left the king before, he came for me: now, he sends for me," she sighed. She bade farewell to the abbess, assuring her that she would speedily return. But when, after three years more of suffering and humiliation, she finally retired to a convent, she did not enter that of the Visitandines, but that of the Carmelites, then situated in the Faubourg St. Jacques.

In 1707 a dispute between the Superior of the Visitandines and the officers of the king led to the abolition of the feudal privileges of Chaillot, and it was created a suburb of the city of Paris. Henceforward the quiet convent belongs no more to history. From the windows of their cells the nuns could behold the laying out of the Champ de Mars and the erection of the new military school decreed by Louis XV. But they were not destined to witness the Festival of the Republic, which took place on the Champ de Mars, since in 1790 the convent was suppressed and the nuns dispersed. The buildings still remained, and were devoted to various public uses till they were swept away to give place to the gigantic project of the First Napoleon, whose plans, had they been carried out, would have totally changed that quarter of Paris and rendered it one of the most beautiful portions of the city.

Percier and Fontaine, the architects of the emperor, have left behind them a full account of the projects of their imperial master relative to the heights of Chaillot. Being commissioned to erect a palace at Lyons, they opposed the idea on account of the difficulty of finding a suitable site for the projected building, and proposed instead the hill of Chaillot as being the finest site that it was possible to find in France. Their proposition was accepted: the buildings then occupying the height were purchased and torn down, and the works were commenced. The plan of Napoleon was a grandiose one, including not only the palace, to which he gave the name of his son, calling it the "Palace of the King of Rome," but also a series of buildings filling up three out of the four sides of the Champ de Mars, including two barracks, a military hospital and a palace of archives, as well as edifices for schools of art and industry. As to the palace itself, it was to have a frontage of over fourteen hundred feet on the Quai de Billy—an extent which is about that of the present Palace of the Trocadéro. The whole of the plain of Passy, which was but little built upon at that epoch, was to be transformed into a wooded park stretching to and including the Bois de Boulogne. The grounds surrounding the palace were to be joined to the Avenue de Neuilly, to the Arc de Triomphe and to the high road of St. Germain by wide avenues bordered with trees.

This splendid project was destined never to be realized. Hardly had the foundations of the palace been laid when the disastrous campaign of Moscow put an end to the works. Money was wanted for soldiers and ammunition more than[Pg 787] for palaces and parks. After the battle of Leipsic, Napoleon had the idea of making of his scarcely-commenced palace a Sans Souci like that of Frederick the Great—a quiet retreat where he could escape from the toils and cares of empire. But hardly had the works been recommenced on this diminished basis when the abdication of the emperor and his exile to Elba came to put a stop to them anew, and this time a decisive one; for, though a few workmen were employed in levelling the grounds and building the walls during the Hundred Days, there was neither spirit nor conviction in the work: the illusions of other days had fled, and were not to be revived. It was impossible for even the most sanguine partisans of Napoleon to imagine that the palace would ever be completed and receive him as a tenant.

Under the Restoration it was decided to utilize the deserted foundations and to erect thereon a barrack. The laying of the cornerstone of the new edifice was made the occasion of a solemn festival in honor of the successes of the French army in Spain. The day chosen was the anniversary of the taking of the fort of the Trocadéro at Cadiz by the duc d'Angoulême, and the better to mark the occasion the height on which the new barrack was to stand was solemnly rebaptized by the name of the fort in question. The programme of the fête was long and elaborate. It consisted of a representation of the taking of the Trocadéro, a sham battle in which twenty battalions of the royal guard took part. Then came the laying of the cornerstone, which duty was performed by the dauphin and dauphiness. But the projected barrack of the Bourbons shared the fate of the palace of Napoleon. It was never built, and for nearly thirty years the ruins of the abandoned foundations and terraces were left to be picturesquely clothed with weeds and wild grasses. Only the name bestowed upon the height remained, and it was still called the Trocadéro.

Under the Second Empire the laying out of the numerous handsome avenues which extend around the Arc de Triomphe, and have it for a centre, necessitated the clearing and levelling of the deserted site. It was at first proposed to erect there a monument in commemoration of the victories of Magenta and Solferino, and the plans were actually drawn up: it was to have consisted of a lofty column, surpassing in its dimensions any similar monument in Paris. At the base of this column a fountain and a vast cascade were to be constructed, and the slope was to have been laid with turf and planted with trees. But this project, too, came to naught, and the Exhibition of 1867 only impelled the authorities into grading and laying out the ground, strengthening and repairing the flights of steps that led to the summit, and embellishing it with grass-plats and flower-beds. Later, the project was conceived by Napoleon III. of erecting on the summit of the Trocadéro a Grecian temple in white marble, destined to receive the busts of the great men of France with commemorative inscriptions—a project which the downfall of the Second Empire found unrealized. The ancient site of the village of Chaillot seemed like one of those spots of which we read in monkish legends, which are haunted by a demon that destroys the work and blights the existence of whoever attempts to build upon them. Palace, barracks, monument and temple alike never existed, and were but the shadowy precursors of disaster to their projectors. It was reserved for the Third Republic to break the evil spell, and to crown the picturesque and historic eminence with an edifice worthy of the beauty of the site and of its associations with the past.

SWISS ENGINEERING.

Switzerland, of all the countries of Europe, presents the most grave and numerous obstacles to intercommunication. The number and size of the mountains and glaciers, the depth of the valleys, the torrential character of the rivers,—everything unites to make the highways cost enormously in money, while the feats of skill they necessitate are "the triumph of civil engineers, the wonder of tourists, the despair of shareholders and[Pg 788] the burden of budgets." Among these triumphs are the viaduct of Grandfey; the railroads that climb the Righi and the Uetliberg; the Axen tunnel and quay; and the Gotthard tunnel, over nine miles long—a solid granite bore through a mountain. One that was honored by a national celebration on the 16th of last August was the reclaiming from the water of the vast plain called Seeland, the territory occupying the triangle bounded by the river Aar and the Lakes of Bienne, Neufchâtel and Morat. It was wholly under water, and had slowly emerged after many centuries; but despite an extensive system of drainage the land was never dry enough for serious cultivation. In rainy years it was even covered with water, making, with the three lakes, a sheet nearly twenty-five miles square.

The great work celebrated last August was no less than the changing the bed of the Aar and the lowering of the three lakes mentioned. The Aar in this region is about the size of the Seine at Paris or of the Hudson at Troy, but it is subject to sudden floods that are the terror of dwellers and property-owners along its borders. A Swiss colonel named La Nicca was the author of the grand scheme for reclaiming Seeland. The proposition he made was accepted in 1867, and, thanks to the sacrifices of the citizens in the communes and cantons immediately interested, and also to a heavy national subsidy, the enterprise was commenced, and so vigorously and ably prosecuted that in ten years it was finished.

To-day the Aar, turned out of its ancient bed near Aarsberg, runs nearly west instead of north-east toward Soleure, and empties into Lake Bienne near its middle. The new bed or canal made for this river is over five and a half miles long, and some of the way it is three hundred and twenty-eight feet deep. But this is only a part of the work. Another vast canal, also over five and a half miles long, at the eastern extremity of the lake, not far from the pretty village of Bienne, receives the overflow not only of Lake Bienne, but of Neufchâtel and Morat, which are all three connected by broad canals, and are now in communication with the Rhine by steam navigation. The canal at the eastern extremity of Lake Bienne opens into the Aar some seven miles below where that river was cut off. It is in fact the bed of the river Thièle, deepened and reconstructed.

The deepening of the bed of the Thièle, the natural outlet of Lake Bienne, was effected according to principles that would ensure the lowering of the water-level of all the three lakes some ten feet! Thus a vast territory of swampy land, which once bore only reeds, now yields abundant harvests of grain and fruits. Of course the lowering of these three lakes had to be effected gradually, for the volume of water removed—no less than three thousand two hundred and eighty million cubic feet—represents a stupendous force. By this enterprise the whole plain of Seeland has become higher than the surface of the lakes, and consequently drains into them naturally. Already a beautiful village, Witzwyl, has sprung up, surrounded by some seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of fine arable land reclaimed from a forbidding, malaria-exhaling marsh.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

"More crockery!" exclaims one aweary of the ceramic craze. "And the biggest book of all!—the winding-up shower, let us hope," quoth another non-sympathizer.

This portly octavo, with its four hundred and sixty-four wood-cuts, a seemingly exhaustive compend of the subject, may indeed be accepted as the peroratory rain destined to give the soil its last preparation for the rich growth to follow under a clear and sunny sky. What pen and print can do to perfect the requisite conditions for a Periclean age of pottery must by this time have been done. The case is summed up and stated. The issue rests with the jury of millions who use and admire burnt clay. Their wants, their sense of beauty and their purse will render the verdict. We might more safely and properly say that they will render a number of verdicts, all in their way and sphere just and true, since in no one of the arts so much as in this of all times and all nations is it so difficult to subject the infinitude of styles and fancies to one rigid canon. That the Greek vase is an absolute exemplar in grace and elegance of form every one hastens to concede. But who would hesitate to give up a part of what the Greeks have bequeathed us rather than lose the marvellous filigree in clay of "Henri Deux," the rich realism of Palissy or the wild and delightful riot of line and color and unequalled delicacy of manipulation presented to us by the Japanese? One and the same eye, as highly and soundly educated as you please, may be charmed almost equally by works of each of these schools and of others not here named; and that almost without wishing to see the peculiar merits of each combined and merged in one. A perfect eclectic vase is not to be expected, if desired, any more than a fruit or a wine which shall unite the best flavors of all orchards or all vintages. What can be done is to strive in that direction, as the French cook seeks, by "composing," to attain in one supreme plat the ne plus ultra of sapidity. We shall not be able, any more than he, to reach that climax or to dull the charm of variety. The fusing of the Greek brain and the Oriental eye and finger in the alembic of Western Europe and the New World will still continue to be attempted.

Trade, the great amalgamator, is promoting this end. Chinese porcelain has long been sent to Japan for decoration, the resemblance between the styles of the two countries, due primarily to race, being thus increased. American biscuit is sent to England for the like purpose; and we read with more surprise that the unfinished ware of Dresden seeks ornamentation in the same country, whence it is returned to be placed upon the market as true Meissen. A firm of New Yorkers, again, have migrated to France and built up the beautiful fabric of Limoges with the aid of French artists. The craftsmen of Japan and China are year by year borrowing Western forms and methods, as comparison of the ancient and modern work of those nations will show clearly enough.

While national idiosyncrasies the most opposite and the most widely separated in every sense ally themselves in behalf of progress, individual effort is encouraged by the reflection that no walk of art offers a more open field to original genius. Della Robbia, Bernart, Palissy and Wedgwood each found his own material and created his own school. Neither of them possessed the facilities, educational or mechanical, now at the command of hundreds. Neither had as wide or as eager a market for his productions as the coming artist in clay may command. Surely, such an artist is at this moment maturing his powers in some one of the scores of training institutions which have sprung up, under public or private auspices, within the past quarter of a century. Thorwaldsen was not a man of great originative genius, and nothing at all of a potter, troubling himself little about hard or soft paste or this or the other glaze; but he infused the love of classic form into the bleakest corners of Scandinavia, and made her youth modellers of terra-cotta into shapes unexcelled by any imitators of the antique. The prize awaits him who should, upon such knowledge and discipline, graft a study of Oriental designs, an eye for color, an independent[Pg 790] fancy, and such minute precision of manual dexterity as seems the hardest thing of all for the Western to acquire. He will not have, like his great forerunners, to invent his material. Science does not repress, it invites and assists him. It offers him mineral colors and modes of graduating heat unknown to them. All the secrets of porcelain are open to him; and were they not, Europe did all her best things in ceramics before she was able to make a porcelain teacup. He may find room for improvement in material too. Pottery is the most durable of fabrics so long as it is not broken. But it is fragile, as bronze is not. Why may not that defect be remedied, as other defects have been by the Japanese and our bank-note printers in that particularly evanescent texture, paper? Some day, perhaps, burnt clay will be held together by threads of asbestos as greenbacks are by threads of silk and the sun-burned Egyptian bricks were by straw. Malleable glass we have already. Why not malleable faïence?

The book before us presents the art, its history, its processes and its results in a manner every way satisfactory. Its account is full without being prolix. The author's taste is catholic enough. The different styles are placed before the reader side by side, with an evident purpose to do justice to all of them. There is little of the jargon of the connoisseur. Marks are curtly dismissed with the sound dictum that "the art and not the mark should be studied." Much use is made of the engravings, which are more closely connected with the text than, unfortunately, is generally the case in illustrated works. They are strictly illustrations of it, and serve as good a purpose in that way as cuts without the aid of color could well do. Nothing is more difficult to reproduce than a first-class work in clay or porcelain. Color, drawing, form, surface and texture present a compound of difficulties not to be completely overcome by the resources of the graver, the camera and the printer in colors. Only on the shelves of the museum can it be studied understandingly. It must speak for itself. The chromo undertakes to duplicate, with more or less success, the painting in oil or fresco, but the vase is a picture and something more. It is the joint product of the painter and the sculptor, and the substance whereon they bestow their labor has a special and varying beauty of its own.

In the pages devoted to the history of American pottery we confess that we have been chiefly attracted by its antiquities. The specimens given of remains from all parts of the two continents show at a glance their common origin. They all come unmistakably from the hands of the same Indian, civilized or savage. The Moquis, the Mound-builders, the Aztecs and the Peruvians all wrought their mother, Earth, into the same fashion, and adorned her countenance, purified by fire, with scrolls and colors in the same taste. The pigments employed have proved as lasting as those in the Egyptian tombs, and the forms are often as graceful as in a majority of the Phoenician vessels found in Cyprus. In the representation of the human head the Peruvian artist, so far as we may judge from these relics, excelled his rival of Tyre and Sidon.

That this will become a handbook on the subject of which it treats cannot be doubted. If we might venture to suggest an amendment to the second edition, it would be the addition to the illustrations of two or three figures carefully executed in colors—Greek, Japanese and Sèvres.

Sherwood Bonner has been singularly happy in her choice of a subject for this, her first novel. She has broken new ground on that Southern soil which seemed already for literary purposes wellnigh worn out, and she has touched upon a period in the struggle between North and South which, so far as we know, has been little treated by novelists. The antagonists are represented not in the smoke of battle, but at that critical and awkward moment when the first steps toward reconciliation are being made. A proud but sociable little Mississippi town is shown in the act of half-reluctantly opening its doors to the officers of a couple of Federal regiments stationed within its bounds. The situation is portrayed with much spirit and humor, as well as with the most perfect good-humor. Thoroughly Southern as the novel is, it is not narrowly so: its pictures of Southern society are drawn from within, and show its writer's sympathy with Southern feeling, yet its tone, even in touching on the most tender spots, is entirely dispassionate, and at the same time free from any apparent effort to be so.[Pg 791]

The first chapter introduces us to a triad of charming girls, whose careless talk soon turns upon the soldiers' expected arrival in Yariba and the proper reception to be given them by the Yariba damsels. Betty Page, Mary Barton and Blythe Herndon are, in a sense, typical girls, and represent the three orders in which nearly all girlhood may be classified—namely, frivolous girls, good girls, and clever girls or girls with ideas. Ideas are represented by Blythe Herndon, whose outspoken verdict in favor of tolerance and forgetfulness of the past draws upon her the patriotic indignation of Miss Betty Page. How long the fair disputants preserve the jewel of consistency forms the motif of the book. Betty dances and flirts, neglects her loyal young Southern lover—who, we hope, is consoled by Mary—and finally surrenders to a handsome moustache and the Union with a happy unconsciousness of any abandonment of her principles. Blythe, with her ardent nature and youthful attitude of intolerance toward intolerance, is easily attracted by the intellectual freedom which appears to open before her in the conversation of an enthusiastic New England radical. Her mind is, however, not wholly thrown off its balance by this vision of culture: she awakens to the fact that the breach is wider than she had at first dreamed, and shrinks from the sacrifice not only of prejudice, but of first principles and affections, which is demanded of her. Lovers who are separated by hereditary or political strife have ever been a favorite theme with poet and romancer. In the majority of instances these unhappy beings have regarded the barrier between them as a useless obstacle erected by a perverse Fate in the way of their happiness. But Mr. Roger Ellis adheres with narrow obstinacy to the least article of his broad political creed, without a particle of consideration for the different one in which Blythe has been nurtured. He flourishes the American flag in his conversation in true stump-orator style, kisses black babies in the street—when, as Betty Page remarks, no man was ever known to kiss a white baby if he could help it—and refuses to eat without the company at table of a little black protégé.

Plot there is none in Like unto Like, and of incident very little. Light, often sparkling, conversations and charming bits of description follow each other in ready succession like beads upon a string. Lack of incident is atoned for by charm of writing, and in the vivacity of the scenes the reader disregards the slenderness of the connecting thread, or perhaps forgets to look for it. The style is easy and pleasant, while free from the slips to which "easy writers" are so prone. Of bright, witty sayings a number could easily be gathered as samples, but the readers would still have to be referred to the book for many more. Perhaps the main charm of Like unto Like lies in its description of the quaint life in Southern provincial towns, where the people "all talk to each other as if they were members of one family," where married ladies are still called by their friends "Miss Kate," "Miss Janey," or "Miss Ada," and where, "when a youth and maiden promise to marry each other, they become possessed immediately with a wild desire to conceal their engagement from all the world." There clings to the book a suggestion of that Southern accent which in the mouth of a pretty woman has such a piquant foreign sound.

We can complain of no lack of plot or paucity of incidents in His Heart's Desire. Were the material less ably handled we should suggest an unnecessary redundancy, but we hesitate to pronounce superfluous anything which is so exactly fitted, so neatly dove-tailed into the main structure, as is each incident and character in the present novel. About a dozen individual and more or less finished personages contribute their life-histories to the book, yet each of these lives has some bearing upon that of the heroine, Nora St. John, and notwithstanding these intricacies the plot never becomes confused. It has been too firmly grasped by the author's mind to be a puzzle to the reader's. Its various ramifications are never allowed to get into a "snarl:" the mystery all turns upon a single point which we will not spoil the reader's pleasure by mentioning, and, arrived at the last pages, the various threads of the story unwind themselves easily and naturally like a single coil. The same skill is displayed in the management of the characters. Though drawn with unequal power, many of them being seized with much vividness, whilst others must be accounted failures, they are well grouped. Numerous as the figures are, they never crowd or jostle each other, and elaborated as they are in many cases, all are[Pg 792] subordinate to that of Nora, whose character and story stand out in a strong relief not easy to obtain upon so varied a background. This character is finely conceived and drawn with real power, being impressive by the very truth of the rendering, for she is not invested with any strikingly heroic qualities. A strong, passionate nature made cold by suffering and the constant struggle to keep the secret of her one season of passion from rising again to confront her—a woman of forty, who has no longer any illusions or pleasure, in whose character intense pride is the only motive-power left, and even pride is weary of its loneliness and the assaults made upon it—Nora excites interest, and even pity, by her position and by the aspect of a strong nature under subdued but real suffering. In the later pages of the book, and notably in the scene with Mr. Sistare, in which revelations are made by both, the changes gradual or sudden in her feelings and thought are portrayed with the delicacy of light and shade, the picturesqueness and self-forgetfulness, with which a fine actress renders a part. This dramatic quality is perhaps the most striking trait in His Heart's Desire. Many of its scenes are intensely dramatic, full of passion, striking in situation, and showing a rather rare accomplishment—that of conducting a dialogue which shall be equally brilliant on both sides without resembling a monologue.

In praising this novel so highly we do not forget its faults. But, though perhaps as numerous as its merits, they are by no means equal to them in importance. Something of naturalness and simplicity has been sacrificed to the exigences of the plot; and, while the higher truth is adhered to in the principal scenes and characters, some of the minor ones appear to us rather highly colored. By distributing the fatal gift of beauty with a less lavish hand the author might, we think, have subdued this color: a few commonplace figures would have added to the naturalness of the scene.

Sensational the book may be pronounced from a glance through its chain of incidents, yet neither by its tone nor its writing does it belong to the class which we call sensational. Its tone is earnest and sincere, grave social questions being handled with a purity and feeling which makes the book, in spite of its apparent unconsciousness of purpose, a distinctly moral one.

Books Received.

Books for Bright Eyes, embracing "On the Farm," "More Happy Days," "Mountain-Tops," "One Day in our Long Vacation." By Mrs. M. E. Miller. New York: American Tract Society.

Cross's Eclectic Short-hand: A New System, adapted both to general use and to verbatim reporting. By J. George Cross, A. M. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co.

The Waverley Dictionary: An Alphabetical Arrangement of all the Characters in Sir Walter Scott's Waverley Novels. By May Rogers. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co.

The French Revolution. By Hippolyte Adolphe Taine. Translated by John Durand. (First Volume.) New York: Henry Holt & Co.

Maximum Stresses in Framed Bridges. By Professor William Cain, A. M., C. E. (Van Nostrand's Science Series.) New York: D. Van Nostrand.

The Ethics of Positivism: A Critical Study. By Giacomo Barzellotti, Professor of Philosophy, Florence. New York: Charles P. Somerby.

Grammar-Land; or, Grammar in Fun for the Children of Schoolroom-shire. By M. L. Nesbitt. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

The Family Christian Almanac for 1879. By Professor George W. Coakley. New York: American Tract Society.

American Colleges: Their Students and Work. By Charles F. Thwing. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

A Story or Two from an Old Dutch Town. By Robert Lowell. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Life and Adventure in Japan. By E. Warren Clark. New York: American Tract Society.

Cupid and the Sphinx. By Harford Flemming. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

The Old House Altered. By George C. Mason. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

The Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Handsome Harry. By Sarah E. Chester. New York: American Tract Society.

Thanatopsis. By William Cullen Bryant. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Modern Frenchmen. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

What is the Bible? By J. T. Sunderland. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Six to One: A Nantucket Idyl. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Sibyl Spencer. By James Kent. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Songs of Italy. By Joaquin Miller. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This is the name given from time immemorial to that part of Biscay that extends from Bilbao to the eastern boundaries of the province of Santander. It contains fifteen thousand inhabitants, and abounds in minerals, fruit and grain. The original Basque language, owing to the constant intercourse with Castile, has yielded to the Spanish, which, however, is mixed with many Basque words and expressions.

[2] That is, a similarity of the final vowel or last two vowels. Thus, jardineros and dueño amistad and sacar are considered to rhyme.

[3] The word ciego, "blind man," is also used to denote the blind ballad-singers with whom the country abounds.

[4] The first four of the above-mentioned volumes, together with the Libro de los Cantares, have been published by Brockhaus in his Colleccion de Autores Españoles, Leipzig, vols. vi., xviii., xix., xxvi., and xxxiii.

[5] Special awards of objects of art to competitors in the trials of agricultural implements in the field:
McCormick (grand prize), binding reaper, United States.
Wood, binding reaper, United States.
Osborne, binding reaper, United States.
Johnston, reaper, United States.
Whiteley, mower, United States.
Dederick, hay-press, United States.
Mabille, Chicago hay-press, France.
Meixmoron-Dombasle, gang-plough, France.
Deere, gang-plough, United States.
Aveling & Porter, steam-plough, England.
Albaret, electric light for field-work at night, France.

[6] The cut shows a smaller crane, which has a fixed jib for use on a permanent or temporary track.

[7] Why this unfortunate fish should be so distinguished I have never been able to learn, but the saying is universal in the French army.

[8] This is a paraphrase rather than a translation, the patois of the original being impossible to render exactly.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, December 1878

LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE

OF

POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

DECEMBER, 1878.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878,

by J. B. Lippincott & Co., in the Office of the

Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

CONTENTS.

DANUBIAN DAYS.